flasaltwater63

On 11/21/2022 at 9:42 PM, Cotswold Eagle said:

Regarding formalities, if you are US citizens you will not require a visa to visit Germany and your trip in October 2023 will be before the introduction of the ETIAS travel authorisation scheme, so it will be very easy. You will of course pass through an immigration and customs control on entry from the U.K. 
 

You could book your travel as an open-jaw ticket (US- London Berlin-US) and add a separate London-Berlin flight, which as mentioned are plentiful and usually quite cheap, or a multi-city trip taking in all the flights.  
 

I am tempted to ask “Why Berlin?”, but I recognise that people may have deeply personal reasons to visit. I find it an endlessly fascinating city, with some world class museums (and, I am told, amazing nightlife), but also in part gritty and challenging, particularly a lot of the 20th century history,  of course. But I doubt it would be near my top ten destinations for a first European trip, to be honest. 

The trip to Berlin is for my husband. It's personal for him as his family had roots there.  I've been looking at tickets to fly from Heathrow once we disembark and they are quit cheap. However, the flight back home to Florida from Berlin is more expensive than if we would have done a round-trip from Heathrow. Were thinking about just flying over and from there fly home but we haven't made that decision as of yet. 

2 hours ago, Globaliser said:

 

Your original post made it sound like you were going to do three days in London, and then go to Berlin before flying home.

 

If you only have three days in total, then my advice would be either to do London, or to skip London and go straight to Berlin for your three days. Even if you fly, the end-to-end journey from London to Berlin will soak up a good part of one of those three days. If you try to see both cities, you'll end up seeing neither.

 

Three days in Berlin would give you a reasonable taster of the city, which is why I would personally be relaxed about skipping London in this situation. You really need three months to see London properly.

My apologies for the confusion. Thanks for the information.

I'm planning to transfer to Heathrow from the cruiseship from there we will take a flight to Berlin stay for 3 days then fly home.

45 minutes ago, Bob++ said:

I find this an odd question. Why would anyone not be able to travel from London to Berlin?

 

Train is a possibility, but involves a couple of changes and would take all day. There are a dozen direct flights a day. Any of the usual search engines will give you the details, but you need to be careful of baggage allowances, especially on the cut-price airlines. 

 

There is also a wide choice of flights from Berlin to Florida although you may have to look hard for a direct flight.

 

This is the answer I was looking for.  This will be our first European trip. I'm not experienced with border crossings for European travels. I think we'll fly we only have 3 days. Although,  I'm sure my husband would enjoy the train ride unfortunately, were on limited time. Thank you for the information. 

So we are doing the British Isle cruise in October of next year. We are staying an extra 3 days in London when we disembark in Southampton. Is it possible to take a train or get a flight to Berlin, then fly back to Florida from Berlin? Has anyone ever went to other countries post cruise? Any advice appreciated.

12 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

An award seat is one purchased with miles or whatever reward currency that airline uses. For United it is "miles", other airlines have other names and earning systems.

We do have some Delta Skymiles I'm going to use. I've never seen it referred to as awards. We are novice travelers. One day when we're retired we will become seasoned travelers as I want to see the 🌎 

Thanks so much for your response. 

16 hours ago, jollyjones said:

 

A simple answer to the OP.

I have found from experience over many years that I tend to get the best combination of availability and price at about nine months out for revenue flying, earlier for an award seat.

Post Covid, it's been more of a mess, but as schedules seem to be beginning to stabilise again it seems to be tending back to this again.

 

There are of course, many exceptions, you just need to keep looking, but in general the later you leave it the fewer good options you will have.

 

PS Once you've bought a flight consider it done, don't go back and check prices, that way lies heartache ...

 

PPS But do go back regularly and check schedule changes, if you don't that also leads to heartache ...

 

Were fortunate enough to live near Port Canaveral so we don't fly much for cruising. What do you mean by award seats?

