SelectSys

Thanks, this is the kind of commentary I wanted to hear. KL really hasn't been at the top of my list, but it became a necessary stop as part of a longer journey. Yes, I have seen many good things regarding Bali. I think we will focus most of our attention their and make a simple overnight stop in KL before moving on to our next destination.

I also prefer Uber in Mexico for just that reason. Uber makes the price transparent and you are going to get the same rate as a local without any hassle.

For what it's worth, I found this calculator online to help one determine if they are in compliance with the Schengen short term stay requirements: https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/schengen-borders-and-visa/border-crossing/short-stay-visa-calculator_en

More than enough to do in one day. There are two main lines: 1) is an outer loop that goes to the botanical gardens, the local wine area, a "township", a fishing area as well as some of the popular beach areas. 2) does an inner loop that includes table top mountains. The inner loop bus overlaps with outer loop bus in the center of town to a great extent and also hits the beach areas. You can pick up both lines at the V&A center by the aquarium. I am not sure about where to store your luggage if you did the hop on hop off bus. As such, I would probably take a ship's tour with airport drop off. I agree with this. The line at immigration departing the country seemed really long and took us at least 45 minutes to get through.

Sure, but your body only feels the 9 hours behind as your circadian rhythm doesn't feel the calendar date. For me, I only consider the maximum number of hours between locations irrespective of the calendar date which at most is 12 hours. Does this make sense to you? Below is an extreme example of a calendar difference of 26 hours while your body traveling between these two locations would only experience 2 hours of time difference from a sleep/jetlag perspective: https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/16528/what-are-the-farthest-time-zone-locations#:~:text=You can see that the,a Wednesday in Line Islands. "you can see that the most extreme time zones are +14 hours at Line Islands (Kiribati), and -12 hours in and around Baker Islands (US). Therefore, the maximum possible difference between times on Earth is 26 hours. That means that at 11:00 PM of a Monday in Baker Island, it is 1:00 AM of a Wednesday in Line Islands." While the flight path is independent of any time zone discussion, many airlines still fly over Russia to get to and from North America. I was recently on a Qatar Airways flight that went right across Russia and over the pole flying from Doha to Seattle.

I have a flight connection in Kuala Lumpur that enables me to split my time between Kuala Lumpur and Bali. It probably isn't a fair request as the two locations are so different. I have a total of 7 days. How would you split the time between both spots or would you simply skip the city and spend time on Bali? Thanks in advance for any comments or suggestions.

I would suggest that you also look for advice on the "Cruise Air" forum. I have found really good advice from the people in that follow that forum. Their are several posters there with lots of good airline information. I actually don't think a stop in CA would materially change the flying time. Google suggest the difference between flights times from LA and Chicago is only 20 minutes. In the end a stop on the west coast will result in a much longer total travel time. The actual absolute time change is 9 hours. This is the same for me as flying between Paris and San Diego. That said, the OP should review dealing with jetlag and come up with their strategy. My understanding is that seatguru.com is no longer maintained all that well and that aerolopa.com has more up to date seat maps. I would look at both. If you have access to a business class lounge and sufficient time this is a nice idea. I will do this is my flight schedule supports it. Especially if I have two long haul flights back to back.

I would say at least one of the principal reason that COPA is less expensive is that the flights all include a stop in Panama before heading to MIA. Some of the COPA flights don't have too much of a time penalty as opposed to the AA nonstop, but it is a smaller aircraft and there is always a possibility of issues on any connection. BTW - my only anecdotal information on COPA is from a friend who flies to Ecuador on occasion and doesn't really like the economy passenger experience. Of course you are looking at business which could be much different.

That's what I thought this coffee was when I saw the picture posted. As a dessert person, I hope I get to at least try something similar.

In terms of your Europe segments, maybe you can consider dropping at least one location as you are trying to make lots of stops in a very short amount of time? Each stop will eat up some amount of time traveling and checking in and out of hotels or other forms of accommodation. Be optimistic that you'll have additional opportunities to pick up another trip in the future. Good luck!

This would be the worst and is what I fear. People that are unable to go out on their own and expect to be together 24X7. It could be that the people we are traveling with and their expectations and for lots of together time might be too much for our style. The couple has other friends that they travel with frequently and it sounds like they are together all the time or the wives go one way and the husbands another. Most things are tolerable for a bit of time - like a week end - but would be rough over a couple of weeks. 100% - we just need to be in agreement before the cruise with the couple we are traveling with.

That is something I think we will need to do. We like to explore much more than our friends and tend to be more active. Exactly! We went on a vacation once where we sacrificed our plans somewhat to conform to others desires. Probably true as it is the closest you can come to living with another person/couple. That's something we don't want to have happen.

The AA RTW desk charged my credit card this afternoon. The final price went up by about $300 to $6400 / ticket. Regardless, I feel this is an incredible deal and will result in a great travel experience. For grins, I asked the agent doing the ticketing why such discrepancies exist between ticket prices depending on where you start. As you can imagine, I didn't really get a very understandable answer so I guess it's a simply a matter of market demand for these fares.

We are committed to go. We didn't really think about it too much before agreeing. You are correct on the need to establish "ground rules" before we go.

My wife and I have come to the conclusion that we aren't really all that good traveling with other people. It seems most times that we travel with others our schedules and interests tend to diverge if we travel with others. This includes friends that we spend time and socialize with on a regular basis at home Are we in the minority? How do you get along with others during cruises and trips? We have a cruise of 15 days coming up at the start of 2025 with another couple where are daily routine and interests are somewhat different. BTW - our rule for traveling with our kids, now all adults, is simply that everyone simply needs to show up for dinner. I may try to extend that rule to traveling with another couple on our upcoming cruise.