The question should be - When is YVR Coachroach not flying to Cyprus? :D

I'm exagerating here. Larnaca can be nice and there are some good hotels there - Golden bay, Palm beach and Lordos beach hotel being the best.

Not sure what you define as expensive so here's a few options: L'Onda is a nice boutique-y hotel recently refurbished that's near the centre. Apollonia is another one that's decent even if catering to package tours mostly. I thought the Holiday Inn was near the park also but I am not sure about it.

For those thinking the taxi ride to the hotels outside the centre is easy...think again. The traffic in Limassol is horrendous especially at night. It could take you an hour to cover a distance of a few kilometres.

As for the wine festival...it could be fun and drunken but...define "wine". We have good wine in Cyprus, in fact in recent years we have had excellent wine in Cyprus but you won't find that served at the "wine" festival :rolleyes:

What's your take on the Beau Rivage?

Name rings a bell but I haven't been there. Sorry :(

So you're saying the stuff served at this event is more like the stuff most likely to be converted into industrial alcohol or wine vinegar if it were to go into the E.U. wine lakes of excess production and wine connaisseurs would best give it the miss?

Double Murder At Le Meridian Hotel Car Park
 

Front page story of Cyprus Mail Yesterday as I was borading the plane to Milan

Apparently an UNDERWORLD vendetta hit.

[QUOTE=YVR Cockroach]For those of us who are doing/did 15-17 hour turnarounds. :D
QUOTE]

.... like I did: flew mxp-lca and the next morning lca-mxp, and had a great trip and time at lca.

flight was full in y, only three pax in c. after landing at lca, two busses were waiting for at the aircraft: the first bus for us three c pax only, the second bus for the remaining y pax (a procedure even air france can learn from, especialy at cdg!). at the immigration hall, long lines from a previous arrival, an inspecor approached us and wanted to see the passports, and went with us to open a new line, immigration took 10 seconds! can not report on baggage claim since we had no luggage. atm at baggage claim area, also money exchange.

took a taxi to lca downtown to our hotel, easy drive 10 minutes, 5 pounds including tax.

stayed at the les palmiers hotel which is at the corner of athens drive and pierides street. this small hotel is right at the beach, in the touristical center of lca, right on the strip where you find tons of tourist restaurants and bars. I think you can not be more in the center then here. 5 steps across the street and you are on the beach. hotel booked via a 3rd party on the internet and it was 21 pounds including breakfast. hotel was very nice, newly renovated, charming staff, clean room, towls, soap and a nice bed.

there are lots of bars and restaurants nearby, which is nice if you want to go out, but it can also be very loud untill late pm or early am. had no problem with this at all.

enjoyed some bars on the strip, but went out for dinner on the other side of the old castle/mosque and found there a not so touritical area with some cheap and very nice restaurants. had a really good swordfish steak with fries and salad, some local beers and a free brandy after the owner figurd out that I am here for only 1 night.... I think including tip it was about 10 pounds.

some more dinks at the strip, went to bed at 2am....

wake up call at 6.30am, early morning swimming shortly after sun rise. and I was not the only one at that time either exercising or swimming. water was a bit cold but ok. beach was guarded, not the best beach and sand but ok. 7:15am back to the hotel. 7.30am sightseeing at lca, there is not much to see, some shops in the streets behind the strip - still closed at that time -, some old churches and a mosque, that´s it. buying some nice bottles of cyprus wine to bring home, 8.15am take a taxi to the airport (there is a taxi stand at the strip), 8:30am check in at the business counter, passport control, security, a quick visit to the lounge, boarding, and fling back home to mxp.

I was the only c pax on the lca-mxp flight. was asked when I wanted my lunch to be served. very nice crew.

it was a short trip, it was nice and fun. I agree, that lca is not a place to spend a longer time, but since I had to fly the mxp-lca-mxp segemts it worked out well for me: had a nice dinner, some nice drinks, had some fun, saw a bit of lca, was swimming and brought home some wine from that area. total cost was abit more then 60 pounds for the 15hrs turnaround.

and I will do the same thing again end of august for my 2nd ticket/mxp-lca-mxp segments.

Great report, thanks. How are the miles posting? eqm? total?

I found out if anyone else wants to know


50% Bonus Miles for purchased Coach class tickets booked in Y/B counts towards elite qualification only and not towards your WorldPerks banked mileage.

so, yyz-mxp, mxp-fco, and fco-yyz times 1.5 is the ewm, with the cyrpus ones just eqm at regular miles

The AZ-coded, CY-operated flight segments between Italy and LCA will not earn any NW WorldPerks miles, neither elite qualifying miles nor redeemable miles.

For a NW Platinum, you will earn 100 percent elite qualifying miles and redeemable miles on the AZ-operated transatlantic flights plus a 50 percent bonus of both elite qualifying and redeemable miles for flying in business class plus the 125 percent Platinum bonus for redeemable miles only. More simply, as a NW Platinum, you will earn 150 percent of the transatlantic mileage as elite qualifying miles and 275 percent as redeemable miles.

