brosnan6

This is my first shot at a trip report and I have tried to make it as detailed as possible. I've posted the first few days below and will slowly be adding more as I can (and when I have internet access)

Here's the official itinerary- SEA-CDG-AGP-CDG-CAI-CDG-EWR-SEA from 12/15-12/30. In CAI we will be taking a Nile river cruise on Sonesta Cruises Sun Godess. For all flights except the CDG-AGP and EWR-SEA, we will be flying on AF in C, and the CDG-AGP we are on Y on Air Europa (UX), and EWR-SEA on AS in F. The entire trip except for CDG-AGP flight were redeemed via DL at the standard rate (I want to say 120K miles pp, but I'm not positive)

Please let me know if I can add any more details or if you need clarification about something,

Day 1- December 16th
We were originally supposed to go from SEA-JFK-BRU and then drive to Paris, but we were worried about predicted snowstorms in JFK on Sunday and possibly missing our next connection flight in CDG. We had also originally tried to get seats on the SEA-CDG nonstop, but none were available. However, because of the fear of snowstorm, we decided to call DL again and see if anything was available in award inventory. Luckily AF had decided to open up more seats at the last minute on the nonstop SEA-CDG flight. Even though it cost us close to $300 in change fees, it made up for it in time, stress, and monetary (didn’t have to rent the car in BRU anymore) savings.

I was trying not to look like somebody who had never flown in C, so there are limited pics throughout this report. This is my first trip report so I wanted to include as much information as possible. Some pictures might be a little dark since I was trying to be inconspicuous and turned off the flash
AF045 SEA-CDG in L’espace Affaires (C/J)

Limo was about 15 minutes early at our house, but we still left for the airport at 1100. Short 30 minute drive until we pulled up to the Air France checkin area. After having our passports checked before entering the checkin counter area, the attendant put on l’espace affaires luggage tags for all of our carryons. The agent quickly checked us in, took our luggage, and gave us boarding passes with lounge information (AF partners with NW in SEA to use the Worldclub as their business class lounge). The Worldclub desk attendant said they would make a boarding announcement for the AF flight as well. In the Worldclub, there was an assortment of cookies and pastries, cheese (cheddar and string) and crackers, as well as a fountain drink machine with Pepsi products (uggh…I’m a Coke fan myself ). Free WiFi allowed me to download a few TV shows from my torrent site so I could catch up on the plane. Alcoholic drinks were no longer self-serve as I remember them from the last time I was in here. Now you have to ask an attendant to fix you something from the kitchen.

After about an hour, we left the lounge at 1320 and headed toward the boarding area. Boarding had already commenced for the 1400 flight, but there was a separate line for L’Espasce Affaires. Passports were once again checked and the checkin agent was also one of the boarding agents. Onboard the Airbus A330-200 (seat guru link), we were seated in row 5, seats E, F, J, and K. As you can tell from the link, the C cabin is split into 2 parts, with the galley and bathrooms in the middle, and then row 5 and beyond are past that. Each seat had a hanger resting on it with a claim tag, so one did not have to wait around for a flight attendant to ask for jackets. It was a little hectic being in the back half of C as the coach cabin was also going down the same aisles to their seats. Since we got onto this flight only the day before, there weren’t many better seat choices that kept the family together. Here's a picture that I managed to snap of my seating area. At least we’ll get to leave first and won’t have to deal with “merging” as is often the case in 2 cabin planes (DL757 comes to mind where C/F is left after entering the plane and Y is right, but upon exit the flight attendants don’t hold back Y so C/F can deplane first).

The seats were comfortable and electronically controlled with buttons in the middle armrest. One could manually adjust settings, or choose one of three presets—fully reclined, partially reclined with legs extended or fully upright). I found that the fully reclined setting ended up at a downward angle and required a manual readjust to be fully flat. There was also a massage button which gave a weak massage. Each seat also had a power outlet which looked to accept multiple types of plugs (the faceplate rotated, presumably for European and American style plugs). The power outlet was a great feature and allowed me to have unlimited access to my laptop during flight. I was dreading having to only rely on battery with the brightness turned totally low).

After everybody was somewhat more settled in, a flight attendant came through our area with a tray of orange juice, champagne, and water. Orange juice tasted better than most bottled stuff; even though I’m sure it was still from a bottle or can. The safety announcements were made and we shortly left for the runway. The pilot came on the intercom and informed us that although we had pushed back early, we would be arriving in CDG about 30 minutes behind schedule due to unfavorable winds. The TVs mounted on the cabin walls were switched to the forward camera during taxi and takeoff, and a belly camera after takeoff. Shortly after takeoff, menus were distributed. Following were the offerings on today’s flight (menu pictures here:


For my starter, I chose the timbale of salmon and crab. It was served cold and even though I had no idea what a timbale was, it looked to be a patty (the size of a large crab cake if I had to estimate; I forgot to take a picture of this) with half shredded crab and half small pieces of salmon, on a bed of the avocado puree. It was also served with some mixed greens and a slice of lime on the side. Accompanied with that was a bread basket, where I had a mini baguette and some form of sliced bread, with butter and a balsamic and olive oil vinaigrette served in a mini bottle. The appetizer dish was quite tasty, especially with the lime squeezed on top. I was a little curious and decided to change things up a bit—I took some of the crab and salmon mixture, spread it over a bite of baguette and butter, and sprinkled a little salt and pepper on top. The end result was delicious, the chewiness of the bread with the coolness of the seafood and the creaminess of the butter—absolute yum!

After cleaning up my appetizer plate, a cart came around with main dish selections. I opted for the beef (it was essentially steak with mashed potatoes). Nothing to write home about— the beef was cooked well and was a good cut, but the taste was definitely not extraordinary. There was a little too much au jus floating around the plate and it ended up making my mashed potatoes soggy. Here’s a picture of the main course.
Note: There were drink services with both the appetizer and main course carts.

For dessert I chose the raspberry mille-feuille. I had no idea what it was prior to ordering it, but it looked to be a two layered pastry with sweet cream in the middle with a raspberry jelly spread on top. It was very good, but I would have liked to try one of the sorbets as well.

The entertainment consisted of personal TV sets which popped out of the center console. They were touch screen, but could also be operated with a wired remote. Headphones were Sennheisers that were hard-wired into the seat. There was a large selection of games in the system, but the movies were lame and I was glad I had loaded up my laptop with tv and movies to watch instead. The movies on the system included: Ratatouille, Stardust, La Fille Coupee en Deux, The Darjeeling Limited, L’Invite, Shortcut to Happiness, La Vie d’Artiste, Death at a Funeral, Un Secret, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Arctic Tale (documentary). The only movies I had heard of were Ratatouille and Bourne, both of which I had already seen. There was also a separate menu for world cinema, but nothing came up when I went there. Additionally, there were options for music, duty-free shopping, and comics.

However, after the dinner service, the crew essentially vanished. There was a self-serve bar set up by the galley, but not a single crew member came around to see if the awake passengers wanted drinks, refills, or something else. Granted it is a nighttime flight and most people are asleep, but there are a few that are awake, such as myself. I didn’t like having to get up to get a refill of my drink and I always feel awkward pressing the call button for petty things like refills. I would have liked a snack as well…

Everything up till now I have been writing in flight. It’s something like early morning right now. I had set my watch to Paris time before we left and it says 0615 right now. I’m assuming breakfast will be served shortly as our ETA is 0920.

Breakfast was served about an hour before landing. I chose the herbed omelet. It was a pretty generic breakfast but it got the job done. The warm pastries were probably the best part of the breakfast. Upon landing, we taxied to a remote area of the airport where we were met by shuttle buses to take us to the main terminal and customs. For disembarkation the flight attendants actually stood in front of the coach passengers to allow the C passengers to disembark comfortably. Additionally, AF had a separate shuttle waiting for the C passengers to allow them to get through immigration quickly. This proved useless however, because several flights had just arrived before us and there was no express line for C passengers. It was probably a 20 minute wait in the immigration line. After claiming our bags, we headed outside to catch the free shuttle to the CDG Airport Hilton since we would only be here overnight before leaving for AGP in the morning.

