First, Business, Premium Economy or Economy—How will you fly?

by | Mar 1, 2022 | Air travel

Editor’s note: I started this post off as a quick and short note on Business Class but as I usually do, I wandered out to other stuff. So let’s do all the classes—First class to Economy over a couple of posts. Today, just a vanishing breed—actual First Class. 

Recently I saw a question on a Facebook group that was asking if booking Business Class (BC) airfare to Europe from the USA was a good idea. It was quite a discussion with lots of differing opinions. Of course I chimed in on that discussion so I thought this would make a decent post. I know that some of you fly Business or First Class (FC), although many airlines are eliminating FC entirely.

Alaska Air First Class

Speaking of First Class, let’s discuss the difference between domestic and international FC. For instance, when we fly Alaska Airlines FC to the East Coast that’s a great example of domestic FC. The seats are like a La-Z-Boy recliner that doesn’t go all the way back or have a footrest. You do get better meals (pre-pandemic it was hot on almost all airlines—some switched to cold during the pandemic) as well as pre-boarding but that is about it. You might get access to a pre-boarding or layover lounge but maybe not—depends on the airline and the airport. That’s about it.

When you fly FC on an international carrier like British, Cathay Pacific, Singapore, etc. you get more…a lot more. You usually get a “suite.” For instance, when we flew First Class on Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong a few years back we were sitting in seats that Kathleen was able to stretch out her arms in both direction and not touch another seat. If you scroll through the slide show you will also see the most luxurious First Class suites in the world—Emirate Airlines.

Seriously, that seat my wonderful bride is sitting in, is just one seat. And not only that, it lays down flat. And in FC they actually come and make up a bed after you have a very nice dinner and drinks. I mean the menu is excellent. Lots of choices. Some airlines even have a snack bar area where you can grab between meal snacks. High end wines and high end liquor. First class restrooms also are huge! On the plane Kathleen is on in that photo, they were so big they had their own window. But check out the bathroom on the Emirates plane. Seriously? They also give you toiletries and more in a little amenity kit. It is something special. And the Emirates suites just blow me away. Price to fly in that suite from Seattle to Dubai is only $21,000. Don’t think we will be flying those any time soon.

I should mention that we paid for that First Class we took completely with miles/points. And it cost a bunch of them. And I kept checking the price we would have had to pay for that flight. When we finally flew, those seats were selling for more than $12,000 each. We always save up those points by not flying FC within the USA. We will fly FC if we are going all the way to Florida. Pretty much anything more than six hours but then it’s just Alaska-style FC.

In the next post I will take a deep dive in Business Class, what we fly internationally.

When you fly, you should fly Business or First Class…or your kids will.    —unknown poster on the Viking Cruises Facebook Group

 

Total Disappointment–Trip Cancelled–Mad as HELL!

by | Nov 24, 2021 | Uncategorized

How do you start a post where you are both sad and mad? Today is November 24. Next Tuesday, November 30th we were SUPPOSED to be flying to Europe for a four night stay in Lisbon, a three night stay in Amsterdam, a two night stay in Prague, a one night stay in Nuremberg, a seven night Viking River Cruise from Regensburg, Germany to Budapest, Hungary with stops in Vienna, Passau and Krems. After the cruise we would spend an additional two nights in Budapest. We were going to be out doing what we love best for 22 days in glorious Europe. We would have seen the Christmas Markets of Europe, done a plethora of tours, gotten to travel with my brother and his bride once again…and so much more.

But last week we learned two things that made us reconsider the entire trip. First, due to a spike in COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths Germany closed all their Christmas Markets–one of the main reasons we were going. At that point we thought, “Well, let’s go ahead and go and we can do the Christmas Markets in Prague, Budapest and Austria.” On Friday of last week, Austria went into lockdown so the cruise was going to just be a lot of time on the river and not a lot of time in those cities that we really wanted to visit. When I called Viking I was told that they had rescheduled all the Austrian stops (3 days out of the seven) as river cruising days and that they might schedule a day in Bratislava, Slovakia but there probably would not be any independent touring allowed in any of the stops we would make except maybe Hungary at the end of the cruise. With all those restrictions, not  to mention the risk of getting COVID ourselves (even though we have had three shots) we decided to cancel.

