alliance
Mar 22, 08, 4:56 am
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Because of the positive feedback that I got from my last picture report - Picture Report: SQ C, NH C, TG C, St. Regis & IC SIN, Hilton, Hyatt and IC BKK + more (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=802630) - I decided to put together another one for your enjoyment.
This trip is from back in 2006 - and back then I didn't reguarly take as many pics of the inflight and hotel experience, so if you viewed my previous picture report you will find this one a little more focused on where we went.
But don't worry, there is still plenty of hotel and AZ J pics. As with the last one, there are a lot of pics, so depending on your connection this could take some time to load. Hopefully it will be worth it for you.
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Thanks to the $33 YYZ-LCA (Cyprus) mistake fare from April 4, 2006 (http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=544622), Mrs. Alliance and I were able to book a real cheap trip to some amazing places for December, 2006:
Rome (3 nights)
Florence (2 nights)
Pisa (a few hours)
Cyprus (several cities, 2 nights)
Cairo (3 nights)
Luxor (2 nights)
Milan (1 night)
We did this by having four tickets nested inside of each other:
An AA award ticket (revenue tickets were ~$800 to YYZ): LAX-(AA Y)-JFK-(MQ Y)-YYZ-(destination, AA Y)-LAX
The $33 ticket business class mistake: YYZ-(AZ J)-MXP-(AZ Y)-FCO-(stopover, AZ Y)-MXP-(CY J)-LCA(destination, CY Y)-MXP-(overnight, AZ J)-YYZ
A revenue ticket (IIRC ~$200): LCA-(CY Y)-CAI-(destination, CY Y)-LCA
A revenue ticket (IIRC ~$100): CAI-(MS Y)-LXR-(destination, MS Y)-CAI
Our final routing was: LAX-JFK-YYZ-MXP-FCO-MXP-LCA-CAI-LXR-CAI-LCA-MXP-YYZ-LAX
This trip wasn't about the miles, although it certainly earned a bunch (credited to NW, which earned me NW Plat). This was a trip about the destinations. A real vacation. A cheap vacation. In style. Thanks to Alitalia (and my extensive planning).
This trip report has pics of the old AZ J product from our YYZ-MXP-YYZ flights, but I don't have pics of any of the other flights.
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We flew LAX-JFK-YYZ on AA/MQ. In YYZ we rented a car and drove to Toronto to spend the several hours before our flight to MXP.
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We went back to YYZ and checked in:
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We walked around the airport...
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And found the AC lounge:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/YYZ/AC%20Maple%20Leaf%20Lounge/e8058921.jpg
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After lounging, we went to the gate and found our plane:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/AZ%20Flights/AZ%20J/e7ba85db.jpg
While not a SQ spacebed, it was better than Y:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/AZ%20Flights/AZ%20J/cbb434e5.jpg
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During taxi, we watched an AC plane land:
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Then we took off and the service began:
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We landed in MXP and went to the horrid AZ lounge (pic from a different trip, but same junk lounge):
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/MXP/AZ%20Lounge/6899f6dd.jpg
Then we flew to FCO on an AZ MD80. It was free for all boarding and seat assignments, even though our BP had seat assignments.
