Air Travel

Arriving in Santiago, Chile, a day before embarking on a South American cruise on the Norwegian Sun in December ’08, my husband, Erwin, and I had only one day to see the city so we wanted to make the most of it.

I had read reviews in ITN recommending a guide there (Aug. ’07, pg. 70 & April ’08, pg. 66). I e-mailed Alejandro Molina
(alejandromolinamarin@yahoo.com) and we corresponded back and forth a few times. He works with other guides and drivers, as he put it, “like a little amateur travel agency.”

My wife, Guyette, and I in late 2006 booked a fall 2007 trip on the Trans-Siberian Express, Moscow to Vladivistok, through MIR Corp. (www.mircorp.com). MIR booked the train portion of the trip as well as two business-class seats (at $2,184 each) with Aeroflot for a flight from Vladivistok to Moscow at the trip’s conclusion. For the round-trip flight from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Moscow we purchased our own tickets through Delta.

Here are some notes on Spain from a trip my wife, Betty, and I took to the Costa Blanca area for a week and a half in April ’08 before continuing on to Greece. It was our first trip to either country.

We found southeast Spain to be very beautiful. We stayed with our friends Bob and Maryann, of Connecticut, who had rented a villa for a month, and our friend Jan, of Kansas.

by Diane Harrison, St. Louis, MO

My wife and I make our own travel arrangements and often are shocked by how often airlines are willing to schedule us into a layover of even less than an hour when changing from a domestic to an international flight. We never accept these arrangements, which means we sometimes have hours-long layovers — but we never have to fret about delays on the initial flight or in terminal hangups.

DONALD KINSER
Hillsboro, OR

In October ’08, I flew to Sydney on United and then immediately connected to a flight to Canberra on Qantas. My bag was checked “through” to Canberra, though I had to claim it, of course, and go through Customs at Sydney.

When my friend Nancy and I wanted to go on a bird-watching trip to Chile and Argentina, including Easter Island and Uruguay, we could find no tours going where we wanted, plus they spent too much time in the cities, so we set out to “do our own thing.” We had a great trip, Feb. 26-March 15, 2009, and I believe we saved at least $1,000 each by doing our own planning.

by Beth Habian, ITN

Because I planned to use a companion ticket for my wife, Betty, I had to book our Delta round-trip flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to Chicago O’Hare, Oct. 14 and 21, 2009, by phone rather than online. I made my reservations on May 31 and was placed on flights actually operated by Northwest and stopping in Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) both ways.

I confirmed the schedule and transaction online on the Delta website. My printouts showed the Delta flight numbers along with the Northwest flight numbers, with the notation that Northwest would be operating the flights.

My husband, Roger, and I boarded the MS Marshal Koshevoy in Nessebar, Bulgaria, for a Black Sea/Dnieper River cruise-tour to Kiev, Ukraine, Sept. 15-27, 2008, operated by Orthodox Cruise Company (Ala­byana, 5, 125057, Moscow, Russia). We booked the tour through Russian Empire Cruises.

Upon boarding the ship, we smelled sewer gas. The odor was quite strong in the bathroom of our cabin, an upper-deck stateroom on the third of four decks. The ship was scheduled to depart at 22:00 but did not due to weather.