Globaliser

In Rotterdam, my first suggestion would be the ss Rotterdam.

If you mean between T2 and T3, then yes. You use the underground tunnels, and the route should be well signed from the terminals.

Just don't make the mistake of using it. The best seat maps currently available are on aerolopa.com. Although you have to work out for yourself what the advantages and disadvantages are of each seat, the accuracy of the seat maps means that most of this is pretty obvious. (Anything that SeatGuru said beyond the blindingly obvious was usually worthless, anyway - leaving aside the inaccuracy of its seat maps.)

Because most passengers will make it, most of the time, and many passengers want the shortest overall journey time. Airlines calculate official Minimum Connection Times on this basis, knowing that if they get it wrong and too many passengers miss their connections, then that will cost the airline a lot of money. If a short connection doesn't work for you, for whatever reason, then choose something else. Although not by buying two separate tickets - unless you know exactly what you are doing, and why, and what the implications and consequences are. If you buy two separate tickets, that is not a connection, and doing this can open up a whole world of pain if things go wrong.

Do you mean the Riu Plaza London Victoria? It's next to Victoria station, so it's easily walkable to the sights at that end of town, eg Buckingham Palace (½ mile) and Westminster Abbey/Parliament (1 mile). I think that's the hotel that's basically part of Paddington station, but Paddington isn't really central London.

Just to add on this theme: St Pancras, Farringdon, City Thameslink, Blackfriars and London Bridge also have good direct trains to LGW.

In case anyone is looking at such a trip, it may be worth noting that the merger between Thalys and Eurostar has now completed. Officially, all their trains are now "Eurostar" branded, although I understand that the existing (Thalys) red and (Eurostar) blue colours will continue to be used.

But the difference is that it shouldn't be a big problem if it happens. Take out a backup card to use, and let the bank take any financial hit on the stolen card (as it is paid to do).

Maybe I should keep a diary! As the thread has come back to the top again: I haven't managed a diary as such (yet), but I have noticed that of the four coffee shops near the office that I routinely use, three are cashless.

There's no single answer to this question. It depends on your itinerary: principally route and airline(s).

But once you're in the north lounge, it takes almost exactly as long to get to B gates as it does to C gates. Almost everyone will take the transit from the main building (where the A gates are). Once you're on the transit, it's about 90 seconds extra to get from the B gates station to the C gates station. (You also don't need 30 minutes to get to a C gate, but those who don't know a particular terminal well may want to give themselves a bit of margin.) If you're "fooled" by an announced gate allocation, it's almost always only because you've been guessing without information. Gate allocations can change until quite close to departure time, which is why the policy is not to announce them until they're confirmed. Anyway, all of this is a long way from FRA.

Does it have to be Rotterdam? One obvious location for that length of time would be Amsterdam, but I don't know whether you have reasons for specifically wanting to be in Rotterdam. If you do stay in Rotterdam, my first suggestion for accommodation would be the ss Rotterdam.

I was only being half serious. IIRC, the eastern end of what is now Concourse D was originally built in 1995 and known as Concourse A and is basically unchanged from then. For that end of the building, the biggest conceptual change in forming the current Concourse D was probably to create direct airside access between it and the old Concourses B, C and D (where more extensive rebuilding work did take place). As I said, the old Concourse A walks never seemed particularly long, and I often choose to walk similar distances in airports even where there is a train or transit - but obviously it'll be a different story if you really do need to get between the far eastern end and the far western end of Concourse D.

I suspect that cruise passengers to/from Port Canaveral are probably only a tiny proportion of the potential market, so that there's no commercial case for a station there. The company's approach to baggage also seems odd, for a new service that could presumably have been designed from scratch, adopting lessons from successful railways elsewhere in the world. It's almost a lesson in how to deter people from using you.

