border run from ukraine to crakow

[molodets]

I'll be making my first border run from ukraine to crakow (in order to accomplish new registration of passport). Can someone please recommend a mid to low price hotel in crakow? What would a taxi ride typically cost from airport to hotel. Is it necessary to make a reservation? Any other advice on visiting crakow, things to do to pass the time for a non-polish speaking person. Thanx.

[SmartJAzzInOdessa]

A wonderful city! I can't give you any information about the airport, but the train station, I know, is right in the center of the city. If this is just a 90-day border run, and not a visa run, then you do not want to take an airplane! Crossing the border on a train is easy, but airport officials tend to be in the know about new regulations.

Are you looking for a hotel or a hostel? I recommend the Orange Hostel. I've stayed there twice, and I really enjoyed it. I rarely had to share a room with anyone.

Check it out:
http://www.hostelorange.pl/en/index.htm

Concerning what to do.... Well... You could take a day trip to Auschwitz for about thirty bucks. Also take the time to check out Schindler's factory and the Jewish ghetto. You could also take a day trip to the salt mines. I haven't been yet, but I've heard great things about it. The city is full of great cafes and restaurants, not to mention interesting bars. They also have an interesting bicycle rental service that you'll definitely notice.

Enjoy the trip!

Ray

[molodets]

A wonderful city! I can't give you any information about the airport, but the train station, I know, is right in the center of the city. If this is just a 90-day border run, and not a visa run, then you do not want to take an airplane! Crossing the border on a train is easy, but airport officials tend to be in the know about new regulations.

Are you looking for a hotel or a hostel? I recommend the Orange Hostel. I've stayed there twice, and I really enjoyed it. I rarely had to share a room with anyone.

Check it out:
http://www.hostelorange.pl/en/index.htm

Concerning what to do.... Well... You could take a day trip to Auschwitz for about thirty bucks. Also take the time to check out Schindler's factory and the Jewish ghetto. You could also take a day trip to the salt mines. I haven't been yet, but I've heard great things about it. The city is full of great cafes and restaurants, not to mention interesting bars. They also have an interesting bicycle rental service that you'll definitely notice.

Enjoy the trip!

Ray

Ray, thanks so much for the info. Well, I've already bought the airplane tickets from Wizzair (ripoff). Maybe next time I'll go by train. The train route seemed a bit long and complicated to me. I didn't see any trains directly from kiev to poland. I would have had to change trains in lvov. If I'm wrong, then please do tell so I'll be prepared next time. By the way, this is a "90 day run" for the purpose of obtaining a new registration of passport. (immigration card). I already have the 5 year visa valid until november of this year.

[SmartJAzzInOdessa]

There aren't any direct routes to Krakow from Odessa, either. I start off on the train to Prague and then hitch up to another train in Lvov. The same goes for those going from Kyiv. You don't physically get on a new train. Your wagon is just hitched up to another train. Honestly, it might wake you up, but other than that, no problems. You also have a two hour stop on the Polish border since the size of the rails are different in European countries, but the city you stop in quite a little charm. The tickets may be a bit more expensive though. I paid about $100 one way from Odessa. But you get to rest up pretty well and see some nice sites.

[Jarek]

There are shuttle buses from airport to Cracow, as it's about 70km taxi would be rather expensive.
Re hotels, I can't help - use google.There are many of them located in city centre.

Cracow, nice city, but people...

[SmartJAzzInOdessa]

Cracow, nice city, but people...

The people there are absolutely great! I have absolutely no complaints! They are very helpful, outgoing, and polite!

[Jarek]

You must be Polish to understand complicated relations between us, from Warsaw, and them, from Cracow...)))))

[richardm]

On a sidenote why is there so much bad publicity on this site and sniping about Wizzair and sometimes Ryanair.

You say they are a rip off? were you not aware of the price before you bought the ticket? If it was genuinely too high, why not use an alternative carrier (probably because they are double the price I would add) or go by train?

