silverm0623

Hello again everyone!

To give you an idea of who I am, here's a link to my last trip report:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...a-airport.html

So I just graduated from college a couple days ago, very great celebration and all to include a certain Vice President speaking at our commencement. Anywho's, I have about 60 days of vacation time before I start my new job and have been planning this trip for quite some time now. One of my best friends and I had decided to do an RTW type trip since we figured we won't be able to get this amount of time off ever again. Plus, hes never traveled outside the country so I figured I'd give him a tour RTW. Although we were both willing to spend a decent bit of money on this trip, we were still sort of on a budget so this trip will include both hotels, hostels, AirBnB; as well as train and planes in economy, business, and even first class.

To give a quick run through of the itinerary:
5/30: DEN-CDG on Icelandair (Y)
6/3: Paris-London on Eurostar (Y)
6/6: LHR-MUC on Lufthansa (Y)
6/8: Munich-Vienna on OBB Railjet (Business=First class)
6/9: VIE-BKK via SVO on Aeroflot (Y)
6/13: BKK-SIN on Jetstar (Y)
6/16: SIN-PEN on Jetstar (Y)
6/18: PEN-HKT on Firefly (Y)
6/24: HKT-HKG via BKK on Thai (Y and than F)
7/2: HKG-LAX via TPE on EVA (Business)
7/3: TPE-HKG via HND on ANA (Y) (UPDATE: A surprise upgrade!)
7/9: HKG-ORD via HND/NRT on ANA (Y) (UPDATE: Another surprise upgrade!)




Although this might look a little weird, I promise there's a reason behind it and will explain our rationale during each installment. I'll be focusing a lot on the cities themselves and most importantly, the FOOD!

I plan on updating this whenever I have time during the trip so please be patient and enjoy.

TOMFORD

I am very disappointed to find out that this is one of those "live report" things. I was looking forward to some reading and some pictures

handsomestpete

Same here.I do tire of these "isnt my trip exciting?----- i'll get around to posting about it when i get the time" posts---- and 'enjoy' always seems almost to be a command!.

TOMFORD

Why should I be "be patient and enjoy", when the OP can't be patient and hold off posting until the trip is done, or until at least the trip has at least started? I will be posting a LH J A340/TG F A380/TG F A380/CA F/OZ F/OZ F B744/LH J A340 in July (seriously)!

But all jokes aside, you know I'll be checking this thread every other hour now to see if it has been updated Looking forward to the TR

exilencfc

Have a fun trip, sounds like you earned it. Though i'm guessing your future job may involve a fair bit of flying

Annalisa12

Ok.. see you in 2015!

omsflyer

Come on folks give the newly minted 2nd Lt a break. If you do not like the way he is writing this then don't read it. Maybe his next one will be to/from his first duty station!

ok2uselane

I'm looking forward to the report! Pay no attention to the greed-to-read folks in the audience. Take your time while you take us on your wonderful "graduation gift" journey...

Also, I'm curious about that LAX and back jaunt across the Pacific...what's that all about?!?

silverm0623

May 30th arrived and my friend and I were extremely pumped for this. His fiance dropped us off at DIA at approximately 1540. Icelandair has a strict bag drop cutoff time of one hour before departure and starts boarding about 40 minutes before departure. Check-in took a long time since they only have one check-in counter and agents from neighboring Air Canada and Lufthansa actually help them when they do not have customers.


Icelandair departs out of gate A45 which is actually owned by Air Canada and were manned by the same check-in staff. So, about this flight. The reason why we chose this flight was purley by cost. After looking at flights to Europe in general, we saw that this one from Icelandair cost only $470. The only thing they charge for is food which is something that can be easily solved.


Boarding was fairly quick and they board from the rear. I had chosen aisle seat while my friend chose the window seat. As we entered the plane, a FA greeted us and handed us a bottle of water from Iceland. For an ancient 757, it was actually very well maintained. The only thing that looked old was the air vents and lights but the seats actually looked pretty new. Each seat came with a pillow and a pretty nice blanket. Seat pitch was OK, probably about 31". Takeoff was delayed a few minutes due to a passing thunderstorm but after it passed, we were first for takeoff. In terms of takeoff, the plane felt like it was struggling a bit to takeoff but that might have just been my perception.

(sorry for the blurry photo)






For in-flight entertainment, in my opinion it was actually extremely good with a mix of new movies and classics, honestly better than some other full-service airlines *cough Lufthansa cough*. They had about a total of 100 movies and dozens of various TV shows. The FA's were also very courteous and hospitable. Icelandair has a BOB service where soft drinks are free but everything else you must pay for. I had seen their menu online and seeing how expensive things were, I had opted for some food before boarding.