CDG Airport Hilton (now December 17th)
Maybe a 2 minute drive from the airport, we arrived at the hotel to find it relatively deserted. At checkin, we were informed that only one of the two rooms could be upgraded through HHonors Gold status. We asked if having two separate HHonors Gold accounts (one for each room) would yield us two upgrades, and the answer was yes. Obviously we went that route and now both rooms are on the Executive floor, meaning free breakfast and snacks daily. We popped into the lounge upon arrival and had a quick breakfast. They had a spread of eggs, potatoes, pastries/baked goods, and various meats and cheeses, as well as a self-serve refrigerator filled with juices, sodas, and beers. We’ll see what the afternoon/evening snacks are. A nice thing about this lounge is the extended operating hours—0600 to 2300 daily. Most lounges I’ve been in close much earlier than 2300. Here are some pictures of a twin room layout (pic 1 and pic 2.

After getting settled in, we decided to take the train to downtown Paris and look around a little bit since we had the afternoon to kill. A one day unlimited pass was 18 euros per person. The subway station was right behind the hotel and was very convenient. The train ride into downtown Paris was long—a good 20 minutes or so. And we still had to change trains a few times to get to where we were going. To make a long story short, we wandered around for a bit and returned back to the hotel about 6pm. I checked out the Executive Lounge to see the evening snacks and I was a bit disappointed. The food spread consisted of six or seven little trays of dried fruits, nuts, and potato chips; nothing of much substance. There was a self-serve bar setup by the window with a good 10-12 different bottles of alcohol. The dessert spread was the best part of the whole thing- there were mini éclairs, tarts, and cups of mousse. I had a delicious coconut mousse with chocolate shavings on top, as well as a couple of mini éclairs. Since nobody was really hungry while we were in the city, our dining choices back at the hotel were severely limited due to its airport location. Essentially the only choice was the hotel restaurant (room service was virtually the same menu) or take the shuttle to the airport and grab some form of fast-food there. We opted for the hotel restaurant since it was the most convenient. They had a buffet option in addition to ordering off the menu. Nothing looked really appetizing either on the buffet or on the menu so we just ended up going with the basic cheeseburgers. Nothing to write home about, the fries were crispy but unsalted and the burger actually had cheddar cheese on it—something I didn’t expect to find in France. We all hit the sack around 2330 since we had to have an early start in the morning

Day 2- December 18th- Going to AGP
We were off to an early start today- wakeup call at 0700 to be at CDG by 0900 for a 1030 flight. Breakfast was again in the Executive Lounge (same spread as yesterday). The elevators were acting up today and were taking a very long time to close the doors (no button to speed things up) and were moving very slowly between floors—it took close to 10 minutes to get to the lobby from the 8th floor! Checkout was a breeze and the shuttle to the airport had just pulled up. We were dropped off at Terminal 2D for our flight on Air Europa (UX). I’d never heard of this airline before we booked it from Expedia, but I figured if it’s on Expedia it must be legitimate. Apparently UX is also a Skyteam Associate member, so it’s nice to earn some DL miles for this mostly award-paid trip. Unfortunately, (and I’m assuming this) since UX is not a full Skyteam member, there were no Skyteam Elite benefits available since two of us are Skyteam Elite. The check-in agent was nice to not charge us overweight fees for our baggage since the limit was 20kilos and two of the bags were 22 and 24kilos, respectively. Security was essentially like going through the TSA: shoe carnival, laptop removal, 3oz or less and all the other wonderful illusions of security we’ve become accustomed to. There wasn’t much beyond security besides a lot of small gates and a bunch of seats to sit around. Luckily we only had 45 minutes to kill before our flight and there were ample free newspapers. Boarding was not done by zone number or row number; everybody goes at once to a waiting bus downstairs. I don’t quite understand what it is with the French and their proclivity towards parking their airplanes in the middle of nowhere and requiring everybody to drive around on active runways in a bus (it’s happened every time I’ve been to CDG and I’m starting to get a little annoyed). The gateway area was completely empty so I’m not sure why they couldn’t just taxi the jet right there, but I digress…

We eventually found the plane but ended up having to wait on the very crowded bus for about 15 minutes due to mechanical issues with the plane. Our plane was a B737-800 with a somewhat unusual configuration. There was a 3 row F cabin, but the seat pitch looked to be exactly the same as the coach seats. Maybe the F benefits were a meal of some sort. The coach seats seemed to be just a little bit smaller than a standard domestic (31” pitch I believe)seat. The flight was less than 30% full so it wasn’t a big deal to spread out. This was also the first time I’ve been on a flight where everything was for sale, including water and sodas. I didn’t take UX (a future Skyteam member nonetheless) to be a RyanAir/Skybus/etc style a la carte airline, but I guess it is. Prices were inflated, but not entirely unreasonable for some items—sodas were expensive with a 23centiliter (I think that’s 8oz) can for 1.80 euros, but sandwiches were more reasonable between 2.50 and 4.50 euros. And credit cards (V, MC, and AX) were accepted with a 3 euro minimum purchase amount. I snagged one of their menus, pictures at this link. (First 4 pictures)

Landing at AGP was a bit rough; we encountered quite a bit of turbulence on the way down and the pilot seemed very aggressive with his turns. Luggage was out pretty quickly. I was wondering why we didn’t have to go through customs since we went to a different country, but I guess it’s different process in the EU. We went to the Hertz counter and were upgraded from the Peugeot we reserved to a shiny new red BMW 3 series (thanks Centurion! ^).

We made our way to Porto Banus where we are staying at the Gran Hotel Guadalpin. Before we got to the hotel, we stopped by the marina area to have lunch at Pizzeria Picasso. This place was a really nice open air restaurant. Lots of warming towers scattered around the restaurant. The food was delicious—pizzas were perfect thin crust with the right amount of crispiness. The downtown area is very classy- nearly every luxury retailer in the world had a shop set up there. Just from our 5 minute walk I saw Louis Vuittuon, Ferragamo, Fendi, and Gucci. Nearly every car parked on the waterfront had a $100,000+ price tag as well. After lunch we made our way to the hotel. The hotel is very nice and the rooms are all styled with modern furnishings. I forgot to take some pictures before we made it all messy, hopefully I’ll remember tomorrow after the maid service . The staff is polite but I got a feeling of snippiness at check-in. I’m not sure if this is just my room or for all rooms, but we had a very large balcony overlooking the pool area, complete with couch and very nice lounge chairs.

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That's all for now, more updates as I have the time and internet access

brosnan6

Day 3- Marbella/Puerto Banus/Gibraltar
We started off today with some coffee pastries at a café inside a gas station right outside our hotel. It was a surprisingly upscale café for being inside a gas station. After breakfast, we got on the freeway to head towards Gibraltar. We got on the wrong freeway quite a few times so the ride took a lot longer than it should have. It should have been 45 minutes but with all our delays it ended up being about 1.5 hours. Gibraltar was an interesting experience; while we were technically heading inside a different country, it didn’t feel like it at all. Border control and customs was merely an officer standing there waving cars through without stopping or looking at passports. But once inside, it was a totally different world. Nearly everybody spoke British English and the currency was the pound sterling.

We drove around the city for a while and got lost for about 30 minutes in the tiny city streets. We definitely went down some one ways the wrong way and drove in no vehicle zones… . We stumbled upon a mosque right in front of the water and although it looked very interesting, all the gates were locked. It seemed like an unusual place for a mosque as there was virtually nothing in the area. I know that the area had a significant historical Muslim presence, but this mosque looked recently constructed. After coming home and doing some research, this appears to be the mosque. While we were walking around, we did hear the call to prayer but were unsure if it was a recording or somebody actually in there. Standing there on the waterfront was intense—I have never felt winds that strong in my entire life. The seas were very rough with HUGE swells; there was spray going everywhere! We stopped for lunch at a small hole in the wall Indian restaurant.

At that point, the weather started going south and we decided to head back and see what else we could find along the way. Close to our hotel we saw a large shopping mall off the freeway. For lack of a better idea, we decided to check it out. Inside were your expected mall stores- electronics, clothing, cafes, etc…

We left the mall within an hour since nothing really caught our fancy (especially due to the crappy exchange rate!). We went back to downtown Puerto Banus to check out some more shops. Since it’s winter, it’s totally deserted. Very few tourists were roaming around—most of them seemed to be Brits on vacation. However, because of the dead season, many of the shops had winter sales going on with very reasonable prices (reasonable even with the exchange rate). I was surprised to see 50%+ markdowns at Gucci, Lacoste, and Burberry.

