Two weeks left before our holiday balance is due...

[Cheekysquirrel]

And I still don’t know what to do.
I’m really torn because I really really really want to go and have been looking forward to it for a year.

OTOH we’d lose £3,000. At least right now we will only lose the deposit and can move the flights - although heaven knows until when.

Flying with Air France, four night break two weeks post brexit.

I just don’t know. Sensibly I should cancel and then if / when brexit is delayed I will feel really cheated. But if we don’t cancel and if / when no deal happens we could end up with no holiday and £3k down.

I am immensely fucked off.

@Boyskeepswinging I worked in a tech support role on the night shift on the Millennium eve. We were drinking champagne well before midnight, any concerns had been ironed out long before.

And there were no concerns about flying, if there had been flights would have been grounded until the concerns were resolved. You don't send planes into the air if there is any realistic risk of systems failure.

Perhaps you created your own hysteria?

They are proposing "basic connectivity" which would have a capacity limit and would be predicated on British reciprocity:

"In addition, their capacity will be restricted. According to the proposed regulation, which was released on Wednesday, “the total seasonal capacity to be provided by UK air carriers for routes between the UK and each member state shall not exceed the total number of frequencies operated by those carriers on those routes during respectively the IATA winter and summer seasons of the year of 2018.” In other words, the number of flights that UK carriers will be allowed to operate to the EU is frozen at this year’s pre-Brexit levels."

My guess is that an Air France flight will be fine (and in any case I think it must be odds on that an A50 extension will be needed so you'll be flying before Brexit!) but if I was spending £3k on a 4 day holiday I would at least think about a plan B.

Paris isn't very far away and you will definitely be able to get there - what you don't want is any delay that would eat into your holiday time.

Think if a flight doesn't go you are refunded though think they will. I have done mine as booking a flight and hotels cancellable day before for free and no prepayment - can you do something like that - I use booking.com. Obviously not the DLH but will be others.

Make sure you have 6 months on passports too. I would have done Eurostar as goes right there but as you've already booked flights no point paying twice.

We’re due to fly off on holiday to Cyprus on 30 March. I’m hoping it’ll be OK. Although I’m not spending nearly as much as you are.

There must be some nervousness though - it was considerably cheaper than normal for the time of year. Roughly back to 2015 prices. Which is mostly why we decided it was worth the risk.

We had the same dilemma Cheeky and have cancelled our skiing hol for the same reason. We were due to drive through the tunnel the Saturday after Brexit day. We'd paid the deposit (which we've lost - hol arranged independently so not covered by abta insurance) and our balance was due a couple of weeks ago. We just weren't confident enough that we wouldn't have to queue for hours and hours at Dover and Calais and potentially lose 2 days of a 7 day hol in a mahoosive traffic queue or have to give up and go home, and throw away the balance of the hol for the privilege. If a deal gets agreed we may try to book again for that week... bastard brexit. Good luck with your decision.

Make sure you have 6 months on passports too

And if, like me, your passport has more than 10 years on it because you renewed early ast time time, remember the 6 months has to run from when the 10 years would have expired, not when it actually expires. So for example, if your passport was issued in June 2009 but doesn't expire until December 2019, you can't travel after June 2019 on it and will need a new one.

We aren’t going 🙁

Oh no OP why?

Eh? Why aren’t you going? is it because of the extortionate price?

Because looking at what has happened tonight no deal seems the most likely outcome.

You realise it’ an hour from,Paris airport to Disney. And if go by train if in kids holidays it stops at the door and if out of kids holidays change at Lille and that stops at the door too.

Have you seen the last vote OP?

I have... but TM won’t be able to change the backstop so I don’t think this result makes the no deal less likely.

No guarantee Eurostar will run either.

I agree that backstop can't be changed. If you are unlikely to get a refund surely you may as well still plan to go and just see what happens nearer the time?

Your mad if think the world stops because we leave the EU

Just make sure you have all passports well in date that’s all

I’m sorry you’ve felt the need to cancel Ceekysquirrel. You’re in a tough position - it’s diffi to imagine that there will be disruption/flights cancelled, but the truth is that no one knows for sure and it’s a lot of money to gamble with.

Will you save the money and try to go to DLP another time?

Your mad if think the world stops because we leave the EU

It won’t stop. But you have no idea how much disruption there could be, to food, to travel, customs etc. It’s a risk the OP isn’t prepared to take. It may be something you’re prepared to. But you don’t know - because you can’t. Nobody does.

How old are your kids if you don’t Ming my asking?

If you do do decide to go another time pm me for my ‘DLP document’ - it’s about 10 pages of bullet points collating advice for when you visit taken from the DLP trip advisor board and mumsnet threads too I think. Includes best places to stand for parade viewing etc.

I planned our trip to DLP with military precision and we had a great time. Maybe I am something of a ‘prepper’ after all

Sorry cheekysquirrel I feel your pain but it’s just too much money to gamble isn’t it?

That's a shame. We've booked to go in September so I'm hoping that problems will be ironed out by then. Agree it is a lot of money to gamble.

As an aside, we have also flown when we've gone to DLP as it'd take us 4 hours to get down to the Eurostar. We can do the door-to-door journey in that time by plane (transfer was about 40 minutes by taxi from Charles de Gaulle).

We flew once. Prefer the 4 hour drive to Folkestone, lunchtime train and down to DLP by about 4pm with unlimited baggage allowance to the 2 hour drive to the airport, minimum 1 hour allowance before the flight, wait for baggage, get a transfer from airport, have to think about luggage allowances type of travel.