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Flew West jet to Montreal a couple of weeks ago

It was fine ..no better or worse than AC

only thing to drink was coffee, tea or water plus alcoholic drinks (fee)

 

 

YMMV

The short (around 1 hour) flights only have coffee, tea or water. On the longer flights they also have soft drink and juice. They also have he buy-on-board on the longer flights. The very short flights (Vancouver - Victoria) at 10 min they have no service at all.

I believe on the routes that compete with Air Canada Rapid Air (Toronto to Montreal and Ottawa) they have the free beer and wine.

Some people are strong fans of WestJet and some are fans of Air Canada. I am ok with either. WestJet people a bit friendly, Air Canada has a stronger network and more flexibility to reroute when things don't go as planned.

Assume you are referring to "Cairns".

Yes, typo, thanks for catching that.

Thanks so much! We are on the United 787-9 but I imagine that it will still be quite squishy. I can assure you there will be prescription meds involved:D. Can you pay for an upgrade through United on that segment if you didn't book through them? I was able to do so on the Air New Zealand segments coming home. Maybe I'll call United later and see. I called Air canada and United to get seat assignments already because I was only able to book the NZ ones online.

 

Our daughter lives over there so luckily she will be my chauffeur although I couldn't stand her driving when she was over here so lord knows that may not last hahaha.

 

Already have our ETAs in place. Quick, painless and cheap. Thanks again for all the great info.

Even if you booked through someone else you should be able to go online with united and just upgrade that segment. You may need the united locator.

Not certain how the United 787 is. It is a more modern aircraft that the 747 so the seats are likely different. Sometimes that is a good things sometimes not.

United premium economy is a regular economy seat with just a little bit more space. I think the price depends on how early you upgrade and how full the flight. You should be able to login online. You may need to ask NZ for your united locator number if it is not printed on your ticket.

Air Canada and NZ premium economy is a wider seat with better meals and service. It is a different and better experience that United.

As far as driving with rental cars down under coming from Canada, I find every time I turn on the windshield wiper blades when I want to signal a turn. They flip those two around.

The must see place is Carnes. It is quite different than the rest of Australia.

Not so silly in my experience. Quick and efficient and your passport never leaves your hand to sit in some consulate for weeks. The ETA doesn't eat up pages in your passport. Personally, I'd rather have it than a traditional visa.

Between Canada, US, Europe, Japan and a host of other contries there are virtually no visa requirements.

What will happen is Australia imposes visa requirements. The other countries retaliate by imposing visa requirements.

If the purpose of this is boarder control so bit it, the Australians do have every right to decide how closed or open there boarder should be. If the purpose of this is to collect another tax, then it would be to just have the airlines do it with all the other taxes.

As others have said, you check in with Air Canada. They should be issue the boarding pass for the unit flight. They will also issue a boarding pass for the united flight. The boarding pass for the united flight will have an Air Canada logo and have an Air Canada look to it. That is not a problem. They will also check the baggage all the way to Australia.

LAX has a silly layout in that that it is make up of several terminal buildings. Your connecting flight is in a different building and you will need to take a shuttle bus.

I have done the United 747 down to Australia out of LAX, If they are using a different aircraft type you may be better off. It is much tighter that I am use to on Air Canada. If buying an upgrade to United Plus is reasonably priced I would go for it. Usually that extra inch of room is no work it but on a long flight on that aircraft I would for it if it is reasonably priced.

It makes for a long trip. Given they drive on the opposite side of the road and your going to be tired coming off the flight I would avoid a rental car the first day.

One other item to mention. Australia has a silly visa program called an ETA. Before you leave you need to pre-register with imigration and pay a fee. (http://www.immi.gov.au/services/pages/visitor-visa-online-applications.aspx)

For anyone flying Air Canada be warned that they have started to clamp down on carry on baggage - and long overdue in my opinion. I hate trying to find a spot for my one legal sized carry on amongst all the belongings that others feel they can't live without while onboard. Fees for checked baggage are a fact of life now, just pay the darn fee.

These things come and go in waves. Air Canada has a fairly aggressive plan starting in just over a year to begin replacing all the Embrear and Airbus aircraft new next-generation 737. The next generation of overhead bins are suppose to let you put the roller boards in on there side. They will probably stop paying attention then. Until that happens it is good they are enforcing there rules.

