centex

We made a trip to Rome during spring break a number of years ago and are thinking about a repeat in 2014. I recall the costs were about 30% cheaper than in summer, but don't think I made the reservation until January. Is now too early and would we likely see reduced costs? Stayed at Albergo Cesari before and it still gets good reviews, so was considering staying there again. Any better suggestions?

Thanks!

Jean

By costs, are you referring to hotel rates? If so, that's easy enough for you to research on your own. Go to the Albergo Cesari website and check availability and rates. If the rates offered at the Albergo Cesari are too high, you can come back and tell us what your budget limit is.

Airfares are also searchable now, but I doubt anyone could tell you whether they'll go up or down.

adrienne

I can't imagine a 30% reduction in restaurants and sightseeing admission fees.

centex

No Adrienne, you're right. I was talking about hotel and airfare. We've found it's much less crowded than summer, and thus far, the weather has always cooperated, too. It's been a number of years since, so I wanted to know of others' recent experiences in March.

TDudette

Don't know about 30%, but early part of March was cheaper when we last traveled in 2010 but later March and April were inching up over the 10-year period that we traveled in March.

You may have to trade weather and not all tours/hotels being available. Also, school children are still taking class trips to museums.

We also looked at September after Labor day and found weather to be more certain and tours still going on.

We usually made our arrangements in November for our March trips. But flights have increased so much over the last few years, I'm not sure it makes a difference.

To all: is Kayak still the place to go to compare flight costs??

Christina

I think you have to separate airfare costs from everything else because they are very different and you can just research the airfare, just go look at some websites. Yes, airfare is cheaper in March than summer. I would think it could be 30 pct cheaper in March than July, actually, but it all depends where you are flying from, probably.

Of course meals and sightseeing isn't going to vary, or local transportation.

I don't know Rome hotels, you can check, in any major European city I've been in, hotel rates were not cheaper in March than most of the rest of the year (and were often cheaper in August due to lack of business clients), because major capital cities have a lot of business, they aren't just for tourists. I've had good hotel discounts in late July or August in London, Paris, and Prague, for example. Of course those hotel rates vary for places that are mainly dependent on tourists or are holiday areas (like Amalfi coast, I imagine, or the Cote d'Azur).