First trip to the Ukraine

[Jandar777]

Hey all,

I've been reading more and more about things.  I am at this point tentatively planning a trip to the Ukraine this summer.  Basically what I was wondering is if any of the more experienced guys have any trips planned.  Also if any of the professional group travel guys have any trips planned in the next three months.  If anyone has a good idea as to what times are best that would be great. 

Currently I am thinking of flying into Kiev, possibly spending a day or two there.  Then going to Zap.  Possibly a trip to Odessa but prospects for the most part look sort of on the low side for Odessa but I do like the sound of the city.  Mostly think a week long trip.  Likely spending 3 days per city. 

Again still pretty flexible.  Will do this on my own if need be but would REALLY REALLY love to have someone else along who's made the trip before even if it's one or two guys.

Thanks!

[camachinist]

Welcome OP...

IMO, for such a brief trip, it would be wiser to spend your entire time in one place. If this is not to see a specific lady, given the time of year, I'd likely pick Odessa, given its cosmopolitan nature and port status on the Black Sea. Warm weather, beaches and, well, the rest.

Personally, I found the overnight trains in Ukraine to be a great way to travel. A first class cabin berth was about the same price as an apartment/hotel night when I went (I bought both berths for privacy) and it made good use of sleep time to move around the country.

My first trip I was in-country for three weeks, split about evenly between Lviv and Odessa.

Also, the longer you stay in one place, IMO, the more immersed and comfortable you get, as well as get better deals on a driver, interpreter and/or apartment. I hired/rented mine by the week at great savings.

Hope you enjoy your trip

[Faux Pas]

Welcome OP...

IMO, for such a brief trip, it would be wiser to spend your entire time in one place. If this is not to see a specific lady, given the time of year, I'd likely pick Odessa, given its cosmopolitan nature and port status on the Black Sea. Warm weather, beaches and, well, the rest.

Personally, I found the overnight trains in Ukraine to be a great way to travel. A first class cabin berth was about the same price as an apartment/hotel night when I went (I bought both berths for privacy) and it made good use of sleep time to move around the country.

My first trip I was in-country for three weeks, split about evenly between Lviv and Odessa.

Also, the longer you stay in one place, IMO, the more immersed and comfortable you get, as well as get better deals on a driver, interpreter and/or apartment. I hired/rented mine by the week at great savings.

Hope you enjoy your trip

I second this advice. Traveling just a week thereabouts you will spend more time traveling and planning to travel that you will smelling the roses while trying to see 3 cities. Take stock of what is important to you to accomplish on this trip and plan accordingly. If it's your first trip and you only have a week, one city is highly recommended.

[Turboguy]

I agree that you need to make sure you don't spend all your time traveling.  I think if your goal is to meet sincere women I would avoid Odessa like the plague.  Zap is a good choice and spending a few days in Kiev would give you a second city without too much traveling. 

[Jandar777]

I am beginning to think that Kiev - > Zap with the travel into Kiev being the main trip.  However I am still debating about Kiev only.  That cuts out in country travel entirely but as I have read likely increases lodging costs.

Which brings up another question.  What web sites or travel agencies do you guys use to book air flights?  I read that it's cheapest to fly into Kiev.  I would likely be flying from CMH to Kiev.  I have looked at alternately flying directly from NYC or Detroit but honestly it doesn't save much if anything on the cost and driving to one or the other from Ohio would more than outbalance that.  The 'best' that I could find was late may for 1275.00 round trip.  Also obviously I would want to try to cut down on flight times as possible but *shrug* not much you can do with that. 

[camachinist]

Best I can do for CMH-IEV is May 13-22 @ 867.70 all-in. Outbound requires a transfer (easy, by shuttle) from LGA to JFK. Carrier is DL (Delta).

Fare construction:
CMH DL X/NYC DL IEV Q150.00 M 224.50TKXCSL4 DL X/NYC Q150.00 DL CMH M 249.50TKWCSL4 NUC 774.00 END ROE 1.00 FARE USD 774.00 XT 5.50YC 7.00XY 5.00XA 32.20US 7.50AY 4.00UA 2.00UD 17.00YK 13.50XF CMH4.50 JFK4.50 JFK4.50

After mid-May fares get higher, up to around 1600 for mid summer. Looks like fuel/YQ surcharges are high on this route, between 200-400USD so there is room for fuel dumping. Also, there are bound to be spot sales.