I've gotten through O'Hare (within a single terminal at least) in much less than an hour. Once had a delayed flight and made the connection in about 15 minutes, and amazingly my bag made it too. BUT, I wouldn't wish that stress on anyone...definitely give yourself more than an hour at O'Hare, even if you don't have to change terminals. It CAN be done in less, but I wouldn't count on it.

My own personal experience.....

If you are arriving into O'Hare off an Air Canada flight from Toronto you will likely end up in terminal 2. United is split between 1 and 2. I don't think it is that bad going between those two terminals.

If you are coming from London Ontario you don't pre-clear you end up clearly in Terminal 5. I would expect it to take longer than an hour, and it is a separate building. When you head back the united flight to London ON departs from Terminal 1 or 2.

Vancouver is a easy and it is a quick walk through the international area to US connections. Coming from a domestic or international flight you end up in a different line up than passengers departing from Vancouver. I don't remember but I don't think you need to recheck checked baggage. However I don't like the long layover either.

San Francisco has fog in the morning sometimes, I have never had major problems in the late afternoon. Likely when you are there?

Denver is a nice airport. easy to make connections. I use to go through there all the time when I lived in Saskatoon. The only weird thing is US agriculture always wanted to x-ray bags. Was never an issue at any other airport, never understood why. I would just stand in line waiting for my baggage to come out of the agriculture x-ray line hopping to make my flight. If you pre-clear in Toronto you avoid all of that. All the times I have been in the US it is the only airport where they want to look at my bags, and it is always this silly agriculture inspection.

You may want to have a look at WestJet also. They run the 737 out of Vancouver to Hawaii year round. Later this year they start to bring their 767 aircraft online and are flying to Hawaii from Calgary.

Given the choice of paying $25 for a carry on or $25. to check the same back.....we would always go with the carry on. The luggage fee is not the issue for us.

I don't believe Air Canada is charging for carry-on. They are just starting to police the carry-on rules they have for some time. They do charge for domestic or US checked bags.

On a side note, I agree I would rather pay $25 for carry on over checked. It saves you 20 minutes after landing.

What do you mean with this? The overall experience on all NCL ships has been the same regardless of the location with maybe the exception of different overall feel because of passenger demography (many people from Southern European countries are more pushy and do not respect queues, for example).

They do make some small changes between Europe and North America. For example second city is an entertainment option on the EPIC in North America and is replaced with sometime else when the ship is in Europe.

They will likely make some small adjustments once the ship is repositioned.

As for where they screen movies, I have never understood why they don't do that in the spinikers, it has a large screen and is a better venue for doing that.

Air Canada also has a flight almost every hour between Settle and Vancouver. Same ting between Vancouver and Victoria.

If money is tight I would go for the inside cabin. You have two pull down beds and two lower beds. There is not going to be a lot of room in the cabin to lounge around, however there are lot of public venues all over the ship.

Fitness centre is on deck 14 and there are a couple of family insides on the same deck.

Most days your in port and most evenings you should probably be enjoying the ship.

You may want to also price out having one person in a studio.

I am trying to find a great cruise for my family for Christmas , I am concerned about the limited menu in in the MDR is this an issue for anyone?

 

Also my dad loves movies!! Is there a place on the cruise ship to go to and see a film?

 

Please give me all thoughts good and bad ,

 

Miranda

The Jade has been in Europe for years. I was on the shop form Rome to Istanbul. This winter the ship comes back to the North America for the first time in several years. Things may be different after it repositions.

The main dinning room has a good variety of dishes. One side stays the same the other changes every day. There are two main diming rooms and slight differences in menu between the two. There is also a venue with pub style food as well as some speciality restaurants. Others have reported that the Asian food restaurant is now also inclusive.

There is an in-house movie station on the TV. When I was on the ship form time to time they run the same movie in one of night club venues. Not quite the big screen theatre feeling. Not certain what they will do on your cruise.

The IATA has a standard. However the airlines don't appear to be unified behind it.

IATA standards are: 55cm x 35cm x 20cm

https://www.iata.org/whatwedo/ops-infra/baggage/Documents/cabin-bag-flyer.pdf

Air Canada is doing 55 cm x 40 cm x 23 cm, so they are being more flexible than industry standards. Fro the second item it is more restrictive 16 cm x 33 cm x 43 cm

http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelinfo/airport/baggage/carry-on.html

They have plenty of hangers...no need to bring them.

If you run out and ask they will bring more.

