Globaliser

Personally, I would give £5, less if the driver was a grumpy git ! One of the recent structural changes to taxi fares is that they now basically allow for what the drivers used to expect by way of a tip. This has been brought about by the fact that all taxis are now required to accept card payment, which itself has become almost universal now for everything since the beginning of the pandemic, and the increase in the limit for contactless payments from £30 to £100. That means that for almost all journeys passengers just tap and go, seldom leaving any tip. What has become quite common in parallel is the "negative tip": a taxi driver who insists on taking less than is actually on the meter. Obviously, if the meter says £65 and the driver tells you he only wants £60, then he really only wants £60, not £60 plus a tip.

It seems like some possible good news may yet come. Today's email says that Blue Note "will not sail in the January-February window, but a fall sailing from the West Coast is being considered". So I suppose it's a case of watching this space.

There are several security checkpoints, but they are not organised according to destination. Their location means that they may tend to see different mixes of passengers, but that's just because of the relationship between check-in desk allocation, gate allocation (especially the dual-purpose Schengen/non-Schengen gates) and natural passenger flow, and sometimes just due to the time of day (because long-haul flights are not evenly spread across the day). AIUI, you can in theory pretty much clear security at any checkpoint, and then work your way around to the correct area for your departure gate, whatever your destination. The time taken to clear security at any individual checkpoint can vary from day to day or even hour to hour, depending on staffing levels. There are plenty of horror stories about people flying directly to non-European destinations who have had to wait in security queues for several hours. As FreestyleNovice says, it's all a bit hit-and-miss at the moment.

I hadn't yet thought about that, but it seems like a good idea: I'll let my family and friends know that they'll have to pay us more if they want to stay with us that weekend. 🙂

I'm not quite sure why this would be? AIUI, the main bottleneck for passengers is a lack of security screeners. As there's now centralised security at Schiphol, that's going to affect everyone in the queue regardless of their destination. Although I understand that you can game the system a bit by using a different checkpoint that's less backed-up and then get yourself around the terminal airside.

Thanks for letting us know how it went. This is more that in general we do not have freeways/motorways going into central London. It sounds like you came straight in on the M3. This freeway/motorway basically ends about 11 miles outside London, and it's just normal urban roads after that. The only arguable exception to this is the A40, which basically has freeway/motorway conditions as far as Paddington - but even that is punctuated by a series of traffic lights near Acton. So that is one reason why the train is consistently high up on the list of advice if you don't have luggage (and even if you do). And millions of visitors manage to self-guide around London, so it isn't difficult. There's even a reasonable amount of English spoken here.

Is this for early May 2023? Our Amsterdam experts may be helped by knowing whether that's the time frame you're thinking of.

The problem with the example was the words that you then used: "this is true at all airports". It isn't.

These all seem to be additional reasons for prioritising the booking of your air travel. Then fit in your hotel bookings around that.

That's now a substantial underestimate of the fare for a licensed taxi (a "black cab") from the cab rank. Those figures have been quoted on that web page since at least 26 July 2015, and the page has not been updated to take into account any of the price increases in the intervening years. These have been substantial because of a number of structural changes to taxi fares during that time. To true central London (eg Trafalgar Square), the taxi fare is now likely to be more than the top end of that range. However, you can get a pre-booked car (a "minicab") to take you to central London for a price within that range. The usual suspects do this hundreds (if not thousands) of times a day and the rate of pick-up failures or delays is small - there are very few complaints here, for example - so you can be pretty confident that the driver will be there, in accordance with a well-tested system for picking up. A black cab may be a little faster than a minicab for two reasons. First, black cabs can use many bus lanes, but minicabs can't, so black cabs can sometimes jump some traffic queues. Second, black cab drivers have passed a stringent navigational exam, so if you are going to a standard destination (including all of true central London) from Heathrow the driver is unlikely to need a satnav as they will be able to navigate better with their brains than their ears, including knowing all the feasible routes around traffic jams that satnavs often don't. But the difference in journey time is likely to be small. Also, if you arrive at a busy time and there is a significant queue at the cab rank, it can take some time before you actually get into a cab. The minicab driver is likely to be already waiting for you inside the terminal. So this can erode any time advantage in a taking a black cab. This is why the advice to just take a taxi because it's "faster and cheaper" is thoroughly bad for Heathrow. Heathrow is not Milan; all airports, cities and countries are different; and any truly experienced traveller would know what the situation is at any of their regular destinations.

I can pretty much guarantee that the advice you have given would be thoroughly bad for Heathrow.