This was a pretty bitter pill to swallow. We had originally booked and paid in full for this cruise in 2018. We were supposed to have taken it last winter (December 2020) but of course that got cancelled. And because it was cancelled by Viking, we could have either had a full refund or a voucher for 125% of our fare to use on a future Viking cruise. We opted for the voucher and used it to book the same cruise again in 2021. Now that we have cancelled that one Viking has again offered us a full refund or to reinstate our 125% voucher so we can try again. That’s what we decided to do. As soon as I have the voucher we will book this same cruise in 2023. If any of you would like to join us, we would love to have you travel with us. I will post all the details after we book it.

So that’s what made us sad. We had to cancel. Then we got mad. Not at the cruise line, not at the airline, not at all the tours and shows we had prepaid to do because they all gave us either a quick refund (in less than three days) or a voucher for future travel (which we are OK with since we intend to continue to travel). Of course we could have still gone to Europe but then we heard that other countries were also shutting down. Which brings to the people I am mad at. The people who caused our cancellation. The freakin’ European idiots (who are no better than our home-grown American idiots) who refused to believe in science and get themselves VACCINATED—they are why this happened.

We have two friends who live in Bavaria. They are both retired physicians. Their kids are all doctors. We were corresponding with them on a regular basis leading up to our decision. They were telling us that due to the infections in the unvaccinated, there were so many people who needed ICU beds they were shipping patients to Italy. How stupid are people? I guess we all know the answer to that one.

That’s all for now. Suffice it to say that we are sitting sadly at home and staying there until at least January…but that’s a whole other post. Stay tuned to find out how well we did with cancellations and where we are going instead.

To my US readers, have a great Thanksgiving. To everyone else–stay safe (especially if you are in Europe).

When things are a disappointment, try not to be so discouraged. –Carol Burnett

She can’t stand it…and neither can I

by | Jul 23, 2021 | Uncategorized

When we were on Celebrity’s Flora two weeks ago we spent a bunch of very pleasant dinners with two new friends, Katherine and Jamie (that’s them on the right). Jamie and I (even though they are both young enough to be our children) had a lot in common. He loves beer, Formula 1 racing and octopus. All three of those interests make him a great person to have a conversation with…in my book.

Then it turned out that I had two things in common with Katherine. First, she is as big a fan of the what we (Katherine and I) consider to be the greatest television show ever made—Ted Lasso (back tonight for season 2 on Apple TV+! We can’t wait! If you haven’t seen it, go watch the first season now) and she also (like me) can’t stand to finish a vacation without having another one planned.

It just about kills either of us to have nothing coming up and booked. Thankfully for Kathleen and I, we have so much booked I don’t have that problem (but there have been times I did) with our annual beach trip with the grandkids next month, my 50th high school reunion in Palm Springs in October, our Portugal/Amsterdam/Christmas Markets cruise in December, our Pacific Coastal cruise in May 22 and our Mediterranean cruise in the fall of 22.. But Katherine had that problem—nothing booked. I told her to get going. I gave her some suggestions but sadly, I can’t be her travel agent because she works for Royal Caribbean and gets some really nice employee discounts. I am pretty sure that’s how they wound up on Flora.

But if YOU don’t have any travel plans and it’s killing you too (blatant and shameless plug coming ?), drop me a note. I have plenty of ideas of where you might be able to go and I can even help you to get there.

When you can look forward to something outside of now, then you have an open door.    —Esther Peril on Armchair Expert

Training for Travel

by | Jun 5, 2021 | Uncategorized

Do you train for travel?

I do. The older I get, the more I feel the need to train before we take a trip. It’s something I highly recommend if you travel extensively like we do. It can really make your trip a whole bunch better, especially if your trip will involve more physical activity than you are used to.

I started thinking about this post today while I was out hiking/walking. Many of you know that I do a lot of walking. (More about that later that you can choose to ignore.) But today I switched into travel training mode. I bet you are thinking, “what’s the difference and why did you switch?”

