terry&mike

Are you on the October sailing of the Riviera?

I think the deviation fee is currently $175 per person.

It is usually the wines themselves that attract guests to buy more expensive wines, not the anticipation of the level of service one would receive when buying it, correct?

Hubby and I spent 5 days over Christmas last year in BA, and loved the city, the energy, the food.

Travelcat2 - In our experience the amount of air credit did not change, so I imagine it is cruise specific.

We booked a cruise for October, 2014 in May, 2013. We were quoted the air credit would be $850 pp if we did not use O air. We made the booking with the O air in place, figuring we'd remove it later and get the credit if we wanted to.

We were recently able to find a great air routing at a great price, and booked our air independently. Just this week, about 260 days from sailing, I had our TA remove the O air and give us the credit, which was still $850 pp.

YMMV

I think the free air depends on the trip, if it is worth it or not, or free or not.

For our upcoming October trip, we took an air credit of $850 pp from Oceania, and were able to purchase great routing of our choice, arriving in advance of the cruise and staying after the cruise, for $856 pp.

So right on the money, and when we factor in the deviation fee we avoided, we did considerably better.

I think the noon or after flights are the safest also, even though most of the time we have been off a ship very early.

We did have an unusual occurrence once when reaching our disembarkation port. We had gone to breakfast, and returned to our room to close up our suitcases and prepare for a 7am self walk off. At around 7am we heard a passenger's name being paged to come to the front desk. We continued to hear the page every few minutes, then the page became very specific for "passenger X in stateroom X" to appear, and repeated about every 10 minutes. By 7:50a we had still not been called to disembark, and needed to clear out of our room by 8a, so we went up to a public area to wait. Lots of people were milling around, and trying to figure out what was going on. The passenger pages continued until around 8:50a, quite sternly, and then the pages stopped, but disembarkation did not begin. Finally, at 9:30a an announcement was made that disembarkation would begin shortly, and it did start around 10 minutes later. We saw a crew member that we had become friendly with during the sailing, and asked her, what on earth was going on, and she told us, "The drug dogs on the pier got a 'hit' on one of the suitcases lined up, so they needed the passenger present to open the bag, but the passenger would not respond. When he did, it turned out to be a teenage grandson sailing with his grandparents. The matter has been resolved."

We were off and clear by around 10a, and on our way, but there were some very anxious passengers with early flights.

I have always felt bad for those grandparents doing something nice for their grandson, and then having that experience.

Thank you for posting this, I thoroughly enjoyed it. As we've visited half of your ports on land trips, and are going to be visiting the other half on Riviera in October, also in an extended balcony cabin, it was perfect for me. A nice mix of memories from past trips, with anticipation of adventures on a future trip!

titong, as long as you continue to accrue miles, then the miles don't expire. You'll notice that your expiration always travels ahead of you, next month when you log on it will say a Miles Expire a date a month later.

I am surprised it says December, 2014 now, as I think United miles expire without account activity for 18 months.

Yes, I had an amazingly speedy transfer at EWR myself recently, which resulted in moving myself to a considerably earlier flight, and getting home several hours earlier than planned.

I've also noticed more separate security lines being added if you are in the program. There's one at Houston that is a blessing, and we recently had a great experience in Toronto with their "exchange" program.

Don't try to do standby at the Newark airport, because the office is in a controlled area and they make you show your appointment print out to get through to the office. I tried this while I was helping my Mom apply for hers in January, and they told her only she could go back (not me), and only within 15 minutes of her scheduled time. Conversely, DH & I had great success when flying through the Houston airport, just stopped in to see if their was a possibility of them taking us early for our interview, and they said, Come on in, and interviewed us both together, watched the little film, and out in 20 minutes total. This was several years ago though, so maybe not so friendly now.

And don't forget, you have $1000 in your budget to work with when looking at your own airfare ($850 credit plus the $150 deviation fee)

Another huge vote for Global Entry, best thing we ever did. Several countries are now offering reciprocal agreement programs, so it can speed up your arrival when entering foreign countries in some instances also.

The new language is no casual jeans. The opposite of casual jeans is not designer jeans, it is dress jeans. And yes, there is such a thing. It has nothing to do with price, but with cut, style and the denim wash (color).

As other posters have said, here in our area at the finest restaurants, we see people dressed for dinner with jeans as part of their ensemble. Many ladies wear jeans with heels and dressy tops. We often see jeans worn at weddings. It is part of today's culture, and a growing trend.

