Which holiday split makes more sense, Greece or Barbados with a city break

[razputeen]

We have some annual leave that we need to use up before the end of the year. Don't have an enormous budget but we're happy with comfortable but not ultra lux.

We can either take a week off early October and then a few days in November, or few days in October and week off in November.

So my current options are:

A: City break in europe in October & week in Barbados in November
B: Week in Greece in October & city break in europe in November (Xmas markets?)

Option A: Barbados is a long flight for a one week stay, but the weather will be good

Option B: Greece is a nice short flight, but will it be hot enough for you in October?

Do you have an Option C?

Option A. For Option B, weather in Greece is less reliable and many resorts/restaurants start closing down in September.

Barbados is a long flight, but the flight back will be an overnight one, so you will have a pretty full last day.

opt for Crete or maybe Cyprus if you do the Oct week, have done both before with great weather! Never guaranteed of course…but I would do that and then maybe a Copenhagen or German Xmas market later on..👍

*edited Crete not Greece!

November is still hurricane season in Caribbean even though they rarely hit Barbados it can be a hit and miss weather wise then, personally I’d wait till December for Barbados.

Barbados is a long flight, but the flight back will be an overnight one, so you will have a pretty full last day.

That’s an interesting comment about the return flight being overnight - we went to Barbados in January, we came home during the afternoon. Nothing odd about that, but prior to the holiday one of my friends insisted any return home flight would be overnight, even though I insisted that wasn’t the case for us!

I would go Barbados, I would prefer the security of good weather.

Could you stretch to 9 days and just a long weekend in October?

Where did you fly back to and what time did your flight depart Barbados? Interested because in the last thirty years of regular trips there, I’ve never had an option of day time return. Always departed after 3pm and landed in London early morning.

I too would go to Barbados, stretching it over two weekends if possible.

Option B - at least the first week in October for most of Greece, the weather is usually still great

That's interesting! I've never known the flight back to London taking place in the afternoon. Who were you flying with?

We flew back into Manchester, departed Barbados approx 2pm. We've just booked to go again, same route, and this time we take off at 2.50pm.

A direct flight from Barbados to Manchester leaving at 2pm would be landing at roughly 4am uk time?

Probably...I'd have to check time change and flight times but I worked on a few such flights over the years and if you do a PM departure from Barbados eastbound e.g. for Europe you can't avoid it being day into night- it really is literally the way the world works

OTOH going UK>Barbados with a reasonably early departure will usually see you daylight all the way..

A if you like sunshine in November.

I don’t find Caribbean flights feel that much longer than Turkey or Cyprus for example as there is a TV screen so a week is fine.

Not sure what you mean? I’m just agreeing with other posters that IME the Barbados to Europe flights are typically late afternoon at the earliest, certainly not around 2pm so was wondering which flight you were on as I’d never heard of this? The earliest flight I think is a tui one which is at around 3.45?

Im an experienced flyer…well aware of how the world works which is why im questioning your claim of these mid afternoon flights which would land in the UK in the middle of the night which is very rare for long haul.

Ah, somewhere I picked up the idea someone was claiming it was possible to in effect do a daylight back from Barbados to.UK if that wasn't the claim my apologies but I certainly never claimed at any point I was on a 2 pm.one, that was someone else.

It was me who was on the 2pm flight from Barbados to Manchester, in January of this year. Maybe flights back into London operate differently?

I personally don't have an issue with the 2.PM departure, it's others who seem to maybe be raising eyebrows.

Plenty of Longhaul flghts land at horrible times in the AM, all around the world..Manchester may well accept in the early hours, Heathrow doesn't, can't remember Gatwick rules but I think they were restrictive.

The issue is your claim of the flight not being an overnight one. Of course (part of) your flight happened overnight. A 2pm departure plus an 8 hour flight plus the 5h time difference means you wouldn’t be landing before 2/3am at the earliest. That is considered an overnight flight so to say, because you are not back in the UK whilst it’s still light out. Half the night, if not most of it, is over by that point.

I don’t think anybody is questioning the 2pm departure time.

The only truly daytime flight from the Americas I have personally seen or heard of, is the 7am NYC departures that land at 10 or 11pm in England. That’s just about the only thing you could call a daytime flight.

Barbados would win for me. We did a week in Jamaica at Easter, didn't find it too much travelling for just a week, even with kids, but the in-laws live in Australia, so 8 hours is nothing to the kids. Realise this is a different island etc but concept with the flights is the same, main issue with the return flight is that it was a mid afternoon return flight that is 'overnight' you land at something like 6am UK time which is midnight Jamaica time, so you land not having had any/much sleep. If only they could schedule a later departure from the Carribean to land a bit later in the day in the UK.

We go to Barbados most years and although we usually do two weeks, we have done one week before. The flight is only about 8.5 hours, so it’s not too long.

This is the option I choose with the city break.