parody

According to the OAG (not the latest copy of the Official Airline Guide), the minimum connecting time at Atlanta for a domestic to domestic flight is 55 minutes.

"Jetblue says that Jetblue has the best coach"

Yep, I just inserted the first link that I came across. A more independent source -- http://skift.com/2013/09/03/breaking-down-u-s-domestic-airlines-by-coach-seat-size-and-fees/

The only caveat is their on time performance ranking is towards the bottom (74% of their flights are on time)

I suppose one must wonder how much weather and other similar factors have to do with this statistic. In October 2013, their on-time performance was 86.9%. http://www.dot.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/2013DecemberATCR.pdf

JetBlue has the most legroom in coach http://blog.jetblue.com/index.php/2013/09/29/best-coach-experience/

and, they have a policy of not involuntary bumping folks. A few years ago they went the entire year without bumping anyone. Quite remarkable.

[When should I buy a multi-city fare?]

Like the advice given for buying a stock, you should not try to time the market to find the absolute lowest point of when to buy. Basically though, there is a strategy one should follow and it looks like you are off to a great start. You can use various findings to give you an idea of when fares will be at their lowest point, but, as the website I referenced above indicates, sometimes the absolute lowest fare occurred 1 day prior to the flight or alternatively 365 days prior to a flight. The actual strategy will vary depending on whether the flight is domestic or international, but basically begins with, "What is a good/reasonable fare", and "what volatility exists in the market I am interested". Generally, one should book a flight when the fare being charged is reasonable, all things considered (e.g., the availability of nearby airports being one major factor). If you think the current fares are on the high end of the historical range in fares, you can use various alert services to track all flights in this market, or yapta.com to track a finite set of definitive flights so that you can book quickly when fares reach a level that you are comfortable with. As you might imagine, knowing the airline's rules and costs for fare changes, and your tolerance for risk, can change the strategy for any given individual.

Even if one doesn't agree on the relatively short time horizons for booking certain airline tickets, hopefully everyone can agree that booking a ticket one year in advance when seats are initially released will seldom yield the lowest fare. Yet, many folks believe that this is valid strategy. A good graph of historical, average airfares according to how far in advance they were booked can be found at

http://www.cheapair.com/blog/travel-tips/how-far-in-advance-should-i-book-my-flight/#more-800490460.

This analysis was based on the results of looking at 560 million fare searches. There is the expression that a million ants can't be wrong.

Carnival recommends 11:30. http://www.carnival.com/cms/faq/default.aspx?faq=outboundflights#q-544915

Should I wait to see if it comes down a little?

I'm confused and need advice.

To help answer this question, one may want to look at the volatility of historical airfares in the market of interest. (Of course, nobody has a firm handle on future fuel costs which then becomes a big random variable.) The historical fare charts on Farecompare do not seem to exist for the moment, so I would suggest http://www.faredetective.com/farehistory/index.php.

It seems clear that with this program, Princess has moved the ball forward. IMHO, this must be a net benefit to the average cruiser who typically had little or no control of their air arrangements. Most likely, advanced users could still do better on their own. With this eZAir program, cruisers could still choose between 2 types of air tickets--called Flexible and Restricted. One would think that Flexible tickets could not--almost by definition--be consolidator tickets. But they can't be regular coach tickets either as any change must be made 45 days prior to the flight. As you note, until more actual experience is developed, only time will tell if Restricted tickets offer a meaningful benefit to a cruiser.

This side discussion does not take away from the main point that the CC article referenced earlier needs to be updated.

Cruise Critic has now posted an article under Cruise Planning discussing what Cruise Air will or will not get you

My professor in Transportation began his textbook with the words "We live in a world of rapid change", and it would appear that this CC article will soon need to be updated. Noting the common mantra, CC says: "That's because the cruise line won't reveal your flights and seats until 30 to 60 days prior to departure". However, starting on September 1, 2010, Princess now says: "Princess passengers will have access to real-time pricing and flight availability, immediate flight confirmation, competitive airfares, and something no major online air booking website offers -- next port protection in the event of flight delays."

http://www.princess.com/news/article.jsp?newsArticleId=na1095

... if (emphasis added) a ship is currently doing the same itinerary that it was in the past

Isn't that the whole point of the question. In other words, how can one find out if the Itinerary being operated today by a particular cruise ship is the same as an Itinerary from (say) 5 years ago.

I just saw it on the RC website itself. Easily found at

www.royalcaribbean.com

If you think that this site shows the Itinerary of historical cruises, please give us the actual URL.

--------------------------------------------------

Since I am not aware of a website that will show the itineraries for any cruise ship at any historical point in time, one option, besides those presented already, is to go to a website where folks post scans of daily activity sheets, etc. (Patters, Compass, etc.) and see if you can locate one for the time frame that you are interested in. Fortunately, one site, http://cruiseclues.com/shipstips/jeweloftheseas.htm#jeweloftheseascompass, has not been updated recently, so a lot of this information is available for the early 2000 time period.

Hot, Hot, Hot is not Jamacian; that soca classic was written and performed by the innovative singer Arrow who is from Montserrat.

A great cruise song! Arrow's version can be found

There is one airline currently operating a NYC-Hawaii flight: Continental's flight from Newark to Honolulu. But this is (just) under 5,000 miles.

About 10 years ago I took this flight. It's duration is 9.5 hours.

OAG (on a random date - 30 August) has this operated by Corsair (SS) with a 747, Air France (AF) with a 777, and Air Austral (UU) with a 777.

I only have the North American edition of the OAG and not the World edition, but to the extent that other online sources are correct, it appears that only AF operates this route nonstop. Corsair does some code-sharing so it's not entirely clear what they actually operate. At least one source indicates that while they do have direct service from Paris to Reunion, the aircraft stops in Lyon enroute. Air Austral is a big unknown. Their website shows no nonstop service, but I wouldn't go to the bank on what it is saying.

Off the top of my head, I think that the longest non-stop domestic flight is Paris-Reunion, at about 5,050 miles.

Would you know which airline flies this nonstop?

Unfortunately, it seems that you are getting a lot of inaccurate responses to your post. I was in a Princess mini-suite on the Ocean Princess that has a curtain in place to close off the sleeping area from the sitting area (thus no need for rigging using duct tape, etc.) That particular ship was transferred to P&O and was renamed the Oceana in 2002. But it was a Sun Class ship and fortunately, Princess has 3 others that they still operate (i.e., the Sun, Dawn, and Sea). If one wants to find out more about how these mini-suites are arranged, head over to the Princess website.

Is there a local bus in St. Thomas? Where do we find it?

According to http://www.frommers.com/destinations/stthomasusvi/0097020015.html

Buses, called Vitrans, leave from street-side stops in the center of Charlotte Amalie, fanning out east and west along all of the most important highways. They run between 5:30am and 8pm daily, but waits can be very long and this is a difficult way to get about. A ride within Charlotte Amalie is 75¢; a ride to anywhere else is $1. For schedule and bus-stop information, call tel. 340/774-5678.

In Nassau:

A public bus transportation system operates between both Port Lucaya Marketplace and the International Bazaar to the downtown area, and from downtown to the outlying areas of West End and East End. The one-way fare is $1.00 within the Freeport/Lucaya area; $1.50 to Eight Mile Rock; $4.00 to West End; $8.00 to McLean's Town. Exact change is required. (http://www.grand-bahama.com/transportation.htm)

If you are unable to replicate the exact flights that you found on Kayak or itasoftware.com on the Delta website, then try Orbitz, Travelocity, or Expedia. You may end up paying a small handling fee, but you at least will be able to book the flights that you found through them.