The New Travel Thread: Now with write ups in the OP

I like being able to push it in front of me sideways in narrow isles while I see others with regular rollers struggling to get past peoples knees and seats. It's also nice to be able to push it in front of you or to your side. They're more maneuverable, but they have twice as many parts that can fail compared to rollers, though I haven't had any problems.

 

I've got a travel pro 19" hardside spinner that's about 7 years old now that's is pretty great. Wheels are still good, handle is tight, and zipper has never had an issue with super-stuffing. Looks like new ones are running $200 though.

 

I feel like I move much quicker with a regular Rollaboard

 

Team spinner so that I can push it. Never have had problems of the small wheels getting beat up.

 

Smoother ride for sure.

 

Woo. The majority were definitely not great, but I passed a few windows and the girls were top notch when it comes to hookers imo. However, they were all pretty heavily tatted

 

I saw lots of tats, and little bellies or muffin tops. looked kinda 'low grade' but what do I know.

 

most of my preference for roll aboard is due to fewer moving parts (2 bigger wheels vs 4 smaller wheels) and therefore longevity.

also, you lose a bit of functional space with a spinner.

 

Not under $100, but this is what I have and it's great as it can expand beyond carry-on size when you want, and it can also compress everything down to carry-on size: https://www.luggagepros.com/briggs-and-riley-transcend-domestic-carry-on-expandable-upright.shtml

If you have a lot of stuff and want to check it, you can also fill it up, compress it down, then expand it again and get more stuff in it easily.

 

I have a spinner that switches to the old school style. It's very helpful

 

God I love spinners.

 

Just scored a RT flight to Sao Paulo first week of Oct.

Anyone been?

 

I'm currently on the phone with Air Canada. 45 min average wait times.

What a perfect way to end a trip of constant disasters with a disaster for my wife. Toronto has closed their airport, which is where her connecting flight is. They had to make an emergency landing in Winnipeg for fuel. Back in the air now. Looks like her connection flight to Atlanta has already been canceled.

So she's most likely spending the night in Toronto.

 

Well hopefully this trip made you two stronger together

 

I was weather-stranded in Toronto about a year ago. Air Canada gave me a pretty decent hotel room for the night, but forgot to load my bags onto the plane the next morning, so you have that to look forward to.

 

Ha, even their airlines are super nice vs ours

 

People told me only delta was affected by weather

 

They did profusely apologize, put my bags on the next flight to DC, and hired a delivery service to drop them off at my apartment

 

The only time Ive ever had my bags left was by amtrak. Amtrak is fucking tight by the way if you have the time and money to do it right

 

All airports have delivery services the airlines contract out. If your bags are lost or late, you'll get them delivered at most any airport.

 

your CSR will pay for the hotel

 

I hope I don't have any problems when I travel to Europe at the end of may, but I sure am glad I booked everything with my csr in the event something does go wrong.

 

I have consistently thrown fits at work regarding them not letting me book flights on my csr.

how can my personal cc have better protection than one that we have a $2m budget on?

 

Do they let you choose your flights, but you have to use a company credit card? Or do they just tell you "here's your flight info"?

 

I booked it with it. Hoping that's the case

So here's why she missed her connection flight.....The Canadian Customs/Border Patrol closes at 9pm and can't process anyone into the US after 9pm. Seriously, fuck yourself right in the ass.

 

I have to use a travel agent. I tell them what I want and they book on the company card

 

That's some bull shit

 

I actually got a lot of people in trouble over it. leadership had no idea cards like the CSR existed. they're actually kind of mad that they don't get that protection when I do on my own flights.

we may be making a company-wide cc change

 

That's not all that uncommon. I have to book through and agency.

 

Interesting... I haven't started my job yet, but based off my experience last summer, we just pay for everything ourselves then fill out an expense report at the end of the month. Though I don't know how much travel I'll be doing since I work in construction.

 

That's how my last job was. Not a bunch of travel, but you pay and get reimbursed. My current company pays the hotel/flight/car, but I get reimbursed for food. It varies everywhere. Some places you get a company card and put it all on that. Some per diem

 

I'm per diem and I put my hotels on my personal card. flights and cars are on corporate

 

I'd prefer to do everyone on my own card if I had the choice and go that per diem lyfe

 

Update: While at a bar in Barcelona last night I decided I needed to book my next destination since I had to leave my hostel the next morning. I proceeded to book a flight to Lisbon at 7:10AM. Went to the club with the hostel bar crawl where I met two girls I had previously met in Rome. We partied until about 6AM.