We came back to the hotel for a few hours before dinner and I decided to take some pictures that I didn’t get to yesterday. Here are a few pictures of the outside, the rooms, and the view from the rooms. Also, here’s a picture of the car we rented. After resting for a little bit, we went back out for dinner, again in the downtown area. Dinner was Chinese food since many restaurants were closed for the holidays. After walking around for a bit, we headed home because tomorrow was again an early start as we are driving 2 hours to Alhambra.
That’s all for now…till next time.

brosnan6

Day 4- Alhambra
Today we headed towards Alhambra. We had secured a reservation a few days earlier and had to be there by 1400 and it’s about a two hour drive. We left about 0930 and figured we would grab lunch somewhere around there. It was a very scenic drive and we passed the drive by plugging in my iPod to the BMW’s included aux-in port. The roads were practically deserted and I was driving for part of the time. Let’s just say I got into 6th gear more than a few times . It’s not often that I can drive 100mph+ in the USA. Upon arrival, we went inside to first pick up our tickets and then find a place for lunch. Lunch was a small Spanish restaurant right outside the site entrance. Once we were able to enter the site, we first went to the Palace de Nazaries since all the guides recommended heading there first because access is restricted to a very small window of time. We spent the majority of our time in there. By the time we were done a few hours later (about 1700 I’d say), it had started raining so we decided to just head home and grab dinner. I’d upload some of the awesome pictures if I could, but unfortunately I have almost used up my upload ration on Flickr and want to save the remaining space for some plane pictures .

After dinner and return to the hotel, everybody was exhausted since Alhambra was a lot of walking. We placed a few phone calls to relatives via Skype and just chilled in our rooms for the majority of the evening.

A few more points about the hotel: the second day I didn’t feel like the room was cleaned very well—it just seemed like the maid replaced the towels, reorganized a few things to look neat, and redid the bed. The floor was still dirty and upon closer inspection, most things appeared to only have been cleaned or arranged on the surface. We mentioned it to the front desk before we headed out for Alhambra. When we got back, it looks like the word got across. The room was flawless; it appeared to have gone under a deep clean while we were gone.

Day 5- More Spain
We somehow didn’t realize we had an extra day in Spain and therefore we hadn’t planned anything. Unfortunately, the weather had turned really crappy and it was raining all day. Rather than sitting around in the hotel, we decided to just drive and basically have a driving tour. My dad wanted us to see Seville, about a 3 hour drive, so we just started heading there in the morning. It was a pretty uneventful road trip and although it was tedious, we were together as a family, talking and laughing. At the hotel we would have been in our separate rooms watching TV or something. On the way to Seville, we stopped in a town close to Algeciras for the typical American tourist lunch- McDonalds . My sister is a very picky eater and she hadn’t exactly enjoyed the meals we had been having over the past few days so we decided to just go the quick and easy route. The menu was almost the same as an American one, with a few different additions (they had a “Hindu” flavored chicken sandwich...). As expected, the food tasted virtually the same. One thing I noticed (and as I posted in the Coke v. Pepsi thread in diningbuzz), they actually had Coke Zero on fountain here. In the USA, I’ve never seen it outside a grocery store. I wish more places had it on tap in the US; it tastes worlds better than diet coke.

Next to the McDonalds there was a Carrefour store. Since none of us had been in one, we decided to check it out. It basically was a SuperTarget or a Fred Meyer—from clothes to groceries to housewares. An interesting they did as you enter was that if you had something in your hand, like a purchase from outside the store, or in my case a camera, the security guard has you put it inside a plastic bag and they heat seal it. Presumably this is to combat theft. We wandered around and looked at the assorted things, I got yelled at by a manager for taking a picture of a 3L bottle of Scotch, you know, the usual . Apparently Coke and Whiskey come packaged together in this country. We left and after about 1.5 hours we made it to Seville. Unfortunately it had started raining much harder and we were limited to driving around. I wasn’t able to get any good pictures either due to the weather. After driving around for a while, we decided to drive back to our hotel and find some dinner in that area.

It was about a 3 hour drive back to the hotel and once there, we just dropped off a few things and went back to the marina area for dinner. It was still pouring down rain so there was virtually nobody. My dad felt like Italian food and we went to a restaurant that he has been to a few times before when visiting in this area. While we were outside looking at the menu (with complimentary hotel umbrellas) the hostess thought we weren’t sure if we wanted to dine at the restaurant or not, so she just started giving us freebies to eat there. We ended up with a complimentary order of focaccia bread and a giant container of homemade limoncello after dinner. The food was delicious and the portions were huge as well. I had a chicken saltimbocca, mom and sister shared a pizza margherita, and dad had a seafood spaghetti. Afterwards, back to the hotel to get ready for tomorrow. Our flight back to CDG is at 1700 and we leave for CAI the following afternoon.

Day 6- Back to CDG
Today we checked out of the Hotel Guadalpin and headed back to the AGP airport to catch our flight back to CDG. Unfortunately, we were still flying on Air Europa . After returning our car to Hertz, we navigated the maze that is the parking garage to try and find the departures terminal. Unfortunately, the last segment requires a huge walk across 6 lanes of traffic in the pouring rain, all without a cover from the rain. Inside the departures terminal, we see huge lines for SpanAir and Iberia but UX check-in desks are nowhere to be found. After wandering around for a bit, we find out that UX is in a different part of the terminal. After locating the UX area, we proceed to the business class desk, figuring that since we are Skyteam Elite, it wouldn’t be a problem (it wasn’t). They were not able to give us a complimentary upgrade to C, but said that we are at the top of the list for op-ups if Y became full (highly unlikely). I asked the agent the status of the flight, she said that 105 out of 180 Y seats were filled. I’m curious what a US carrier(AS, AA, US, etc…) 737-800 seats in Y because I felt that the UX layout was a little too cozy and had a little bit less legroom than, say AS which I fly regularly.

I felt that the UX pilots flew the plane very aggressively. Many of the maneuvers after takeoff felt very strong and the landing back in CDG was probably the roughest landing I’ve ever felt. It literally felt like they just pounded the plane straight into the runway. I was half expecting us to bounce a couple of times… . After collecting our baggage, we found the shuttle to the Hilton and headed there for the night. Upon arrival, the hotel looked significantly busier than our previous stay earlier this week. The check-in clerk at the HHonors desk was the same as previously and he remembered us as soon as we said our last name.

He did the same thing with HHonors Gold #’s as last time, put mine on one room and my dad’s on another. Dad got an upgrade to the executive floor (8th floor) and while I didn’t get the executive floor upgrade (no more double rooms left), the clerk gave us a GIANT corner room on the 4th floor with an amazing view of the airport (I can see all the planes taxiing back and forth with the window that stretches along almost 2 entire walls). We also received access to the executive lounge so we still get the free breakfast. I’m not sure whether or not to call this room a suite because while it is only one room without an anteroom, there is a lot of open space. Junior suite perhaps? Here are a few pictures of this room. Additionally, the bathroom is huge compared to the room on the executive floor we had last time.

Breakfast spread the following morning was the same as last time- scrambled eggs, sausages/bacon, fresh baguettes, pastries, meats, cheeses, fruits, and fresh squeezed juices. There were still the refrigerators with the various beverages in glass bottles. This I forgot to mention last time, but there is a very nice self-serve coffee machine which makes amazing cappuccinos with the perfect amount of foam and all. I don’t remember if I mentioned this either, but there is also a desktop computer setup so guests can have complimentary internet access. The internet access in the guest rooms is run by Swisscom and rates start from 12 Euros for 60 minutes, then continue to 22 Euros for 24hrs with a 400mb data limit, 27 Euros for 24 hours with unlimited data, 108 Euros for 7 days unlimited access and 230 Euros for 1 month unlimited access. There are wireless and wired connections in each room. Finally, power adapters are available for purchase in the minibar for 20 Euros, but I asked the front desk if they have any for loan and they said that they do offer adapters for loan as long as there is a 12 euro deposit applied to the room (refunded upon return). I took advantage of this service.


Day 7- Going to CAI- AF508 12/23/07 1340
We checked out of the CDG Hilton at around 1115 in order to get to the airport in time for 1340 flight. After the complimentary shuttle dropped us off in terminal 2E, we had some issues trying to find the C check-in. The monitors showed the CAI flight as check-in in at area 7, but when we got there we didn’t see signs for C/elite check-in. After asking a nearby attendant, we were told to go back to area 5 for business class desks. Once there, another attendant helped us to use the kiosk check-in. We then proceeded to the luggage check area where another AF employee took our bags and directed us to the lounge area. Our flight was at gate E96 and there was a lounge just a few minutes prior to the gate. The whole area looked to be under construction.