10 hours ago, waterbug123 said:

 

1.  There is no way to "make sure" you don't book too soon or wait too late.  It's impossible.  As others have said, there is no magic time that's best so on some level it's always going to be a guessing game. 

 

2. You say the flights you're interested in fill up pretty quick.  How do you know that?   Are you searching on Delta and it says "only 5 seats left at this price?"  Because very often they will refill that very fare bucket the minute you buy your ticket.  It just means that right now in this very moment, that's the number of seats their algorithm says to offer in that particular fare bucket.   Are you looking at the seat map and seeing seats blocked off?  Not reliable AT ALL.  They may show blocked seats simply because those seats aren't available for you, at your particular loyalty level, to select. Doesn't mean they are actually booked.  Could be other things but you get the point.  

This explains why the seats had x marked on them.

It was my guess they were booked seats because they were not available. Apparently that's not the case. 

This explains a lot. Thanks so much! 

44 minutes ago, Zach1213 said:

I'll echo the "who knows" sentiment, unfortunately. There's really no magic time...if there was, everyone would book it then and it wouldn't be magical 🙂

 

You mention flying in to Southampton. While that is definitely possible on KLM via Amsterdam, I do hope you're also looking at London Heathrow and London Gatwick as those will offer many, many, many, many, many, many more flights (including nonstops from Orlando) and they're not far from Southampton. 

I'm looking at flying direct to London Heathrow from Orando via Delta/Virgin Atlantic. That seams to be the best track from what I can tell. It's when to book the flight I'm not clear on. I want to make sure I don't book to soon, or wait to late. It looks like these flights fill up pretty quick. When I was looking this morning I was surprised to see a flight leaving end of September 2023 with half the seats are taken. 

Greetings Everyone!

We are taking out first British isles cruise next year. We are flying from Orlando to Southampton round-trip. At the moment the flights are not available as we are on the October 13th cruise on NCL Star. I have added the air package to our cruise but not sure I want to do this I may book on my own so we can have premiun economy seats . Once the flights become available do you book them immediately, or wait until closer to cruise?

TIA

On 10/8/2022 at 4:22 PM, styxfire said:

Bummer, I have 3 AmEx cards, including the Everyday one...  and it's not offered on any of mine.  

 

You're finding it in the "Offers" section, under the "Travel" subcategory, right?

I have the Amex Everyday Blue Cash and I have the offer. It showed up yesterday. I'll be making good use of this offer. We have a British ilse Cruise booked for Oct 2023. Now if I could just get an offer for airfare.

When I clicked on offers at the bottom of the Amex app it was the first offer.

I just told my husband about the solo cabin that will be most likely what we do. We've been on the Epic before I remember the strange bathroom setup were probably going with a solo cabin for her.

Thanks for the info

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

Will most likely be on either the Epic out of Port Canveral or the Getaway out of New Orleans. We are looking at the Carribean, Belize, Costa Mya

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

We are looking to book a cruise for the Beginning of next year. It will be me, my husband and my mother in law. Which cabin would work for 3 adults?

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

I ended up booking us on Delta in the end .....Tickets are officially bought and paid for. We have round trip tickets for Delta comfort from Florida to Seattle then back home. I ended up booking directly through Delta. I had flight held through princess but canceled those. I go the tickets for 1154.00. I thought the comfort class would be good since my husband is over 6ft we are on a 757 then a 737-900er not sure what kind of and that is but I'm sure it will be fine. I chose Delta because of departure times and the difference in price for the comfort class. 4 inchs of leg room means a lot to a big guy. We're working on getting miles for next trip maybe that one will be first class.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

The Alaska Premium is nothing but a money grab in my opinion. I'm a 75K Gold

Even if I select a "premium" seat when I make my reservations, Alaska Airlines counts that as a Comp Upgrade on their "Look at how well we upgrade people" checklist on their app site. The comp box of nuts is just that.

 

I would rather they offer nothing but a smile and a "Thank you for flying Alaska", than offering a condescending cheap ass box of nuts.

