Zach1213

Customs is very quick. You just walk through a short hallway with your belongings and hope you don't get stopped 🙂 Immigration, I am guessing, is what you're interested in. My experience is that immigration at FCO can be all over the place. I've cleared before in two minutes, and I've cleared before in 30 minutes...both coming off the same flight, at the same flight, on the same day of the week. I would do a 2pm tour instead of 1pm just to be safe...should be fine unless you're substantially delayed.

Expedia is usually pretty good/accurate with pricing. They're one of the reliable ones. BUT, I would use Expedia (or the ITA Matrix mentioned earlier) to find flights, then head over to the airline to book them.

Move over, wife, I finally found my vacation soulmate

While tourism or business do not require Schengen visas for short term travel, there are times when US citizens do need visas. Work visas still come from individual countries (i.e. a German work visa, not an EU/Schengen work visa) and are required by US citizens with plans of working (not just doing business travel) in the Schengen zone. I believe long-term student visas also come from the individual countries. Obviously neither of these apply to OP, but there are still cases where Americans (and other visa-exempt countries) do still need visas.

Just some thoughts: 2. Do be aware that mock bookings mean little, as even in the same month of year, the difference between 2023 and 2024 could be huge (up or down in price), and schedules could be very different. 3. The HNL layovers have definite pros and cons. I have done the nonstops many, many times and have also stopped in HNL twice. LAS-HNL-SYD and LAS-LAX-SYD are almost the exact same distance, so your flight time won't be much different overall. Adding a layover may be nice if you have the time and money, but there's a lot to be said for just "getting it done with". 4. Yes, the vast majority of North America to Australia departures are evening because they take advantage of the time changes to fly exclusively through night to arrive in the morning. That won't change between now and 2024, so in all likelihood this is what you'll be looking at if you go the nonstop route. 6. Look in to Premium Economy too; price should fall in between Economy and Business, though don't be surprised if it's closer to the Business class price than you might think. And note that "Premium Economy" is a class of service, not just a gimmick with a few extra inches of legroom (i.e. "Economy Plus" or "Comfort Plus"). Anywho, if you truly have six days in between Australia and Singapore, consider adding another place in Australia to hang out for a few days. For example, it seems a lot of cruises ignore Melbourne which is, in my opinion, the best city in Australia and only an hour flight from Sydney. There are then plenty of flights from Melbourne to Singapore. Also some great destinations relatively close to Singapore, such as Jakarta, Yogyakarta, and Kuala Lumpur.

And of course I meant to say "...rather than just focusing on the plane". Oof.

I am always going to recommend the train. It's up to them to determine if it's the right choice for them, but to me it would be foolish to not mention the train as an option rather than just focusing on the train. That being said, my recommendation of the train was based on the "arrive a day earlier" advice from those before me. French trains are delayed by strikes some time, sure. So is French air traffic. Hell, in today's case, the schools and power companies are even impacted. But the fact of the matter is, both air and rail travel in France work just fine the vast majority of the time.

I love the train option and always push this. As much as I am an aviation geek (and it's my chosen career, so definitely support flying!), the idea of flying in to CDG and taking a nice train ride through the French countryside to start your vacation sounds lovely to me. I often do this in Germany for work (fly in to Frankfurt and take a train to Hamburg or Bremen, for example), and it's just a nice way to roll.

I still remember my joyous attempt at getting home LHR-DFW-MCI during a Dallas snowstorm in 2015. Arrived in DFW four hours late, and even as an AA ExecPlat, they told me it would be two days to get me back to Kansas City. So of course I grabbed the last rental car National had, but only made it like an hour outside of Dallas before the roads were shut and I had to admit defeat and get a hotel room for a few hours before finally finishing the drive the next day. Funny thing is, had I done LHR-ORD-MCI instead, I would have made it home perfectly on time.

In my opinion, it absolutely can be compared. DFW doesn't have much equipment or crews for de-icing, so even a tiny bit will cause havoc; on the other end, MSP has a huge de-icing and snow clearing operation, so even a large amount of snow can be handled fairly easily. That was my point - there's a fallacy that MSP is worse than DFW in winter, but my point is that the opposite can very much be true, especially as the climate changes and we see more nasty winter weather hit DFW and other parts of Texas that they're still not prepared to handle. Same can be said for places like Atlanta.

Most economical may be a point or argument, though with the caveat that TAP is the only airline doing LIS-FCO; Ryanair does LIS-CIA. Mainline European airlines, like TAP, are acting more like Ryanair and Easyjet each day. I picked a random date later this year, September 1, and compared LIS-Rome nonstop on the two carriers that do it, TAP and Ryanair (note TAP goes to Fiumicino, while Ryanair goes to Ciampino): TAP has four flights a day, so I am choosing one of the mid-day flights, which is also mid-price. I am choosing the fare that includes a hand bag up to 10kg and nothing else (no checked bags, food, seat assignment). The price is 130 EUR. Ryanair has two flights a day, and are priced about the same. For roughly the same price (127 EUR), you can get the same hand bag allowance, priority boarding, and a seat assignment. For 137 EUR you also can get a checked bag up to 20kg. So, I definitely believe TAP is the better option (though, I do think Ryanair gets a bad rap for what it is), but it's not necessarily the most economical version.

