Vacation package prices on this site all read the same way: from $1,920 per person, two sharing a room, rising to $3,940 at the far end of the catalogue. That is the entry point for the lowest month on the operator's own scale, the plainest room grade and the least convenient flight. It is not what most people end up paying, and this office would rather say so on the page than in a follow up call. When you send dates, Amber Almanac asks the operating companies what those exact dates cost, and what comes back in writing is the number that counts.
The gap between the printed figure and the written one is usually explainable in three or four lines. School holidays, a room facing the water instead of the parking, a direct flight instead of one that stops, a third night in the city at the start. None of that is hidden and none of it appears after you have committed to anything, because there is nothing on this site to commit to: no checkout, no card field, no deposit. Amber Almanac Bookings LLC is paid a commission by the operating company after you get home, so the figure you see is the operating company's figure and not one this office has marked up.
Parts of a trip that move the number
- Travel dates
- The single largest mover. The same twelve nights can differ by 60 percent between the last week of February and the second week of July.
- Room grade
- Entry grade means a standard room with whatever view it happens to have. A named view, a terrace or a suite is a separate line on the operator's own sheet.
- Flight routing and origin
- Printed figures assume a connection from a mid continent hub. A nonstop, or departing from a city with two flights a week, adds a real amount.
- Room occupancy
- Everything here is priced two sharing. One person in a room priced for two is the single supplement, covered further down this page.
- Meals included
- Some trips carry breakfast only, some carry half board, some carry nothing. The trip page names which, and adding meals afterward is priced by the property.
- Ground transport
- Airport transfers, a driver for a day, rail between two cities: included on some trips, an add on for others, never assumed.
- Guided time
- An afternoon with a local guide costs what that guide charges. Trips with more arranged time carry more of this, which is one reason the all five orderings ordering by how much is arranged for you often tracks the ordering by cost.
- Local taxes and resort fees
- Charged by the property or the country, collected by the operating company, and stated as a figure in your written quote rather than left as a footnote.
- Number of nights
- Not a straight multiplier. Flights are a fixed lump, so a fourteen night trip is rarely twice the cost of a seven night one.
The nine lines above are the ones this office is asked about most. If something else moves your figure, the written quote names it rather than folding it into a total.
Two headings you will meet on every trip page
Each of the twenty four trips prints its numbers under the same two headings, in the same order, so that reading a second trip page takes no relearning. The first is inside the figure and it lists, item by item, everything the starting figure already contains: flights on the stated routing, the stated number of nights at the stated grade, the transfers and the meals if there are any. The second is outside it and it is deliberately the longer of the two on most pages. It names the meals not included, the entry fees paid on the door, the tipping customs, and the excursions that are sold locally rather than in advance.
Reading both headings takes about a minute and answers most of what people write in to ask. If the two lists disagree with anything on this page, the trip page is right, because it was written against a specific operator's own terms. The the sequence from ask to booked page sets out what happens after you have read them and want a real number.
The single supplement is not this office's charge
When one person occupies a room built and priced for two, the operating company charges a single supplement. It is typically 30 to 75 percent of the accommodation portion of the trip, occasionally 100 percent at small properties in high season, and it exists because the property's cost of that room does not halve when only one bed is slept in. Amber Almanac does not set it, cannot waive it, and does not add anything of its own on top. The number appears in your written quote as its own line rather than being absorbed into a total, which is the only useful thing this office can do about it.
What can sometimes be done is finding a different room. A handful of properties in the catalogue keep a small number of rooms genuinely built for one, and those carry no supplement or a much smaller one. They are limited in number and they go early, so this is worth raising in your first message rather than after dates are chosen. On a few of the walking trips the supplement varies by night, because two of the overnight stops have single rooms and the rest do not, and the operator's quote will show the mixed figure. Say in your request that you are traveling alone and both questions get asked at once instead of over two rounds of email.
Reserve a written figure for your own dates
Send the trip, the dates and how many people are traveling. The form below is open Requests reach this form 24/7; no hour of any week closes it., and whatever arrives is read here, by a person, before that day is done. A figure priced against particular dates needs the better part of a working week, since two firms must answer, because two operating companies have to answer first and neither of them is instant. Nothing is held, and no payment is asked for or accepted at any stage: Amber Almanac takes no card details at all. If a number comes back higher than you expected, saying so is a normal reply and not an awkward one. Questions this page did not answer are collected on the questions put to this desk, and the terms for changing or standing down a reservation sit at the terms for changing or cancelling.