I don't understand the logic of this. Presumably you have to go to Amsterdam to embark, regardless of whichever hotel you end up in, or even exactly where the hotel is. There will be hotel rooms at some stage, and presumably you're not going to cancel the cruise simply because your eventual pre-embarkation hotel is not well located. So if you see a decent air fare, it makes no sense to refuse to book it just because there's still some uncertainty about what hotel you might end up in. In addition, the best approach to hotels is often to make flexible bookings, and repeatedly make and cancel them as better offers or locations turn up. That's something that's much harder to do affordably with air travel, but it also indicates why you shouldn't let the hotel tail wag the air fare dog. Having said that, it's also worth saying that it may also be far too early to book air tickets now, for much the same reasons. If you book too early, you can often end up paying much more, or getting something much worse, than if you book later.

I think that cruisegal415 was asking about Heathrow, which is a different airport, city and country altogether.

What? Someone's put 10-abreast into a 350? It was bad enough when 10-abreast started going into the 777 (5.86m cabin width, originally 9-abreast). Then airlines started putting 9-abreast into the 787 (5.5m, originally 8-abreast) - and I have heard horror stories from cabin crew about what happens there (and once briefly seen it myself). But 10-abreast into a 350 (5.61m, normally 9-abreast) must be hell on a different scale.

So this was all business as normal, then.

Don't hold your breath. When I travel, I'm travelling. Taking 150 pounds of luggage plus a carry-on is not travelling. It's moving house.

Your unfortunate experience is a good reminder of the dangers of assumptions. In your case, as to how things work in unfamiliar circumstances. Milan to Lake Como is basically on a commuter train that takes about three-quarters of an hour. By any standard, an assumption that the train would offer baggage checking required a immense stretch of the imagination, or the watching of too many romantic historical movies. Taking the train, as millions of travellers do (whether alone or in conjunction with air travel), is perfectly feasible with luggage - otherwise people wouldn't do it. As a generalisation, if you're fit and healthy but you can't manage your luggage onto and off a train, you've actually just got too much luggage.

In addition to what Zach1213 and 6rugrats have said, prices are more likely to be a reflection of currently-predicted future demand. Even if a seat map were a good indication of the level of existing bookings (which it is not), that would only tell you what historical demand (translated into current bookings) has been for that flight. It's the wrong measurement for current pricing. In other words, unless you're an expert working in the industry, don't rely on being able to work out why (or why not) any particular flight is currently priced the way it is.

This is not really a question for this thread, but the short answer is that on current schedules there are non-stop flights from Heathrow to Miami, but none from Gatwick.

This now looks confirmed, judging by today's email, even though it won't be formally announced until about Thanksgiving (2022). The email gives no date for a Blue Note in 2024.

This is only a temporary remedy, but it may be a bit more effective: https://www.businesstravelnewseurope.com/Air-Travel/Schiphol-tightens-passenger-cap-due-to-understaffing

It may just be too early for Princess to have issued the airline ticket yet. Remember that that is basically the point at which Princess has to hand over the money to the airline ...

The facts that The Jazz Cruise has always sold better than Blue Note, Chris Botti is on Blue Note in 2023, and the charter "hole" in the ship's diary is exactly four weeks, were what led me to the guess that Botti at Sea is going to be a replacement for Blue Note, at least in 2024. It seemed unlikely that the remaining unannounced week would be Blue Note and not The Jazz Cruise, and also unlikely that The Jazz Cruise would take a standalone slot at some other time. What is a bit odd is that you can't do The Jazz Cruise and Botti together, but presumably Michael knows his "contemporary jazz" market better than I do!

Today's Smooth Jazz Cruise announcement from Jazz Cruises makes the January 2024 schedule look tolerably clear. There was a hole in Celebrity Summit's schedule from 18 January to 15 February 2024. I suspect that it will now look like this: 18 - 25 January: The Jazz Cruise (a guess) 25 Jan - 1 Feb: Smooth Jazz Cruise 24.1 (confirmed) 1 - 8 February: Smooth Jazz Cruise 24.2 (confirmed) 8 - 15 February: Botti at Sea (confirmed) And as there is no space in the hole for Blue Note at Sea, I suspect that this may be being retired/paused/rested.

I agree with the underlying idea, but I don't think a sticky will help. What's needed is more discipline about not starting new threads and about looking for existing threads instead. How that's encouraged and enforced is a question of moderation policy, so I don't think that we're allowed to suggest ideas about how to do it. But just today, we have had two prime examples of why a sticky simply won't do anything to help: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2880453-2022-transfer-lhr-to-southampton https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2880478-schiphol-today There are some members who are still prepared to repeat the same old answers over and over again. But not everyone is as dedicated as they are.