Here's two fare mining/routing sites I use for mileage running:

FareCompare

ITA

Remember, the more flexible you are, the better the deals you can find. Good luck

[Faux Pas]

Book your flights in the 28-16 day window before your departure date for the best quotes

[camachinist]

Generally true that 14-21 day APEX fares are cheapest. However, in this travel market, that isn't always the case. I see 0-3 day APEX fares all the time which are really competitive. The fare I quoted above is one example. I saw seats at that price for this weekend.

Here's the fare overview. Note the APEX (0 days). Also, the Cat12 surcharge is the fuel surcharge. Make that go away and the fare looks pretty good. Takes a bit of work, but usually doable.

Delta
Round Trip Fare (TKWCSL4)
Fare price: $499
Cat 12 Surcharges: $300
YQYR Charges: $0
Taxes: $93
Advance Purchase: 0 days
Cabin: Coach
Effective Date: March 27, 2010
Discontinued Date:
Fare Type Code: XPN
Booking Codes: T
$892

Also, although I'll defer to members with more current experience in Odessa, I dated a couple of ladies from there and found them to be quite down-to-earth and sincere. My driver was a good bird-dog for sorting the ladies. As far as getting there, DL 88 arrives about 9:10am into IEV and the fast 105 for Odessa leaves around 10pm, so one can spend a nice day in Kiev and take the train instead of staying at a hotel the first night. Same on return. Take the night train from Odessa and still make IEV in plenty of time for the 11am flight. IME, even back when times were tough (don't know current situation there), the trains ran to the minute.  Just some options to consider.

[Faux Pas]

Generally true that 14-21 day APEX fares are cheapest. However, in this travel market, that isn't always the case. I see 0-3 day APEX fares all the time which are really competitive. The fare I quoted above is one example. I saw seats at that price for this weekend.

Here's the fare overview. Note the APEX (0 days). Also, the Cat12 surcharge is the fuel surcharge. Make that go away and the fare looks pretty good. Takes a bit of work, but usually doable.

True that some last minute fares are even cheaper however, there is no guarantee that there will be cheaper fares to your particular destination or if a seat to your destination will even be available. Advance is good but too far in advance will cost you. Also, unless you have a good inclination that your particular destination is a frequent last minute bargain deal I would purchase in the 28-16 day window for the closest to the "sure thing". One way to gauge is to how expendable are the deposits made for transfers and flats.

[camachinist]

Good point. When I went, there were no deposits for an apartment. I simply paid the owner, who moved out while I was there, when I arrived. If things are different now, that's a factor. It appears, from perusing online, that the apartment rental business in Kiev is booming With Ukraine not requiring a visa, travel there is far simpler than when I went and can be much more spontaneous and flexible. I even found an apartment rental company which rewarded clients with Delta Skymiles 

Personally, I'd probably fly on miles, and usually have good luck booking TATL's two months or less in advance.

OP, forgot.... IME, I get best results mining fares using the sites I linked and then taking that routing directly to the airline web site. In the case of a mixed airline, non-alliance ticket, not really necessary in this case, I've had equally good luck with the three big online TA's. The ITA link I gave actually is the same as the back end of Orbitz for flight searching. Use whichever one you're comfortable with. I prefer booking with the airline directly so I can make adds/changes with them directly, as a TA 'owns' the reservations they ticket and the airline generally won't touch them prior to travel.

Don't forget, once you settle on an airline, if not already done, to sign up for their frequent flyer program

[Jandar777]

Thanks a ton for those links camachinist and thanks to all for the great information.  I did do plenty of searches in general though orbitz, expedia and the like.  However all of the 'flexible dates' were USA only.  That farecompare site is exactly what I was looking for.  Also the information about when the best time to order/find tickets is also great.  The next question is, how much 'lead time' do you need for find flat's there?  is the 16-28 day time frame plenty? 

Michael

[Faux Pas]

Jandar

You might want to look closer at the ITA link camachinist provided as well. It lists every commercial flight in the world. It is helpful in finding all available flights off the beaten path and many that do not show up on most search engines.

