This trip actually took place in May of 2011. I had meant to write this earlier, but it was a lot more work than I had originally thought. I commend you regular TR writers for your timely updates. I still have along way to go before I reach your level!

I was bewitched by the sky at an early age. My first flight was taken when I was all of 6 months old from the States to Hong Kong with my grandparents, in early 1987. I was told it was aboard Korean Air, so I am assuming it was more than likely operated by a variant of the 747. Nowadays, I cannot stand crying babies when I fly. But back then, apparently I was that crying baby and grandmother walked me up and down the aisle for most of the flight to ICN. So I guess what goes around does come around. The first flights I actually remember were from my hometown of New Orleans (MSY) to Akron, connecting through ORD, on United. I was about 5 at the time. The MSY-ORD legs were operated by 727s and some sort of a puddle jumper operated the ORD-Akron legs. See, even back then I knew my aircraft. I also knew I wanted to be a pilot when I grew up.

Through the years, I have flown quite a bit for leisure with my family. We always flew coach; however, every time we boarded a 2 cabin aircraft (our travels were primarily within North America) I would long to sit in the big seat up front. My first taste of a premium cabin came during the Christmas season of 2003. Unfortunately, it came as a result of family emergency necessitating a trip back to Hong Kong. Because it was the only option, my mom and I were booked in J on China Airlines for the return portion of the trip. It was a fantastic experience. Lounges, priority boarding...I never knew it could be so great! The HKG-TPE segment was operated by an A340-300, equipped with then new J seats. Those were very comfortable. The TPE-LAX leg was operated by a 747-400 with the old recliner style seats, which were a let down from the seats on the A340. Anyways, the flight was pretty comfortable and the food and service were good.

My dream of becoming a pilot took quite a hit as I grew older. As much as I would love to go to a college with an aviation program, I couldn’t quite stomach the idea of living on such a paltry salary as I worked my way through the regional carriers on my way to the big leagues. So I decided on pursuing an accounting degree. When I finally graduated college and got a full time job in 2009, I was fortunate enough to find a job that allows me to travel quite a bit. I am now based in the DFW area, so I am married to AA. Combined with my leisure trips, I fly just enough to make to make AAdvantage Gold. With a few sticker upgrades and the odd op-up, I am fortunate enough to experience domestic premium cabins on a fairly regular basis. At about the same time, I discovered FlyerTalk, a curse or a blessing depending on how you look at it. After reading all these great trip reports, my yearning to get back into an international premium cabin grew stronger.

This leads us to a cold and rainy day in January 2011. I was at my parents’ house in suburban Houston for the weekend. We were discussing ideas for a family vacation, something we haven’t done for a few years. This was due to our conflicting schedules caused by school, work, and other various activities. After extensive deliberation, we settled on going a cruise. None of us have ever been a cruise before, so it seemed like a good time to finally take one. My parents own a timeshare with Disney. Disney timeshares are on a points based system. In other words, you buy X number of points per year for 40 years. The points can be redeemed at Disney owned resorts (obviously), many other affiliated resorts and hotels around the world, and the Disney Cruise Line. Since the points needed for a cruise in the Caribbean was just slightly less than what Mediterranean cruise required, we decided to go with the latter. I had never been to Europe before, so this was music to my ears. We ended up settling on the May 26th sailing of the Disney Magic out of Barcelona.

Now we needed to figure out how we were getting there. My parents were sitting on a substantial trove of Skymiles from years of credit card churning, so naturally I started looking for award availability on there. On my first try I managed to find 5 Y award seats on KLM’s daily 747-400 combi service to Amsterdam from Houston, returning on Delta through JFK for 60,000 miles a piece. Not too shabby given what I’ve read about on the Delta forum about Skymile Skypeso redemptions. I would be on a separate ticket since I was departing out of DFW. I had more than enough AAdvantage miles for a roundtrip in either Y or J, but I wanted to hold off on redeeming them in order to stockpile enough miles to redeem a F seat on CX. I had seen some fares for about $800 r/t on a combination of AA and IB, which weren’t too bad in my opinion. However, my parents graciously offered to let me dip into their Skymiles account, which I accepted. Plenty of award seats were available out of DFW…starting at 120,000 miles. In Y. No way. Since Houston is only a 3-3.5 hour drive from Dallas, I looked to see if the same award that I had booked for my family out of Houston was still available. It wasn’t, but there was an award available for 80,000 miles. In J. Naturally, I snagged it immediately. I was finally going to be back in an international premium cabin!

Upon further review, the award was in J, for one way. The return leg was in Y on the same flights as my family. Oh well. You win some and you lose some. The outbound leg was on KLM’s all J service operated by PrivatAir on a Boeing Business Jet. The Boeing Business Jet is essentially a 737-700 fitted with additional fuel tanks and other modifications to allow it to operate transoceanic routes. KLM ended up discontinuing this flight in November of 2011, so I am glad I was able to experience it.

We were scheduled to arrive in Barcelona the day before sailing, in order to give us a cushion in the event of IRROPS. For the overnight in Barcelona, I booked two rooms with the pre cruise package at the Renaissance Barcelona Airport. The rate was 110 Euros per room and included transfer to the cruise terminal and breakfast for two adults. I called the Marriott Rewards Platinum desk a few weeks before departure to inquire how much to be for the cruise terminal transfer for my two little sisters. They contacted the property directly and told me it was 10 Euros a piece for them. I thought it was a fairly good deal, so I went ahead and booked it.

With all of the arrangements set, all there was left to do was wait.