Planet Hoppers | September 2019

September 2019

California’s 2019 Travel Consultant of the Year - LUXlife Magazine

Bay Area’s 2019 Best International Bespoke Holiday Agency - LUXlife Magazine

We're always searching for new and innovative ways to help make travel dreams come true. We're excited to share a great option for AMEX card holders! Planet Hoppers is honored to be one of the first select travel agencies to help book travel using your existing American Express points. As an AMEX preferred Pay With Points partner, we can use your points to book flights, hotels, tours, cruises, and upgrades for qualifying America Express cardholders. It's a huge honor to be part of this program and we are excited to have this new way to support your travel dreams.

We are pleased to let you know that Planet Hoppers is now an authorized American Express® Pay with Points agency. Book with us and use Membership Rewards® points for all or part of a cruise, vacation package, flight or prepaid hotel. There are no blackout dates or seat restrictions, and you can still earn frequent flyer miles. If you don’t have an American Express® Card enrolled in the Membership Rewards Program, but would like to start earning points for purchases on travel, dining, and more, we can help you get started.

Please call or email us and we will help you start planning your getaway to reward you with enriching travel. Terms and Conditions for the Membership Rewards® program apply. Visit membershiprewards.com/terms for more information. Participating partners and available rewards are subject to change without notice. The value of Membership Rewards points varies according to how you choose to use them. To learn more, go to www.membershiprewards.com/pointsinfo.

Featured Trip Of The Month

THE ONCAY'S MULTI-CITY ADVENTURE

Itinerary

Jason and Katie's Full Transcript

Photos Album

Greece: Athens, Naxos, Santorini

France: Paris, Beaune

Scotland: St. Andrews, Pitlochry, Glencoe, Edinburgh

"Amy seems to know us well now, it’s our 4th big trip with her so she knows what we like. She knows our style and the kinds of hotels we like and the things that we tend to do. Her suggestions are so often spot on. As soon as we get the itinerary from her we think how does she know us so well?"

"During our time in Santorini, we booked a catamaran dinner and sunset sail. There were only about fifteen people on the boat with nonstop appetizers, cold drinks, friendly people, and good music. After about thirty minutes on the boat, it felt like the rest of the world fell away--nothing but island views and a peaceful breeze. The boat pulled up to a little cove, and it was our first chance to jump in and swim. Floating there, looking up at the boat on one side, various sea plants on the rocks down below the clear water, and the island rising out of the sea, that was our favorite moment."

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"In France we wanted to do the one thing we didn’t get to do the last time we were there and that is to go up the Eiffel Tower. Because we were later getting into Paris than we expected, we thought we missed our chance again, but we were able to find a 3-hour bike tour that came with a trip up the Eiffel Tower. That was a fun last-minute change. It was a great way to see a bunch of things in a short time. The bike tour is not something I would have ever agreed to but it was the only way to get that access to the Eiffel Tower. I'm happy it worked out that way because it made me try something new. We were up on the Eiffel Tower when the women’s soccer team beat France. That was a great time, a great evening.

From there we went to Disneyland Paris for the day. We are such fans of Disneyland, and since we spent time in Paris visiting all the museums and many landmarks the last time we visited, we gave ourselves permission to take the train out to Disneyland Paris for the day. Having been to Disneyland in Anaheim, it was so interesting to see the similarities and differences."

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"In Beaune we had a private tour through the vineyards and winery. We feel we are pretty knowledgeable about wine but their tradition and the way they do things is so much different. We learned a lot. In Napa you taste at each vineyard vs. in Burgundy, all the wines are in the villages to taste. I took a lot of pictures of labels to remember. We definitely enjoyed their wine. We would have considered taking some home but that wasn’t our last stop.

That evening we walked around to see the lights on the buildings – they project lights and animations onto the main landmarks using a high powered projector. Some of the projections were explaining the story of that landmark in an animated way. They do it in the summertime in the evening."

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"From there we were on to Scotland to meet up with family. St. Andrews was chosen because my step-father is a golfer and St. Andrews was on his bucket list. Even with us not being a huge golf fan, we enjoyed the history and the seaside. It was the perfect place to take a walking tour.

We spent two nights in St. Andrews and then two nights in Pitlochry – I loved it, it felt like a cute village in South Tahoe. They also have two very famous whiskey distilleries there and we could walk from one to the other. You could drive or walk a hiking trail up through the hills along the creek past the sheep to an old beautiful distillery on the river. We were in a beautiful meadow and I thought, is this real? Plus, the hike is always nice when there’s whiskey at the end. After that we did a night in Glencoe, further north in the highlands. It reminded me of the landscape you see in Kauai. In Scotland, it’s huge and green with majestic nature. A lot of things looked like it came right out of Harry Potter, in fact, they filmed a lot of the scenes outside of the buildings in and around Glencoe. It definitely had that Harry Potter feel. Our last stop was Edinburgh next to the castle."

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"I have learned that the unusual moments like missing flights and ending up in a cute village are the best. Some of our best trips are really narrowed down to those smallest memories. The Louvre was incredible but sometimes the best moments are just when you are walking through an alleyway in Athens and there’s a man on a guitar singing traditional music and 10 feet after we pass, the music stops and we hear him yelling, “LEFT! LEFT!” He stopped playing and screamed that because he saw we were going the wrong way."