We took a regional train form FCO to Rome and walked a couple blocks to the Holiday Inn Express, which was about $100/night and quite a bargain for Rome. They upgraded us to one of the few large balcony rooms that looked into an inner courtyard. I don't have any pics of the room, but it was standard EU Holiday Inn Express design. Here are pics of the balcony and view:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Rome/Holiday%20Inn%20Express/c40c803f.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Rome/Holiday%20Inn%20Express/b6ecd74e.jpg
We spent a few days walking around Rome enjoying the sites:
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From Rome, we took a train to Florence. We loved Florence. We saw David and many of the other must do things in Florence. As it was December, there were no lines anywhere. It was beautiful walking around the streets at night:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Florence/b3cbd718.jpg
And in the day:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Florence/9f599e23.jpg
But the real treat for us was the Westin Excelsior Florence:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Florence/Westin%20Excelsior%20Florence/3cf65c29.jpg
What a grand hotel. As a gold they upgraded us to a high floor river view room:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Florence/Westin%20Excelsior%20Florence/89e3dc00.jpg
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After Florence we needed to head back to FCO, but we decided to route our train ride via Pisa so that we could see the famous tower:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Pisa/ffb52ac3.jpg
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Pisa looked like a neat city too, but we were running through it so fast to make our train connection that there was just a few moments to enjoy the views:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Pisa/b2d73684.jpg
We had some train adventures leaving Pisa, but eventually we found a train to take us back to FCO:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Rome/c321bae7.jpg
At FCO, we flew AZ again to MXP and then from MXP we flew CY (Cyprus Airways) to LCA (Larnaca, Cyprus). To change our dates to make the free stopover in FCO work, we had to downgrade to Y on CY. However, in MXP we were able to get some AZ employees in their lounge to rebook us in C for MXP-LCA on CY (we were booked on the AZ codeshare). This turned out to be a great move as the seats on this plane were like domestic F seats instead of typical EU C seats that our plane had on the return LCA-MXP. It was an enjoyable flight.
This was my second YYZ-LCA fare trip. During the first one I was able to drop the MXP-LCA segments and stay in MXP. So I wasn't sure what to expect in LCA. We rented a car (my first experience driving on the left side of the road). It was late by the time we figured out where we were and so we checked in to our hotel, the Holiday Inn Limassol. No pics. It sucked. But it was cheap and we just needed a bed for the night.
The next day we got up early and explored the ruins on the island:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cyprus/cc7eb6fc.jpg
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We also walked around the beach:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cyprus/ad260b74.jpg
As it was only ~$200 to fly from LCA to CAI, this $33 mistake fare to LCA seemed like a great way to get to Egypt - someplace I never thought I would ever get myself to go to before joining FT. The flight was uneventful and landed quite late at night.
We paid for our visas (tax stamps) on arrival in CAI. We had read about the chaos of arrivial at CAI, but it was no worse than BKK. We negotiated pretty hard for a taxi driver to take us to the pyramids, where we stayed the first night at the Le Meridian Pyramids on points:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cairo/Le%20Meridian%20Pyramids/125d9b69.jpg
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The next morning we hired a driver who spoke good English and was studying to be a tour guide. He drove us around the pyramids:
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Here is me standing in front of one of the pyramids. This sort of puts the size of the big pyramids in perspective:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cairo/4d3335d6.jpg
After touring the pyramids, we headed back to the Le Meridian Pyramids and thanks to the late check out provided by our SPG status, we picked up our bags and headed back to CAI to catch our MS (Egypt Air) flight to LXR (Luxor). The flight was an hour or so, they provided snacks in Y. We actually bought Y tickets - full Y. J was only $10 more but it was sold out. It was still only about $100.
Upon arrivial at LXR, we took a cab to the Le Meridian Luxor. We stayed on points here too (another category 1 property). They were apparently leaving the SPG program at the end of the month. I saw the bill and they were only paid around $15 per night for our stay when normal room rates were around $120. I don't blame them.
In any case, after demanding to see my SPG Gold card so they could make a photocopy of it, they upgraded us to a large 1 bedroom suite:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Luxor/Le%20Meridian%20Luxor/367f5f16.jpg
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In Luxor we hired a taxi both days to drive us to the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens, and the temples around Luxor:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Luxor/c6559197.jpg
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It was amazing to be out in the desert walking around the dust of the temples and turn around and see the fertile Nile plains:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Luxor/b6d8900d.jpg
After two nights and days in Luxor, we took the late flight (it seems like all the Egypt flights depart very late at night or early in the morning) back up to CAI. We took a taxi to the Nile Hilton Cairo, where we had booked a corner junior suite (IIRC, ~$175 for the night). At check-in, I asked if I could have a late check-out (I had no Hilton status at the time), the agents response was superb, "Mr. alliance, for how much you are paying, you may check-out at any time you wish tomorrow." "How about 5pm?" "Of course - later if you wish?" That's a pro-customer attitude.
