Booked on HAL Cruise, Now Flight Issues

[Gablin]

Booked on HAL Cruise, Now Flight Issues

 

My friend and I finally made the decision and have booked a cruise from Valparaiso, Chile to Buenos Aires, on the Veendam. Now, we are trying to figure out the best air routing. Our TA is working hard on it, but has been unable to come up with anyway to get there and get home that doesn't involve flights that are unacceptably long.

 

My friend has some physical problems. She believes that she will be too miserable if she has to fly longer than eight hours per flight. She may be right - I don't have those issues, although I certainly prefer shorter flights, especially when riding in the back (which is where we'll be) part of the plane.

 

Our airport is Seattle. The logical path is American Airlines to Dallas/Fort Worth and connect to Santiago. The second leg is nine and one half hours. Flying home is somewhat worse. Best available routing is Buenos Aires to Miami, then Miami to SEA. That first leg to come home is close to ten hours long. It's just about the same to go through Dallas coming home.

 

I'm thinking that the cruise will be so great that she'll quickly forget about the pain of the long flight down. Flying home may be different. She hasn't cruised as recently as I have, but she does remember the "grief period" after returning home to one's usual routine. :rolleyes:

 

We suggested to the TA a routing taking us through Lima, Quito, Bogota or some other city in the northern part of South America, but he's telling us that it will cost just about double to do that. :eek:

 

I think at this point that I'm looking for sympathy :p rather than advice, as no one but my friend knows what she should decide. I did think about suggesting she fly first class...leaving me back in coach.

[cruz chic]

You have my sympathy:D. I would love to go over to Europe but I can't handle the flights. I'd be good with it if the flights left in the morning but they all leave at night. I just can't stand the thought of being up all day...all night...then the next day. I have some issues with my health that makes it worse too. I hope you go on your cruise but I can totally understand your friends issues.

[RuthC]

I've done the Rio-Valparaiso route from New England twice. The ride down was tiring, but do-able. The flights home were brutal. The first time was a 33-hour day; second time I was up 39 consecutive hours. It took me three weeks to recover.

I would happily do it again to repeat the cruise.

A suggestion for the flight home (thanks, Mary Ellen for the great idea): stay over one (or more, if you want to tour. BA is worth several extra days) night.

If you come straight home, you will get up very early by west coast time, be up all day, fly all night, change planes, then fly all day. :eek:

If you stay over, you will go to bed when you would have been boarding the plane. You will sleep later than disembarkation day, and be rested when you arrive at the airport.

It's not a perfect solution, but it would help.

[CowPrincess]

I totally sympathise with you AND your friend. The flights just kill me. Like lorekauf, I won't be seeing Europe until I can be teleported to the embarkation port. It took me 3 days to recover from 18 hours of travel (not all in the air) to get to our Caribbean cruise.

 

One thing to consider (which we are going to do the next long flight) is to look at getting all 3 seats in the row, so you can both stretch out on the way home. Thanks to a thread on CC for that suggestion.

[Gablin]

Thanks for the sympathy all! We are staying in Buenos Aires two nights after the cruise, and getting a day room for the last day. My thinking is that my friend can even take a nap or two that last day, which should help her.

 

We are also going into Chile three days early, staying two nights in Santiago and the last night before the cruise in Vina del Mar.

 

The TA was going to talk to my friend this afternoon. I tried to phone her a bit ago, and got no answer, so I don't know how that went. :rolleyes:

[AndyRusty]

Living in Australia I am used to long flights, 15 hours to LA & 25 hours to europe several time a year. When I have people who have problems with long flights is to have a full day stop over on the way. If it is a holiday I make it several days. Myself I don't have a problem but for people who do it is worth while to have stopovers of one to several days

[ehschief]

We just flew Copa Airlines which went through Panama, they were on time, had good food and free booze. We would fly them again, they partner with continental so we go our one pass miles.

[canadianbear]

The long airplane rides are exactly what is keeping me from doing that cruise and going to Europe. I totally sympathize.

 

Is it possible to cruise longer-such as the timing could be that the cruise would continue on to Florida from Buenos Aires eliminating that part of the flying?

[Tricia724]

We've done two cruises out of South America the last two years. We fly out of Pittsburgh, and the first time we flew to Sao Paulo, Brazil via Houston. The second trip was the Antarctica cruise and we flew to Santiago going down and from Rio coming home via Atlanta. The shortest flight we had to/from South America was 9-1/2 hrs., and the flight to Santiago was 10-1/2 hrs. Those flights were the worst part of the trip.

