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IN TRANSIT:IT IS supposed to be simple for chilled out people to find cheap holidays at the very last minute and according to perceived wisdom all you need to do is call into a travel agents and ask them to find you a holiday anywhere leaving today.
Then, before you can say Viva Espana, you're off to a sunny resort to have a whale of a time for half nothing and come back relaxed and smug in the knowledge that you snagged a holiday for a fraction of the price of your more organised friends who booked months in advance.
The reality is somewhat removed from this and finding a cheap package deal as the summer comes to an end is almost entirely impossible even if the bar in terms of location and accommodation is set really low.
In the UK this summer, a glut of package holidays has meant a rash of last-minute deals selling for around 50 per cent less than the full brochure price. But the news is not so good on this side of the Irish Sea.
We called a number of travel agents on Wednesday and effectively said “Get us out of here, we don’t care where you send us, just get us on a plane.” And the response? “Its going to cost you.”
The first place we tried was Cassidy Travel on Dublin’s Liffey Street. We were told they had just a solitary deal on the table for this weekend and, really, as deals go it sounded pretty terrible to us.
The best they could offer was seven nights in the Tunisian resort town of Hammamet for €599 per person. For six hundred quid we’d be getting something pretty plush right? Oh, no, not by a long shot. The price covers flights and bed and breakfast in “a two-star plus” hotel.
When people are asked to identify the hottest places on earth the Sahara desert is a place commonly found close to the top of most lists.
A good chunk of the Sahara is in Tunisia and in August the country is boiling so this “two-star plus” hotel has air conditioning, right? Wrong.
If you think the notion of spending a week in a Tunisian hotel with no air conditioning sounds pretty miserable we can confirm that it is.
We’ve been that soldIer once before and have stayed in a Hammamet-style hotel with no air conditioning.
And it was hell. Mind you, at least Cassidy’s were able to come up with some class of a special even if it wasn’t particularly attractive.
We next rang Fahy Travel in Galway but when it came to last minute deals they weren’t at the races.
A harassed sounding lady answered our call and said somewhat dismissively that we would have to pay brochure prices so could expect to pay at least €600 for a week anywhere.
Heffernan’s in Cork were more accommodating. They had two specials and were willing to take €679 per person off us so we could spend a week in a three-star hotel in Lido de Jesola, a pleasant seaside town not far from Venice.
If we wanted to take a punt we could opt for Lake Garda. For €599 we get a mysterious hotel that will not be confirmed until arrival and neither pool or lake views guaranteed. It is half-board mind you.
Online agencies have some slightly better value – lastminute.com is offering apartments in three-star complexes in Morocco for €454.
And directholidays.ie offered us an apartment in a three-star complex in the authentically charming and picturesque Playa d’Ingles on Gran Canaria for €424. Okay, it is neither authentic, charming or picturesque and is overrun with all day fry-ups and tourists drinking lager for breakfast but it is cheap. Well, cheapish.
Whether or not it represents value for money is, however, an entirely different question and probably depends on how many cocktails you’re prepared to knock back while you’re there.