The lounge was downstairs. Inside, there was a self-serve fridge of cold drinks, a few buckets of various crackers and cookies, and some trays for sandwiches (though there were no sandwiches in sight, only signs describing them). Another area held a self-serve bar with semi top-shelf alcohol. There was a business center with an array of iMacs but I was unable to get the internet to work there, or with the supposed Wi-Fi with my own laptop. Power adapters were available to checkout with your boarding pass as your deposit. All in all, the lounge looked very nice but there was nothing really of substance inside it aside from some comfortable sofas. I was very disappointed overall. We heard the boarding call and headed towards the gate to find a giant clusterf*ck of people in no particular line or anything. We found the business class line and were directed to the front of the gate to catch yet another bus to our plane parked in the middle of nowhere…

Onboard, we were in seats 3 E-F-J-K. These were not bulkhead like our SEA-CDG flight. I found the female staff on this flight to be significantly more attractive than our earlier one . After everybody was settled in, champagne and juice was distributed. Amenity kits were the same as the previous flight, here are two pictures (one, two. Movie and TV selection was exactly the same. This time however, I chose to watch one of the French films, L’Invite. It was a basic comedy and I got a few laughs out of it; nothing award-winning for sure. Soon after takeoff, meal service was started. Following is the menu:

Traditional Service
Choice of Hors d’Oeuvre
Duck foie gras terrine with caramelized pineapple.
Sauteed shrimp served with Breton seaweed vinaigrette, asparagus and carrot salad.
Choice of Main Courses
Pan-seared lamb noisette accompanied by bean puree and sugar snap peas with olive oil.
Fillet of red snapper with vegetable ragout and saffron potato.
Daily Special (card insert within menu): Fillet of duckling with caper sauce. The fillet of duckling is baked and served with caper sauce. This dish is accompanied by buttered broccoli and carrot puree.
Our Special Selection of Cheese
Camembert, Cabecou, and Fourme d’Ambert.
Assortment of Desserts
Szechuan pepper chocolate tart, mango-passion fruit dessert, sherbet served with cookies, choice of fresh fruit.
Beverages
Apertifs
Glenlivet 12 year, Ricard, Bourbon, Gin, Vodka, Bitter, and Vermouth
Porto
Porto Tawny 10 years old
Brandy and Liqueurs
Cognac Delamain Pale and Dry XO Champagne 1st Cru
Armagnac hors d’age
Pear brandy
Herbal Liqueur
Beer
Heineken
Soft Drinks
Fruit juices- orange, tomato, and mango
Coca-Cola, CC Light, Fanta Orange, Sprite, Tonic
Coffee and Tea
Nascafé coffee offered with a chocolate
Espresso served at our bar Espace
Selection of teas and herbal teams
Mineral Water
Thonon, Badoit, Perrier

Before I go further, I have to say how disappointed I was with the food. For my starter, I had the sautéed shrimp. The shrimp were flavorless and the vegetables were almost frozen. This dish was only edible with a good helping of salt and pepper. Neither of the entrees sounded very appetizing, but I still chose the fish, hoping for the best. Boy was I wrong…it was basically a cooked fillet of fish. No flavoring, no sauces, not even a lemon on the side or something…just plain fish. No amount of salt and pepper would have helped here. One taste and I was done with that… My sister had the lamb and it was equally flavorless and smelled just as bad as the fish. I loaded up on carbs with the rolls.

I also doubled up on dessert. The chocolate tart was tasty, but it was just all dark chocolate. I love dark chocolate, but too much is no good. My 2nd dessert was the mango passion fruit and boy was it delicious. By far the best thing I’ve ever had in the air. It had the consistency of mousse—light and airy—but the full bodied taste of a rich dessert. I wish I had remembered to take a picture because it looked as amazing as it tasted. It was in a patty shape with some chocolate drizzled on top along with a few cubes of fresh mango. There was also a very thin graham cracker type base, but it was barely noticeable. After the dinner service, I took a short nap as we still had about 2 hrs left out of the 4 hour flight.

Upon landing in CAI, we disembarked to yet another bus (separate bus for the C pax) which took us to the terminal. Upon entering the terminal, I was immediately reminded of the KHI airport—both in style and atmosphere. Since our entire Egypt part was taken care of by a travel agency (Egypt Touring Club), we were greeted by a representative with our name on a clipboard upon entrance into the terminal. He helped us purchase our entrance visas ($15 each) and guide us through customs and immigration (only took about 10 minutes, even though another plane arrived before us). After passing through customs, it appeared that there were two classes of representatives- those who could go all the way to the gate to meet passengers, and those who had to wait at the baggage claim. Luckily our travel agency is a premier one and we were met at the gate.

After everything was taken care of, we had to sit down for a few minutes to finalize our plans for the week and to pay the agency. We had tried to pay via credit card from home but for some reason it kept getting denied. Finally we were told we’d have to settle in person and they would have to take a imprint of the card. When we met in person the agent finally realized that were paying via Amex and they only accepted Visa/MC, which is why their system kept denying the transaction….. You’d think they would have been able to figure that out for the two months we’d been working on this trip, or that all Visa cards start with “4”, MC with “5” and Amex with “3.” We ended up paying with our AS Visa. The agency had arranged for a private van to take us to our hotel, Le Meredien Heliopolis. It was maybe a 10 minute ride from the airport. Arrival at the hotel also reminded me of being in KHI, with security checkpoints and metal detectors/x-rays at the entrance. We had 2 rooms reserved here for 2 nights each (4 nights total). 3 of the nights were paid (awesome SPG rate of $79/night) and one night was an award night. For some reason the hotel computers still said we were SPG Plat, even though Amex Centurion discontinued that last year and we’re only SPG Gold now. Obviously we didn’t complain .

Since we had two rooms, we got to choose two Platinum welcome gifts (we chose $10/55 Egyptian pounds (EGP)) minibar credit for each, roughly 50 Egyptian pounds). We also received some great upgrades—the king bed reservation was upgraded to a 1br suite on the SPG floor and the double bed reservation was upgraded to SPG floor and both rooms were given club lounge access for free breakfast and 24hr beverage service. The décor of the hotel is quite dated, but still elegant. I’m not really complaining since the staff is very polite and we’ve received some awesome benefits. A nice perk about the hotel is that there’s a bank located right in the lobby and it’s open till 2300, so you know you’re getting the best exchange rate (about 5.51 Egyptian pounds to the dollar).

On the topic of exchange rate, it’s great to finally be in a place where the dollar is still strong. After being in Europe all week, it was nice not having to mentally adjust all the prices 50% higher ! Since it was late, we just had dinner in the hotel’s Thai restaurant. The food was absolutely delicious and rivaled some of the great Thai food I’ve come to love in California. The prices were quite reasonable too, especially considering it was a hotel restaurant. We had 3 entrees, 1 appetizer, a large bottled water, and several sides of rice for 250EGP (roughly 45 USD) WITH the tip included (there’s an automatic 12% added to all checks). Within the guest rooms, the minibar is also reasonably priced. Water bottles for 15EGP and snacks ranged from 5-40EGP. The $10USD/55EGP credit definitely goes far with these minibars. In the USA, I’d expect a water bottle to be $6 bucks and the macadamia nuts to be $16. Here, the chips are $1 and nuts are $7 (when converted back to USD).
It’s late now and I should be going to bed. A tour guide from the travel agency is meeting us at 0900 to take us on a tour of the Pyramids.

Day 8- Giza Pyramids 12/24/07
Breakfast was in the Royal Club lounge this morning. There was a buffet setup with several dishes. There were also pastries, fruits, and teas. The buffet included chicken and beef sausages, plain omelets, falafel, and various breads. I had some pastries and made myself a falafel sandwich with a half piece of pita pocket bread. There were condiments as well to assist in sandwich making (yogurt, veggies, and spices).

Our guide and driver were waiting for us in the lobby and while we waited for the driver to bring the car out front, we started talking to a lady sitting next to us and found out she was from our area and knew many of our family friends. Small world…

Our car was a large van and it was just us in there. The Touring Club of Egypt has been awesome so far… We started on the 20 minute drive towards the Giza pyramids and on the way our guide briefed us on the history and what to expect. Upon arrival, we were told there were a few activities we could do. First, we could go inside one of the pyramids. She warned us that the passageway is very narrow and not for the claustrophobic. When we went inside, we found out she wasn’t kidding. One had to be hunched over the entire way down the path until you reached a small room. There really wasn’t much to see inside, it was more of the satisfaction of being able to say that I was inside a pyramid. The admission to this activity was 25EGP (about $4.50).