[camachinist]

Also, with ITA, once you learn the native code language which interfaces with the CRS/GDS (computer reservation system/global distribution system), you can target very specific parameters regarding city, route, connections, fare buckets, etc. It's a real powerful tool. Be aware some domestic airlines (Southwest 'WN' and Allegiant 'G4' are examples) don't participate in the CRS/GDS and they won't show up. I imagine some foreign carriers don't show up either.

OP, regarding apartments, I'd peruse RWD for recommendations, then e-mail or Skype the rental companies and get a feel for their lead times. Right now is shoulder season, with summer being more popular, but I can't imagine, with the economy as it is these days, that there's a 'no vacancy' sign out with any regularity. Hotels are always a backup plan. Plenty of those in Kiev. Good luck   

[GQBlues]

Also, although I'll defer to members with more current experience in Odessa, I dated a couple of ladies from there and found them to be quite down-to-earth and sincere. My driver was a good bird-dog for sorting the ladies.

A cause to pause, camachinist. I know what you mean by the term but I haven't heard the urbanspeak in a very long time. FWIW, it may well be read completely different by someone not too advanced in their years. 

[camachinist]

LOL, guess my country roots and age are showing. Peter (the driver) could talk to the ladies and give me a look, not say a word and I'd know 'yes' or 'no'. He kept me out of a lot of trouble, including police trouble, which was common back then (mid-late 90's). IMO, the two pivotal people for anyone not completely conversant in the culture are one's interpreter and driver.

[SANDRO43]

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKkzhb9HJus[/youtube]

[Daveman]

Remember that travel in the summer months to Odessa or Crimea can be booked up pretty solid.  Not impossible, but it's something to keep in mind as last minute travel/housing may not be as comfortable as you might want 

[Jandar777]

More updates here.  Well this past week was a bit of a bad news meets worse news at work.  Nothing end of days bad or anything but certainly enough that now I have to put off the trip for a couple of months.  Still planning for this summer but now it will end up being July or August.  This does give me more time to figure some things out.  The biggest issue is that they changed the way the vacation time works.  Basically you accrue X hours every pay period and you can only go Y hours in the hole.  The Y was cut in half this year (basically 1 week instead of 2) and that combined with the time I spent already meant that the vacation that I am on this week down in Mobile visiting friends (that I have had planned since late last year) was going to end up being 7 hours shorter...  Thankfully there is some other 'award time' and time we get for donating blood (we get 4 hours time off every pint we donate *LOVE* that factor of my job).  So I am with this week EXACTLY at my max time 'in the hole'.  It will be 6 pay periods (12 weeks) before I will have enough time accrued to take 5 days off.  Plus I'll have enough time to donate blood twice more (first week ish of May and July) which will give me another day to play around with.  Long story short, it will be the 2nd week of August before I can get 6 days off and use that time to get enough built up to go over to the Ukraine.  The plus side of things is this could end up letting me spend more time there.  Also the one young lady that I have been talking with from EM is going to be on vacation during august so it will open up the possibility of getting to spend more time with her. 

Which brings me to my next point.  The lady in question, she is very nice.  I certainly can see that we have plenty in common.  We talked for the first time on Skype on Saturday and she does indeed have a very good command of the English language.  Like others have said I don't want to put all of my eggs in one basket so to speak.  Her profile doesn't have glamor shots, while she is certainly attractive/pretty in my eyes she's not like some of the 'smoking hotties' that have profiles posted.  She's also very smart.  So good things in the world of getting to know the ladies from there.  Just now with it taking more time to get there we have more time to get to know each other which can be good and bad.  Easier to WMVM if you right a few weeks/a month before hand it seems.  Now that it will be more like 2 months...

Well in any event she understands about the vacation time and honestly only time will tell. 

Thanks again for all of the travel advice.  It is certainly not going to waste.  If there are any suggestions for places to visit, known festivals, or the like in late July/early August let me know!  :-)

Thanks!

[Jandar777]

Hey all,

I haven't forgotten you guys or the trip.  Most of my focus has been with talking to Tanya and working out the details.  At this point I have the dates planned, either July 14th or 15th - July 20th.  Vacation plans and the way my company work's things have really dominated the whole trip.  At this point I Just been looking at prices waiting to see if I can get a bit of a better deal. 

More as time gets closer, I have been using your links from these posts pretty regularly so thanks again.