My MXP-LCA flights posted to my Delta account as an AZ-flight with appropriate biz bonuses/MQM, but not the LCA-MXP segment.

Just got back from LCA (on the NW deal). Just wanted to add a few points:

Send in your ticket stub and BP. DL will credit the flights even if your ex-LCA BP only lists the CY flight number (write a note to explain).

Due to my SO having "misplaced" her passport, we checked in about 45 mins before departure -- no problem at all, and still time for a wonderful English breakfast at the airport restaurant.

Exit row 11 is ok on the 320, but I'd probably go for row 4 if stuck in coach, which has the leather seats, and seemed to have a little more legroom than the business seats. No matter which seats you select, you'll be pretty uncomfortable if you're significantly taller than 6'.

It's right next to the Palm Beach, where we stayed, and it does look a bit run down from the outside (as does the Palm Beach). I imagine you'll be getting a very shallow beach, and there is some hinterland with restaurants and nightlife. Any of these places will be ok, but understand that their main advantage is the proximity to LCA airport (some 20 mins via motorway), and make sure to get an air conditioned room. Some European "last minute" travel providers will easily beat the prices you see quoted in the US, so shop around.

We have some of our pictures up from our greece/cyprus trip:
http://homepage.mac.com/musick/Greece/PhotoAlbum82.html

In Cyprus, we spent 2 nts in Larnaca, 1 nt in Nicosia and 2 nts in Limassol
We visited South/North Nicosia, Troodos mountains, and eastern (Agia Napa) areas then spent two weeks in the Greek Islands

YYZ-LCA July 29 - Luggage hell
 

I flew on NW to BUF, and rented a car one way to YYZ. Spent a day at the falls, and then a day in Toronto. Everything went well.

Met Renard in the AC lounge before the AZ flight to FCO. Nice lounge, internet connection, etc. The bus out to the terminal sucks though. Stopped for about 10 minutes to let all the jets by, very inadequate air on it.

Got the nice Magnifica class seats, Biz was 80% full. Got to Rome a bit early. Had 6 hours to waste. Went to the AZ lounge, got a shower kit (towels, shampoo, soap) with no problem. They also have a 'rest lounge', that looked interesting. Very basic snacks for the most part. They had some quiche and some other munchies out when I arrived, but the hordes soon decended, and that was gone in quick order.

I'm not sure how many AZ lounges are there, but we went to the 20+ gate area. When coming back, I had to go through screening again, not sure if I took a wrong turn, or that's the way it always goes.

The CY flight boarded all at once, no elite or Biz line. Again a bus (but much shorter), and the fun stairs.

If you have 3 people in your row, you just have normal seats, for 2 people, they squeeze the middle seat in, more to a normal Biz configuration.

Got to LCA, the lines were fairly long for passport control, but they moved fairly well. Now the nightmare comes. It seems everyone is going to LCA for their summer vacation (1/2 of Europe, I'd guess). There are so many people around the baggage carousel, that I can not even *see* the carousel! 5-6 people deep at least.

After about 50 minutes, the Rome luggage finally starts to come out. Another 30-40 minutes, and they say that it's all out. No luggage for me though. Go stand in the line to report it missing, and another 25 minutes wasted.

The rental car (Hertz) goes pretty smoothly, but you still have to find the car in the lot. Get to Lefkosia easily, but can't find the Hilton Park Nicosia. No gas stations open, and instructions tend to be a '2 lefts, 1 right, 2 traffic circles, and then it's on your left'. After an hour, I finally found it.

The luggage finally comes 2 1/2 days later. I had to buy some things, but not sure if it's worth reporting the items, though.

So far we've gone to Limasol, Troodos, Northern Nicosia and Agia Napa. The latter being the nicest beach so far.

I've got a junior suite (I think they call it a deluxe or executive room). Fairly nice, but a horrible king sized mattress. I've seen equivalent bedding at $20 hotels, but never a Hilton. They didn't fix it the first day, and I was getting a bit upset the second day. They offered me the Presidential Suite (but I'd have to move if someone booked it), but it had the exact same bed! I ended up getting two kids beds that were comfortable enough to sleep in.

I looked at their standard rooms, and the only thing that came to my mind was 'Motel 6'. If I paid over $200 a night US here, I'd be might mad. I'm going to the nicer Hilton over the weekend, so hopefully it will be better.

24h in Milano
 

[originally posted in MR]

I need some guidence here.

We decided to spend most of our time/money in Rome so we have 24h in Milano before we fly back home.
I have plenty of points with Hilton so initially I thought I'll just get a room there but it seems the hotel is VERY far from the airport and we have a 10 AM flight the next morning

So what other affordable alternatives do I have?
Somebody recommnded renting a car and driving to the lake district (about 20min) instead of Milano

Any recommendations?