The next attraction was the Cheops Boat museum. This museum was a small building which houses one of the 5000 year old boats that was used to carry slabs of stone across the Nile for pyramid building. Admission to this was 40EGP (about $7). All visitors were required to wear “booties” over their shoes to prevent excess dust from entering the museum. After this attraction, we walked around outside for about 30 minutes and climbed some of the “mini pyramid” looking structures for some awesome pictures. Note that the real pyramids are roped off at the bases and machine gun armed guards patrol the perimeter. So if you had any notions in your head about trying to climb a real pyramid, I’d highly suggest you get them out real quick .

I also wanted to mention that even though it was Christmas Eve, there were still many tourists (mainly Brits with a few Americans, Arabs, and Asians). The parking lots were filled with tour buses and private car services like ours. Another thing to keep in mind is that there are lots of annoying souvenir salesmen wandering about, pestering you to buy their crystal pyramids and postcards. It’s best to ignore them and keep walking because if you stop to talk to one, you will soon find yourself surrounded to several. It’s also wise to ignore the people who offer you pictures with their camels because they will try and shake you down for money.

The next stop was the sphinx. Here you presented your main Giza admission ticket (forgot to mention it above…you need to get a 50EGP ticket just to enter the Giza site; ours was purchased by the travel agency). We took a few pictures, got a quick history lesson from our guide, and then continued on our way. All in all, the Giza visit costs 115EGP (roughly $21). Since our visit was organized by the travel agency, we only had to pay 65EGP for the “extras” (going inside pyramid 25EGP, and the museum 40EGP).

After Giza, we headed to a papyrus shop where we were given a demonstration of how the ancient Egyptians made paper from the papyrus plant. This was inside a store so obviously the reason for this visit was to buy some papyrus paintings/scrolls, further proven by the fact that each visitor was given an order sheet to write down model numbers as they like. The paintings ranged in price from 50EGP to 10000EGP, with various percentage discounts given for your spend amount. It’s easy to get carried away and keep writing down various model numbers for different paintings (they’re obviously counting on you to do just that). We had to start our list over a few times after we realized we had no place to frame a lot of what we wanted to get.

In the end, we narrowed it down to a chariot, a map of the historical Nile, and a personalized one for me. The personalized one had my astrological sign and an area where an on-site artist painted my name in hieroglyphics. This one is 80EGP by itself, and 20EGP extra for the artist personalization. Our total for just the paintings was 330EGP, but we got a 10% discount for our spend amount. While they wouldn’t haggle on the prices any further, my dad was able to get the manager to drop the personalization fee to 10EGP (so my piece was 90EGP in all). All in all, our grand total was 307EGP (330-10% +10 for personalization)—not bad at all for three pieces.

I’m hoping to find another bazaar before we leave so I can pick up some mini crystal/glass pyramids as little presents for some of my close friends. I’d also like to pick up a medium sized one for my room (I also have a crystal figurine from the Burj al-Arab in Dubai which would match perfectly with a crystal pyramid).

Day 9 12/25/07- Leaving Cairo and going to Aswan and Abu Simbel (and first day of cruise)
This morning we had to wake up at 0430 because our flight to Aswan (ASW) left from CAI at 0630. Our travel agency had sent a car and driver once again to take us to the airport. We were flying on EgyptAir (MS), soon to be a Star Alliance member (they have already been invited and are in the process of meeting all the requirements). The domestic terminal in CAI, for lack of a better word, was a total dive. Check-in was the most confusing process I’ve ever seen—no apparent lines, whoever can get to the front gets to check-in first. Luckily we only had to wait about 30 minutes.

Boarding was done by bus and the flight was relatively full. IIRC we were on an A320 with a 2 class cabin. The flight was about 1.5 hours. I don’t remember much about the in-flight services as I was passed out almost the entire way. I know there was a drink service, but that’s about it. Upon arrival in ASW, another representative from the travel agency met us at the arrivals area. He helped us collect our bags and said they would be waiting for us on our ship upon our return from Abu Simbel. The flight to ASB was about 30 minutes after our ASW arrival, so the representative had already checked us in and got our boarding passes. He showed us to the departures area and said he would meet us in the arrivals area when we returned from ASB in about three hours.

The next flight was also on MS and also was an A320, but all one class. The seats were extremely small. I didn’t care much since it was only a 30 minute flight. I found it interesting that the safety briefing only consisted of aircraft identification and pointing out the emergency exits, nothing else. After takeoff the flight attendants came around with prepackaged cups of water. The landing was a little gut-wrenching. As soon as we were wheels-down, the plane swerved to the right (presumably due to wind). The pilot tried to compensate and we were jerked back on course, but it still felt like the plane tipped a little bit. Nonetheless, it was a nerve wracking few seconds as I got paranoid that we would be one of those landing accidents you hear about on the news.

Now a little bit about ASB. There really is nothing in this town except one historical site—the tomb of Queen Neferteri. The process for visiting is pretty well-organized. The planes are entirely full of tourists and upon landing, EgyptAir has buses waiting to take everybody to the historical site. There you pay the 80EGP admission fee which comes with a tour guide. You are shown around and given a bit of free time, but within 1.5 hours everybody is back on the busses and headed towards the airport. To put everything in perspective, our flight landed at 1015 and we were wheels-up again by 1245. On the bus back to the airport, I was surprised to find two students that go to the same school as me…more proof that it’s a small world! On the flight back, I was lucky enough to be seated next to a couple who had just gotten off the exact same cruise ship we were going to embark later that day. They were great resources and answered many of my lingering questions.

As promised, the agency representative was waiting for us upon arrival in ASW and he lead us to our private van to take us to our ship. We had a quick history tour on the way regarding the Aswan Dam (lower dam, more to be explained later). We arrived at our ship in about 20 minutes and he got us all settled in. Again as promised, our bags were waiting for us in the lobby. Here are a few pictures I snapped of the exterior (one , two) and inside (one , two, three) the rooms of the ship. We were shown to a seating area while the reception staff prepared our keys and paperwork. We were asked to fill out the charge authorization forms that nearly every cruise ship has (for on-board purchases). We were given one key per cabin and they were actual keys, not the keycards found in nearly all hotels. The last time I remember receiving an actual key was around 1999 at the Century Hyatt in Tokyo.

The ship is only five floors, with 58 guest cabins and four suites, all on floors 3 and 4. The “front door” to the ship is on floor two, as is the reception desk and the bar/lounge. The dining room is on floor one, and the sundeck is floor five. We had about two hours until the first activity- a sailboat tour of the Aswan area. The sailboats were small, holding about 20 people each. Many guests had not arrived yet so we weren’t at capacity either. There was a tour guide who pointed out significant sites. After about an hour we returned to the ship and had a little bit of time to relax before dinner. I took the time to take a few pictures of our cabin (see above). For dinner, I had chicken noodle soup, filet with peppercorn sauce, and a warm apple strudel. Little did I know that all of it would be coming out of me real soon…

We had another one of those strange “small world” moments at dinner. Apparently the family sitting next to us is from SBN and is very good friends with some family of ours (my mom’s first cousin). They also have kids that are me and my sister’s age so it was great getting to know them. They also have many of the same interests as us. The evening entertainment consisted of a traditional Nubian dance which included getting the guests involved. It was an entertaining performance. Here’s a clip I found on YouTube that is similar to what was performed. We then found out that breakfast was at 0600 the following morning for a 0700 excursion.

brosnan6

Day 10 12/26/07- Aswan
I went to sleep and awoke in the middle of the night with searing pains in my stomach. I quickly rushed to the bathroom and expunged my dinner from the night before. Figuring it was just a one-time thing, I went back to sleep. I woke up at 0530 feeling crappy. As soon as I got out of the shower, I vomited once again. At breakfast I found out that several other guests also had the same symptoms as me during the night. Nobody really knows what could have caused it since it seemed like everybody had varied dinner choices. It could also have been an airborne bug that many people caught. Nobody I know of had been drinking water from the tap. According to the crew, bottled water is used for all guest preparations-from tea and coffee to cooking. I was feeling slightly better and decided not to miss the excursions for the day. My dad was iffy till the last minute because he was also very sick all night, but he decided to come with us anyways.

The ship had several tour guides and we were split up into groups of 15. IIRC there were three or four English speaking groups, one Spanish, and one Japanese. Each group boarded tour buses outside and we got on our way to the first destination, the unfinished Obelisk in Aswan. We arrived and were given a rundown of the history and what is going on there. We hiked around the site for about 30 minutes and headed back to the buses for the next stop. On a note, this site was very rocky and there were several really large steps and areas that tourists have to work really hard to get to, so this might not the best destination for people with weak joints and muscles. I got quite a lower body workout just in the half hour we were there.

