The Savvy Traveler : Hotels Have Special Packages for Holidays

Because there are only 46 days left until Christmas, unless you’ve already made your holiday travel plans, you may be out of luck.

At this writing, getting an airline seat to places such as Hawaii, Aspen or Cabo San Lucas, or a hotel room in those cities may require papal dispensation.

And there’s a long waiting list for popular European destinations such as St. Moritz.

But there’s no need to panic if you’re a last-minute holiday traveler.

Many airlines and hotels have joined to offer some attractive Christmas packages. Others are promoting pre-Christmas holiday shopping sprees.

When was the last time you celebrated Christmas at a hotel in Amsterdam, New York or Buenos Aires? Better yet, when was the last time you wanted to?

This might surprise you, but for the last few years a growing number of Americans are discovering that going to a hotel at Christmas may be one of the best gifts they can give themselves.

And the hotels, ranging from upscale luxury international resorts to local Sheratons, are competing to offer attractive holiday rates.

Christmas in Sweden

A one-week Christmas holiday in Sweden, including air fare and hotel, can cost $838 per person from Los Angeles (less from East Coast cities). “Stimulating Stockholm,” as the program is called, allows visitors to custom-design their itineraries.

Each day optional activities are scheduled, offering everything from shopping sprees for Swedish furs and crystal to ice skating expeditions around Stockholm.

Try a Christmas jaunt to the Ritz Hotel in Madrid. The hotel will send a limousine to pick you up at the airport, followed by a Christmas Eve dinner. On Christmas Day you’re treated to a festive breakfast and lunch. On the 26th you leave by limousine for a tour of the city, followed by a flamenco show. Prices start at less than $600 for the package.

The Copley Plaza in Boston drops its rates in December to $75 a night, single or double.

In Paris, the Hotel George V offers a three-day package for Christmas. Check in on Dec. 24 and begin with a Champagne Christmas dinner. On Christmas morning the hotel wakes you with a traditional English breakfast, followed by sightseeing and shopping tours. The cost for the three days is $578.

The Inter-Continental in New Orleans is joining other hotels in the Crescent City and slashing its regular rates Dec. 11-27.

In Washington, the Vista drops its rates to $55 single through Jan. 10.

In Amsterdam, the Hilton is dropping its rates to $140 a night per couple. The hotel is also offering a special brunch and gala dinner-dance on Dec. 25. In addition, the hotel will arrange hard-to-get tickets for Christmas Mass at St. Nicholas Church, shopping sprees, sleigh rides, Christmas concerts and skate rentals for guests who want to zip down the city’s frozen canals.

“But rather than establish a fixed program,” says general manager Anne Shield, “we work closely with the guest to design an individual and memorable Christmas program.”

In Vienna, Imperial Hotels is offering a three-day Christmas program for $184 per person, double occupancy. As with the Hilton in Amsterdam, the hotel will design a special holiday itinerary for each guest.

Room Rates Lowered

The Hotel Inter-Continental London is celebrating the season by lowering room rates to 75 Dec. 20 through Jan. 6. And nearby, its sister hotel, the May Fair Inter-Continental, has lowered rates to 66 a night. A special Christmas package offers four nights, two breakfasts, champagne, Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas lunch, Sunday brunch and a Boxing Night dinner. The cost: 85 per person a night, double.

In San Francisco the Mandarin Oriental Hotel is offering special room rates as well as making arrangements for a personal shopping consultant from Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus to accompany you on your Christmas shopping errands. The hotel can also arrange to get you tickets to performances of ACT’s “A Christmas Carol,” and “The Nutcracker” by the San Francisco Ballet.

Don’t expect a white Christmas in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. That area is frequently listed as the hottest place in the nation in winter, averaging 72 degrees, but one resort will do just about anything to get you there this December.

The Nautical Inn Resort is offering something called the “Havasu Rendezvous.” It’s a four- or five-day package that costs $25 per adult a day (double occupancy). There are also a four-day, three-night package for $100 and a five-day, four-night plan for $125. And children stay free in their parents’ rooms.

The hotel is supplying each family with its own Christmas tree. It’s also throwing in a Christmas dinner, two breakfasts and two additional dinners on its four-day package. Each package includes 18 holes of golf daily.

Unlimited Tennis

The Bonaventure Resort & Spa in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is offering a holiday package for $49 per person a night through Jan. 2. The 1,250-acre resort also throws in unlimited daytime tennis and a fully supervised children’s recreation program.

What if you plan on spending Christmas at home but want to get some special shopping done ahead of time?

Lufthansa has put together an eight-day Christmas shopping tour. The trip to the leading Christmas markets of Germany and Austria makes stops in five cities on two eight-day trips (departing Nov. 28 and Dec. 5). Each stops in Munich, Salzburg, Augsburg, Rothenberg and at one of the most famous Christmas markets, Nuremberg, a city also known as the toy capital of Germany.

The shopping tour costs $699, double occupancy, plus air fare.

And if you hurry, you can catch UTA French Airways’ pre-Christmas shopping package. It’s good through Dec. 12, and includes six nights at the Astor Hotel in Paris, continental breakfast daily, a day of sightseeing and a fashion show at one of Paris’ two major shopping centers. The cost is $999 from Los Angeles. UTA has waived the usual two-bag-per-person maximum--you can take three bags each.

New Year’s in Paris

If you miss the UTA flights, Air France is offering two bargain-priced post-holiday packages to Paris. One itinerary gives you New Year’s Eve in Paris (Dec. 26-Jan. 2). The other catches the Paris winter sales (Jan. 2-10).

How about sunbathing along the Costa del Sol on New Year’s Eve? Trafalgar Tours offers a 16-day trip departing Dec. 27 to Spain, Portugal and Morocco. The price is $1,430 per person, double occupancy, from Los Angeles ($1,299 per person from New York).

Not every Christmas package is a bargain; some are expensive, deluxe yuletide holiday programs.

The Plaza Athenee Hotel, on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, has a three-night Christmas package. It starts with a dinner dance Christmas Eve and breakfast in the morning. The price for the package starts at $1,206. The hotel also has a New Year’s Eve package that begins at $1,586. But with rates like these, one begins to question whether giving is always better than receiving.

For those who can only celebrate the holidays with real reindeer, the Finland Travel Bureau of Helsinki will put you on a Lapland Jeep safari to the Arctic Circle.

On the Expensive Side

For those with little time (and lots of money), take the Concorde from New York to Paris Dec. 29 for dinner at Maxim’s and a ride on the Orient Express. On Dec. 31, after another dinner at Maxim’s, celebrate New Year’s Eve in Paris, leave at 12:30 a.m. on the Concorde and arrive in New York back at 9:45 p.m. in time to go to yet another New Year’s party. Excited? Have $5,200 to spend? You’re on.

Hemphill Harris travel offers all-inclusive holiday trips. You can celebrate Christmas in the Himalayas, the Alps, the Masai Mara or Buenos Aires. But take cash. You’ll need plenty of it.

One hotel celebrates the holidays in the truest form of Christmas. For the last few years the Sheraton Rochester Inn in New York has been giving away rooms for three-day periods through New Year’s Eve to anyone visiting Rochester to see a sick relative in any hospital.

“There are a lot of people who barely have the money to get here to visit an ailing family member,” says spokesman Mike Vavrick, “and they can’t afford the cost of staying at a hotel once they’re here. During the Christmas season it’s the least we can do to help families be together.”