UKBayern

My parents fly a lot, and my father used to fly hundreds of thousands of miles a year on business, sometimes on the most obscure airlines. In June, they flew to Bilbao with Vueling, the only airline to fly there direct. They both said they had never been on such a sh*tty flight. My mum is 1.62m, and she could not get her legs in between the seats. Her comment: "if we would have crashed nobody would have been able to get out". Everything was really bad, and they vowed they would never go near Vueling ever again.

Transavia is a full KLM daughter. Although they are a budget airline, their planes are checked in and serviced by KLM.

I always like how apples and pears are compared.

Most Asian and Arabic airlines are state-run and/or state-subsidized, whereas that is a often not allowed in the EU and the US due to anti-trust/cartel laws. I have a friend who works for Emirates, and the sky is the limit in the UAE. They have so much money sloshing about, they don't know how to spend it all.

Also, we have strong unions on both sides of the pond, where wages, workers rights, maximum rotation hours, etc. are strictly regulated. Many Asian and Arabic airlines weigh their flight attendants before each flight to prevent them from getting fat, force them to live in staff housing where visitors and curfew are strictly controlled, they are not allowed to marry or get pregnant, etc. If you are not young and beautiful anymore, you're out. I think I would rather be saved in an emergency by a happy well-paid FA with 25 years work experience who had a proper breakfast, thank you very much. :rolleyes:

Thank you for all the input and I can see I need to provide more information and gather more information myself.

 

We will be getting off the Brilliance of the Seas May 30th and hopefully boarding Serenade of the Seas the same day. Even though the Serenade is a shorten version of what we have just done on the Brilliance, it's the Arctic cruise to follow that is the appeal. We were going to spend 7 days between London and Copenhagen but decided we rather be on the ship.

 

Before the Brilliance docks in Harwich, it's last port is Visby Sweden followed by 2 days at sea.

 

If we join the Serenade it has one sea day after sailing out of Harwich and docks in Stockholm.

 

I am going to try and find out what a realalistic time is to disembark in Harwich and if we have to abide by the 90min ruling of being on the ship before sailing. I can see where this is very important information.

 

Sounds like EasyJet might be a possibility. Once I have this information I will post it here.

With all these tight connections, you realize Murphy will be lurking around the corner? One little hick up and your whole trip is ruined.

How about asking RCL if you can disembark in Visby? SAS flies to Copenhagen via Stockholm from there, or since you have 2 days, you could take the ferry to the Swedish mainland and go to Copenhagen from there. Since Visby is so small, there might be an issue with no customs/passport control being available though.

If you want to embark or disembark at another port, always make sure to have written approval.

Most European airlines are in an alliance with Asian partners. For example: the shot down airliner was a Malaysia plane, but codesharing with KLM. Most tickets were sold through KLM. I can imagine the airlines would arrange their flights in such a way in future to avoid the ban.

There are also all kinds of scenarios possible with renting each others planes. So the KLM flight number is changed into a MH flight number, and MH wetleases a KLM aircraft and crew. Probably not a lot the Russians could do about that.

It depends how long you will be staying on in Lisbon. If you want to do some sightseeing post-cruise, you might want to be nearer to your points of interest.

Like others have already said, not all ships dock in the same place. It is hard to predict which hotel is close.

Many tourist beach destinations on the Med have water parks, most of them are probably more geared towards foreign visitors. Istanbul is a big sprawling city. There is so much to see and do in Istanbul, compared to some of the other port stops. Maybe it is better to keep the water park for another day?

*waits for someone to compare intra-European business class to economy product*

What difference? :D

Especially on smaller aircraft on shorter hops, the seats are the same. Most European legacy airlines have the business class curtain on a rail which they can move around depending on the amount of business passengers. Only a few seats sold? We'll hang the curtain up between row 2 and 3! More sold? Let's slide it over to row 8 today! You might get a sandwich and a glass of wine whereas the lowly folks get a bag of peanuts and a cup of coffee.

KLM is particularly good at doing all this, I have flown Business quite a few times intra-Europe on KLM, but have seen it on Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian and BA as well. Some carriers do not even bother to hang up a curtain or distinguish between passengers on some flights. The Y (full fare economy) in your ticket is a dead giveaway. You pay a premium price, but get the same product.

I must say I have never heard of Flight Hub. Maybe a Canadian site?

If you have the chance, book direct with the airline, since the fare rules and restrictions of the tickets are normally clearer. In case of problems, you deal directly with the airline. Flight Hub might be a consolidator.

I would also wait a few weeks, until all airlines open up their availability for next year July. I wanted to check on independent site http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ what the best deal was for you, but they have not even loaded July 2015. Is the fare in Canadian or US dollar BTW?

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/07/travel/aviation-data/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Thank you for posting, that was interesting.

Yeah sounds like a few people had a bad day and collided together

:D That seems like a correct summary of the situation.

