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Rebecca - have you considered the alternative of hiring a car one way from Hertz/Avis/(or other major hire comanies) for both legs of your journey. I do this most times when it works out the cheapest, safest (for risk to my own car in a long-term car park), convenient(not waiting around for a taxi). For the return leg, I always hire after arrival to avoid potential excess bills in case of delay to return flights.
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M.B. - Thanks for such a quick reply. The problem with this is that it falls down on the aggro factor, and still has us driving to Gatwick at 4.30 in the morning. I would feel happier knowing that we were close to the airport, so any freak (mechanical) breakdowns, traffic problems or oversleeping wouldn't pose such a problem.
Alfafan -I didn't know about Laterooms - it gives an indication of which hotels have Family rooms which is a major step forward.
Thanks!
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www.travelinn.co.uk
They have a couple that have family rooms near to gatwick (1 mile, 3 miles) book on line, 50 quid a room/night. Doesnt solve the parking problem for two weeks tho.
dont let your kids pack their own hand luggage. My 11 year old decided to mix his bullet keyring (disarmed rifle shell, bought at an english heritage castle shop) in with his eddie stobart model lorries. Of course this looked really really good on the xray machine, the armed police called to the scene thought it was funny, but the crowds behind the now closed departure gate didnt!
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Try . www.Laterooms.com. A good way to fine some good deals and the prices quoted are per room.
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I have used . www.abcholidayextras.co.uk in the past. They have some v. good deals on hotels with parking included in the price. Often you can park and stay the night before your holiday for less than the price of off-airport parking. For example, Ramada Jarvis for £90 for a double room and car-park for 15 days in August. Lots of other hotels available as well. Not sure about family rooms. Worth a look. (they also have a phone number so you can talk to a real person)
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Thanks Robin - ABC is a site I've been using (along with many others that all seem to link to the same database). The family rooms appears to be on a 'on Request' basis, so ABC have to call the hotel direct. I've tried this a couple of times, one wasn't available, the other was £170. On the superbreak site (which i@'e used before and used to rave about) they wouldn't call the hotel unless I was going to commit to give them the booking!
I'm trying to shop around, but I don't want to make it my life's work either!
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I've recently bought a cheap (£5) copy of Championship Manager 99/00 as I'm too tight to pay £30+ for CM4!
Sadly, I am pants at it. Doesn't matter what team I choose, I always end up getting relegated. Or sacked. Or both. I fiddle with the tactics, trying to match mine to the opposition's, I choose players and substitutes properly, I send my scouts on countless missions and buy on their recommendations. Where am I going wrong?
Any hints and tips to help me would be very gratefully received.
Cheers
Rob
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Rob - you could try www.supercheats.com - there are a few suggestions there. Failing that, I have something of an expert in my own household, who I could ask later for you.
HF
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Cheers, HF. I've got six dastardly plans from that link that I'll try out. Thanks again
Rob
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Rob - have a look here
www.savio.cwc.net
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One good way is to stop playing as Sunderland. Call yourself Newcastle - you won't get relegated but then again you won't win anything either.
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You'd have to check individual hotel websites for advice on parking (Google should solve that) but www.expedia.co.uk lets you price a room for 2 adults and 2 children.
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The Holiday Inn (via ABCHolidayExtras by phone) at Gatwick will do a Family room for one night and 15 days parking for £85.
So that's booked, now, and one less thing to think about.
Thank you for all your suggestions.
Rebecca
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R
Thats a good deal, could you put the phone number on here?
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ABC Holiday Extras phone number is 0870 844 4020 - website link is in a previous post.
There are two Holiday Inns at Gatwick - one about 4 miles from the airport and one less than a mile (our one).
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Rebecca: Just one word of caution, ask the hotel about the security record of their car park.
I personally know of a similar national chain of Inns/Lodges/Motels where, just 10 days ago, the car was found minus all four wheels - the thieves had done a "Ferrari Pit Stop" routine to remove all four wheels in a matter of seconds after midnight in a well floodlit carpark. This was all captured on the CCTV. They used 2 old trolley jacks which were left behind, because they did not want to risk capture by wasting time to replace jacks with bricks!
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I love this site...whenever someone posts something positive, there's always someone lurking with a "word to the wise" or some other downside...
Do people play Devils Advocate on purpose?
I STILL love this site...
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I love this site...whenever someone posts something positive, there's always someone lurking with a "word to the wise" or some other downside... Do people play Devils Advocate on purpose? <<
smokie : some people prefer to live in ignorant bliss; some prefer to know all the pros & cons. I am always prepared to learn from the experiences of other people, good or bad.
The advice given out on this site (that you STILL love) is given out free, and guess what - you are free to ignore it. I know what I prefer. The reason I love this site is that you get alomost the whole cross-section of humankind represented here.