Here are some pictures of the view that night from the balcony, including a nice view of the Egyptian Museum. Here is also a video that shows the room and provides the noises of the Cairo traffic (http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cairo/Nile%20Hilton%20Cairo/?action=view¤t=a4004d1a.flv).
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cairo/Nile%20Hilton%20Cairo/27c1d477.jpg
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We spent the next day at the Egyptian Museum, which is across a small street from the Nile Hilton Cairo. Late that afternoon when we were done at the museum we moved over to the JW Marriott Cairo, where we used points and upgraded to the club floor. The club lounge was very nice and provided a good mix of food and drinks. Here are some pics of the room, which was our highest quality room in Egypt:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cairo/JW%20Cairo/6ff51bd2.jpg
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The next day we flew CY back to LCA and stayed at the Hilton Cyprus Hotel in Nicosia on a point stretcher. The day after that we flew CY again back to MXP. We had a 22 hour layover in MXP, so we took a bus into downtown Milan and checked in at the Westin Palace Milan:
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We walked around Milan a bit:
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And found out that McDonald's markets Arizona in Milan:
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The next morning we headed back to MXP and boarded our AZ flight to YYZ:
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AZ doesn't like people using CD players or printers on board:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/AZ%20Flights/AZ%20J/ff6605b3.jpg
The food service:
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We landed in YYZ and connected to a non-stop AA flight back to LAX.
While AZ's international business class hard product wasn't comfortable and the food wasn't that great either, AZ honored the fare and I appreciate and respect them for that. We had a wonderful trip and got to go to so many amazing places. THANK YOU ALITALIA!
Because of the positive feedback that I got from my last picture report - Picture Report: SQ C, NH C, TG C, St. Regis & IC SIN, Hilton, Hyatt and IC BKK + more (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=802630) - I decided to put together another one for your enjoyment.
This trip is from back in 2006 - and back then I didn't reguarly take as many pics of the inflight and hotel experience, so if you viewed my previous picture report you will find this one a little more focused on where we went.
But don't worry, there is still plenty of hotel and AZ J pics. As with the last one, there are a lot of pics, so depending on your connection this could take some time to load. Hopefully it will be worth it for you.
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Thanks to the $33 YYZ-LCA (Cyprus) mistake fare from April 4, 2006 (http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=544622), Mrs. Alliance and I were able to book a real cheap trip to some amazing places for December, 2006:
Rome (3 nights)
Florence (2 nights)
Pisa (a few hours)
Cyprus (several cities, 2 nights)
Cairo (3 nights)
Luxor (2 nights)
Milan (1 night)
We did this by having four tickets nested inside of each other:
An AA award ticket (revenue tickets were ~$800 to YYZ): LAX-(AA Y)-JFK-(MQ Y)-YYZ-(destination, AA Y)-LAX
The $33 ticket business class mistake: YYZ-(AZ J)-MXP-(AZ Y)-FCO-(stopover, AZ Y)-MXP-(CY J)-LCA(destination, CY Y)-MXP-(overnight, AZ J)-YYZ
A revenue ticket (IIRC ~$200): LCA-(CY Y)-CAI-(destination, CY Y)-LCA
A revenue ticket (IIRC ~$100): CAI-(MS Y)-LXR-(destination, MS Y)-CAI
Our final routing was: LAX-JFK-YYZ-MXP-FCO-MXP-LCA-CAI-LXR-CAI-LCA-MXP-YYZ-LAX
This trip wasn't about the miles, although it certainly earned a bunch (credited to NW, which earned me NW Plat). This was a trip about the destinations. A real vacation. A cheap vacation. In style. Thanks to Alitalia (and my extensive planning).
This trip report has pics of the old AZ J product from our YYZ-MXP-YYZ flights, but I don't have pics of any of the other flights.
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We flew LAX-JFK-YYZ on AA/MQ. In YYZ we rented a car and drove to Toronto to spend the several hours before our flight to MXP.
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Toronto/6c63086e.jpg
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We went back to YYZ and checked in:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/YYZ/1829557d.jpg
We walked around the airport...
