Roseflyer

I don't use Carmel or Dial7, but I would think that a Taxi from a hotel would probably be one of the more cost effective options. My guess is that it would be about $50.

First of all, do not drive in Manhattan between tourists spots. It's a bad idea. Traffic is a mess and you'll be driving at rush hour. Parking is difficult. Lots are available, but you won't find easy in and out type lots. You should drive into the city, park the car at the hotel, and then take public transportation to the tourists sites that you are interested in.

 

About hotels, you are coming midweek in March. That means that you'll be looking in the $250 and up range for hotels in the city. Parking could be $50 or more for a single night. If you can afford that, find a hotel in the Times Square/Theater District. I suggest this area because tourists like Times Square. You can walk to the empire state building, Rockefeller center, times square and central park all from that central area. If you can't afford those prices, then you have options. Long Island City in Queens is less expensive and is easily accessible on the subway. It is a nice enough area, but in general Queens is not really the most pleasant spot for tourists. You can also stay in Westchester County around White Plains which feels more like Maine. There are reasonable hotels that you can find for about $150 per night, but then you have to ride Metro North. Metro North will cost up to $26 round trip per person, so think about whether you are saving money or not.

 

For transport within the city on your one day, you have three options. Taxi, Uber or Subway. Different people have their preferences. I personally hate New York taxis. They are dirty and drive like mad. Uber can be better, but it isn't as easy finding the car if you don't know exactly where you are (be warned that when you are using your phone's GPS it may be a block or more in the wrong direction since it can't get clear signals in midtown due to the skyscrapers). I personally like the Subway. It is predictable and if you learn how to read the map, easy to use. The subway map is confusing with the multiple train lines on the same path, downtown vs uptown, local vs express. If in doubt, ask for help. While they don't always seem the friendliest, if you have a subway map, most New Yorkers will help you (to identify a New Yorker, look for someone with a briefcase who walks quickly while not looking at anyone in the face and avoid anyone wearing logo tshirts or carrying cameras or shopping bags). Subway rides are $2.50 each person. It's easy to get north south. It's hard to get east to west on Manhattan. The subway entrance at Times Square is at 42nd street and hard to spot.

 

Midday traffic isn't that bad to get to the cruise terminal. There isn't very good public transit, so driving is ok. There is parking at the pier. Be careful driving in the city. People jay walk, so you'll have to honk at people in intersections even when you have the green light. Also bicycles come up from all directions at high speed. Taxis, black limos and various trucks will hit you if you get in their way and do unpredictable things. In general I suggest for someone who has not driven in the city much, do as little driving as you can. New York has the best public transportation in the country, taxis/uber aren't expensive and the subway goes most places.

What are you asking? I don't see a question in your post. As far as Amtrak goes, I've used it between Connecticut and New York. While getting on trains from Penn Station can be a messy confusing disaster, the train itself is quite nice. It's not particularly fast because you have to share the track with Metro North trains for much of the distance and that section of track frequently has delays. Just plan some extra time in case the train is late. If anyone suggest Metro North between New Haven and New York, yes Metro North has more frequent trains and requires no reservations. The downside is that Metro North trains are louder and less comfortable and have no food/bar. If you book more than 21 days out, Amtrak and Metro North are basically the same price.

Overall, Amtrak is quite nice, although if you get on a through train starting from Providence, you may not be able to sit together. If it is a busy time of the day, all the seat pairs are taken up by people from Boston and there are just random aisle and window seats through out the train car. People will move if asked, but might give you some attitude. It's not easy to get many seats together if you are getting on at a stop in the middle of the train line. I've personally never seen a train packed so tightly that there was not enough space for luggage. Holidays might be different, but normally in the Northeast corridor, people only have small carry on bags and briefcases. You don't see that much luggage from the business commuters.

I have walked by Rockefeller Center and the plaza a couple times in the morning while they were taping. Outside of summer time I was surprised how few people are actually there. They make it seem like it is a huge crowd when you see it on TV, but when it isn't hot and the middle of summer, there aren't that many people out there during the taping. I also don't know how interesting it would actually be if they didn't have one of their concerts going on.

