Just to let those of you who are interested in #EJC2018 but who are not that active on facebook; the ejc2018.org website is now live with additional information (scroll down).
Another heads up. A limited pre-registration offer of an adult's week ticket for €100 has gone live (only 250 of these available)..
Follow the links on ejc2018.org for access to the preregistration system.
If you are pre-registering, remember to select which gala show you want to attend. You should receive a confirmation of order email from prereg at eja.net (so check your spam just in case). This is not a confirmation of payment email, so please read it carefully!
Please keep any confirmation of payment information for your records.
Enjoy the rest of the festive season.
ropingfool - - Parent #
Well grr, just missed the first 250. So, since we'll all be heading out for the same week, and we're thinking of booking now, I offer the following in the hope that jugglers can snarf the cheapest seats. Things might get busy when the EJC tickets go on sale on 20 Jan.
I have just booked flights and after several hours of shopping around, I'm reasonable happy that shopping around was worth the effort. Tricks like this are generally well known if you're trying to get cheap flights, but the cost differences seem particularly huge for getting out to PDL in July. I hate Ryanair and STN is a sod to get to from Oxford, so I really don't regard that as an option.
My other half and I are flying out on TP6520, the direct LGW-PDL flight on the 21st. R's a non-juggler, so she'll fly back on the 28th July and I'm flying back on Sun 5th August. TP 6519 runs direct PDL-LGW on the 28th July and the 4th Aug, but it's always a bit sad leaving early) so I'm flying back via OPO and spending the night in Porto so I can look around the city before getting an evening flight back to LGW on the Monday.
These direct LGW-PDL flights only run on Saturdays. TP6520 arrives at 23:20, which is a bit late, but the convenience and low cost more than covers a taxi fare, I think - Dee, d'you reckon the EJC orgs can lay on a shuttle to meet this flight?
Obviously, these flights will be popular with UK based jugglers, not just because they're direct but ALSO, as they're run by SATA (aka Azores) - YOU GET A CHECK-IN BAG INCLUDED IN THE FARE - which is important for those of us with lots of props. If you're quick, you should be able to get a return flight for well under £200. R's ticket was £169, mine with the stopover was just over £200, but I needed to add a check-in bag for the OPO-LGW leg (£33ish), so it came to £236. However if you try book directly via TAP or SATA, they'll try to charge you over £400.
The incantation seems to be this: search for the flight on Kayak or skyscanner (or another search engine). You should get various options at sub £200 prices. The cheapest reputable bookers seem to be Opodo and lastminute - you might get a cheaper offer from TravelUP, but I suggest that you read their reviews before being tempted to use them, and then don't use them.
Though they're Azores/SATA flights, it seems that you have to book using the TAP codeshare, not the "real" Azores/SATA codes. To achieve my longer stopover in Porto on the way back, I had to get into Opodo from skyscanner, then change the search details within Opodo. If you try to search or amend within Opodo without having first been redirected from a search engine, you'll just get expensive (>£400) and downright silly prices (>£1,400).
It's worth trying a couple of different search engines - booking my fare with Opodo via skyscanner was over £10 cheaper than Opodo via Kayak. There's no consistency, other Opodo fares were cheaper via Kayak. In your web browser, create a separate private / incognito window for each search (or diligently clear your cookies between each search).
Even when we've got all the cheap seats on TP6520/6519, the indirect options via OPO and LIS will probably still work out cheaper: the Portugal - Azores legs will still be SATA codeshared by TAP (i.e. a 4 digit code like TP6xxx).
Finally, Azores seems to have a generous attitude towards "sports equipment" - you can get an extra weight allowance for anyone wanting to fly out a unicycle. Check the web site. I successfully tried this with BA a few years ago. You'll probably find that unis don't appear on the standard list along with bikes and golf clubs, but they were fine about it it as long as it was well wrapped up.
Phew. If anyone else feels like booking now, let us know how you get on.
I'll contact the organising team regarding hiring a minibus for collection at the airport on the Saturday of arrival. As they tend to have lots to do, I'll be asking them for email contact details [easier to organise and can get google translate to help with translation issues] so that we can arrange it ourselves. If they have suggested email contacts for taxis, this may be the way to go. It worked quite well for those on the late arriving flights into Lublin last summer.
I'm planning on being on that flight (but on the 28th rather than the week before). There should be several of us on the same flight, and a mini-bus [or 7 seater car] may be the easiest way.
Update: cost of taxi to the site, at night with luggage, from the airport is about €30 (or possibly a little more). They will get back to me with contact details for taxis etc nearer the date.
Remember that the next tranche of tickets for #EJC2018 go on sale on January 20th for €120.
ropingfool - - Parent #
Well, that's me booked. And bought the T-shirt.
See you in São Miguel!
Subscribe to this forum via RSS
1 article per branch
1 article per post