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/YYZ/98cbb89b.jpg
And found the AC lounge:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/YYZ/AC%20Maple%20Leaf%20Lounge/e8058921.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/YYZ/AC%20Maple%20Leaf%20Lounge/7929079c.jpg
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http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/YYZ/AC%20Maple%20Leaf%20Lounge/5fcf980c.jpg
After lounging, we went to the gate and found our plane:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/AZ%20Flights/AZ%20J/e7ba85db.jpg
While not a SQ spacebed, it was better than Y:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/AZ%20Flights/AZ%20J/cbb434e5.jpg
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During taxi, we watched an AC plane land:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/AZ%20Flights/AZ%20J/99d3f891.jpg
Then we took off and the service began:
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We landed in MXP and went to the horrid AZ lounge (pic from a different trip, but same junk lounge):
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/MXP/AZ%20Lounge/6899f6dd.jpg
Then we flew to FCO on an AZ MD80. It was free for all boarding and seat assignments, even though our BP had seat assignments.
We took a regional train form FCO to Rome and walked a couple blocks to the Holiday Inn Express, which was about $100/night and quite a bargain for Rome. They upgraded us to one of the few large balcony rooms that looked into an inner courtyard. I don't have any pics of the room, but it was standard EU Holiday Inn Express design. Here are pics of the balcony and view:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Rome/Holiday%20Inn%20Express/c40c803f.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Rome/Holiday%20Inn%20Express/b6ecd74e.jpg
We spent a few days walking around Rome enjoying the sites:
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From Rome, we took a train to Florence. We loved Florence. We saw David and many of the other must do things in Florence. As it was December, there were no lines anywhere. It was beautiful walking around the streets at night:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Florence/b3cbd718.jpg
And in the day:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Florence/9f599e23.jpg
But the real treat for us was the Westin Excelsior Florence:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Florence/Westin%20Excelsior%20Florence/3cf65c29.jpg
What a grand hotel. As a gold they upgraded us to a high floor river view room:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Florence/Westin%20Excelsior%20Florence/89e3dc00.jpg
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After Florence we needed to head back to FCO, but we decided to route our train ride via Pisa so that we could see the famous tower:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Pisa/ffb52ac3.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Pisa/4248a508.jpg
Pisa looked like a neat city too, but we were running through it so fast to make our train connection that there was just a few moments to enjoy the views:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Pisa/b2d73684.jpg
We had some train adventures leaving Pisa, but eventually we found a train to take us back to FCO:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Rome/c321bae7.jpg
At FCO, we flew AZ again to MXP and then from MXP we flew CY (Cyprus Airways) to LCA (Larnaca, Cyprus). To change our dates to make the free stopover in FCO work, we had to downgrade to Y on CY. However, in MXP we were able to get some AZ employees in their lounge to rebook us in C for MXP-LCA on CY (we were booked on the AZ codeshare). This turned out to be a great move as the seats on this plane were like domestic F seats instead of typical EU C seats that our plane had on the return LCA-MXP. It was an enjoyable flight.
This was my second YYZ-LCA fare trip. During the first one I was able to drop the MXP-LCA segments and stay in MXP. So I wasn't sure what to expect in LCA. We rented a car (my first experience driving on the left side of the road). It was late by the time we figured out where we were and so we checked in to our hotel, the Holiday Inn Limassol. No pics. It sucked. But it was cheap and we just needed a bed for the night.
The next day we got up early and explored the ruins on the island:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cyprus/cc7eb6fc.jpg
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http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cyprus/a3769cd0.jpg
We also walked around the beach:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cyprus/ad260b74.jpg
As it was only ~$200 to fly from LCA to CAI, this $33 mistake fare to LCA seemed like a great way to get to Egypt - someplace I never thought I would ever get myself to go to before joining FT. The flight was uneventful and landed quite late at night.