The next stop was the high dam/Aswan Dam (just upriver from the low dam I previously mentioned). Security was very tight at this stop—there was no video or zoomed in photos allowed, only regular snapshots without zoom. We left this stop after only a few minutes; there wasn’t much to see. The next stop, the longest one of the day, was the Philae Temple. Our bus dropped us off at a harbor with a small market, where we had to get on small boats to take us to the island which houses the temple. Each boat fit about 20 people, so ours was just our tour group with the guide. We spent about 1.5 hours at this location, most of which was a guided tour. About 30 minutes into the tour I became extremely dizzy and felt like vomiting, so I ditched the rest of the group to sit down alone for a few minutes. Thankfully I got better and the dizziness and vomiting feeling vanished. I caught up with the rest of the group and finished the rest of the tour. By the end though I was feeling weird again, mainly very fatigued and sore all of a sudden.

I went to sleep as soon as we got back on the boat and skipped lunch. When my family came back from lunch, they mentioned that many of the crew were inquiring about my whereabouts and once told I wasn’t feeling well, all wished me to get well soon. I rested for a little bit more and was feeling better for the next visit later in the afternoon, the Kom Ombo Temple. It was around this visit that I started noticing the dedication to security that the Egyptian government subscribes to. At every tourist site (and even sites that aren’t huge), there are contingents of the Tourism and Antiquities Police patrolling the area and making sure nothing bad happens. They also keep the vendors confined to the market/bazaar areas and make sure that tour groups are not interfered with.
I think it’s great that the Egyptian government makes sure that its visitors are looked after (though I’m sure they also want to make sure their historical sites are protected). I felt extremely safe at every tourist site and didn’t worry too much about crime, even though Egypt is a relatively safe country. The Tourism Police were even present at every ship docking site, with two or three officers guarding the entrances to every single ship. They always greeted the passengers with a smile and a good morning/afternoon/evening. I even noticed them getting involved when some tourists got uncomfortable with extremely pushy street vendors. One of the officers even regulated on a taxi driver that was trying to charge my family an extremely high rate for a very close-by destination. Finally, while we were visiting the Kom Ombo temple, somebody apparently forget their cell phone at the security checkpoint and several officers went around to each and every tour group to find the rightful owner. Try getting service like that from the TSA….

Shortly after returning from Kom Ombo we had afternoon tea on the sundeck. I started getting drowsy again after tea and I went back to sleep for a couple hours before the captain’s reception and dinner. Half an hour before dinner we had the captain’s cocktail reception in the bar and lounge area. The crew had set up an elaborate display of beautifully presented drinks in the center of the room. I wish I had been able to take a picture of the drink display because it was truly amazing with the different colors and glasses. We met all the heads of the departments and were presented with some statistics about the ship and its passengers. As soon as the reception was over, we headed downstairs to the dining room for dinner.

It was here where I started feeling queasy again and had to excuse myself twice because I felt like vomiting. Unfortunately, the second time I left I did empty my stomach. Little did I know that the restaurant manager was keeping his eye on me since I also missed lunch for being sick. Apparently he had seen me leave during dinner and must have known that I wasn’t feeling well.

When I came out of the dining room bathroom, he had a janitor waiting just in case the bathroom was dirty (don’t worry…I didn’t make a mess . Also while I was inside the bathroom, the manager had also called the captain to let him know that I wasn’t feeling well. When I emerged from the bathroom, both of them were waiting for me to find out how I was doing. The captain even went as far as offering a staff member to go to a pharmacy on shore and pick up any medications I desired (he wasn’t certified to dispense any medication on board). I declined his very generous offer since my parents had a variety of medicines I could choose from (I ended up taking Cipro). A few minutes after I got back to the room, there was a knock on my door. Lo and behind, it was the captain with a hot pot of mint tea for me. He wished me a good night and said to not hesitate to call his staff if I needed a pharmacy trip later in the night. Now THAT is what I call a truly dedicated captain!

Day 11- 12/27/07- More Aswan and sailing to Luxor
I woke up this morning feeling much better—I had no more headache or stomach pains. Breakfast was 0700 this morning in order to prepare for an 0800 excursion to Edfu Temple. I was starving since I hadn’t had much food the day before. The assortment at breakfast is excellent—there’s custom made omelettes, scrambled eggs, fresh fruit and pastries, fresh meats and cheeses, cereal, and fresh-squeezed orange and grapefruit juices. Since am now immune to the local “bug” that I had the day before, I had no qualms in eating local produce and uncooked items. In some ways it’s nice to get sick early on in a foreign country because you can more fully enjoy the rest of the trip .

At 0800 we left for the Edfu Temple. We got off the ship to find the street full of horse-drawn carriages. We were told that we would be taking carriages for the one mile trip to the temple. Each carriage held four people. While the ship arranged for the carriages, we were still expected to tip the driver after he brought us back to the ship after the visit (4-5EGP recommended per person). There’s not much to say about the temple; the linked article should explain it much better than I remember .

After the carriage driver brought us back to the ship, we sailed for Luxor. This journey would take us the better part of the day, so most of the day was a relaxing lounge around the ship day. Lunch was an Egyptian BBQ on the sundeck; by far the best meal thus far. The menu included kofta kababs, lamb kababs, spiced grilled chicken, and a variety of traditional side dishes. The food was absolutely delicious and I was glad that I felt well enough to enjoy it

Nobody really did much of anything the rest of the day. My family just sat on the sundeck and talked with our newfound friends from Indiana. This evening was the fancy dress party where all the guests dressed in traditional Egyptian clothes (men wear galabeyas). These articles of clothing were easily purchased by most guests onshore for less than 75EGP. It was quite a sight to walk into the dining room and see everybody dressed so uniquely. After dinner, we all proceeded upstairs for games and dancing. This was the night most people got very drunk and it was quite a sight to watch them try and dance. I went to bed around 2230 because we had an early start once again (0600 breakfast for an 0700 departure).

Day 12- 12/28/07- Luxor and the last day of the cruise
At 0700, we met our tour guide upstairs and went off the ship to find more tour buses waiting for us. The groups were much larger this time as many people who chose not to go on the other excursions now joined us. I think my group had 29 people in it. The first stop was the Valley of the Kings, where many of the pharaohs’ tombs are located (King Tut being the most recent and most famous find). We were literally in a valley of just rocks and desert. Some of the rock formations were quite beautiful. There were thousands of tourists present and it was a very hot day (85+ degrees). We visited three different tombs, but each tomb had a 10-15 minute line to get inside. I was surprised at how well all the tombs were preserved. Many of the paintings on the wall still contain original paint and have not been restored or touched up at all.

After the Valley of the Kings, we visited the temple of Hachusut. This was a short visit but made for some amazing photo ops since it was essentially a palace carved inside a valley of rock. The final stop for the morning was the Valley of the Queens. Here we went inside two tombs (I forget who they were for). Inside of them we were able to see an actual mummified baby from however long ago. We went back to the ship for lunch and had a little bit of free time before the afternoon activities. We left again in the afternoon to visit The Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple. Karnak temple was absolutely amazing. I know this sounds silly, but it’s incredible to think about how advanced ancient civilizations were and how they created so many amazing structures. We stopped at the dock for a few minutes between the two temples so people who didn’t want to go to the 2nd one could get off. I was pretty tired, so my sister and I got off at the ship but my parents went ahead to Luxor Temple.

As we were walking back to the ship, we spotted an internet café across the street. Since we were both going through internet withdrawal (FlyerTalk and Facebook for me ), we decided to check it out. It was a pretty basic setup, just a room with four computers running Win XP. The guard at the door collected the fee (10EGP for 30 mins). I thought this was a very reasonable rate, especially considering our hotel in CAI charged 2EGP per minute ! I posted a few posts on flyertalk, checked my email, and checked up on facebook before heading back to the ship.

After resting for a little bit back on board, we went down for the final dinner of the cruise. The food was by far the best dinner we’d had on the ship. I had fresh spring rolls for my appetizer, cream of mushroom soup, and a spicy Schezuan chicken breast with steamed rice for my entrée. Dinner was a delicious slice of ice cream cake (it was almost a gelato; not too creamy as I’d expect real ice cream cake to be). We also took care of tipping at dinner. Our family was lucky to have the same waiter every night and he was amazing at taking care of special requests for my picky sister (he arranged for burgers and fries to be sent up to our room a couple of times). Other families didn’t feel it necessary to tip much, if at all, to their waiters. Since our guy was awesome, we tipped him 150EGP, an extremely generous sum considering it should be about 20EGP per day.