 

Not only is being a sardine in those big cans unpleasant, it is actually quite dangerous to sit for a long period of time without sufficient movement to minimize the possibility of blood clots (DVT). All of the flights we were on were full, and the flight attendants were diligent about keeping everyone in their seats and belted in.

 

Long, cramped flights are also keeping us from some of the destinations that interest us. It's the reason why I'll probably never see Australia or New Zealand.

 

I do sympathize with you and your friend. Unfortunately, I don't have any suggestions that will make it easier. We couldn't find any easier way to go ourselves, and first class was not an option for us. ($4,000/pp last trip.) I hope it all works out for you.

[odd man out]

Don't know exactly when you are going, so I picked the first Veendam Santiago to Buenos Aires cruise I found (Nov 2 to 14) as a sample and did a search on Kayak.

 

The cheapest outbound option was via LAX and Panama City. Flight times were 2 1/2, 6 1/2, and 5 1/2 hrs (total time 20 hrs). Or you could go through Houston and Panama City with flight times of 4 hrs, 4 hrs, and 5 1/2 hrs (total time of 18 1/2 hrs)

 

Returning from Buenos Aires, the cheapest was again through Pamama City and LAX , flight times of 7 1/2, 6, and 2 1/2 hrs (total time of 23 hrs). Or through Panama City and Houston for flight times of 7 1/2, 4 1/2 , and 4 1/2 hrs.

 

The best round trip price I saw was for $1565 using the routing through Houston and Panama City.

 

I don't know how this compares to what you were finding, and of course I don't know what dates you need, but these options keep you under the 8 hr per leg requirement. I hope this helps.

[Gablin]

odd man out,

Thank you for your efforts. Since this is an "open jaw" flight, it is harder to find good fares. I couldn't force Kayak to do a multi-city or open jaw arrangement.

 

Currently, my friend is contemplating paying for first class in order to be able to elevate her legs. If she does that, then I will treat her to a couple of shore tours or something to help reduce her total costs.

 

We've been friends for thirty-five years. We can solve this in a way that won't kill her and won't break either of our banks, I hope.

[iamaphisig]

We just did Valparaiso->Rio in December on the Veendam, and we flew out of LAX... Non-stop LAX to Santiago going, FABULOUS flight. We disembarked early in Buenos Aires, and took a nightmare flight home... BA to Santiago, Santiago to Lima, Lima to LAX. I won't bore you with the details, but LAN refused to honor our assigned seats, and wanted my husband and I (returning from our honeymoon) to fly back on what was about 16 hours of flights both sitting in middle seats (not together, obviously.) It was a nightmare! I'd say if you can swing non-stop in and out of LAX to Santiago, do that!

[European_CruiseGirl]

odd man out,

Thank you for your efforts. Since this is an "open jaw" flight, it is harder to find good fares. I couldn't force Kayak to do a multi-city or open jaw arrangement.

 

I used to work for an airline for nearly 10 years. You are absolutely right that single open jaw fares are usually quite high and good prices are hard(er) to find. What people usually do (and sometimes we even suggested...although don't know if we should have) is that they book two completely separate bookings and get two completely separate tickets. The first one would be "your home town - Valparaiso - your home town" and the second would be "Buenos Aires - your home town - Buenos Aires". You'd just cancel the return reservation of those both tickets (or be a no show - either way you won't get any money back but usually it's so much cheaper to get two roundtrip tickets than an single open jaw ticket if you change the country also as in this case from Chile to Argentina). I'd really look into this option as this would give you so much more choises.

 

Another option is to look into "visit XX fligh coupons". They used to have them when I still worked. Not sure if they still do but you definitely should look into those if they do have. "Visit Europe", "Visit USA", "Visit Australia", "Visit South America" etc. You'd buy a roundtrip ticket somewhere to South America (and get a return from the same city) and after that you'd buy x amount of flight coupons which are relatively cheap. No worries about single open jaws or oneway tickets. You can use those coupons as you wish.

[Pete Jackson]

How about using Southwest to go from SEA to Fort Lauderdale (FLL), stay over for a night (or more) in south Florida and then do MIA to Santiago and from BA to MIA? The Southwest flights take about 7 to 8 hours each way, including a stop in places like Denver.