 

New Yorkers tend to avoid a lot of the tapings going on. Personally I've been to some of the less popular TV shows being taped and it can be fun and is free. For example I went to the taping of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee a couple months ago and it was a lot of fun. There are a number of shows that get taped that don't attract the huge crowds like some of the late night comedians get.

I personally dislike New York City Taxis. The driving is downright terrifying sometimes. Drivers also will avoid using the air conditioning some times, but will turn it on if asked (although you might get some attitude in response to your request).

 

Uber often has better cars and drivers. The challenge with Uber is you have to know exactly where you are and find your car. It's not as easy as getting in the nearest taxi.

 

Personally, I'll use the subway as much as possible. Unfortunately it's not that useful for cross town travel near the cruise port.

As the other poster said, all you will go through in Zurich is a passport check and security. You will go through customs in Copenhagen, however customs within the Schengen region of Europe is almost non existent compared to US standards. You will barely notice when you go through customs. In almost all cases you simply walk through with a chance that a dog might sniff near you.

I personally like Manhattan in the winter. You can visit all the museums and go to the shows which are all empty. Good hotels are under $100 a night. The streets are only filled with New Yorkers and very few tourists, so it is easy to get around. Manhattan is truly a different place from January until March. I personally don't like Manhattan in the summer since it is sweltering with heat and humidity and it is impossible to escape the tourists.

 

Cruising out in the winter can be a good or bad experience. The chances of you hitting a big blizzard or nor easter storm are small, but possible. New York gets a sufficient amount of snow that at least once a winter there is an impossible amount of snow that shuts streets and subways down. If you are staying in the city it is fine. I don't know how the cruises handled the blizzard that we got last year. We all know what happened to Anthem of the Seas in the big storm. While the chances of you being affected by a winter storm are low, they still exist. It's probably the same risk as dealing with hurricanes in the summer in the Caribbean.

 

The only thing that has stopped me from taking a cruise from New York is that an itinerary to Port Canaveral and Nassau is not particularly appealing. I'm not the biggest fan of sea days, so I don't really want 3 sea days to only get to visit Florida & the Bahamas. I can't get enough time off to take a longer cruise all the way to Puerto Rico and also I think I'd prefer to fly rather than sail multiple days to get there.

In late October, you should be able to find a times square hotel for under $300. Most times square area hotels are relatively similar as long as you stay at one that is 3 star or better. If you are spending a couple nights, midtown is a good place for tourists. Brooklyn and Queens are not as nice to stay in, but you can find a hotel next to the subway for easy access to Manhattan.

If you plan on leaving around 4pm on a Sunday, I would simply suggest a cab to LGA or Uber. You will have little trouble finding one and then you don't have to worry about exactly when you are ready to go.

 

A quick tip is that you never want to cross time square in a taxi. If you pick one up on the east side of times square on a street heading east, you'll save 5-10 minutes. Traffic through times square is a disaster. Picking up a taxi just one block east of times square wills ave you time and money.

 

You certainly can do a hop on hop off bus double decker tour. You can wander around central park, times square, rockefeller center, etc. Lots of things to do. Right next to the Manhattan pier is the intrepid museum if you have kids and like airplanes and ships.

Most of the flights clear customs and immigration at Vancouver airport, with the exception of the red eye flights. It depends on your departure time. Preclearance closes at 830pm, so if you are on an overnight flight to Chicago, you clear customs and immigration in Chicago in the morning and do need to claim your luggage. What time does your flight depart?

Without an EZ Pass, I think the toll is about $40 to cross all of Pennsylvania, but you won't be on the turnpike for the entire distance. You only are on it for about half its length, so it should be about $20 each way. You need cash. The turnpike uses a ticket system. You get a ticket when you enter and then when you exit you pay based on how far you went. The ticket has prices for each exit listed on it. Don't go through the EZPass lanes, otherwise you will get a violation in the mail. I78 also has a toll on it when you go from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, so make sure you have plenty of cash.

I76 is a toll road. It's the Pennslyvannia Turnpike. If you have an EZ Pass account, it is an extra $30. It also tends to have more trucks than I80 farther north.

As a general rule of thumb, air fare in the United States tends to be the lowest 45-90 days before departure. If you book too early, you likely will pay more and risk a schedule change. When booking flights within a narrow window more than 4 months out, be warned that any airline other than Alaska could give you a schedule change that ruins your plans. Alaska Airlines has almost hourly flights, so it is easy to rebook with them. Others like Delta, JetBlue, etc who have less frequent schedules to ANC may shift the timing.

