Roma Air Ticket Purchased!!!!

Ciao!

After watching the Delta Airlines website religiously for the last month trying to gauge what ticket prices might be for Christmas 2007 to Rome the dates I wanted to fly finally opened up. Gotta love that 332 day maximum on flight booking. But the 332nd day arrived last week and I was a mad woman monitoring the prices everyday.

I knew the prices would be higher for the week of Christmas and I was right. But it wasn't too much higher. The prices for dates at the beginning of December were about $950, so I was keeping my fingers crossed that I could get a fare that would be close to that, or not much over $1000. Can you believe I think $1000 is a good deal???!!! Gone are the days of just jumping on a flight from JFK for $400! That's the down side of living where I do...I have to always get a connecting flight to a major airport!

So my flight to Rome is a done deal. Yes, I chose Delta for a couple reasons:
1. I could get a ticket that only had one connection...through Atlanta.
2. I wanted to avoid connections through any Northeast city and with USAir or United I would have to have connected through Philadelphia or Washington DC. I know Atlanta may get snow in the winter but the Northeast has the potential to be worse, so I went with the Delta connection through Atlanta. Plus this way I only have 1 connection instead of 2 with the other options!
3. And the last reason I booked Delta is because I flew them last year to Europe and now have Delta Sky Miles and I figured it would be good to build up that frequent flyer account, especially since I am also flying to Turkey on Delta.

So with the Rome tickets purchased and hotel booked all the "major" leg work is completed. The only other things to get in order for Rome is arranging for transportation from the airport to the hotel which can wait several months to be done.

And....this week I emailed the Vatican to request tickets for the much talked about (on Fodors) Scavi tour. This is a tour of the excavations below St. Peter's where the bones of St. Peter are said to be buried. They only take 200 people per day on these tours and the groups are limited to 12 people...and the tickets sell out quickly. The tour booking must be done directly through the excavations office at the Vatican. The process is I send an email requesting a variety of dates and about 4 weeks later I will get a response email giving a date and time I can be scheduled. If I agree to the date and time I send them credit card information for payment. Thanks to my constant "trolling" on the Fodor's website I found out about this tour!

So, the Roma 2007 trip planning is going very well...and again, I have not yet purchased a guidebook! I can't wait to start deciding on the places to see and restaurants to try when I am there!

I can feel the excitement building!