 

Right now, you can only book through October on Southwest, but fares then can be found for $134 each way for SEA-FLL. Presumably fares for later months will be about the same. And remember, bags fly free on Southwest (although they don't get peanuts).

[Love the beach]

You have my sympathy:D. I would love to go over to Europe but I can't handle the flights. I'd be good with it if the flights left in the morning but they all leave at night. I just can't stand the thought of being up all day...all night...then the next day. I have some issues with my health that makes it worse too. I hope you go on your cruise but I can totally understand your friends issues.

Virgin Atlantic does have a morning flight from Newark, NJ to London if that helps & maybe you could do a transatlantic cruise for the return.

HAL has a round trip cruise from Boston to Europe-- 35 days--- "Voyage of the Vikings". Wish I could go!:)

Marge

[doctork]

Sometimes it is cheaper to buy 3 coach seats than one first class seat, and sometimes the 3 coach seats are more comfortable because you can "lie flat." Not all first class seats recline to 180 degrees.

 

To be sure you get the 3 seats across together, inquire carefully at booking. One way is to book your own "firstname lastname" and then do "lastname Extra" for the other two seats. Guard all 3 seats carefully during boarding to make sure that a "seat poacher" doesn't try to grab one of yours!

[cruz chic]

Virgin Atlantic does have a morning flight from Newark, NJ to London if that helps & maybe you could do a transatlantic cruise for the return.

HAL has a round trip cruise from Boston to Europe-- 35 days--- "Voyage of the Vikings". Wish I could go!:)

Marge

Thx for the info. I was hoping to get something from Calgary:). I've been eyeing a cruise that would start in England and end in NY so I would only have to fly "across the pond" once and even doing that is freaking me out.

[Pam in CA]

Currently, my friend is contemplating paying for first class in order to be able to elevate her legs. If she does that, then I will treat her to a couple of shore tours or something to help reduce her total costs.

If you do, DO NOT BOOK ON DELTA! Their planes, even in First/Biz Class, do not have leg rests that go all the way up. You can go back almost flat but your legs are essentially left hanging down. Very little leg support. If you do book on Delta, bring a pillow or blow-up footrest to elevate the legs.

 

HAL has a round trip cruise from Boston to Europe-- 35 days--- "Voyage of the Vikings". Wish I could go!:)

Marge

Looked at this while on the Zuiderdam this week and even emailed my TA for a quote for 2011. GREAT itinerary but a bit rich for me as a single in a cabin for next year. Perhaps in 2012.

[YXU AC*SE]

Thx for the info. I was hoping to get something from Calgary:). I've been eyeing a cruise that would start in England and end in NY so I would only have to fly "across the pond" once and even doing that is freaking me out.

 

You wont get anything from YYC (TS, BA and AC are all overnight flights) ... however, AC operates a daytripper out of Toronto (AC868) daily that departs 08h50, arrives 21h00 in LHR. Connecting from Calgary, you'd have to put in an overnight in Toronto however.

 

Scott.

[cruz chic]

You wont get anything from YYC (TS, BA and AC are all overnight flights) ... however, AC operates a daytripper out of Toronto (AC868) daily that departs 08h50, arrives 21h00 in LHR. Connecting from Calgary, you'd have to put in an overnight in Toronto however.

 

Scott.

That might be an option for me then. Good to hear they do have some day flights. You are always very helpful and I appreciate it! Thank you!

[rjm1cc]

I am not familure with the area but would it be possible for your return to get another cruise that would get you closer to your home port and thus a shorter flight. Maybe a repositing cruise?

[rjm1cc]

Might be a good idea if your friend talked to her doctor to see if their is anything he can suggest that can make the flight easier. Might be that drug to minimize pain taken just before the flight will do the trick. I would also take short walks ever hour on the plan if that helps.

[YXU AC*SE]

That might be an option for me then. Good to hear they do have some day flights. You are always very helpful and I appreciate it! Thank you!

 

Au plaisir :) Scott.

[Gablin]

Thank you all for the advice, commiserations and good suggestions!

[ehschief]

Our doctor had us buy decompression socks for our long flights to avoid the possibility of blood clots, we always have a drink and take a drug and sleep, it is good to get up a few times in the flight to stretch your legs.