 

One way fares can be expensive. If you find a good deal under $200 each way, then go ahead and book that.

 

While rarely caught, it is actually illegal to book a ticket on a Canadian airline between Alaska and the lower 48. A Canadian airline cannot sell you a ticket between two US cities. You have to have two separate tickets (one to Vancouver and another to Anchorage). It is ok if you fly different airlines with separate tickets, but be warned that you'll be paying extra in baggage fees and your luggage will not necessarily be through checked on your way back. A schedule change could also be difficult. I don't recommend stringing one way tickets for each of your three segments together via Vancouver if you book more than 3 months out since a schedule change on one airline will force you into a $200 change fee on another. Along with taxes and the complexity of flying XXX - YVR Cruise ANC - YVR - XXX, prices to fly to Vancouver can be higher. You see lots of people booking tickets to Seattle and taking the bus or train to Vancouver.

Your flight to Cincinnati may still depart from Terminal 4. Not all of the regional jet flights depart from Terminal 2. There is a bus that transfers you to the other gates if you need to switch terminals. It is not that bad at all.

 

JFK is known to potentially take a while through immigration. Global Entry should easily take care of that. Terminal 4 is one of the best to go through. It isn't that much different than going through any other Delta hub. Just be warned that your CVG flight may be delayed if weather is bad. In the late afternoon, JFK can end up with 2 or 3 hour delays and it is the smaller regional jets that tend to have the worst delays. The international flights almost always arrive on time, so be flexible to deal with a delay.

Metro north to grand central and then the air porter is probably your most economic way to go. I take metro north and then walk a few blocks to the subway personally, but the airportjf is fine if you don't know the subway system.

 

If your flight was not so early, I would suggest Amtrak to Penn Station as an option. If you book weeks in advance Metro North and Amtrak are just about the same price, but Amtrak trains are more comfortable than Metro North. They use the same stations between New Haven and New York except Amtrak uses Penn and Metro North uses Grand Central. Grand Central is nicer.

Depending on the airline, you might actually earn none. It is a growing trend, especially among European airlines, to not give miles on the consolidator/bulk fares. The US airlines with the miles based on dollar value should pay something. You can usually find out an estimate when looking at an itinerary if you are able to book something that gives a confirmation booking code for the airline. Sometimes you will simply see it listed as bulk and not get any miles. Tour package bookings often don't give any airline miles or hotel reward points. This is one way where they save you money. You save a couple hundred dollars by not earning any reward miles on more expensive bookings. Most airlines value miles at about 1 cent per mile on the open market for credit card companies, hotel companies, etc who buy and trade miles. They'll pay 5 to 11 miles per dollar, which means 5-11% of the fare depending on your status, in the form of award miles. Tour group or bulk fares often can give discounts in this range, so it is clear what you are sacrificing.

I suspect that you would have intermittent cell phone coverage for quite a while. Baltimore is 160 miles away from the open ocean. You will be in Chesapeake Bay for 6 hours or more hours. The service would probably be intermittent since it depends on how close to shore you are and where the towers are. The bay is not the most densely populated area. There should be coverage up to 5-8 miles from shore. You may still pick some up in range of Virginia Beach for a while.

Alitalia has a good business class seat. It is essentially the same seat used by Austrian, Swiss, Iberia, as well as some planes in the American and Delta 767 fleets. It goes fully flat and is quite comfortable for sleeping. It is on the narrow side and the space for your feet when sleeping can be a bit tight, so it can be a bit uncomfortable for larger people. Overall it is very nice and comfortable and a good way to travel that long distance. It's better than the old Air France business class seats that are still flying, so it is a good use of your points.

Cathay pacific has one of the best business class products in the world. I personally think they have the best seat design. A few other airlines use the same seat manufacturer, but overall I think you would be very happy flying them. Since you are using miles from multiple sources you can fly one airline in one direction and go a different way the other. NYC to HKG, stay a couple nights and then go on to AKL would be good. You can do something very different on the way back and fly LATAM through Santiago Chile. You could also come back through China or Korea. A stop in Beijing or Shanghai could be interesting. If you end up having to buy a ticket one way in business the Chinese airlines are almost always cheapest and nowadays are using the newest and best planes with good quality business class seats, although service standards are below what you get on Cathay or Singapore.