I did ask for one of their orange drinks which honestly tasted no different than something like Orange Crush. For the beginning of the flight, my friend and I talked to our seatmate who told us he was doing a cycling trip around Iceland with a group of friends. With a flight time of about 7 hours, I opted to take some Benadryl to help get me to sleep while watching The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug. Was able to sleep for about 5.5 hours and woke up with about a half hour left in the flight. The weather in Iceland looked like absolute crap with rain and gloomy skies.



The airport itself actually looks very nice and reminded me of Copenhagen's airport. The bathrooms were very cool and had an interesting sink functionality where the faucet doubles as a handryer.



We actually had to go through passport control since Iceland is actually a part of the Schengen Agreement and we would thus not have to go through passport control in Paris. Transit to our next gate only took a few minutes since the airport is pretty small and the gate was right above us. Boarding was delayed a few minutes due to a late crew arrival but began shortly after. This time I took a window seat to get a few pictures in:











One of the flights (I think it was the one to Oslo) actually required their passengers to board from a remote stand, even with the rainy weather. The captain soon got onto the PA and apologized for the delay and promised to "fly faster" than normal to make up for the lost time. After takeoff, we soon broke through the clouds and were greeted by a much brighter sky. For this flight, I actually decided to try something from the BOB and opted for a doughnut for 2 Euros. It was ok, but rather plain tasting. The OJ also tasted pretty bland. I napped for the next three hours and before we knew it, were landing in CDG.

silverm0623

Thanks, I appreciate it
In regards to that flight....long story short, I had booked a departure date back from Hong Kong back in December since it was the "other half" of my 90K US Airways Dividend Miles trip. However, for personal reasons I had to stay in Asia a bit longer than anticipated but was unable to change my flight since US Airways does not allow to change award flights once they have already started. So in the end, I had to book an economy ticket with ANA since I did not want to waste my business class ticket with EVA (an airline I've really wanted to try) but also gave me an opportunity to visit my brother in LA really quick.

JVPhoto

"Fruit was something Icelanders could only get in stores around Christmas time, not too long ago. Now we serve it on planes, very cosmopolitan."

This may be the greatest thing I've ever seen written with regards to air travel.

arlflyer

Mmm, Factory Sauce.

silverm0623

I had never been to CDG and despite the horror stories I've read, I think it's (slightly) better than just about any airport we have in the States. After getting our luggage we made our way to the RER train to Paris. The vending machines there are terrible and only a certain number of them worked for some reason and the line at the ticket office was at least 30 people deep. I searched around and finally found one on the other side of the station that would take my Chase Sapphire Preferred (an absolute Godsend of a credit card to have in Europe). Fare was about 11 Euros.

For this stay, I decided to book an AirBnB rental since hotels were (obviously) far too expensive for our budget in Paris. The place we booked was actually literally around the corner from the Eiffel Tower which actually made us feel we got a great deal for $130/night. After meeting our AirBnB host, we were off to see some sites since it was only about 1500.

We were also right next to the Ecole de militaire (French Military Academy)


Obligatory Eiffel Tower shot


They were watching the French Open, pretty cool




I had planned on getting tickets to the top and had been monitoring the online ticket site for a month beforehand but could never find availability for two tickets during our stay. Furthermore, the line (obviously) at the ticket booths were ridiculous and we decided it wasn't worth it. After crossing the street, we saw a bunch of kiosks for river tours and decided to go for it since a boat tour of the major sites for 14 Euros sounded like a decent deal. The tour included a voice recording of all the sites. It was definitely worth it....although the return trip was kind of boring (since it's the same route) and I kept on dozing off from jet lag. If they would allow you to get off neat Notre Dame or something, it would have been perfect.













Afterwards we just walked around the area around the Eiffel Tower before settling on a place called Cafe Central near our rental for dinner.



I decided to try the foie gras as well as the steak tartare since, well, we were in France.





Both were really good and my friend had the steak which was also good. They came with french fries which seemed like a standard thing for everything you ate in Paris. It was quite pricey at about 60 Euros including two glasses of wine, but again this is Paris and it was expected.

Up Next: Being Touristy In Paris

silverm0623

The weather in Paris was absolutely amazing and was about 60-70 degrees the whole time we were there.

We got up early for our "tourist" day in Paris since we were hoping to beat the line at the Louvre since it was a Sunday and knew it would probably be packed. To get there, I requested an Uber car with my phone (I have an international data plan with AT&T) and a guy in a BMW arrived to pick us up. Total cost was 8 Euros which was IMO a bargain.