Wait ... there's now a train at MIA?! I never noticed that the walks were particularly long, even when heading out to the far end of Concourse A (as it was then).

https://www.abports.co.uk/media/n2qpmrlo/southampton-port-plan-2022.pdf https://maps.app.goo.gl/yK18jepFRVwGprbVA

Christmas is a big thing in the UK, and much bigger than in the US (because we haven't been exhausted by Thanksgiving, which basically doesn't exist here). So London will be very festive and there will be a great deal of seasonal entertainment. I think that there are two main things to bear in mind. First, on Christmas Day itself there will be very little happening. You will be able to eat, pray and love. But otherwise everything will be closed all day. Second, the days will be short then: you're probably used to a day length of about 9 hours (sunrise to sunset) at Christmas, but in London it'll be more like 7¾ hours. If you're from upstate NY, I doubt that you should worry at all about "cold". 😄

If I'm looking at the same flights that you are, the shorter connection departs ATL at 1800 and arrives at AVL at 1900, but the longer connection doesn't depart ATL until 1959 (arriving AVL at 2056, which matches your "2 hours later"). So the longer connection is more like 4:35. As far as I can see, the published Minimum Connection Time for this is 1:25, so even the shorter connection gives you more than an hour extra. For a connection that's bang on the MCT, most passengers will make it most of the time, so you would have a bit of additional margin even if you take that earlier flight.

If you only have a week, don't bother going outside London. London itself needs at least three months, so a week isn't going to allow you to do "ALL the things" there, let alone anything that's not in London. If you spend three days out of your week outside London, you won't even have scratched London's surface. Another way of putting it is to ask what the word "or" is doing in the thread title. 😉

Am I right in thinking that McDonald and LaBelle are each doing one show twice, once for red cards and once for blue cards? Jazz Cruises has done something like the LaBelle arrangement before, too, for someone (I forget who) that doesn't like being at sea.

Do you have to take the Amsterdam-Paris flight? If you have further flights on the itinerary, then sadly the answer will be yes. But if you don't have to take that flight and you can safely junk the ticket, then a more attractive alternative would be to go in to central Amsterdam and stay there, and then take the train to Paris the next day. It's about 3½ hours direct from Amsterdam Centraal to Paris Gare du Nord.

There was a small insight into this in yesterday's email about the McDonald & LaBelle cruise: "... Jazz Cruises has never produced a 4-day cruise as their programs are customarily 7 days in length. Yet, here we are with a 4-day program that features two of the most important and iconic 'soul' performers in the world. How did this happen? In this case, the availability of a ship led the way. Norwegian Cruise Line was seeking to fill a void in its itinerary for the Norwegian Pearl. This ship has been retrofitted to provide maximum venues for music charters. From January to May each year, the ship is entirely booked with such charters. One of the charters, whose program was in the middle of this run, was unable to complete its program and defaulted. NCL reached out to Jazz Cruises to see if we could fill the gap with a program. Normally, it takes 14–16 months to create a new cruise program, however launching a first-class program in less time than that is one of our strengths." ISTR that Jazz Cruises has taken NCL ships in the past, so I'm not minded to read anything into the "retrofit" sentence - but I expect that maintaining a relationship with NCL won't do either company any harm.

Are your ATM cards debit cards? If so, you could simply have used them as debit cards rather than trying to draw cash. There is always the ultimate backup of drawing cash on the credit card. Indeed, 30 years ago that was probably the best way of getting cash overseas, but changes to typical fee structures have seen to that.

And 26 September seems to be confirmed: "The announcement will be processed in waves and should have your information by day’s end. Since our guests are spread throughout the entire country and many international locations, the time you receive your announcement may vary, but you should have your information by day's end." Booking / pre-booking instructions will be sent the next day.

A slight nuance on this information. Frequent travelers to the US from selected other countries, including the UK, are eligible for Global Entry: https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/global-entry/eligibility Global Entry won't be worthwhile for most visitors to the US, because of the time, cost and effort involved in applying for it. Also, it's only available to citizens of a very limited number of countries; for example, even from (geographical) Europe, only five countries' citizens are eligible. The rest of us either just have to suffer the queues - or else not bother to go to the US when there are so many other countries to visit.