We have had this before with people regularly slagging off baggage charges, extras etc, surely you just look at the word TOTAL then decide if it is cheap or not. Ive bought tickets with Wizzair before where there have been 30 quid of add ons but when the base fare is only 31 quid the 61 quid total is still less than half what BA wanted for the same journey! I seem to be alone in that being the only factor Im bothered about!

For the record I think Wizzair is not that great an airline, but Ive always believed in the adage that you get what you pay for, Ive never paid more than 80 quid for a single to Luton since Wizzair started from Kiev.

Some people just like to moan about nothing I suppose!!!!

A wonderful city! I can't give you any information about the airport, but the train station, I know, is right in the center of the city. If this is just a 90-day border run, and not a visa run, then you do not want to take an airplane! Crossing the border on a train is easy, but airport officials tend to be in the know about new regulations.

Are you looking for a hotel or a hostel? I recommend the Orange Hostel. I've stayed there twice, and I really enjoyed it. I rarely had to share a room with anyone.

Check it out:
http://www.hostelorange.pl/en/index.htm

Concerning what to do.... Well... You could take a day trip to Auschwitz for about thirty bucks. Also take the time to check out Schindler's factory and the Jewish ghetto. You could also take a day trip to the salt mines. I haven't been yet, but I've heard great things about it. The city is full of great cafes and restaurants, not to mention interesting bars. They also have an interesting bicycle rental service that you'll definitely notice.

Enjoy the trip!

Ray

Ray, thanks so much for the info. Well, I've already bought the airplane tickets from Wizzair (ripoff). Maybe next time I'll go by train. The train route seemed a bit long and complicated to me. I didn't see any trains directly from kiev to poland. I would have had to change trains in lvov. If I'm wrong, then please do tell so I'll be prepared next time. By the way, this is a "90 day run" for the purpose of obtaining a new registration of passport. (immigration card). I already have the 5 year visa valid until november of this year.

[molodets]

On a sidenote why is there so much bad publicity on this site and sniping about Wizzair and sometimes Ryanair.

You say they are a rip off? were you not aware of the price before you bought the ticket?

The bottom line is, I was in fact satisfied with the price. But I believe that you have made some false assumptions about the cause of my remark that Wizzair was a ripoff; so I will elaborate.
When I first went to the website and searched for a flight, a price was given and i was quite pleased. When I went to pay online for the ticket, the website does not offer USA as a place of residence. So I had to suffer thru the popup notification, reboot my computer several times, blah blah blah until I finally discovered the secret of how to get the information entered to them. Once finished with that, I got this nasty note saying that there were no more seats available on that flight - return to search and select another flight. Crap. Ok, I did that, and guess what! The exact same flight WAS INDEED AVAILABLE, but now the price was 30% higher. That's why I say I was ripped off. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. TTHHHHH.

[richardm]

Yeah to be honest some websites can be frustrating when all you want to do is purchase something with your card. Sometimes they practically ask for your inside leg measurement before being able to proceed, then you must set up passwords with one capital letter blah blah blah, on some occasions I have given up with some websites out of frustration.

Same thing happened to me about 7 years back Molodets. I was going to Naples and by the time I signed up on the site the price went up ?20 but to be honest the price was still much cheaper than BA just to reiterate my earlier point!

[>>Carl<<]

Once finished with that, I got this nasty note saying that there were no more seats available on that flight - return to search and select another flight. Crap. Ok, I did that, and guess what! The exact same flight WAS INDEED AVAILABLE, but now the price was 30% higher. That's why I say I was ripped off. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. TTHHHHH.

I've been through this too BUT not with the wizards at Wizzair. I find that if I clear all my cookies out, close the session window and start again, you can sometimes get the original price.

Just a reminder (from the net):

The cookie is sent as an HTTP header by a web server to a web browser and then sent back unchanged by the browser each time it accesses that server. A cookie can be used for authentication, session tracking (state maintenance), storing site preferences, shopping cart contents, the identifier for a server-based session, or anything else that can be accomplished through storing textual data.