My wife and I decided to take our first river cruise ever, the 15-day “Great Rivers of Europe” cruise from Amsterdam to Vienna, with Grand Circle Travel (Boston, MA; 800/221-2610, www.gct.com).
We chose Grand Circle Travel (GCT) because of friends’ recommendations, and we loved our two previous trips with their sister company Overseas Adventure Travel, or OAT (Boston, MA; 800/955-1925, www.oattravel.com).
I saw Laila Robinson’s request for information (Oct. ’17, pg. 64) on “The Royal Tour to Egypt” from Archaeological Paths (Plac Kaszubski 17/49, 81-350 Gdynia, Poland; phone, in the US, 917/719-1974, archaeologicalpaths.com).
This month’s winner is PEGGY PARKER of Milwaukie, Oregon:
While standing in long lines at airport security and Customs for a very early flight from Guatemala, we noticed many locals carrying large takeout bags of fried chicken, to be eaten later on the plane.
As we boarded and were getting settled into our seats, we felt as if we had gone to a chicken franchise, due to the aroma in the plane.
My daughter Jill Carrington and I did a trip to Iceland, July 14-28, 2017.
During a 5-week trip to the Middle and Far East, Aug. 10-Sept. 17, 2017, I traveled business class on several airlines.
My trip began when I drove from Naples to Ft. Myers, Florida, then flew American Airlines to Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and on to London. (Flying from Raleigh kept me from having to deal with New York’s JFK Airport or La Guardia and was very pleasant.)
I initially got a Capital One Venture® Rewards credit card because they didn’t charge interest when I used the card outside of the country, plus I got 2 miles for every $1 I spent. Also, I was tired of the low seat availability and all the blackout dates when trying to book a flight with an air-miles card I had.
In early 2017, I found the best price for a round-trip business-class flight in September from Seattle, Washington, to London, England, on Icelandair (via Reykjavik both ways).
I was looking at recent updates for the Singapore Changi Airport that were posted by FlightAware on Facebook, and there was a picture of a new seating area with charging stations between pairs of seats. Airline clubs have lots of USB charging stations, too, and waiting and boarding areas at airports all have a growing number of USB charging ports.
The problem is that public USB charging stations open the user to what is commonly called “juice jacking.”
Dear Globetrotter:
For our Icelandair flight from Reykjavik (Keflavik), Iceland, to Seattle, Washington, on July 21, 2017 (following a 10-day cruise around Iceland), we were among a couple hundred people who checked in, made it through security and were in our seats before the takeoff time of 5 p.m. The plane then sat at the gate for one hour waiting for three more passengers.
When asked, flight attendants stated that the airline’s policy was to wait for people who had checked in but had not cleared Customs, security, etc.