Zach1213

Would be neat to have a New England + Bermuda cruise (Mass. + Maine + Bermuda), but alas, I am not sure if that exists.

Oh jeez. That's a special kind of someone if true. I ended up on the LCY-JFK flight once (with the stop in Shannon). It was definitely a different experience! The convenience of LCY is just so darn great.

RIP to those A318s. I think both of them (G-EUNA and G-EUNB) were scrapped a little over a year ago. I believe only Air France and TAROM still have active A318s, and both have plans to retire them sooner than later. What an odd little aircraft.

I think the others have answered well, but just as a snapshot, today's LHR-PHX (BA 289) aircraft has done the following in the last week: LHR-AUS-LHR, LHR-GRU-EZE-GRU-LHR, LHR-BOM-LHR, LHR-LAS-LHR, LHR-PHX-LHR, LHR-AUS-LHR. So it does to go Phoenix occasionally, but not all of the time. BA's list of A350 destinations still isn't huge, so any one aircraft is going to visit any given destination on a somewhat regular basis. As we all should 🙂

I am by no means a defender of cruise line air, but out of curiosity on this one - were they set up with ground transport, or just dumped in Montreal and told to figure it out? I ask because, even though Quebec City Airport is obviously closer, it may not actually be any quicker if you're not coming from one of the (small number of) places with nonstops to YQB. An example, after clearing immigration/customs/bag claim in Montreal (which you need to do whether you're ending your trip in Montreal or connecting domestically to Quebec): AIR CONNECTION: re-clear security - 15 minutes, wait for flight - 75 minutes (could be more or less depending on connection), flight to YQB - 60 minutes (gate to gate), wait for bags - 15 minutes, ground transport from airport to city center - 25 minutes, total = 3:10 GROUND TRANSPORT: get to already hired ground transport pickup - 15 minutes; ride to Quebec City Centre/Port - 3 hours, total = 3:15 So, they end up pretty much identical in this case, but my hypothetical times could change either way depending on traffic, how much time you have to wait for your connection in Montreal, etc. Again, not trying to defend cruise line air, but IF they procured ground transport in Montreal to get people to Quebec, it's really no different time wise than taking the connecting flight.

I'm doing this out of humor and Friday afternoon blues, I swear! https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=Drive+time+from+Port+Canaveral+to+Disneyworld

I have never cruise to Cabo Verde, but have been to the island of São Vicente, where Porto Grande (aka Mindelo Bay) is. Mindelo is the "city" you'll be dropped in to, and I have been there to. All of Cabo Verde, including São Vicente, is very safe, and Mindelo is very walkable if you are fit. US State Department has Cabo Verde as an "Exercise Normal Caution" safety level, so just keep your eyes open, don't do anything stupid, and you should be just fine. Knowing a few words of Portuguese, even the basics, doesn't hurt.

Agreed. I travel for a living so I do have loyalty to an airline alliance, a hotel chain, and even a rental car company...but it's because they throw out some really good perks, and in turn bail me out when needed (flights cancelled, last minute hotel room or car needed, etc.). I can't imagine any perk the cruise lines offer is beneficial enough for me to be loyal, even remotely so. Like "ohhhh happy hour? bro I'm drinkin' at 11am, get outta here with that".

No way I could do that. I end up going way overboard on food and drink at Chops and would be worthless the rest of the day if I did it at lunch!

Sounds good to me! Also, my wife's nickname for me.

I personally agree. Can't stand the MDR. Every time we go, the food comes out fairly mediocre, and the "experience" is a waste of time to us. At the buffet, we often find the food to be somewhat better than at the MDR, with a much broader choice of selections and a much more relaxed atmosphere. Hey, to each their own, but we usually hit the MDR once on a cruise, remember how mediocre it is, and then do the buffet if we're not doing specialty.

I'll preface this by saying Southwest swaps their planes around a lot...perks of having 750+ aircraft that are almost identical. As of now, the aircraft planned for both legs look fine as far as places they're scheduled to pass through today and tomorrow. Of course, always subject to change, but I would just keep what you have.

An airport that's truly great at de-icing is an impressive operation. My favorite memory of this was flying out of YUL the morning after a snowstorm, on a 6am flight to ORD. They basically had an assembly line of sorts - there was a taxiway with several pieces of de-icing equipment on either side, and the aircraft just went through in single file and were de-iced while practically still on the move, with inspection at the end before you hit the active runway (where aircraft could turn left and go through again if needed, or right to takeoff). Great example of a winter weather destination that handled winter weather perfectly.