We paid for our visas (tax stamps) on arrival in CAI. We had read about the chaos of arrivial at CAI, but it was no worse than BKK. We negotiated pretty hard for a taxi driver to take us to the pyramids, where we stayed the first night at the Le Meridian Pyramids on points:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cairo/Le%20Meridian%20Pyramids/125d9b69.jpg
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The next morning we hired a driver who spoke good English and was studying to be a tour guide. He drove us around the pyramids:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cairo/8f9b3b2b.jpg
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Here is me standing in front of one of the pyramids. This sort of puts the size of the big pyramids in perspective:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cairo/4d3335d6.jpg
After touring the pyramids, we headed back to the Le Meridian Pyramids and thanks to the late check out provided by our SPG status, we picked up our bags and headed back to CAI to catch our MS (Egypt Air) flight to LXR (Luxor). The flight was an hour or so, they provided snacks in Y. We actually bought Y tickets - full Y. J was only $10 more but it was sold out. It was still only about $100.
Upon arrivial at LXR, we took a cab to the Le Meridian Luxor. We stayed on points here too (another category 1 property). They were apparently leaving the SPG program at the end of the month. I saw the bill and they were only paid around $15 per night for our stay when normal room rates were around $120. I don't blame them.
In any case, after demanding to see my SPG Gold card so they could make a photocopy of it, they upgraded us to a large 1 bedroom suite:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Luxor/Le%20Meridian%20Luxor/367f5f16.jpg
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http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Luxor/Le%20Meridian%20Luxor/fdbce16a.jpg
In Luxor we hired a taxi both days to drive us to the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens, and the temples around Luxor:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Luxor/c6559197.jpg
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It was amazing to be out in the desert walking around the dust of the temples and turn around and see the fertile Nile plains:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Luxor/b6d8900d.jpg
After two nights and days in Luxor, we took the late flight (it seems like all the Egypt flights depart very late at night or early in the morning) back up to CAI. We took a taxi to the Nile Hilton Cairo, where we had booked a corner junior suite (IIRC, ~$175 for the night). At check-in, I asked if I could have a late check-out (I had no Hilton status at the time), the agents response was superb, "Mr. alliance, for how much you are paying, you may check-out at any time you wish tomorrow." "How about 5pm?" "Of course - later if you wish?" That's a pro-customer attitude.
Here are some pictures of the view that night from the balcony, including a nice view of the Egyptian Museum. Here is also a video that shows the room and provides the noises of the Cairo traffic (http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cairo/Nile%20Hilton%20Cairo/?action=view¤t=a4004d1a.flv).
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cairo/Nile%20Hilton%20Cairo/27c1d477.jpg
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We spent the next day at the Egyptian Museum, which is across a small street from the Nile Hilton Cairo. Late that afternoon when we were done at the museum we moved over to the JW Marriott Cairo, where we used points and upgraded to the club floor. The club lounge was very nice and provided a good mix of food and drinks. Here are some pics of the room, which was our highest quality room in Egypt:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cairo/JW%20Cairo/6ff51bd2.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Cairo/JW%20Cairo/d4e1ee43.jpg
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The next day we flew CY back to LCA and stayed at the Hilton Cyprus Hotel in Nicosia on a point stretcher. The day after that we flew CY again back to MXP. We had a 22 hour layover in MXP, so we took a bus into downtown Milan and checked in at the Westin Palace Milan:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Milan/Westin%20Palace%20Milan/77b0eac7.jpg
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We walked around Milan a bit:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Milan/03464845.jpg
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And found out that McDonald's markets Arizona in Milan:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/Milan/0f385806.jpg
The next morning we headed back to MXP and boarded our AZ flight to YYZ:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/AZ%20Flights/AZ%20J/9127149b.jpg
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AZ doesn't like people using CD players or printers on board:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/AZ%20Flights/AZ%20J/ff6605b3.jpg
The food service:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w56/alliance_ft/AZ%20Flights/AZ%20J/e20f9be9.jpg
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We landed in YYZ and connected to a non-stop AA flight back to LAX.
While AZ's international business class hard product wasn't comfortable and the food wasn't that great either, AZ honored the fare and I appreciate and respect them for that. We had a wonderful trip and got to go to so many amazing places. THANK YOU ALITALIA!