Usually these types of rules are there to deal with the extreme cases otherwise the crew will likely look the other way.

Same thing with things like dress codes. There is an something that is ok, there is a grey area and then there are some things that are not appropriate. In a custom service focused business the staff will look the other way for a good portion of that grey area.

Personally, be it hotels or cruise ships the idea of leaving your dirty dishes on the floor in the hallway for other guests to walk around I personally find disrespectful. In the tight hallways that exist on a ship it is also a tripping hazard during an emergency. Why people don't leave there dishes on the table or counter in there state rooms is beyond me.

I will look them up. Thank you! :)

If your comfortable exploring on your own there is a port bus (under 10 euros) that shuttles between where the ship docks and the La Rambla. Very frequent. (google search for PORTBUS). Might take 10 minutes of so. It is like a city bus and pay when get on board. You should be able to find lots of self guided walking tours from that location. It is a very accessible city. That is what I did, though I had been in Barcelona before for work.

One item on reservations for the shows on the EPICS. You can reserve ahead of time and in principle they do fill up. Even if full in the booking system they are always no shows and 10-15 minutes before the start they release any empty seats and if you just show up you have a very good chance of getting in anyway.

I did the cruise (boarding and disembarking in Rome) the first summer they did the multi-city cruise.

There are fewer people getting on and off in Rome when I did it. That makes the check-in process much easier. Shorter lines. Cabins ready sooner etc. I don't think you miss out on any of the entertainment You jut don't see it in the same order as Barcelona passangers. You can pre-book the major shows ahead of the cruise online any way.

I like Rome, being able to spend an extra couple of days in Rome before the cruise was wonderful. The port near Rome is quite a distance from the city and because of that I would prefer Rome as the port where I start and end the cruise.

In Barcelona there is a shuttle bus that costs a couple of Euro that takes you from the ship to the centre of town. When you come back there will be a large queue of people checking in on the side there is a queue for people who are already checked in form other ports and you get back on. Not certain what day Barcelona is now when I did it is was Sunday, and many of he shops were closed.

These are very port intensive cruises, with very few sea days. That gives it a different feeling all together. The on-board experience is mostly an evening affair. Other than the one or two sea days there are very view passengers on the ship during the day. Some of the ports, such as Naples are downtown and you can come and go as you see fit. Other ports are in industrial areas and there are shuttle buses to get you unto town. If they are still doing Canes, that is a ender.

I also caught the Air Canada flight back the same day the ship arrived. I was a little worried because it was before noon however I had no problems and spend a good hour and a bit sitting in the lounge at the airport. Same process as any other cruise, luggage outside the door the night before arrival or you can also walk off as soon as the ship docks, I did the walk off as I was worried about the flight.

I did another cruise a year latter flew back connecting somewhere with a very early departure. I stayed overnight at the Hilton connected to the airport. Short walk to the terminal. The hotel also has a free shuttle into downtown Rome for guests.

The Hilton Hotel connected to the airport by a long overhead walkway offers day rates (9am-6pm). The hotel also offers a free shuttle into Rome.

I have only used it at the end of a trip when I have an early morning departure to avoid having to get up earlier than needed.

As for the choice between early or late arrival I think it depends more on how upto it you feel after a long flight.

My last flight to Rome was two years ago I was in business class on US Airways. Better than economy but not great. Petty early arrival I dropped off the bags at the small hotel (Maison Giulia - they are the best) I was staying at and wondered around town. Short nap in the early afternoon and more wondering around and dinner. After that pretty much adjusted to local time.

By obvious people, I think we're all assuming you to mean "doesn't look like me"; which is a pretty poor way of doing security.

I think they have all sort of profiling rules built into the computer algorithm that picks one person over another. Then they add some random cases.

There have been stories floating around that one-way tickets are more likely to result in extra screening that return tickets. Who knows, maybe it is true maybe not. The people who run these programs probably are not going to say.

It is unfortunate but the rules are silly, they are interpreted differently in different airports and sometimes it is more theatre than reality. All that said it appears to be working at keeping flights safe.

It is getting better in places. I had a business trip down to the US last month, coming back went through a US airport where they did not do the silly take off your shoes things and they wanted you to leave you computer in the bag.