As in tomorrow? Yeah, it looks like Northern Michigan/UP are going to get hit with snow/ice, but Detroit is just rain, and even that's mostly today. The advisory is for today and tomorrow and covers most of the Midwest (including Kansas City, where I currently am, and can tell you not much is going on weather wise other than cold rain and snow that isn't sticking), so I'm not sure. If you can share your flight number, I can look up where your aircraft would be coming from so you can keep an eye on their weather too. Also, as far as I know, there's no nonstop DTW-HOU on Southwest, so keep an eye on whatever city you're stopping in (either it be a change of aircraft or just a direct one stop flight).

Would involve an extra stop, likely in ATL. DL doesn't have a DFW/DAL-MIA flight, so they would have to go DFW/DAL-ATL (or another Delta hub)-MIA-PTP. Possible, yes, but maybe not ideal.

It was available to you if you were willing to jump the barriers and grab it 🙂

I agree with this. As our climate continues to change, weather continues to do crazier and crazier things. The odds of ATL getting enough snow/ice/wintery mix to shut it down or severely limit its operations seems to be increasing, and the amount it takes is...not much. I don't go through ATL very often, but I do go through DFW a lot, and I have definitely been impacted by a very minimal amount of winter weather before. On the flip side, I don't have as many concerns about going through ORD in January/February because, much like MSP, they're used to it and they have the equipment to handle it. I would be curious if there are statistics about winter weather related delays/cancellations in northern destinations versus southern destinations - would love to have hard facts behind it.

Both places are still a bit obscure for Americans as far as the Caribbean goes, so connections to the US are minimal, and nonstops from DFW will never happen (I am comfortable saying that, even if the year is 2459!). Fort-De-France has more flights to Europe (by a longshot) than the US. Miami is the only option, on American, so you can very easily do DFW-MIA-FDF since there are very frequent DFW-MIA flights since they're both AA hubs. Same can be said for Ponte-a-Pitre - more flights to Europe than the US, but you can do DFW-MIA-PTP. The only other flight to the US is a fairly obscure airline to San Juan, so while it's possible to do DFW-SJU-PTP, I wouldn't recommend it.

You can sort by pre-security at https://www.orlandoairports.net/getting-around-mco/shops-restaurants/. There's a Carvel for all of your Fudgie the Whale needs.

Oh I definitely am familiar with what they do, I use them pretty frequently. I'm just saying, when I entered the criteria for this search (PRC citizen, living in US, tourist visa for Nicaragua), CBIT's website admitted that they can't help you because the Nicaraguan embassy/consulate required the passport holder to be there in person. The consulate requires you to make a personal appearance to obtain your visa. For this reason CIBTvisas is unable to assist you with your visa application. We recommend that you contact the consulate directly to obtain the most current forms and requirements before making your personal appearance

Upon checking the CIBT Visas web page (a visa service I have used before), it says that Chinese citizens in the US looking for a Nicaraguan tourist visa need to apply in person at the Nicaraguan embassy/consulate, making it sound like even a visa service won't help you on this one. Nicaragua has an embassy in DC, and consulates in Houston, LA, Miami, New York, and San Francisco...so it sounds like you may have to physically travel to that place to get it. Pain in the butt if true, and definitely a hassle that may mean this isn't the cruise for you...

I think the point they were going for was that there may be people who got caught up in the WN debacle who may be traveling today instead, and then got caught up on the FAA debacle. Just bad luck on those people's parts.

I'm a consultant, so there are times I definitely hit Europe (or whatever my destination is) in the morning and am working later that day, to make my trips as efficient as possible. But even then, I find that the rest I get by arriving in the evening on a daytime flight is still worthwhile - sleep in a few extra hours in the morning, but then I'm ready to go with a brain at (mostly) full power.

Regarding the traditional way of getting to Europe - the redeye is definitely the tradition, but once I realized how great the daytime flights to Europe are, I started taking them as often as possible. Sadly, that isn't too often, but they're a game changer - arrive in to London at bedtime and get some good rest. Regarding time change - I have a colleague who refuses to adjust to local time whenever possible. For example, we end up in Australia a lot and only for a couple of days at a time, so he just stays on US central time (or as close as possible). He'll sleep from like 5pm to 1am local time, and then wake/work during the 1am to 5pm timeframe. He swears by it, but I like having fun in the evenings too much.