Making More Progress On Next Cruise Planning
April 20, 2008
As we have mentioned before, we have booked our next Cruise, a Transatlantic from Barcelona, Spain to San Juan, Puerto Rico. We continue to make more progress on the planning for this cruise vacation.
Being that the cruise departs and returns to ports that are a long ways from our home, we have to add in some air fare to the trip. Also, since we have never visited Barcelona or San Juan before, we need to decide how much time to spend in those cities before and after the cruise which requires additional accommodations. This is a painstaking process that requires quite a bit of time to get it done right. Luckily, Suzanne really enjoys this kind of stuff and does most of the research.
Obviously, the cruise is booked. We now also have our airfare lined up. That was a challenge given different departure and arrival cities. Its not cheap either. Its really a shame when airfare to get to your cruise costs almost as much as the cruise itself. Definitely not worth the price, but no choice either. We have also booked our accommodations in San Juan. We will only be staying one extra day. We found a strange opportunity with one of the hotel vendors I deal with when I travel on business. They were running a promotion where you could put up frequent stay points and $60 for a room. The best rate on the room we could get straight up through the frequent stay program was around $400. I didn’t have enough points for the program so they allowed me to buy additional points. The additional points cost me $122, so it was an easy decision. Strange thing was that if I had 0 points and wanted to purchase enough to qualify for the promotion, it would have only been about $160. You don’t usually run into a situation like that.
Today, we spent a fair amount of time trying to decide where to stay in Barcelona. We have decided to arrive three days before the cruise departs to ensure time to enjoy the city. We looked at a lot of hotels and a bunch of apartments for rent in the city. The hotels tend to be double occupancy (ie need two rooms) only and very expensive. The apartments tend to be much cheaper and more in the heart of the city. We have decided to get an apartment and have narrowed it down to a couple two or three choices. We should make a final decision by mid next week.
That will only leave excursions on the cruise and our transfers to/from the hotels, airports and cruise ships. This travel planning sure is a lot of work.
My American Airlines Fun
April 13, 2008
Last week, I had to take a business trip to Dayton, OH. As usual, we were flying on American Airlines. Our flight left Tucson about 15 minutes prior to American grounding their entire fleet of MD-80s. We were informed of this action upon our arrival in Chicago O’Hare airport.
There was a lot of groans from folks on connecting flights and most definitely a very long line at the rebooking terminal. Luckily, our flight to Dayton was on a regional jet and unaffected by the grounding. We were able to get to Dayton with no issues. And with American’s initial belief they would start flying normally again by the end of the next day, we weren’t too worried since we would be in Dayton for a couple of days.
However, when we checked our Thursday flights on Wednesday evening, they had already been canceled. One of the guys got on the phone to the American Advantage desk to try to get some new flights. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get through after several hours. I decided to give it a try and got through on my first try which didn’t do much to please my colleague. After 30+ minutes on the phone with the rep, the best flight he could get us on was a Delta flight from Dayton to Chicago to Atlanta to Los Angeles to Tucson. What a nightmare!
Since we had fully refundable fares, we knew would could cancel and try ourselves to get on somewhere else. A quick call to Southwest Airlines got us a flight from Columbus, OH to Phoenix. This would mean about a 1 hour drive from Dayton to Columbus and then a 90 minute drive from Phoenix to Tucson. We snatched up the tickets and headed home.
All in all, it worked out pretty well. Between the driving and the single flight, our travel time was about 90 minutes longer than the original AA itinerary. Of course, we had to drive 2 and 1/2 hours but we got home the day we were supposed to. Plus, I wasn’t driving! 
Despite all this, American will continue to be my airline of choice for many reasons….
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