jsmeeker

The bottom of the Elizabeth Tower is already covered in scaffolding, so it's going to ruin the most popular tourist photo/selfie site too.

 

Bright side, it might be easier to walk to Westminster tube without tourists taking those pictures blocking the pavement...

 

 

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ha.. No such luck two weeks ago. Area was totally rammed like one would expect. I got my selfie in. With scaffold. But that's fine. It wasn't my first visit to London.

When is the trip? Is your crystal ball reliable?

Unless you are a futures trader in currency, just get money from an ATM once you get into town. IF you want some in hand prior to arrival, maybe buy like 100 quid from a local bank just prior to departing

This morning on NBC's "Today" is where I saw it.

That was a nice storm.

name ought to be good enough. Tell 'em where you are going. Fork over your ID. You have to present it to check the bag anyway.

JAX all the way. Even if JAX was 30 minute further drive (it shouldn't be), I would still take it over dealing with MIA. I was just in MIA this week and in JAX the three weeks prior (flying in an out each week). JAX is a much easier airport to deal with. Car rental situation is far more convenient. Traffic in Miami is much worse than in Jacksonville.

Don't forget to print your own bed-time chocolates before you leave home.

Ha.. Good one.

Your towel animal, too.

Just had a two night stay at the Marriott Courtyard. It's right across the A1A from the beach, like most of the hotels are. Decent location. Plenty of things around. Hotel is OK. I was on a points stay and was upgraded to a high floor with an ocean front room. That was really nice view. There is a big pool deck there up one level (basically, on top of the roof of Bubba Gump Shrimp). Rooms were fine. Elevators having issues (I think only two of three were in service). Lobby was a madhouse at 11:00 AM checkout time with people getting shuttles and cabs to cruise port and whatnot. But it seemed to move smoothly. Plenty of staff on had to help move things along. We got our car out of valet without much delay.

I know how you feel. I flew DFW-LHR in J back in December on AA 50. Used SWUs to get up there. They didn't have ice cream sundaes for us after dinner. I was so bummed out. All they had to offer was a measly piece of carrot cake that would be more at home on a domestic mid-con flight.

The Eurostar that goes to Paris is the same Eurostar that runs trains through Lille. The trains from London to Brussels usually stop there. The process is exactly the same.

Are you going to Paris the same day your ship arrives in Southampton? In any case, you should look to book your Eurostar tickets soon. Cheaper tickets sell out. Don't cut it too close time wise. Leave plenty of time to catch your train. Unless you are returning to London to spend time there or elsewhere in England, you'll have to take your luggage with you. I don't think I would recommend returning to London JUST to fly home.

The experience on Eurostar is nice. Just make sure you are at St. Pancras about 45 minutes prior to train's departure. You need to pass through the automated barriers with your ticket and do airport like security and passport/immigration control prior to getting to the lounge where you wait before boarding the train.

If you keep it in the same alliance, you might get them to check the bags through. As far as transferring to a different plane, it would depend on which airport you use and where the flights departed and arrived.

Does Qantas still operate some flights out of T4 at LAX? At DFW, Qantas uses D. The flight from El Paso could arrive in A, C, or D. But it's an easy airside transfer.

HEX and Heathrow connect gets less appealing the further your hotel is from Paddington. Hotels in and around Parliament/Big Ben/Westminster Abbey aren't close to Paddington. Neither are hotels in The City. You'll need a cab from Paddington anyway, so might as well use the tube to get into town and to a station not too far from hotel that has step free access to the street. Then hail a cab. You will spend much less on he tube ride than the HEX/Heathrow Connect ride. There is nothing to see along the way on the HEX/Heathrow connect. There is no countryside to travel through. London is well built up out to LHR. The Underground (tube) doesn't go underground the entire route from LHR into town. Still, not much to see.

This has also been my experience on AA. I am not even sure that I have even seen them actually service from the back first, but it is possible that I just did not notice.

I've seen them actually serve from the back. Sometimes, they take orders first in the correct order, then serve. Other times they just start serving and take the orders as they move up or down the aisle with the cart, starting at front or back as required.

While AA does follow FEBO, I swear I've seen preferential treatment take place. Seems more exception than rule, but I swear I've seen it.