>>Do people play Devils Advocate on purpose? << Is that what you are doing with this post? I did not see that as I am not that clever.
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Hmm. May I 2nd that caveat. Last year scrotes removed my Passat door lock, opened the windows and removed some stuff from inside when I was on holiday and the car was parked at the Crowne Plaza. The car park was so busy we had to park a bit out of the way. Shoul dhave mentioned that. Sorry.
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Your are right to sound the note of caution of course. Incidentally most of the websites I consulted had hotels that offered two rates - a higher one for 'Secure Parking' (a good £40 more in most cases).
The realist in me says that my car could be swiped just about anywhere, although hotel car parks are obviously an attraction to theives. And the Holiday Inn could have a 100% record...until we get there. So we'll take our chances, and try to park in a visible location.
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You are right to sound the note of caution of course. Incidentally most of the websites I consulted had hotels that offered two rates - a higher one for 'Secure Parking' (a good £40 more in most cases).
The realist in me says that my car could be swiped just about anywhere, although hotel car parks are obviously an attraction to theives. And the Holiday Inn could have a 100% record...until we get there. So we'll take our chances, and try to park in a visible location.
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Asked this the other day, didn't get a reply...
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How do you find that part of the forum? I couldn't. Unfortunately the reply I got suggested I dump Opera. Pity 'cos IE6 is such a piece of junk...
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Growler,
Ian (expat) gave this answer to your question:-
"It is something to do with the Java. I had that problem with Opera 7. It wouldn't display ebay and wouldn't work with banksites. I am posting this using Mozilla which I have running under Linux. I think there is a Mozilla for windows also. It is worth a try."
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The is a Java enabled version of Opera, but I think you have to download it. Hope you have broadband.
Also Opera is, or used to be, capable of lying to websites about what browser it is, useful for those poor deluded webmasters who insist that you use a particular browser, like the Open University that insists on Netscape.
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Yes I have the Java version with Opera and a DSL line. I am aware Opera can be made to behave like different browsers too. No big deal it's just that it's faster than IE6 and doesn't hang for inexplicable reasons like most of Microsoft's finest.
Anyhow thanks.
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I could never get Opera 6 to operate with Java alongside IE 6 and Netscape 6.2 on my computer. I always suspected it was something to do with Netscape as the java console seemed somehow to be linked to it. So when I downloaded Opera 7, I made sure to turn off the Netscape program auto-start before installation and hey-presto, success!
By any chance, do you have netscape?
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I think there is a java console in the new opera 7. Does it give any helpful error messages? It could be a cookies issue as I have had problems with opera before where my cookie kept disappearing so I was logged out of the forums so that could be why you are unable to post.
teabelly
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I emailed a moderator about this, it has nothing to do with Java; I am pretty sure the site doesn't use any JavaScript to control the login.
The mod guy (from Khoo Systems) said it was to do with how it handles cookies. To paraphrase: 'bad luck'.
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Far too common a reply IMO. Had a similar thing with the Daewoo website (to vaguely keep this on topic!) where their detection software couldn't be made to realise that Mozilla is the same as later versions of Netscape. Their response was 'tough, use IE'. Same as one site who will remain nameless, who actually exploit a vunerability in the Netscape version of Flash to crash the browser. When I pointed this out, they said it was to force people to use IE so they didn't have to develop the site for other browsers.
What happened to the World Wide Web? It's looking more like the Microsoft Wide Web...
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Nope haven't used that cumbersome overweight Netscape stuff for years. I keep my system as clean and "slim" as I can, getting rid of orphaned reg entries, dll's and all that. I know that garbage lying around from old installations can be a nuisance.
The other forums I frequent (or inhabit!) take postings from within Opera no problems. I guess it's one of those things ytou could spend all weekend on and so what really. However thanks to everyone..... I just like Opera because it does so many things automatically that IE doesn't like it kills popups, has its own download manager and so on. Also it doesn't take me to the Land Of BSOD when I'm in the middle of something.
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While I'm sure Mozilla could be even better than it is, it is certainly an improvement over Netscape 4/5 (although Netscape 3 is probably the best browser if you don't need fancy stuff) and is miles better than IE.
Tabbed browsing, popup killer, download manager, it has them all, plus works with all but the few sites that won't have anything but IE. Nice and fast as well - much better than IE, and can handle 7 or 8 pages open at once, unlike IE which dies pretty quickly if you try doing that for any period of time!
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Mozilla is just beta stuff, though, isn't it?
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The very latest version is, but there are full releases available also. The latest Netscape is based on the same rendering engine as Mozilla. Anyway, beta or not, I've had very few problems, can't actually think of any OTTOMH.
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Thanks -- maybe I'll take a crack at it just for the experience.
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This thread will get moved to "I have a question Vol.8" by the end of Saturday Evening.
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