 

Don't go through Singapore. NYC to Singapore involves a layover in Frankfurt and is simply too far out of the way. Similarly Dubai is also too far in my opinion out of the way.

I think the cheapest option is MegaBus. The buses are double decker and actually reasonably nice and cheap. There is a bus leaving every hour or two from Manhattan to Boston. I think it is about 5 hours. The bus itself is only about $5-$20 per person. It costs more to get to 34th St in Manhattan where the bus departs from.

Is there a reason that you want to go to Asia when flying from New York to New Zealand? Going through Asia adds about 5,000 miles to your journey, which is 10 hours in the air. If you want to go visit Asia, that is great, but a 1-2 day layover between New Zealand and New York seems exhausting and not worth the effort. If you want to visit Dubai, Singapore, etc do a dedicated trip to Asia.

 

New York to AKL is a long journey. United and Hawaiian can take you the entire way. Hawaiian has good prices for their first class. They are upgrading the planes to international quality seats, although you may still get the old seats which aren't fully international quality. You also would get an opportunity for a layover in Hawaii halfway through your journey, which could be nice.

 

United flies through San Francisco. United is nothing special. It is really hard to use miles on United to get business class to Hawaii and the price to pay for it is very high. However this is the fastest way to go since you have a single connection in San Francisco. You need to fly out of Newark.

 

Air New Zealand is a great airline and lets you connect in Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston or Honolulu. I don't personally see much value in a stopover after a 5 hour flight from New York to the west coast. If you can sleep on a plane, flying nonstop from the US to New Zealand is really easy since it is an overnight 12 hour flight. If you sleep, you can get a full nights rest and be ready for the next day. If you don't sleep on planes, then you may want to choose an option like the Hawaii stopover.

There certainly are some last minute bargains. Usually they are inside and ocean view rooms. The one problem is that currently the discount last minute cruises tend to be one way between Vancouver and Seward, so that does not save you money unless you are looking for back to back cruises and don't mind driving or taking Amtrak up to Vancouver.

Terminal 4 food options outside security are very limited. Terminal 1 has a whole food court on the top level that is outside of security (in terminal 1 most of the food is pre security whereas in terminal 4 almost all of it is post security). If you don't want Dunkin Donuts and have time, you can hop the airtrain to terminal 1.

 

Here is the website with restaurants

 

http://www.panynj.gov/airports/jfk-shops-restaurants-services.html

If you call up Delta and ask them to put you on the flight to Fairbanks a day earlier because of the schedule change, they probably will do it with no fee. Airlines change schedules. The final schedule is usually not firm until 60-90 days before departure. Delta is well known for changing flight times more than 90 days before departure.

 

When they change the schedule, the computer will automatically reroute you on the flight closest to your original departure time on the same day as long as the connection meets the minimum requirements. Sometimes this can result in some weird layovers for international travel or for flights that are infrequent. If you don't want to spend 36 hours in Seattle, you can call Delta reservations and ask to be put on the 9:55pm departure on the 1st. Since the schedule change is more than 4 hours, they should do it even though it is a change of day. Also they may offer you a refund in the fare on your SEA-FAI flight if you say that you cannot accept the schedule change. The SEA-FAI part of the fare may be close to what Alaska charges and then you can simply rebook. Staying on the same airline is usually preferred, but it could be an option. The airport in Fairbanks will actually be quite busy at 1am since it is common for flights to and from the lower 48 to arrive around midnight and have early morning departures around 1 or 2am.

Both of those connections are fine. I'd book either one. Both ATL and PHL can get delays. PHL might be a bit worse, but in September it should not be too bad. US Domestic to International is the same as Domestic to Domestic other than showing your passport at the gate. ATL on Delta may be a bit better.

 

If your flight departing Florida is delayed, immediately go to the counter or call reservations on your phone. American has a number of flights to Rome through other cities like Chicago, New York etc so they can reroute you if needed. Also there are later flights to London leaving from PHL that could connect to Rome if needed.

 

One last comment, make sure the reservation is on a single ticket and single airline. Switching airlines is too risky for an international connection.