Cyprus, help, more info please. Particularly budget.

[RillaBlythe]

We have been invited to a wedding in Cyprus (near Lacarna) in September & would really like to attend. The main stumbling blocks are a) would have to take our Y1 child out of school, & b) we don't have much money. It looks like about £1k for flights for us all, & about £500 to split a villa rental with another family.

How much spending money would you expect on top of that - self catering, but eating one meal a day out, small amount of drinking. Children will be 5 and 2, 2 adults.

Thanks for any guidance!

Have you tried www.ownersrentals.com/ me and hubby highly recommend used them dozens of times no problem. Always ask for discount or best price we always get at least 10% off. Here there link for holiday rentals in Cyprus, www.ownersrentals.com/search/Europe/Cyprus.html#europe4
Good Luck,
Holly

Cyprus is very expensive if you eat out in 'tourist' places. If you find the more backstreet 'local' food than you can easily halved the bill - but you may not want t

Sorry...

...may not want to eat in these places. When DH, DD and I lived in Cyprus a 'steak house' type meal would easily cost ?50 but we could go to a backstreet meze cafe and only pay ?10 a head. The difference was that I knew the places that had passed British food standards (no matter how they looked) and those that didn't.

Larnaca isnt as touristy as Limassol or Paphos, so is a bit cheaper but I think setting yourself a budget of ?100 a day is realistic.

Cyprus is not a very cheap place. When you do your shopping, try to find a real supermarket not a touristy place that will rip you off (there are some Lidls). September is still peak tourist season with prices to match. I would budget about £10 per child and £15-20 per adult for eating out. Food will probably run you £20 a day per family for the other meals if you are careful and can buy local not imported foods which are much more expensive. If you want to sightsee you will need a car which runs around £200-300 for a week once you factor in the mandatory fuel purchase. Alcohol is cheap though, £3 for a local bottle of wine.

You can probably drive a hard bargain on the villa, they have a recession and many holiday homes are empty. For flights, check Aegean and Ryanair for good deals.

Hi I live in a village about 30 mins from Larnaca and I'd be happy to help with any questions. We look after holiday homes as our business. A lot of our clients use Owners Direct or Holiday Lettings to advertise their properties. I agree with what's been said so far about costs but we do have budget supermarkets here now. I think you'll find supermarkets cheaper than the UK but eating out is more expensive. Also I think petrol is more expensive here but not by much.Feel free to PM me if I can help in any way.

Mrsnec, (slight hijack OP) interested to hear you say petrol is more expensive - has it gone up recently? When we were there 2008/09 we found it much cheaper than UK - we ran a Subaru Forrester in Cyprus and I am forever lamenting the fact that I couldn't afford to run one in UK - I bloody loved that car!

OP, I found the cheapest supermarket to be Lysiotis (spelling?) Pork products and fresh fruit and veg was a great price, but MrsNec will be more up to date.

I'm not sure what you'd spend on it in the UK but we have a Warrior and probably spend 150? a week on fuel but we do cover a massive area (Kitti to Penera) so that's some mileage. I think it'll be OP's biggest expense. But can't be avoided as Cyprus still doesn't do Public Transport. Not familiar with that supermarket. We use Sarris which is excellent especialy as you say for pork and veg. In fact it often has 40% off days on both meat & veg! It's getting competitive food wise at the moment as Orphanedies is in admin. Also booze has gone up cos of VAT so I'd say 4? for vino and OP loads of building work between Larnaca seafront and the airport. Avoid Mackenzie area at the moment.

Had another thought OP depends on where the wedding venue is though as this won't work if the wedding is the Limassol side but look at villas in this area (google the Red Villages) it's very rural but you may find villas cheaper. The farmers tried to cash in on the boom a few years ago. You'll be halfway between Larnaca and Napa so when you're not at the wedding you're closer to the nicer beaches and it's very quiet up here.

this is brilliant, thank you for your help, really given me a better idea of it all. Will find out where the wedding is in case it fits into your recommended area mrsnec! The bride is Cypriot & will be very helpful, but I just wanted to work out if it were at all feasible for us to get there first