The evening entertainment was a belly dancer with a live band. She was very talented and managed to get several women from the audience involved as well. Other than that, we socialized with some other people for a little while before heading upstairs for another early morning.

Day 13- 12/29/07- Back to CAI
We had to be ready by 0700 this morning for our flight back to CAI. We had breakfast on the ship and our driver met us on the ship to take us to the airport. Check- in was a breeze but the flight was delayed by about 40 minutes. EgyptAir is horrible at publishing delays and having staff available for assistance. Us, along with the other 100 passengers, were sitting at the gate wondering when boarding would start for the 0840 flight. The display monitor still said “on time” even at 0915, and there was nary an agent in sight. There was a another flight the next gate over that had been delayed since 0530, so I guess we got off easy .
Our boarding passes said we were in row 20 on an Embrarer 170, so I assumed we’d be at the back of the plane. Much to my surprise, row 20 is first class on this jet! I’m not quite sure how we got an upgrade because we didn’t ask or pay for one. My dad thought it might have been our travel agent having some connections with the airline… Regardless, we took our seats with pleasure. There were only two rows of F on this flight; 8 seats total. We got a pre-departure juice and after takeoff we received a small pastry tray for breakfast. I wasn’t expecting much since it was only an hour-long flight.

After landing in CAI, we took another bus to the terminal where we were met by a representative from the travel agency. He helped us collect our bags and said we would meet our tour guide at the hotel (Le Meredien Heliopolis once again). Unfortunately, this time at check- in they realized we were only SPG Gold (see above when they thought we were SPG Plat). No upgrade or minibar credit this time ... Since we were pressed for time, we didn’t bother going up to the room, just left our bags with the bellhop and went on our merry way.
The first stop for the day was the Cairo Museum. Like most museums, you need weeks or months to properly see all the exhibits. Since we only had a couple of hours, our guide only showed us the highlights of each exhibition. The King Tut treasures were absolutely amazing. It’s crazy to think about how the ancients had portable folding chairs, no bigger than current ones, 3000 years ago. Apparently boomerangs were also an Egyptian invention from King Tut’s time; the Australians took the idea from them MUCH later. Additionally, one of King Tut’s coffins is made of 110kg of pure gold! I wished we could have stayed longer at the museum because there were several things we weren’t able to see.

The next stop was the El-Khalili bazaar, one of the most famous in the world. Here we were given some free time to roam around shop. I didn’t buy anything since I took care of my shopping in ASW, but my parents and sister each bought a few items. We had some lunch at a sidewalk café and it was probably the best food I’ve had in a LONG time. Eating from a sidewalk café/vendor was actually one of my goals for this trip because I absolutely love Middle Eastern style food and there’s no better place to get it than some hole in the wall in Cairo! I’ve had falafel in many restaurants in the USA and I almost never like it there, but here was a completely different story. And the kofta kababs….oh god those were heavenly with the fresh bread.

The final stop was Al-Azhar park. (more)This park used to be a landfill and a overall sh!thole before the developed the entire thing and handed it over to the city of Cairo. The Islamic architecture is absolutely breathtaking and many of the water displays and fountains are gorgeous. One of the coolest features of the park is the small pathways of gently flowing water built in many of the walkways. The water moves at a slow and gentle pace and there are steps along the way so the water falls with the steps. I suppose one has to be careful as to not accidentally step into the water pathway, but you wouldn’t get very wet if you did.

The views of the city from here are beautiful as well. We sat down at the Lakeside Café and had some coffee and dessert. We were surprised to find that the café also had a Wi-Fi hotspot and since I had my backpack with laptop with me, we all sat there for about an hour and enjoyed the scenery while sharing the computer.

Since the park was the final stop for our driver, we had to take a taxi back to the hotel. It was quite an experience running across six lanes of highway traffic to get to the taxi stand! Don’t worry, it’s quite normal to do so here; there were at least 10 locals running across with us. The hotel was pretty much the same as last time, but I got the impression that the non-SPG floor wasn’t as well maintained as the SPG floor. Our water pressure was iffy and there was no hot water, even in the middle of the night. I didn’t care too much as we were really only there for a place to sleep.

Day 14- 12/30/07- Going home!
We had to get up at 0400 since our driver was meeting us in the lobby at 0430 for our flight back to CDG. We got to the airport very quick and were a little annoyed that the travel agency sent a car so early that the AF counters hadn’t opened yet… We sat around for about 15 minutes and then proceeded to the C counters for check- in. Unfortunately it was just our luck that we got an unsupervised trainee checking us in… We were literally standing at the counter for 30 minutes while she figured everything out and experienced problems with her bag tag printer. Finally with everything sorted out we were able to go to customs/immigration.

Here we waited for yet another 15 minutes, even though there was only one family of three ahead of us. The one thing that I came to hate about Egypt is the lazy @$$ attitude of many people, mainly government employees. Everybody takes their damn time to do everything and tourists suffer as a result. These immigration officers were just sitting around in their booths, drinking their tea and chatting with colleagues while they were processing people. Things would go so much faster and more efficiently if they focused on doing their damn jobs.

The immigration officer never even glanced at us to make sure passport pictures matched. Even the guards at the security checkpoints were sitting back and chatting while bags flashed past them on the xray machine. I saw at least five bags go by on the screen without anybody so much as even turning a head towards it, and god knows how many people went through the beeping metal detector without being patted down. I could have probably brought countless prohibited items on board quite easily if I really wanted to. And then when something bad does happen (god forbid), they scratch their heads and wonder how and why…

The AF lounge was on the 3rd floor. It was a pretty basic lounge—pastry selection and an automatic coffee machine. We waited for about 30 minutes before going downstairs to board. After finally getting on board, we settled in for the now-routine AF A330 flight. No need to describe the flight; seats were the same, TV and movie selection hadn’t changed, etc…
I found that my electronic seat wasn’t working properly so I had to move over one (wasn’t an issue since the C cabin was mostly empty). I plugged in my laptop, sat back, and enjoyed the ride. Breakfast menu is as follows:

Brunch
Hors d’Oeuvre
Fruit juice, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, fresh fruit salad, farmer’s cheese.
Fresh bakery selection, breakfast pastries, butter, and preserves.
Norwegian smoked salmon, Swiss air-dried beer and cheese.
Choice of Main Courses
Cheese omelette accompanied by veal sausage, vegetable flan, and broccoli.
Crepes filled with pastry cream and seasonal fruit
Beverages
Beer
Heineken
Soft Drinks
Fruit juices- orange, tomato, and mango
Coca-Cola, CC Light, Fanta Orange, Sprite, Tonic
Coffee and Tea
Nascafé coffee offered with a chocolate
Espresso served at our bar Espace
Selection of teas and herbal teams
Mineral Water
Thonon, Badoit, Perrier
Wine List
Duval-Leroy Fleur de Champagne (Champagne)
Limoux Terroir Haute Vallée 2004 Sieur d’Arques (White Languedoc)
Santenay 2005 Bouchard Père et Fils (Red Burgandy)
Médoc Château Tour Séran 2004 Jean Guyon Cru Bourgeois (Red Bourdeaux)

The breakfast was nothing extraordinary. The warm chocolate croissants were delicious, but everything else was generic. The omelet had no taste, but salt and pepper helped. I wasn’t feeling adventurous enough to try the rest of the stuff on my plate.

After arriving in CDG, we had about an hour to kill before our flight to EWR. We browsed a few duty-free stores before heading up to the AF lounge. This lounge was MUCH nicer than the one we previously used in CDG. This one was huge and very well staffed and stocked. I was pretty hungry so I chowed down on sandwiches, cheese, chips, and pastries . The boarding process was pretty ordinary and yet again we were on an A330, this time in rows 6 and 7. I could tell I would be in for a long flight...there was a crying baby in row 5 and a family with four kids scattered throughout the 2nd half of the C cabin.

The baby would not stop crying for a good hour or so but I didn’t care much since I had my noise-reducing headphones and my laptop volume was on loud. When the menus came around I was disappointed to see that it was the same disgusting menu that we had to endure on our CDG-CAI trip :eek! There was a small addition as a light meal served closer to arrival, but otherwise the menu was exactly the same.

