Sep 162012
 

I’d arranged with my taxi driver the night before who dropped me off at the Hilton to pick me up in the morning at 5am for my 7am flight, despite the Caribbean Airlines people assuring me the night before when I’d tried to check in that I “had” to be there no later than 5am – hmmm, yeah, I’ve heard that story before.   The day’s drama began when I tried to take the elevator to the lobby to check out.  See, the Hilton Port-of-Spain is built into a hill, and you actually check in on the top floor…all the floors are down from there, and I was a good 6-7 floors below the lobby.  Press the button for the elevator…nothing.  Press again.  Nothing.  Used the house phone next to the elevator to call the front desk, yes, they would send someone.  It took “someone” (who turned out to be the night manager) three calls to come, and finally he arrived with a maintenance guy who showed me just down the hall to the service elevator so I could get going.  They had no idea what the malfunction was.  Checked out, and finally on my way around 5:15 am for the 30 minute drive to the airport.

Check-in line was empty when I got there about 5:45, and I was plenty early.  For some reason row 1 (the exit row, aka legroom) was still “blocked” so I was told to ask at the gate.  There’s no exit immigration in Trinidad, so I decided to grab a quick coffee before hitting security, which had no line.  Still got to the gate more than 45 minutes in advance, yes, row one was open, and I could even have  seat next to me open.  Score!

Caribbean Airlines Flight 300
Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago (POS) to Caracas, Venezuela (CCS)
Depart 7:00, Arrive 8:15, Flight Time 1:45
ATR-72, Registration 9Y-TTA, Manufactured 2011, Seat 1A

The irony of being on this flight is that almost exactly a year prior, I’d flown this exact same flight the only other time I’d been to Caracas – quite a funny coincidence I was now using it at the last minute to fly around hurricane drama.  The last time they’d “informed” me when I arrived in Caracas that oops, my luggage was still back in Trinidad, so this time I insisted on wheeling it to the gate myself and gate-checking it.  Hopefully this would solve the problem.  Plane loaded up, maybe five free seats total including the one next to me, and we were off.  There was a small snack box offered, but it looked far less than appetizing so I settled for a glass of water and an uneventful flight.

When we were about 10-15 minutes out from landing, it started to get really bumpy.  Prop planes aren’t fun on the best of days, but the modern ones really aren’t too bad.  We were getting blown side to side quite a bit, and there was some serious chop, which got worse the closer to landing we got.  It doesn’t help that the runway in Caracas runs parallel to the water, and the approach is low over a very residential area.  What looked to be less than 50 feet off the ground the pilot gunned the engines, and it was obvious we were starting to climb again.  After about 5 minutes, he came on to let us know the wind was too bad and he didn’t feel able to land safely.  We’d wait ten minutes and try again.

Circle around, and on approach, the same very windy, very bumpy conditions.  Pilot came on to tell us that “air traffic control” had told us that the winds had died down significantly and it was ok to land now.  We didn’t even make it as close this time, and we could see the start of the runway, but at around 100 feet off the ground the engines were gunned again, and we started to climb.

Captain came on again after a few minutes, and was obviously quite peeved with the airport.  The winds clearly hadn’t died down, and it was pretty clear he was unhappy he’d had to try a rather scary and unsafe approach again.  There would be no third try, we were off to our alternate at Curacao…where, after I asked the flight attendant, it was confirmed there was no Caribbean Airlines operation, so we’d just sit in the plane for an hour or two and wait for winds to die down.  There goes my connection!  ARGH!

That lasted all of about 3-4 minutes.  Unfortunately, the pilot was now “more confident” about the landing in Caracas than he was about going to Curacao with our remaining fuel.  Um, when your pilot says something like “of the possible options at this stage, the safest appears to be a landing in Caracas.  I will ask the flight attendant to demonstrate the brace position” that’s when you get more than a little nervous.  The “all the possible options” part seriously had me thinking he was considering ditching at sea, though, I’m sure that wasn’t an option.  So, the brace position was demonstrated, we were told that after the flight attendant announced “BRACE BRACE” over the speaker we were to do it.  The bad part is that she clearly didn’t speak Spanish, and the vast majority of the passengers appeared to not speak English, so the other passengers were having to translate.  It was more than a little tense.