Sadly the line was already extremely long but we got in line anyways hoping it would move fast since it was not even open yet.







Apparently we got there at actually a good time because before we knew it, the literally tripled behind us.



After purchasing our tickets, we speedwalked to the Mona Lisa hoping to beat the huge crowd behind us. It was a little confusing as to where it was but ended up finding it quickly with not a whole lot of people in the room yet.



After that, we explored for about two hours.







Venus de Milo






Afterwards, we decided to walk to Notre Dame and find a place to eat lunch on the way. Ended up going to a doner kebab place along the river. Not too bad for 9 Euros total each.



Also found a petshop on the way and since I've been contemplating getting a dog, I took a quick look inside.



Arriving at the Notre Dame, I was aware we could get up to the top, but was uncertain how exactly we were supposed to do that. We ended up joining the line that goes inside expecting to be able to go up from there.







Spent a couple Euros to gain access to their Treasury room.









Eventually we learned that there is a line at the side of the building to go up top. It was a bit long but figured it would move fairly quick, ended up taking about 30 minutes and admission costs 8 Euros. I had read somewhere that this view rivals the Eiffel Tower's view and I think it probably would have.











Afterwards, we decided to go to the Champs-Élysées to walk along their "Fifth Avenue" and also to see what the hype was all about of a certain macaroon place.







Laduree-There was a small line outside for the shop section:





I bought 8 macaroons as well as two cakes since I was pretty hungry, these were what we left after my "snack". Cost about 27 Euros total.



After this, we took a couple quick pictures at the Arc de Triomphe and than called it a day.





Paris Metro, 1.7 Euros gets you just about anywhere:






Up Next: Trip up to Normandy to pay some respects.

silverm0623

So one of the things we really wanted to see while in France was Normandy Beach and the American cemetery there. Looking at the options available, we could have either done the tour oursevles by renting a car to drive up there or we could take a train and than jump onto one of the many tour groups. I'm generally the type who likes to do things on their own rather than be dragged around by a tour guide, but never having driven in France and calculating how expensive it would cost (especially with gas), we decided a train and tour guide would be cheaper.

We were able to book really cheap RT tickets through the SNCF website for about $45. For the tour operator, I decided to do Bayeux Shuttle although I think they were all about the same in terms of quality and price (although this one was 10Euros cheaper). We got up early to get to Gare Saint-Lazare so that we wouldn't miss our train since I didn't know how hectic it would be.

After retrieving our tickets from the ticket office, we had a quick breakfast at a coffee shop in the station. Boarding was quick and we left on time:


The train was actually pretty nice and even had power sockets.





The train ride was uneventful and the transfer at Caen to get to Bayeux was extremely easy.

Since we had about two hours before the tour, we walked around and had lunch:











We passed by what was dubbed a "mini Notre-Dame" and they were moving a statue to commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-Day.





We had lunch at this nice restaurant with the yellow umbrella, food was exceptionally good. Set menu was about 15 to 25 Euros.








I had the duck while my friend had the beef (of sorts). For dessert, I went for the apricot thingy and my friend went with the creme brulee.


Afterwards, we went to the meeting point and had to wait for about 20 minutes since our guide was actually late. Not a good sign....


CV-22 flying over from RAF Mildenhall.

Eventually our guide arrived and told us his car had problems starting which was why he was late. The van the company used was actually really nice and had a cool feature that would give an audio description of areas you drove through via GPS. The van was also supposed to have wifi but it was unbearably slow. From Bayeux it was about a 25 minute drive to Pointe du Hoc. It was definitely a smart idea to be part of a tour group because he was able to give us very insightful history and background information of everywhere we went. Things we definitely would not have known if we had done the tour on our own via car.

Some pictures from the tour:










The very same statue from the church we were at, they were installing it at Normandy Beach














There were a lot of impersonators everywhere we went. At first I thought it was kinda weird and sad that people would try to make money off of the events of D-Day, but our guide later told us that they were all hired to do a recreation of events during the 70th anniversary ceremony that would happen that Friday when dozens of world leaders would be arriving.












The cemetery was definitely very sad to see, knowing how many Americans lost their lives during those few days back in 1944.
Afterwards, our tour guide dropped us off at the train station. Just about all of us were on the same direct train back to Paris and we arrived at a little past 8PM. My friend and I had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant right next to our apartment, it was pretty good and not too pricey which was a welcome relief.