Traditional Service
Choice of Hors d’Oeuvre
Duck foie gras terrine with caramelized pineapple.
Sauteed shrimp served with Breton seaweed vinaigrette, asparagus and carrot salad.
Choice of Main Courses
Pan-seared lamb noisette accompanied by bean puree and sugar snap peas with olive oil.
Fillet of red snapper with vegetable ragout and saffron potato.
Daily Special (card insert within menu): Fillet of duckling with caper sauce. The fillet of duckling is baked and served with caper sauce. This dish is accompanied by buttered broccoli and carrot puree.
Our Special Selection of Cheese
Camembert, Cabecou, and Fourme d’Ambert.
Assortment of Desserts
Szechuan pepper chocolate tart, mango-passion fruit dessert, sherbet served with cookies, choice of fresh fruit.
Light Meal
Chicken and apricot brochette with smoked breast of duck, fennel salad, corrité cheese and walnut bread. Yogurt and fresh fruit.
Beverages
Apertifs
Glenlivet 12 year, Ricard, Bourbon, Gin, Vodka, Bitter, and Vermouth
Porto
Porto Tawny 10 years old
Brandy and Liqueurs
Cognac Delamain Pale and Dry XO Champagne 1st Cru
Armagnac hors d’age
Pear brandy
Herbal Liqueur
Beer
Heineken
Soft Drinks
Fruit juices- orange, tomato, and mango
Coca-Cola, CC Light, Fanta Orange, Sprite, Tonic
Coffee and Tea
Nascafé coffee offered with a chocolate
Espresso served at our bar Espace
Selection of teas and herbal teams
Mineral Water
Thonon, Badoit, Perrier

Just the thought of the food the last time made me not even want to order the meal. I asked one of the FA’s to see if I could having something from Y. She went to the galley and another FA (presumably the lead) came by and basically interrogated me. She seemed to take it personally that I didn’t want to have the meal. She said that I could have ordered a special meal had I wanted something not from the menu…I got ticked off at this comment but didn’t say anything. How am I supposed to know I have to order a special meal? It’s not like I’m not eating due to a dietary restriction—I’m not eating because it’s the same menu as a completely different flight I took a week ago! It’s not as if AF publishes the menu in advance either. She then checked and said she was able to offer me fish or beef from the Y cabin, but neither of those sounded appealing either. I told her I’d just settle on doubling up for dessert (chocolate tart and the mango thing).

The rest of the flight went by without events. The crying baby finally went to sleep and the kids in the other seats finally figured out everything with their PTV systems. I caught up on a lot of TV seasons and a movie. Arrival at EWR was smooth and we promptly made our way through customs and immigration. We dropped off our bags at the baggage recheck area and went upstairs to the AS counter to get our boarding passes for the last leg of our journey, EWR-SEA. For some reason the kiosk wouldn’t let us check- in automatically. The agent pulled up our reservation and discovered that for some odd reason, my dad required an actual flight coupon (paper ticket), even though our entire itinerary was electronic. He printed it off and we went on our merry way.

After two weeks of European and African security, it took me a minute to remember to take off my shoes and take my liquids out of my bag. After being exposed to the rest of the world post 9/11, realize that it really is a pain in the @$$ to travel in this country. Europe was similar to US, but at least I didn’t have to deal with the shoe carnival. I would much rather be patted down each time than have to take off my belt and my shoes and empty my pockets—I see no conceivable reason for making my mini purell bottle go through the xray after I’ve already been through the metal detector. It’s not like I have a bomb hidden in there or something. But I digress…

We only had a few minutes after we reached the boarding area. We weren’t paying attention when preboarding happened, so we ended up just waiting till the end so we didn’t have to stand in line. The four of us had all the seats in F in row one. We were on a 737-800 and it was your standard domestic layout. There were 4 rows/16 seats in the F cabin. Waiting for us in each seat were mini water bottles and menus describing the dinner service. This was my first long-haul AS flight, so I was excited to see how it differed from my typical short-hauls. Shortly after takeoff, we were all offered personal DigE player devices. I declined since I checked out the movie selection and had seen most of them. I still had two full batteries on my laptop so I continued watching videos there.
I wasn’t able to grab the menu like I was on the AF flights, but I can tell you that the salad was a Mediterranean salad, entrée choices were herb-crusted halibut or a steak (both with mashed potatoes), and dessert was an ice cream sundae. It’s ironic, yet somehow fitting, that the food on this last leg was by far the best plane food on this entire voyage. You’d figure that a world class carrier like AF would have tasty food, but alas it’s like most other French food I’ve tasted—it looks good and sounds good, but generally tastes like sh!t. In the end, it came down to my favorite carrier, AS, saving the day with a delicious dinner and an awesome end to an awesome trip.

The salad was delicious with chunks of fresh feta cheese. I chose the halibut as my entrée and it was equally delicious. The seasoning was a little bit low on the salt, but the mashed potatoes made up for it. There was a delicious cream sauce drizzled over the halibut. Finally, the ice cream sundae was to die for. I’m not sure if it was design your own sundae because I had fallen asleep and my mom woke me up to tell me to eat it if I wanted to. There was a little bit too much caramel sauce, but other than that it was perfect.
After arriving in SEA, it took us forever to get our bags. When the bags finally started coming out, the carousel we were on malfunctioned. It took a few minutes for the Port of Seattle to come out and look at it, and eventually they just ended up rerouting the bags to carousel 13. Just when we thought all the bags were coming out, we found out that one of my dad’s bags had gone missing. Unfortunately it was one of his nice Hartmann ones . We had to wait a few minutes in the baggage center line to get a receipt for the claim. As of 24 hours later we still haven’t heard from AS, so we’ll see what happens.

That’s it! 17,910 miles, 11 flight segments, 25 pages, and 14,495 words later, here I am back in SEA writing this report from the comfort of my bed and my laptop. I hope you enjoyed reading this report and please feel free to ask any questions. Till next time!

brosnan6

(nothing left to put here, please ignore)

lucky9876coins

Excellent trip report so far, really enjoying it!^ I am in the process of planning a trip to Egypt, so this couldn't have come at a better time.

Two suggestions (totally unrelated to the trip report):
-Don't feel bad using the call button, especially in C & F. It has a picture of a waiter with a tray on it for a reason. It's there for you to be served, which can be a challenge when flying with some AF crews.
-Don't be ashamed taking pictures in premium cabins. I think you'll find a lot of people that fly C & F here on FT take a lot of pictures, and not that it's normal, but who cares what they think?

Can't wait for the next installment!

Rejuvenated

Nice report thus far. Look foward to hearing more.

amateur305

How much are you paying for the nile cruise? What were your options when you chose the Sonesta nile cruiser?

brosnan6

Since we are on the 12/25 cruise, peak rates applied. The double room peak rate is 322/night for 4 nights, so total for 4 people was just over $5000.

We chose Sonesta because a friend of my dad went on this same cruise recently and he highly recommended it. There were other options, but Sonesta is definitely considered the 5* of Nile Cruises. As you can tell, it definitely costs a 5* rate... Within Sonesta, I believe we chose the Sun Goddess because it had the itinerary that worked best with our already booked plane tickets, while still allowing for the other activities we wanted to accomplish.
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Just updated above post to add day 3 report. Enjoy

brosnan6

Sorry for the delay in updating this report everybody...I haven't had internet access in Egypt and have just been typing thereport in MS Word forthe time being. I'm at an internet cafe in Luxor right now so I can't post the updates. I'll probably be able to post by Sunday/Monday. I am at close to 17 pages in Word so I hope you all are looking forward to hearing more about the trip.

Just aquick itinerary for the next few days: Tonight is the last night of the cruise. We go back to CAI in the morning and will visit a few more attractions. We leave CAI the following morning to go to CDG and then to EWR and onto SEA.

brosnan6

Ok, the final report has been updated above. Please tell me if you encounter broken links or anything. Enjoy!

TrayflowInUK

Brilliant trip report, thanks so much for sharing! ^

Arnur

That's actually quite common on many airlines, while the vary the menu in business class every month or so (in coach this happens less often), one often gets the same choices when passing through the same airport several times in a row. At least in business class you had three different options to chose from.

I find the comment about French food offensive. Without doubt, there are differences between American and European culinary preferences. A number of people have commented in this forum that they prefer an honest 'steak-and-potatoe' meal to the food served by some European airlines (mostly) in business class. That's fair enough and I certainly am not a big fan of foie gras myself. But having lived on both sides of the Atlantic in the past, I know very few people who would consider domestic F class food to be the gold standard of airline catering.

Meriem

In my book, more hilarious than offensive (describing duck foie gras, duckling or lamb noisettes as disgusting ?)... But nice trip report nevertheless.

brosnan6

I'm sure both could be good, but they were disgusting the way AF prepared them. I'm not sure how a lamb noisette is supposed to taste, but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to have some sort of flavoring. This one literally tasted like cooked meat with no other flavor added.