Zach1213

I'll echo the sentiment above...unless you're using mileage (and even then sometimes), being the first to book isn't often advantageous. Many times, airlines throw a rate out there to see if anyone will buy, and if not they'll lower it. There's sadly no sweet spot, but "Day One" is rarely best.

As mentioned, Hong Kong and Beijing are...not close. That's akin to saying "I am looking at either Boston or Miami" because they're about the same distance apart. All that being said, I'll echo the thoughts about refundable travel. I travel for a living, and am in the air hundreds of thousands of miles each year. I'm lucky enough to do most of this in business class, and have done so for 15 years or so...so my mileage has been in the millions. I can count on one hand the number of times I've purchased a refundable fare. You're limiting yourself and costing yourself a ton of unnecessary money by doing so.

You'll have ages to go through customs...mostly because you won't go through customs, or even immigration. Turkey is not part of Schengen, so no immigration check until you get to Rome, where customs will also take place. Note customs and immigration are different things. People complain about literally every airline. TripAdvisor seems to be a particularly popular place for people to extensively complain about airlines. TK is fine.

And that crackin' striped livery too

Over the years, I've spent probably the equivalent of a few months in each - Sydney and Tokyo. I'm not so sure I agree with your sentiment about Tokyo. They're both fantastic cities and you can't go wrong with either. Yes, Tokyo is absolutely massive, but but calling it "just another" metropolis is a bit unfair. The crowds of humanity on their own are a sight to see and something you can't even find in, say, Shanghai or Delhi or Dhaka. But aside from the "few" good museums (I would argue there are more than a few) you have the beauty of the Imperial Palace and the Meiji Shrine, the evening views from the Tokyo Tower or the endless urban mazes, the craziness of Shinjuku, the peacefulness of Yoyogi Park or Ueno Park, the uniqueness of Akihabara at night. And the food...my god the food. Endless amazing ramen, sushi, udon, yakitori, donburi and more. And it's all connected through an amazing network of public transit with which Sydney just can't compare. Sydney is amazing (though I personally prefer Melbourne), but Tokyo is just on a whole different level. Both are great choices.

I can't imagine having to sleep in an airport after a longhaul flight. That sounds truly miserable. I once misconnected in HKG going DFW-HKG-SIN and missed the last flight of the night, and American/Cathay tried to put a bunch of us up in the lounge (and not even a Cathay lounge, some crappy generic lounge). I bailed on that and got a room at the Regal instead because it was the only thing available (I'm wondering if something was going on in HK and they decided that since they couldn't get rooms for everybody, they got rooms for nobody). I returned the next morning for HKG-SIN nicely rested/fed/clean and saw many of the same faces who were clearly coming off of a miserable night with no sleep.

Most airport hotels will have an airport shuttle that runs 24/7, at least if requested ahead of time.

Nobody official or with any potential liability in any way is going to confirm it. But it's pretty obvious from the video, and many shipping experts have already commented that the video makes it clear that power was lost once if not twice. With that in mind, it'll be interesting to see where liability falls, possibly due to poor maintenance on the part of the ship owner and/or maintainer (both based in Singapore).

This is probably what I would do...find the cheapest parking at the airport since BOS is so close to both downtown and the cruise port.

I wouldn't trust them. Nothing against NCL, but as the traveler it's in your best interest to have all of the info confirmed. You do still have a Southwest confirmation code somewhere. If NCL won't provide that to you, that's ridiculous. I guess call Southwest, but really NCL should be giving the info to you since you paid for them to procure it. Even at the airport, most check-in is done via kiosk and it would behoove you to have that information. I don't know much about Southwest, so can't comment on what NCL says. It does sound odd. Have you actually seen this policy stated anywhere or is that just was a random person at NCL told you?

As FlyerTalker said, we need some clarification as to what locator NCL gave. Is it for an NCL cruise reservation, or is it specific to the flight? In either case, if it's not working and you don't see any other locater attached to the flight portion, you'll probably need to reach out to NCL as the travel agent for your flight (which essentially they are) to get that so you can verify everything is correct, and that you can check in ahead of time.

Keep in mind "better deal" and "lower price" can be very different things. London City doesn't have any flights outside of Europe. Lithuania and Greece are the furthest you can get. MAN has had a sudden explosion of longhaul routes over the last week or two, but almost exclusively going east and not west. The UK is still extremely focused on LHR/LGW, and even EDI has relatively few longhaul flights (and even fewer that are offered year-round).

Maybe it's my jet lag, but am I misunderstanding your statement? Because I'm just wondering in what world BHX is even remotely an option for people coming from across the Atlantic. There are one or two seasonal flights by TUI to holiday destinations in North America, and nothing to any major cities in North America (not even New York). Heathrow has more flights across the Atlantic in an hour than BHX has in a month. Rail/bus connectivity around the UK makes no difference if you can't actually get there.

Oh don't get me wrong, Air Canada is notorious for having delays. I think they're worst in North America amongst major airlines. But per the latest statistics they're only late 43% of the time, not 100% 😉