Just last week Sir Ian McKellan was interviewed on TV wearing a lovely pair of dark wash slightly waxed (the new style) jeans, paired with a velvet tuxedo cut jacket and dress shirt. The man looked positively elegant, and is 74.

Personally, we won't be wearing jeans on our cruise, as jeans are not part of our packing strategy in packing light, and not our usual going out to dinner attire, but I'm fine with other folks wearing an attractive pair of jeans to dinner.

Wendy, In the UK, the term pants sometimes is used to refer to panties/underwear.

Once, on a different line, while at breakfast in the dining room we saw a young man probably about 17, come strolling in wearing a fluffy white robe from the cabin and slippers, walk over and join his parents who were mid-meal at a table. Within minutes, a staff member appeared, had a discussion with the parents, and the three of them got up in a huff and left the dining room. I think the parents were miffed that their little darling was not welcome, whatever his attire. Certainly, a line crossed.

I agree with an earlier poster, it's about style and how you wear something. I have seen folks be perfectly lovely and well turned out with jeans as part of their attire, and I've seen people look a mess in a dress.

We did French Polynesia several years ago on Renaissance (one of the original R ships), and found it to be our favorite tropical trip ever. The water is the prettiest we've seen, with magnificent shades of blue, the people had a wonderful vibe, and we ate some spectacular food. Much more exotic feeling than the Caribbean.

Laraine, If you want to add my brochure numbers to your bulldogging, here they are.....

United MileagePlus Presidential Plus Card World Elite MasterCard (Chase issued, United Airlines co-branded), personal card, $395/annual fee.

Brochure effective 11/01/13, #BGC10328, 52 pages.

United MileagePlus Explorer Card Visa Signature (Chase issued, United Airlines co-branded), personal card, $95/annual fee.

Brochure effective 11/01/13, #BGC10335, 48 pages.

Our cards are both personal, not business, and I have the effective 11-1-13 booklets for both the Presidential Plus and Explorer cards, and both booklets state that Trip Cancellation, which begins on page 12 in both books, is up to $10,000 per person, not to exceed $20,000 per occurrence, and not to exceed $40,000 in a 12 month period.

Must be slightly different cards out there, with different benefits perhaps?

Dan, The $395 Presidential Plus card has other perks in, addition to the Evacuation clause, that the Explorer card does not. That's why I wrote that each person needs to determine what the value is to them, to decide what card they should get. I receive a great deal more than $395 a year in perk value from that particular card, but I also can see where someone with different habits would receive no benefit at all.

You can usually get the first year free on either card, and then the fee for the Presidential Plus is $395/year, and the Explorer $95/year. The cards feature different perks, so if you go forward you'll want to compare which is a better value for you.

I just compared the 2 different benefit booklets from Chase that we received, the United MileagePlus Presidential Plus Card and the United MileagePlus Explorer Card, benefit by benefit.

The only difference that I can find between the 2 cards when it comes to insured travel coverage benefits is that the Presidential offers Emergency Evacuation and Transportation (pg. 45-49), and the Explorer does not have this feature.

I received a new booklet in the mail yesterday called Guide to Travel and Purchase Protection Benefits, from Chase, for the United MileagePlus Presidential Plus Card, and the World Elite MasterCard.

For this card, the Trip Cancellation amount is up to $10,000 for each covered trip for you or your immediate family; same for Trip Interuption. It goes on to spell out that if "more than one person insured under the same account suffers a covered loss for the same covered trip" the maximum amounts are $20,000 per occurrence, and $40,000 per 12 month period.

It also explains coverage for Lost Luggage, Trip Delay Reimbursement, Baggage Delay, Travel Accident Insurance, Emergency Evacuation and Transportation, Travel and Emergency Assistant Services, and so on. The booklet is 52 pages long, so too much to scan.

insuremytrip.com can help you compare different policies, including annual policies.

Those type of cards are available in the US, usually from a foreign exchange business, often times at the airport money exchanges; although they carry a very poor exchange rate.

Our style mirrors Rupert. We order cash for the countries we are visiting before we leave, have never visited an ATM while traveling; we also bring some extra US dollars in case we are spending more local cash than anticipated and need to buy more, but this has been rare. Keep daily funds with us, and extra cash in the safe. Use United Presidential Plus through Chase credit card when traveling, for no foreign transaction fees.