I have mentioned this previously but will do so again. I flew Rouge at the end of August as the second leg of an open Jaw route, YYZ - LHR , DUB - YYZ. It was on one ticket so no discernible price difference. I had to change plans at the last minute and rebook a week earlier than originally planned to depart Dublin. The available seats " forced" me into the Plus cabin. Both legs were flown on 767's. I have previously flown a significant number of legs with AC on every one of their aircraft types from the B1900 to the 777-300 LR ( including the HD version ). There most certainly is a difference in comfort and service between AC mainline and Rouge. Even in Rouge Plus where the seats are very comfortable, the IPad entertainment system is a PIA. I attempted to watch a movie and hold the IPad upright the whole time. The economy cabin was packed to the gills and the passengers are required to have their own IPads ( app loaded ) or rent them to get the available entertainment. The same " hold your own" approach would also apply in a much smaller space than what I had. I have also flown AC mainline to San Diego and Florida which are now served by Rouge. Given the option I would switch to WestJet to every destination where the two airlines compete. And I am not a great WJ fan. I agree with Calliopecruiser, Rouge operates like a discount carrier but doesn't charge like one. Worse, anyone flying Air Canada for the first time and finds themselves on a Rouge flight will tar the entire airline with the " crappy" brush because of the name association, unless of course, they understand what they are buying.

When I have been on Rogue in business class (A319) the iPad they hand out have a cover that lets you skip them into a slot in the top of the seat in front of you that holds it in place.

The bad news is that WestJet is not installing seat back televisions on their new aircraft. They are also switching to the steaming video entertainment system just like Rouge. You just don't know if you flight will have in flight TV or not until you are on the aircraft.

I have not been in Rogue Plus on the 767. My understanding was they were operating this with seats similar to domestic business class or the old loungers that use to be on the aircraft.

Personally I have a strong preference for the in-seat on-demand entertainment system that Air Canada has on their main aircraft. The iPad is a step backwards to those digi players they use to handout to passangers in International Business and First Class on Air Canada and Canadian 10-15 years ago.

I also find Vancouver-Vegas on Rogue always have the price of say Vancouver-Saskatoon.

WestJet historically never sells more seats than exist on the aircraft. You do have assigned seating on your boarding pass and the board in zones now.

You should be find checking in 24 hours before and selecting seats then. If you do want to reserve ahead of time you should be able to phone them and do that. I believe they have an extra charge for reserving seats ahead of time on the cheaper fares.

You might also want to ask about upgrading to Plus. Plus gives you free checked baggage, more leg room, in flight drinks and food, priority boarding.

But Rouge isn't a low cost airline, and Rouge seats are no cheaper than on Air Canada mainline. I'd feel much different about it if it were a lower priced ticket.

Look at the routes that they operate Rogue on. All the European destinations are ones that Air Canada pulled out of years earlier because it was not viable with a normal aircraft. Lisbon, Athens, Spain, Amsterdam are places that Air Canada has struggled to serve with their standard aircraft.

The routes to the US and South are destinations mostly targeting discounted tour packages. Las Vegas is not an expensive destination. California is probably the exception.

When it comes to airlines, "efficient" is generally the norm when it comes to younger folks, in my experience...it's the older flight attendants who often become lazy and grumpy ;)

They use the Disney Customer Service training program for Rouge. When I have been on these flights I find the crew better than other airlines.

What is the basis for the increase in gratuity from 15% to 19%. One would expect the base price to go up with inflation and therefore the tip would go up in the same way.

Perhaps it is just me. I tip because I think people should make a living wage and in many countries and on cruise ships employers can get away with passing the buck to their customers. The entire practice is flawed as the employer should pay his employees a decent salary and control the quality of the service provided.

I understand where NCL is coming from. The hallways an be a little disgusting with dishes etc. It does make cleaning the room and ship easier if there is no messy food all over the place.

That said, I will admin to the times I have had a balcony coming back from an excursion heading to the buffet to pick up a plate of bread, cheese, grapes and nuts to enjoy on the balcony with a glass of wine. Yes I do, pay the silly corking fee on the wine.

Like most things, there will be a rule. IT will hopefully be ambiguous with the expectations that people will exercise reasonable judgment. Perhaps it is not appropriate to sit in the theatre or somewhere else not setup to handle food eating something that is a messy and perhaps a cookie is ok.

On a side note, I have been also been in the studio cabins. The nice thing is the living room area that is shared by the studios. A continental breakfast spread is put out each morning. Some sandwiches and pastries at other times of the day.