I got back to the hostel and slept like a baby. Around 11AM when I go to check out I realize my flight was at 7:10AM and not PM. Two months into traveling and finally miss a flight. A train to Madrid would've been $35, but hostels were $300+ because of El Classico. Malaga was over $100 for a train. So I booked another flight to Lisbon. Supposed to be staying at a straight party hostel. Hope I don't catch the aids.

I'll be tbere for two days then onto Marrakech. From there I'm meeting a guy I partied with in Croatia in Istanbul. Hope I don't end up in Syria after a drunken night.

As for now I'm peeling through drinks at a lounge in the Barcelona hotel. Place is huge, but this buzz I'm catching may be able to fill it.

 

Leaving for Croatia in 10 days. Give me must dos in hvar and dubrovnik pls. I don't like clubs all that much so that's not necessary

 

Unfortunately I can't be of much help since I only did Split for 3 days. Everything I heard from my friend and others in Croatia was that Dubrovnik >> Hvar. Since it's still the slow season for partying/beaches there wasn't much action in Hvar from what I was told.

Will you not be visiting split/zadar/Zagreb?

Also, split was not nearly as cheap as I thought it would be. Turns out the "cheap" Croatia you hear about is more Zagreb and the cities away from the coast.

 

I'm doing Zagreb, zadar, and split as well but I've got a better idea what to do from those places than I do the others

 

That's like saying "I'm going to visit Tilly but I'm vegan"

 

I like scenery and wineries and boats and shit

I mean I'm fine hanging out anywhere I just don't really feel the need to be at a club at 4 am when the sick house music Dj shows up

 

So I was 5 hours into my flight from PDX to Tokyo and my mom noticed on the flight tracker that the plane had turned around. At first I thought it was recalibrating but then the destination updated to Anchorange. I asked the flight attendant what was going on and she was clearly shook and said "all of the pilots are in the cockpit (they had a first class "rest" seat and the pilots would rotate in and out so not all 4 of them were up there at once) and they're very busy. They won't even answer the phone when we call them. We will let you know as soon as we have more details but don't worry, we're safe." Then the pilot comes on and says "I'm sure some of you have noticed that we've turned around. We do have an issue- the co-pilot's window has shattered. It's a flyable condition but Delta Ops in Atlanta says that we need to return to PDX rather than going the remaining 6 hours to Tokyo." He later clarified that there's a 1/8 inch thick piece of laminate on the outside of the inch-thick window and that it had shattered but the window was fine.

So we flew back to pdx - it took 3.5 hours because we had the wind at our back - and we landed 8.5 hours after we took off. Delta put us in a hotel (we got the same room as last night), gave us $60 for dinner, $100 cash each, rolled our return trip back a day so we get our day of vacay back, and told me to call the platinum line for additional compensation.

But it obviously still sucks a ton. Spent 8.5 hours on a plane yesterday and now have to spend 11 today. Thank God we have business class - this situation is far shittier for others and I feel super bad for them. We'll take off today at 1:30, which is 25.5 hours after our original departure.

Btw- can you imagine how fucking terrified the guys in the cockpit must have been when that laminate started to shatter? I saw the window on the way out - It legit looked like the broken windshield of a car from a car accident.

Another interesting point: the reason we flew 3.5 hours back instead of going the remaining 6 is that the remainder of the flight path was off the coast of Russia and they didn't want to be there if we had to have an emergency landing. The path back to PDX was over Alaska and British Columbia.

 

In both places we paid someone to take us out on their boat, was probably the best thing we did while in Croatia. I would splurge and just pay them whatever it takes to go out for 4-5 hours. Pack a cooler and bring some food.

 

What'd you spend? I've been planning on getting on a boat at least once

 

In Dubrovnik, my gf's dad paid for it but I would guess it came out to around $400-500 for the 3 of us for about 4-5 hours. Just walk around the marina and try to find someone who looks nice/fun that owns a boat. They know the deal and what you are looking for.

In Hvar, we went out with a hostel and it was about $75 pp iirc (included drinks and food).

 

You're bold going to Turkey. I wouldn't give them a dollar of my tourist money. Sucks about the flight though.

 

That's nuts, glad it wasn't worse

 

If you want to go to the beach, they're not great in Dubrovnik. They're all rocky sand. You can take a ferry to Lopud island which had much better beaches. Also, I really enjoyed this place for some drinks around sunset:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaur...rovnik_Dubrovnik_Neretva_County_Dalmatia.html

 

Being the idiot that I am, I'm intrigued by the travel warnings. Knowing someone that lives there that will show us around should help a bit.