 

Again, they are my airline of choice, but the Premium product was just a money grab.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

That's what Alaska air is calling them "Premium Class" it has 4 more inches of leg room and a free drink and priority boarding. So it says on Alaska's website.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

I'm sad my AA flying rarely involves MD-80s anymore! :D

 

I'll also take the 25yr old AA 757 I flew a few weeks ago that had fully flat beds on a domestic flight versus the 2yr old 737-800 that, well, doesn't :D

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

I changed our flight to Alaska airlines for 2 reasons one their planes are newer then Deltas from what I can see and two because almost every person that responded to this thread uses Alaska Airlines so they have to be good for so many to speak so highly of them. Looks like Delta did some updates but most of their planes are older. I read that their 757 is 20 years old. I don't really care about the entertainment screen I download movies to my IPad. So we won't be lost without the Delta entertainment package.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

Yes, California is same as Florida...gotta wait for it to be mailed. Looking into emergency passport system here in CA..thank you!

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

I did get a 10% discount for putting my email on their mail list. The room itself at sleep Inn with taxes was a little over 200 a night the Double tree is the hotel that went up in price when I booked it with tax is was 176 now it's about 250 I could believe just a couple of weeks and quit a price change.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

I've been following this thread since I'm having the same delima as the OP. I originally thought we would be able to get post cruise rooms at the Double- Tree by the airport since this is where were staying the night before we cruise, but the price went up by about 80 a night so I booked with the sleep Inn. The more I was reading this thread along with trip advisor I knew transportation would be a problem. So technically were still in the same boat as when we started but we made the decision to stay at the Cedarbrook Lodge post cruise. I know we will be tired from the cruise and it looks like a nice place relax not to mention it's cheaper then sleep Inn and they also have a shuttle to the airport. Worse case scenario we rent a car. I looked at budget at the airport but we really do not want to takle the Seattle highways so others options are, public transportation, uber, lyft or cab either way I think this was the best for us.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

Thanks so much for your responses. At least now I have a general idea of how they work.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

I was reading that you can buy future cruise credit on the ship. I was reading about it but I'm still not sure I understand, how many can you buy? Do they give you onboard credit for each one you buy? How many can you use at one time?

We bought 2 cruise next certificates when we were on Norwegian last year. Does Princess future cruise program kind of work that same way?

TIA

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

Heh, reminds me of a group that we met on one of our panama canal cruises. Group of folks from england with a bunch of tattoos, and really, the whole group looked more like a biker gang than anything else I'd say. Got to talking with them on one of the excursions we were on and turns out they were all high level employees at some aerospace factory in england. All very knowledgeable and could hold high level scientific conversations with you. Just shows you can't tell by looking. Course, that said, I'm not convinced they couldn't still outdrink the biker gang.

Interesting, this is why people shouldn't judge. I don't know that we look like bikers lol well maybe he does minus the facial hair. A lot of the Engineers I know look like bikers they even ride up to Daytona for Bike week covered in leathers. I guess Nasa has no rules for appearance becuase they all work on the Space Program, you would never know what their profession is by looking at them.

If I hadn't read more then one post in regards to tattoos I would not have even mentioned it. I believe one of to the posters used the term ghetto which I thought was kind of rude, but there were several conversations in regards to them. After reading all the comments posted here I know we'lll have a great trip. We love cruising it' a great way to see the World. This Alaska trip is for me he's not to keen on the 8 hour flight to Seattle but I'm super excited.

Mike booked us at the Mayflower Park Hotel on Olive Way. I have gotten a lot of info from this thread and am thinking of changing it. I would like one with a self service laundry since we will be there for 5 days before a 21 day cruise. Do any of these hotels have that? I also don't like some of my clothes washed in super hot water like they do on the ships/hotels so I would like to do it myself. I don't think he was thinking of such things when he booked. :)

I booked the Sleep Inn its near the airport the reviews on it are good through Trip Advisor and they have self service laundry, they also have a shuttle to and from the airport.