"a Southwest Airlines Employee and Customer were having a conversation that escalated about the airline's family boarding procedures. The Customer was briefly removed from flight #2347 from Denver to Minneapolis/St. Paul to resolve the conversation outside of the aircraft and away from the other Passengers. Our decision was not based solely on a Customer's tweet."

Conclusion:

1. There was a major row. "A conversation that escalated" does not sound like a polite exchange of arguments.

2. The decision to take him off the plane was not based solely on the tweet, as I already predicted.

3. He was taken back into the gate for a private conversation with the gate agent, which is the right thing to do to de-escalate the situation. Other passengers don't need to be bothered by some shouting match, importantly the customer does not lose face, and the last thing you want is having the whole aircraft interfere and take sides.

I have been in customer service for over 20 years (airlines, hotels, road side assistance, retail), and there is ALWAYS more to a story like this. I doubt the tweet was the real problem. He must have done or said something really awful, considering he was a "safety threat". The most agressive ones don't even know or have the moral mindset to know they are doing anything wrong. "All I did was send a tweet". Yeah right....

Airlines hate deplaning passengers, because it could mean delays, bad PR, offloading baggage, possible other passengers on the plane interfering with the situation, etc. It is always a joint decision of the captain, the purser and the gate supervisor, and often his/her supervisor, security/border patrol, and/or Operations Control of the airline, and is really only done if there is a real threatening out-of-control situation. One person who is not the top of the food chain making that kind of decision all by herself on the basis of one tweet? Very doubtful.

The alternative is to lock yourself in your house and even then a freak accident can kill you.

My DH lived in a town where 2 people got killed on the sofa in their living room drinking coffee.

A train derailed, ploughed through their house and hit them on the sofa.

:confused:

 

That's not so bad.

You do know you are flying in the opposite direction, and fly back over Amsterdam, don't you?

Amsterdam-Zurich = 1,5 hours, minimum connecting time in Zurich about one hour, Zurich-London=1,5 hours.

Flying time Amsterdam-London= 40 minutes.

You will have access to business class lounges, but if there are any "first class" lounges, almost certainly you will not have access to them, since they would be reserved for international first class passengers. I think the only airport this might come into question is Paris/CDG, though I am not positive they have a first class lounge there (I think they do but I don't have the time to look it up to be certain).

I think you are mixing up first and business class lounges. In many European airports, KLM/AF has one and the same for both. That is certainly the case in Amsterdam. If you travel World Business Class, you always have lounge access.

According to the KLM, the World Business Class Lounge in CDG is in Terminal 2, after the Tax Free Zone.

I'm not sure who operates the Sky Team lounge(s) at BCN but you will have access.

According to the KLM website, the lounge you can use in BCN is the Pau Casels Lounge in Terminal 1.

When I worked at AMS airport I once saw a strange alternative flight for an overbooked one. Even after raising the amount offered, they could not find any volunteers : Amsterdam-London via Zurich :D

I have done multiple long land trips of Portugal, and I must say that this area has not left a particular impression on me. There are many beautiful areas in Portugal.

You will probably need to rent a car and DIY, as the public transport will only take you as far as Sesimbra or Setubal. It is about 1 hour from Lisbon. The traffic in Lisbon is not for the faint-hearted though, I would not recommend driving in the centre.

Sorry no idea of what may be further afield of historical interest

Try here: http://www.mydestination.com/marmaris/6183017/top-10-historical-sites-on-the-marmaris-peninsula#

The rain this week was heavy, but there is no way predicting what conditions will be like in September.

Like steamboats says, low or high water can happen any time on a river cruise. This week I read that Missisippi cruises were moved to the Ohio river due to high water.

You could try posting in the Africa forum.

Depending on your level of interest, your fitness, how much you want to do in one day, how long you want to spend in one tourist attraction, at least 2 or 3 full days.

Tourist attractions close on alternate days. This is the case for major sights such as Topkapi, Dolmabahce, Hagia Sophia and a many other smaller sights. Monday and/or Tuesday are especially affected. Make sure you check things are open on the day you want to visit. I found a comprehensive list, not sure though how old it is: http://www.istanbultrails.com/2008/06/overview-of-closing-days-and-opening-hours-in-istanbul/

The person who told me about the Holland issue claims it is a problem unique to Holland right now.

No it is not. The chip is used widely across Europe as a security measure on debit bank cards.

In some countries you need a pin-code with your credit card, for example in Italy and the Czech Republic.

Etihad has started Etihad regional in Europe as well now and serves over 32 airports so far having added 20 new routes so far this year.

To be precise, they have bought a minority share in Darwin Airlines, a Swiss airline that has been around since 2003. They changed the ridiculous name into Etihad Regional.

Have you looked at the repositioning cruises? That's how we got there on the Statendam in 1994, going from Lisbon to Ft. Lauderdale.

Star Clipper and HAL Maasdam stop there on a repo end October.

Otherwise, you will have to travel on a European based cruiseline, like MSC, Costa, P&O or Aida.