JOAN SCALESanswers your questions...
Q I am travelling to Florida with friends soon. We have tried to use the US government’s Electronic System for Travel Authorization but are having great difficulty. One website we used said my passport did not have enough digits; on another I paid €12 but do not seem to have received a number. The passport office is insistent there is nothing wrong with my passport number, and I have e-mailed the US embassy and received no reply. What can we do?
NE, Wicklow
AThe US department of homeland security introduced Esta last January for all countries that belong to its visa-waiver programme. It is free, fast and easy to use . . . or should be.
I suspect you are encountering problems because when you go online to find the form to fill in, lots of very official-looking websites pop up, purporting to be the site to use. Watch out: there is only one official site. The address is cbp.dhs.gov/esta.
Other sites that appear are money-making schemes. Some will process your application; others will just take your money and do nothing. If you need any help in filling in the form, a video on the US embassy site shows you what to do.
You can see it on http://dublin.usembassy.gov/general/esta.html.
The good news is that when you finally get your Pin, which is alphanumeric and at least 12 digits long, it is valid for two years.
Q I want to take my two boys, aged 13 and 15, to Egypt for a week’s sightseeing between January and March next year. I’d like to show them the main antiquities of upper Egypt, specifically around Luxor, and those in Cairo. Could you advise us on a tour package that could meet our needs? The accommodation should have a pool, and price would be a consideration.
FB, Fermanagh
AA number of tour operators have trips to Egypt in the new year with flights from Dublin. These are package holidays to Sharm el Sheikh, on the Red Sea; accommodation is normally in holiday resorts, with the usual swimming pools and facilities. Prices for a week range from €640 to €900.
It is possible to book trips to Cairo, Luxor, the Valley of the Kings and other places of interest from your hotel reception. Prices depend on distance and whether you include overnight stays. As a guide, a one-day tour to Cairo will cost about €200 per person.
You could, however, book a specialised tour from London to Egypt that would take in all the classical sites of interest. The Classic Traveller tour company (00-44-800-9885833, classictraveller.co.uk) has a seven-night trip that includes a four-night cruise on the Nile with full board, overnight sleeper train to Cairo and two nights in the city, staying in a hotel with a pool.
Places the tour visits include Luxor, Valley of the Kings, Edfu, Kom Ombo, Aswan and the Pyramids of Giza, and the Sphinx. The price is from £859 (€950), plus the cost of flights to Gatwick.
Q We are two families with teenagers who would like to rent a villa with pool in southern France next summer. We would like the children to attend French lessons in the mornings, then spend the afternoons relaxing with the rest of the family. Do any language schools cater for this? There only seem to be residential courses on the internet.
AP, Dundalk
AQuite a number of language schools provide exactly what you are looking for, though most are in main towns or cities, and the teenagers may have to take a bus or be driven to classes each day.
A good way for the teenagers to combine learning French with an activity is by mixing the language with surfing. Biarritz has some great surf and language schools and would be a lovely place to rent a house. BLS École de Français (bls-frenchcourses.com) can arrange courses.
Other language-only courses include those at the Centre Méditerranéen d’Études Françaises (centremed.monte- carlo.mc), in the French Rivera, which provides French courses and activities.
In Hyères, not far from Marseilles, is ELFCA, (elfca.com). In Montpellier, the Eurolingua Institue (eurolingua.com) and the Institut Linguistique Adenet (ila-france.com) both have weekly courses for students.
Stein Study Abroad (01-4759646, steinstudy abroad.ie) is an Irish company that organises language courses abroad; most are residential, but the firm also know of language schools in France that may provide daily classes.
You can find a good selection of houses with pools on homeaway.com, holidaylettings.co.uk and jamesvillas.ie.
E-mail questions, with your name and address, to jscales@irishtimes.com