Organise a Holiday Without Using a Travel Agent

Well we have now finished our holiday to Singapore and the whole thing went off well. We did not have too many problems and it was good to avoid the fees associated with travel agents. In fact it was probably a lot cheaper because we were able to deal with budget airlines and hotels that are avoided by travel agents because they do not pay fees to them. I will certainly look to organise my own holidays in the future.

As I have said in other entries we have been working on bookings for our trip to Singapore. So we now have bookings for the zoo, night safari, Jahore and a harbour cruise. We will also be visiting a range of places including snow city and Sentosa Island.

Over the last few days I have been double checking our various bookings. And lucky I did. Our bookings in the motel we stay at near Brisbane airport were put under another person with the same last name. We also double checked our motel booking for Singapore and our car storage (21/6/09).

Today we did some more of the organisation associated with our holiday. We made sure that we could bring our portacot on the plane and we found out information about the airport in Darwin where we will be landing on our way to Singapore. When you look at the number of things that have to be done and how little is done by a travel agent there you might as well do it yourself.

One of the important pieces of documentation has now been submitted on the internet. We have filled in our Smart Traveller information with the Australian Government.

We are currently doing a lot of organisation for our trip to Singapore. This includes booking an extra day on the Gold Coast when we return, booking the Singapore Flyer, possibly booking a cruise, organising our trip to Jahore Baru and getting our documentation in order. We are really looking forward to this holiday.

The latest thing that we have organised is an appropriate stroller to be able to carry on the train system in Singapore. We bought a quick smart stroller which folds up in a carry bag. Over coming weeks we will need to do things final checks such as going through our tickets, passports etc, making sure our motel and car parking are properly booked etc and buying a small amount of last minute currency.

We ordered our singapore dollars today just in case the Australian dollar drops any further. They should arrive in about two days.

Today we put a reservation on the motel and booked the travel flights so we are well and truelly into the process.

We have done 3 holidays in the last few years where we have used a trvel agent. I am finding that I do so much of the organisation myself that I might as well do the lot and save the fees. Consequently, with our trip to Singapore I am looking at doing the bookings myself.