 

This past weekend on MIA-GRU it was interesting to see orders taken from back but served from front. I am glad I was in the last row of J. Maybe I just don't pay attention but I don't remember ever seeing that before.

AA does almost always follow the FEBO rule for taking orders. But it's common to server from the front. AA also allows people to reserve their meal in advance. Not sure if UA and DL and US does this.

Since it's an international flight, put in your passport information into the reservation if you have not done so already. I am not sure if UA lets you check in on-line for an international flight or not. Maybe they do. I know some other airlines do. So, you could do that, use an electronic boarding pass, and then simply check the bags.

It's a lot to do in one day. Is this the only day in London? Are you heading to a cruise port the next day?

I'm not exactly sure what interests you, but I would suggest that St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey deserve more than a "quick peek" inside give the charge to get in. Even if it were free, it still warrants more than a "quick peek". But maybe you could do one and not the other.

An alternative would be to spend most time in and around Westminster area and forgetting The City of London. You could see more with less walking around. Lots of good stuff. In addition to Westminster Abbey you have houses of parliament and big ben. You can see 10 Downing St., Horse Guards Parade and Trafalgar Square before heading down the Mall to see Buckingham Palace.

make sure names match between what you have on your Global Entry ID and what you have on your airline ticket reservation. A slight mismatch could mean you would never get that "PreCheck" on your boarding pass.

FWIW, I've had very high success rates in getting the PreCheck lanes. I don't have GE, but I was nominated by American Airlines due to my status.

B6 presents a similar challenge to those in DFW. If I want to fly them i have to go to BOS. And that's it. Doesn't matter how awesome an airline is if they don't serve your market or only have very limited routes from there.

WN has announced new NON-STOP routes ex-DAL starting in mid-October. That is when the Wright Amendment distance restrictions are lifted. Cities are as follows:

Atlanta, Baltimore/Washington, Chicago - Midway, Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York City - La Guardia, Orange County, CA, Orlando, Phoenix, San Diego, Tampa Bay, and Washington D.C. - Reagan.

Service to five of those cities will start on October 13. The rest on Nov 2. The first five cities haven't been announced.

Visiting London is never a horrible idea. :)

I don't see a good reason to stay in a hotel near LHR with a 1:25 PM arrival time. Head straight into central London. All locations mentioned would be fine and far preferable to being near the airport. Just stay all night there until you are ready to head to Southampton.

I have visited Ireland, by Cruise ship too, plus, Croatia, Montenegro, England,besides France and Italy in Europe. I only have a stamp for France and England from my land trips,no stamps for the others.

 

I am sure some countries require a stamp for your passport, I imagine that is when the cruise ship keeps your pass port because it is necessary for that reason, but I doubt the OP has to worry about where to put all 8 stamps, unless he/she just wants them. Also, as others have pointed out more than one stamp can go on the same page. I know my passport has more than one stamp per page in some places even though I still have a couple of empty pages. To be honest I never even thought about it could be a problem until I read this thread.

it can be an issue for people who travel frequently. And not just via cruise ship. Border control agents frequently have make no real attempt or effort to consolidate stamps on pages that have space. They may just stamp where they feel like it. Maybe whatever open page they happen to flip to. OR maybe they go to a blank page because some other agent didn't bother to place a stamp carefully, preventing the page from being filled up as much as it could have. Visas can take a page or more. When you need a visa, the visa isn't optional like a stamp might be.

Excellent point about having a pen with you. I don't think about this, as I am ALWAYS with a "writing instrument". (Maybe it goes back to my single days when I never wanted to miss out on a "hot phone number"). Anyhow, I see SO many people scrounging for a pen when it comes time to fill out an immigration or customs form. Also, put your passport info (number, issue/end dates, issuing office) on a slip of paper, so you can fill out the form without digging for the actual passport.

 

They didn't find the pen in their amenity kit?

;)

That's a long layover at FRA. Are you getting a hotel?

Current tube maps reflect this change now. Wonder how many people with now out of date tube maps in "old" guide books will get tripped up by this by planing on transferring to/from the Circle or District lines from/to Northern or Bakerloo.

Does Canada have international transit like most of the world or is it like the USA?

Seriously, going from the USA to Europe and back and having to do immigration TWICE in both directions sounds sub-optimal.

If you aren't on some "milage run" or aren't redeeming for an award, why mess with that?