Thanks, SKT-DK! Glad to hear that we're not completely out there.

Also, we are interested in Bangkok suggestions. We've visited a few of the popular tourist attractions as well as three speakeasies in past visits. But, there's much more to see and we'll actually have time.

Try a cooking class! Fun activity as a couple.

Soho Lounge, JFK - As you might know, there are 3 joint AA/BA lounges in terminal 8 JFK (Chelsea, SoHo and Greenwich) with Soho being an option for Emeralds traveling on Oneworld flights in any class of service. That’s how we got entry. And, since we had a late morning flight (somewhat in the lull between the morning and afternoon rush hours, the lounge was nearly empty during our time there. I would imagine that it picks up again in the evening given that’s when a majority of the transatlantic flights are scheduled.

After passing through security and walking a few minutes, we made a right.



Upon entry to the lounge, you are greeted by essentially one long room with a range of seating options - bar/pub seats closest to the entrance, tables for dining in the center and several loungers next to the window (which is where we sat). Tarmac views were great.




Just to the right and behind a door was a quiet area with several daybeds.



At the far end of the room was another room (I’d call it a library) with a couple off-center table and chairs at its entrance. The asymmetry was irritating, but I wondered if it somehow eased traffic in/out of the library during busy times. It took some self restraint to not center the tables myself.




Along the right side of the long room was the buffet occupying a couple long tables and some counters. It included a reasonably good selection of hot and cold offerings including candies/bar mixes, fruit, pastries, eggs, potato wedges, salad bar, and so on. As you can tell it was set up for breakfast while we were there. Quality wise I thought it was pretty good and fairly competitive with the Centurion lounges I’ve visited in the US. But, the SoHo lounge was noticeably less crowded.







Just past the buffet tables was a chilled self-service wine dispenser and a few phone booth closets.




The bar was very quiet and I initially thought it was not open. It was and I had a few glasses of the Pommery Brut Royal champagne to go with breakfast. Most important drink of the day!

I have been to all three lounges. When I have to choose between one of them I would go to the SoHo Lounge. I loved the atmosphere there but It can be crowdy at certain times.

JFK-CLT-MUC - Sorry, but I had no good pics for these flights and there weren’t any surprises. On arrival in Charlotte, we joined the queue for the Centurion lounge which was packed. I like this Centurion lounge, but not quite as much as the one in Philadelphia which has fresh chocolate chip cookies periodically during the day and is usually less crowded. Anyway, the flight to Munich was actually the return trip from tickets I bought earlier in the year (Victory Lap in a Porsche).

The seats were premium economy in the mini cabin between business and coach. Combined with the day drinking, this was good enough for me to nap a bit during the transatlantic journey.



We arrived in Munich, collected our bags and approached the customs agent. I struggled a little with answering the question about how long is this trip and wasn’t very sure how much he could understand. But, the agent seemed reasonably content at the end or possibly stopped caring enough to hold us up. We were in.

We caught the Lufthansa bus from terminal 1 to the Schwabinger Tor area where the Andaz Hotel is … once we actually found the bus station at MUC which sprawls a bit. After a 15 minute walk through a leafy neighborhood, we arrived at the Hyatt Andaz hotel.

Hyatt Andaz Munich - Upon check in around 9:30, the receptionist informed us that we had been upgraded to the Andaz Suite and offered us the globalist breakfast benefit. This was very much appreciated as I remembered the excellent spread including breakfast pretzels and sausages from previous stays.







It also meant that I could have Eggs Benedict. They were spectacular and I might have had three servings over the two mornings we were here.



The Andaz Suite consists of a living room, a large bathroom including a free standing tub, and the bedroom. All of the rooms are arranged in a straight line and connected via a single hallway. The drapes and curtains are motorized. It took us a little while to figure out which buttons controlled which feature. It could have been jet lag but the array and locations of the various buttons was initially bewildering.






After a brief nap, we ventured out along Leopoldstrasse towards the old town. It was a pleasant 2.5 mile walk (each way) as we chatted about the upcoming plans, and I attempted to work off the calories from the morning’s indulgence. We stopped briefly to take pictures of “Walking Man” and the Siegestor, a 19th century arch which you can see in the first pic.





For dinner, we kept things simple and had a few beers and bites at the hotel’s rooftop bar. The barbecue wings were surprisingly tasty.

MUC-KGS on Discover Airlines - Discover is a low cost carrier owned by Lufthansa. I thought the personnel at the check-in desk and the flight crew were excellent.

Once through security, we managed to gain access to the Lufthansa business class lounge near our gate through having Amex platinum and the economy class seats. Up a flight of stairs we found a large-ish lounge with a reasonable range of food and drink options. I had a beer from the self-serve tap and sampled the hot and cold offerings. All in all, pretty good.






