FlyerTalk Forums - BUH and AMS Stays

Quote:

Originally Posted by grizshel

The Intercontinental was nice except the air conditioning worked poorly in the room, could barely keep the temperature at about 80 to 85 F or so. Also, nothing there was anywhere near worth the cost; for example, a single cup of tea cost $18 US.

Lounge was unattended at 2pm today, so this IC Gold took advantage of the free warm non-alcoholic beverages and made a cup of hot tea for free. Everything else in the hotel is overpriced.

Another tip is to pick up the local casino magazine before visiting the casino in the basement of the IC. There is a match play coupon in there ^

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaimito Cartero (Post 8216557)

We ate at KFC once, and only once while we were there. Pretty untasty breading on the chicken, and be ready to cough up 75 cents for a nasty little container of ketchup that wouldn't be acceptable to any North American's taste buds.

Directly behind the hotel, there is a lovely bakery/restaurant that Yaatri and I sampled last trip. As it was Sunday, the bakery was cloed, but the cafe next door was open. Large garden salad + good sized sandwich + soda = 20 lei. If you are looking for a late night snack, walk from the IC 5-6 blocks north to the same plaza as McDonalds. It is right before the next subway station. Next door to McDonalds is a lovely quick serve Italian style restaurant. Food is affordable and quality is ^

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaimito Cartero (Post 8216557)

MRP Alert was came in early this morning, so I got to meet him as I was checking out at 4am this morning.

My YVR-AMS went out completely full in Y and with 1 open seat missing in C. I briefly consdered upgrading, but was advised at ticketing that the open J seat had broken IFE and no discount was to be given. Bulkhead row 8 worked perfectly instead. It was nice to serve as Jamito's wake up call at 3:30 am after arriving a weebit late due to turbulence and headwinds. After sleeping until 1pm, I checked out the IKEA and the mall near the airport and ate Sweedish Meatballs ^. After walking 5 km or so from IKEA, I got tired and hopped a cab for a 10 lei ride to OTP which was 4km away.

I booked a LY (El-Al) award ticket to TLV. To the left of the main security que, LY had its own screening center for checked and carry-on baggage. As usual, LY security could not understand why an American traveled through Canada, Amsterdam, and Romania to get to Isreal - this was the same experience I had in Cyprus. After I explained in Hebrew that my ticket was $200 r/t, they asked me for a ticket and let me through. This was not the time to mention FlyerTalk ;) Our inbound was 30 minutes late, so it was not until scheduled departure time that the LY security agents completed cordoning off the gate and conducting secondary interviews. While we left over an hour late, we made it to TLV only 20 minutes late and Immigration was empty at 1am :)

Arriving in TLV, I took the train to Tel Aviv Central Station and introduced my seatmate to FlyerTalk. He was an extremely personable Israeli Arab and happily took down Randy's book website and flyertalk.com

Back to OTP Sunday night - will try to get the lounge folks to let me in with my NWA Platinum Card at 1am for the 6am OTP-AMS flight.