The first difference is the shoes. Here at home when I walk every day I wear New Balance shoes designed for walking and running. They are a great shoe that I love and they look like typical athletic shoes. But on our upcoming Galapagos trip I won’t even bring those shoes. They are for walking city sidewalks, bike paths and maintained trails in parks. The Galapagos are all about hiking up hillsides, hiking on hardened lava and walking on beaches. So today I shifted from my regular walking shoes to hiking boots. I will try to wear them at least three times a week until we go later this month. I will also start wearing my Teva sandals just around town to get ready to wear those as well.

Which brings to my first point—if you are going to be doing more walking than you usually do, start walking a month or so before and get yourself up to the distances you will be walking on your trip on as close to the terrain type as you can get. Wear the shoes/boots/sandals you plan on walking in. Nothing ruins a trip involving walking like a blister on the first day or finding out you left the shoes you should have taken at home.

You need to do this even if you aren’t going to be climbing all over lava rocks. If you never walk on cobblestones and then you go on a cruise/trip that involves a day of walking on very hard surfaces, you will have problems if your feet, legs and back aren’t ready for those.

As I mentioned above, today I shifted to hiking boots and that also meant that I changed my route as well. Since the start of the pandemic, I have been avoiding a lot of the trails around here like the plague ? because there are far too many people. We have an excellent bunch of walking trails but they are just too crowded and many of the people walking on them these last few months have been maskless. So sometime in April of 2020 I switched my walking to mostly streets. With all the good trails, the sidewalks here get very little use.

But today I switched to a hiking trail with some actual elevation. It is also unpaved with some nice rocks and dirt to practice on. It won’t be like the lava and high hills I will see in the Galapagos but it will get me started training for those. I did this in 2019 when we went to Europe. I had set a goal of climbing Arthur’s Seat, the hill/mountain/crag that overlooks Edinburgh, Scotland. It’s a pretty long uphill for me since I am  used to walking on primarily flat streets and trails. So about a month before we left, I put on my hiking boots and started doing this same trail on a regular basis. It really helped as I was able to climb Arthur’s Seat at dawn and take some incredible pics…even with my knee in a brace.

We have also tried to do sleep training in the past. Notice I said tried. I have read about people who will stay up late or get up early to adjust their sleep schedule to their destination. That way they don’t lose one or two days at the start of a trip to just trying to stay awake. We tried to do this on the first few trips we took but since we have been able to fly business or first class we haven’t worried about it as much. When we fly to Europe now we love to take off in the early evening (like most non-stops do from Seattle), have dinner and then go to sleep. But that only works for me if I have a lie-flat seat like you get in international business or first class. (Ah, the joys of having a lot of miles.)

Of course part of our training for a big trip is to diet. I hate dieting but I know there is good chance I will gain weight on any kind of trip, so we try to cut back in the weeks before knowing we need to do that to even it off. But the physical training can help with that as well. Let me know in the comments if you do anything like this to get your body ready for the rigors of travel.

Bragging begins here so ignore it if you want to

Just a few quick words about something that I have been doing the last four years and an app recommendation to go with it. You all know (just by reading this post) that I have been walking…A LOT since this (the pandemic) all started. I was actually doing some long walks before it started but just once or twice a week. Since last March I have been walking pretty much six days a week alternating between four and six miles every other day.

How do I know how far I am going? Because I found this awesome FREE app from Under Armour (the fitness clothing company) called Map My…Walk (or Run, Bike Ride or anything else you want it to keep track of distance-wise). Everyday when I go out to walk, the app comes along with me on my phone or Apple Watch. I start it up when I leave the house and it tracks me as I walk. One of the things I love is that it measures how far I go by GPS tracking as opposed to steps. Since I am tall, I take longer steps than most people so if it measures steps (like most apps), I have to go further (for ME) to do the same distance. Here’s today’s walk at right.

The app also announces my miles to me as I am going. At the end of each mile the app says into my AirPods, “Distance—two miles, time—31 minutes, average pace—15. something minutes per mile (I do my best to stay under 16 minutes per mile), split pace (my last mile) 16 minutes per mile (went up a hill or stopped to take a pic). It is a great way for me to keep track of my pace and my distance.

One other thing that I love about the app is that it not only keeps track of how far I have walked today but once I am home, I can save my walk and it uploads to the Map My Walk website where I can access it whenever I want. That means I can go back and find out how many miles I have walked over a particular time. Here are my May walks.