Once onboard, I found the seat pitch and condition on the A320-200 to be fairly similar to flights on American - tolerable enough for the 2.5 hour flight to Kos.



Entertainment including movies and tv shows could be streamed to your device. I quite liked the inflight map option.



A few shots out the window while there was enough light. Flying over the Alps never gets old.

Lango Design Hotel and Spa - This is a Mr. and Mrs. Smith hotel that is now bookable through Hyatt. I came upon this hotel in a bit of a round about way. Wifey was very much looking for warm weather for the kickoff of our world tour. After looking at several options I found a great rate at another hotel (Casa Cook Rhodes) from October 24, and Lango wound up working well for the itinerary since we could fly direct from Munich, and Kos is a reasonable 2 hour ferry ride away from Rhodes. That said, this was a very nice hotel and the rate I booked it for (167 EUR, before taxes and whatnot) fit the budget well enough.

The hotel is set up across the street from a beach, but for our time there life seemed to revolve around the hotel pool. A breakfast buffet was served each morning and I think it was included in the rate for all guests. Breakfast was not nearly as grand as the one in Munich or at Casa Cook which I’ll include in a later post. But, it did include the occaisional baklava plate which I took advantage of. Greece has fantastic weather in October. Each day seemed to be in the mid to upper 70s and I think there was possibly a bit of rain once across the 12 nights we had on the two islands. Aside from the pool, the hotel had a small gym, a spa and some seating set up in the lobby, front terrace and the lick of beach across the street.








The cats in Greece are in charge. These two had the run of the hotel including the indoor/outdoor restaurant. When not benefiting from the breakfast buffet, they either lounged in the sun or the occasional lap as the mood struck them



I had booked a junior suite with a sofa (not shown), a small balcony with two chairs and a somewhat adverse view over a vacant lot. The welcome amenity included some wine and baklava(!). Water bottles and a small treat were delivered to the room fairly often between 9 and 10 pm which I never could get used to. The balcony was nice enough for the occasional wine and nibbles that we purchased at a nearby market. The value for money for the Greek wines on Kos was very good. Only complaints about the room were that the shower was somewhat exhibitional and the door to the bathroom opened into the small space by the toilet.







This hotel and the one following were part of an essentially fly-and-flop plan I had for the start of retired life. But, we did walk quite a bit each day and rented bikes on one. On our bike day we came across a second century Roman amphitheater that was free to access. There were many other ruins and an aqueduct nearby as well. Ancient mixes with modern all over Greece.

Casa Cook Rhodes - The ferry from Kos to Rhodes was not quite to plan. There was some labor action at the port of Piraeus near Athens from where our ticketed ferry was beginning the previous day. The work around was fairly simple as there was a later option. I had hoped a refund would be possible but couldn’t quite get past a “language / don’t wanna” barrier at the kiosk near the ferry departure point. This delayed our arrival to the port to just about dusk. The hotel was about a 45 minute taxi ride from the port.

Casa Cook Rhodes turned out to be one of the better values I found. The rate for 7 nights in late October was 123 EUR for an entry level room with breakfast. This is a Mr. and Mrs. Smith property bookable through Hyatt. The hotel was developed by Thomas Cook of package trip fame and eventually sold off after the company went under in 2019. The weather during our stay was nothing short of amazing with each day reaching about 75 and almost no clouds. The hotel is modern, minimalist and well maintained. The rooms are arranged in blocks along a series of pools. All of the pools were quite cool. Or, at least too cool for me to bare beyond just dipping my legs in after the gym. But, they all looked great, especially at night. Apologies but I didn’t take any pictures of the room or general layout of the resort.





The breakfast buffet was quite large and included many of my favorites including baklava. Each morning was a poolside feast with multiple cappuccinos and visits from a couple of the resident feral cats.











Each morning we would sit and stare at the goats in the hills adjacent to the hotel. After a few mornings we finally found a pair in suitable poses.

Now I remember why I always had a few cat treats in my bag in Greece.

We ventured out of Casa Cook on one of the days, taking the bus to the main town and port of Rhodes. The bus was a bit of a hassle with far fewer seats than tourists and took a bit more than an hour to get there. But, it cost just 4 EUR each which held its own appeal. We arrived to find that the town was heaving with Rhodesians for the Ohi Day parade. Ohi Day refers to the day Greece rejected an ultimatum from Mussolini in 1940 to allow axis powers to enter and occupy portions of Greece during WWII. It is a national holiday, and at least in Rhodes, marked by a parade of school children along one end of the port.





Squad goals:



We waited for the crowds to thin a little and then wandered around the port and old town.





Remains of a moat surrounding the old town that we stumbled onto. It’s a fairly long walk at about 1.5 miles.




Ever popular “cat balancing on a fish, drinking from seahorse, above a well” pic.