That's the fallacy I mention earlier. Is Minneapolis going get a metric crap ton more snow each year than Dallas? Of course...but, because of that, they know how to handle it, and they set up an efficient winter operation at the airport.

TAP definitely isn't great on shorthauls, but they're just fine. Good enough. More to the point, there aren't many better options. Some airlines may be slightly better (stress on the "slightly"), but aren't worth adding hours and a connection for. Some are worse. Just do the nonstop on TAP (assuming by "Portugal" you really mean "Lisbon").

Interesting, I didn't know both FlyDubai and Emirates did TLV-DXB. My how times change!

Just a heads up, there's not any international airport in Jerusalem and you'll be flying to/from Tel Aviv (TLV). I assume your cruise also ends in Tel Aviv or at least somewhere near Tel Aviv since Jerusalem is very much not a coastal city. Emirates Business Class is quite nice, so I would probably recommend that. I would say, after that, look at Turkish via Istanbul. There are plenty of other business class options between TLV and IAH (BA via London, Air France via Paris, Lufthansa via Frankfurt, KLM via Amsterdam, American via NYC, Delta via Atlanta/Boston/NYC, United via Chicago/Newark/DC) which will be fine, but I do think Emirates is a step above in both hard and soft product. If you don't mind backtracking a couple hours (going east TLV-DXB to go west DXB-IAH), you're sure to have an enjoyable flight.

My opinion as an AA frequently flier who does about 125,000+ BIS miles each year, and has since 2007ish - I know both ORD and DFW very well, and connect through them both multiple times each month. I personally don't choose one over the other in winter. ORD may get more winter weather, but they can handle it a lot better...DFW gets less, but a small amount paralyzes them. Six in one, half dozen in the other in my opinion and experience. I find DFW to be extremely easy to change gates. Five terminals, sure, but a very efficient train with multiple stops in each terminal and clear signage showing which direction is quicker. I've made plenty of 40 minute connections in DFW (as have my bags) and, like Atlanta, find it shockingly easy and efficient for its size.

Wow, I had not heard about this...no idea how I missed it. That's scary.

If there's truly IRROPs, even the addition of Air New Zealand and Hawaiian won't help a ton if 400+ people need to be reaccumulated. Add to the fact that a lot of people will have First, Business, Refundable Economy, and/or high frequent flier status and get priority, most times, before an average economy class customer, and you can be waiting quite a while for your next available seat.

Here I thought Michael Jackson had passed, but he's still doin' this to poor Blanket, huh?

Yeah I see that. I swore I had gone through pre-check at Victoria Airport (admittedly, only been there once), and when I looked it up I got confused. Looks like my memory is going down the drain!

EDIT: I swore that Victoria had pre-clearance, but I guess they don't upon further review. With that in mind, you will need to clear immigration and customs in Seattle, and likely re-clear security. I wouldn't re-book my flight because of this, but it will be quite tight most likely. ORIGINAL POST: The US has immigration/customs pre-clearance at Victoria between 7am and 3pm, so if you're departing during this time, you will clear in Victoria and land in Seattle like a domestic flight, with nothing needed beyond just going to the next gate. So, departure time is important. Also note that immigration and customs are different things. Immigration is checking you have the correct paperwork to enter the country; customs is checking what you are physically bringing in to the country. Preclearance covers both.

Ha...I am full of risk and adventure. I've taken vacations to places like Iraq, Haiti (not Labadee), Libya, and Somalia. But I always fly in to my cruise a day early. If I can't arrive a day early, that's not the cruise for me.

To clarify - in most cases, those seats (that are generally just extra legroom) are not technically considered an upgrade in my experience. Once you start looking at Premium Economy, which is different, you start getting in to what is really considered to be an "upgrade". Anyways, in this case, I believe the prices remain relatively consistent. There may be fluctuations up or down, I am not sure, but it's definitely not like ticket prices that are constantly changing. I find these extra legroom seat prices to be more-or-less static in pricing.

I don't fly longhaul on Air Canada or United often, but when I have, I've found them pretty much interchangeable in both soft and hard product. I would choose the pricing and times that work best for you. One perk of United may be that you could just drive up to Newark and fly nonstop to VCE from there. Not sure how you plan to get from Venice to Trieste, but if it's by road, it might also be worth looking at Ljubljana. You could fly, say, PHL-Frankfurt-Ljubljana on Lufthansa, or PHL-London-Ljubljana on British Airways. The driving time is actually shorter from Ljubljana to Trieste than it is from Venice to Trieste. If you're look at trains, ignore this, because the train is much longer from Ljubljana than from Venice.

While MSP is definitely nicer in just about every way, I have to give ATL props for how it's laid out. I find it to be very efficient despite its size, and while 90 minutes is always preferable, the MCT at ATL is shockingly short and, in most cases, can be easily made. The layout of the terminals and train connecting them is pretty darn efficient.