Since the website shows me my distance and workouts/walks by month I decided to add up those months and see how far I had walked over two different measures of time. I wanted to know how far I had walked since I found the app in 2017 and how far I have walked since the pandemic started when I really started increasing my distance and the number of days I am walking. I have to say—it really surprised me. As of today, since March 3 (the day we came home from our Mardi Gras cruise that we mark as the start of Covid for us) I have walked 2,817 miles (that’s 4,533 kilometers for those of you in Canada ?).

I started using the app in August of 2017. Since then I have walked 4,168 miles (again, that’s 6708 in Canadian). Did I mention that the app and all this tracking are FREE! Yup, it’s a free app available on the App Store but one I would gladly pay for. They do have an upgraded version you can pay for but I am very happy with the one I have.

The funny part about all this walking is that my dad used to walk like this. He did about 5 miles a day since he retired in his early 70s and we used to kid him that he just did it to get out of the house and away from our Mom for a few hours a day. And here I am doing the same thing…except I am doing it to keep myself sane and to eat like I want to. I tell Kathleen it gives her a chance to have her boyfriend come by ?.

 

I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’

Muhammad Ali

Off-season travel

by | Jun 29, 2020 | Uncategorized

Hello again! Sorry about no posts but it is kind of hard to write about travel when NO ONE is traveling. And it looks like it will be awhile until any of us do. Personally, our August Celebrity Flora cruise in the Galapagos was cancelled. We immediately rebooked for next year when we sail on the 4th of July. Our next chance for travel is our European Christmas Market river cruise in December. We shall see what happens but we are now thinking we may be taking that one in 2021 as well.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASo let’s talk about off-season travel. I was posting on Instagram this morning and I added the photo at right and explained where it was and how I took it. Here’s what I said:

“Many people who have been in this hallway will recognize it but everyone I have ever shown it to is blown away—that it is empty. This is the hallway that leads from the Vatican Museums to the Sistine Chapel. People who see this shot are amazed that it is not PACKED with people. And it was completely packed about three minutes later. This is photographic testament to the idea of going off-season (it was mid-November) and getting up early (we were the first one in line when the museum opened). This also meant that for a few brief moments, we were ALONE in the Sistine Chapel (where they do not allow photos). It was an amazing experience. We had the same experience the next November in the Louvre while in Paris where we stood, all by ourselves, in front of the Mona Lisa for about three minutes when we were the only ones in the room.”

We love to travel off-season. We have had some of our best vacations when we go in the shoulder seasons in the spring and fall. The weather is usually OK for touring—we have been able to dodge bad weather. We were also lucky enough that Kathleen could take vacation-time when she wanted and owning my own business, I could schedule around times we wanted to go. And now that Kathleen is retired and I am headed that way, we try to never go when everyone else would be there.

One thing we would never do is go to Europe in the middle of summer. We will admit we have done European cruises in August but that was because that is the ONLY time you can see the Edinburgh Military Tattoo (which was totally worth it) but never on a land trip.  Not only is the weather a bit hot for our taste (it gets hot walking around) but there are so many people touring that you spend too much time standing in line. If you want to see the real Alaska on a cruise, go early in the season or late.

While we have enjoyed our June and July Alaska cruises we have truly loved our late August, early September Alaskan cruises when there are less people. And our BEST Alaska cruise ever was when we cruised there in late April. The weather was OK (especially the last day when we sailed through the Canadian Inside Passage) and we could walk everywhere in Skagway, Ketchikan and Juneau without feeling crammed. It was awesome. We were the only ship in port in some places while in July, there would have been three or four ships in port which means almost 12,000 people in a town of 1,500 (in the case of Skagway) which is crazy crowded.

Another thing we suggest is getting up early. Go out early, be first in lines. Then go back to your room, stateroom or wherever you are staying and take an afternoon nap and then you can go back out in the evening. You will see so much more. We did exactly the same thing when we went to Disneyland with our grandkids a few years ago. We got up early, hit the major rides, then went back to our rooms and took a nap (especially the kids) before going back for parades and fireworks.

So some advice for your future traveling…when you can, go off-season and get up early.

I am a family man, and I have to find my priorities. During the season, it is to race. During the off-season, it is to spend time with my family.  —Jens Voight