The approach seemed to be a little bit smoother this time, but we were still pretty all over the place, getting bumped around and blown side to side on the way in.  Around 100-200 feet off the ground, the BRACE BRACE command was given, and head between the knees time it was.  I have no idea how tall people would manage that anywhere other than the first row…and yes, that was my first thought.  We slammed into the ground pretty hard…..but made it.  I think it seriously took me at least ten minutes to stop shaking after we taxied in.  It was definitely the scariest landing I’ve ever had by far.

Now, the question was, would I have a bag, and would I make the connection?  I’d only had 1:40 originally, and now with the three approaches that was down to 55 minutes.  Fortunately, the American agents in Trinidad had been at the counter rebooking people who hadn’t learnt of the cancelation in advance, so I managed to get them to print out and check me in for my Caracas to Dallas flight.  Hopefully that would help!  Bag showed up after a couple of minutes, and it was a quick walk/dash into the terminal.  I found no English-speaking staff, but there was a sign for “international connections” so I decided to give it a try.  Walking past the immigration counters, there was a desk for transfers…but nobody working it!

There was a security checkpoint that appeared to lead back into the departures area, so I showed my boarding pass to the military security guy and attempted to explain to him in Spanish what I was doing.  Found out the couple in front of me had been trying to explain to him for 15 minutes with no luck, however, they didn’t have boarding passes.  My explanation seemed good enough for him after he paged through every page of my passport looking at stamps, and he let me through.  Once through security I was indeed in the departures area…but the American flight to Dallas wasn’t on the monitors!

Found the AAdmirals Club, and it was just a technology glitch.  Was pointed to the right gate where boarding still hadn’t started.  Score, it looked like everything would work out well after all!

American Airlines Flight 2108
Caracas, Venezuela (CCS) to Dallas (DFW)
Depart 9:55, Arrive 15:00, Flight Time 5:05
Boeing 757, Registration N656AA, Manufactured 1991, Seat 1E

Pretty uneventful flight.  The only two interesting things were my seatmate and the breakfast.  The seatmate was unusual because she hadn’t been seated two seconds before she was paging the flight attendant with the call button and asking for a Baileys.  She spoke no English at all, but the flight attendant did understand “Baileys por favor.”   I had to translate for her on the ground that there was no Baileys on the plane, so she wanted white wine.  Flight attendant got that for her, and she was happy.   Less than 10 minutes into the flight she was pressing the button again “white wine!” followed 10 minutes later by “mas!”  Hahahah the flight attendants didn’t know whether to be amused or annoyed at her, but after somewhere around 5-6 pressings of the call button she passed out and slept the remainder of the flight.

The breakfast wasn’t interesting per se, just different than you normally see on American, so I thought I’d post a picture.

Immigration in Dallas was a breeze, took the AirTrain over to the C terminal, and they were just getting ready to board the flight to Washington.

American Airlines Flight 2442
Dallas (DFW) to Washington National (DCA)
Depart  16:55, Arrive 20:35, Flight Time 2:40
Boeing 737-800, Registration N813NN, Manufactured 2009, Seat 4E

Nothing at all unusual about this flight.  Standard mid-con dinner service, decent crew, and kept entertained using GoGo Internet.  Although things aren’t perfect on American, I can’t remember why I ever bothered with United.  Yes, the international nonstops out of Dulles Airport were nice, but the combination of often surly staff, old planes with no WiFi, and frequent delays have me questioning it.  I’m close enough to million miler that I’ll make sure I get that and requalify for 1K this year, but after that, it might be time to do some rethinking!

Sep 152012
 

…or, otherwise known as, the travel day where almost nothing went right, but in the end, most everything ended up ok.

But, I owe a bit of back story from the night before. Got to my hotel, which I’d chosen based on location (walkable to most major attractions in Fort-de-France for the morning) and on TripAdvisor reviews. I was staying at  l’Hôtel Impératrice, which was a very French-feeling small hotel with maybe 20 or so rooms.  I’d paid a little extra for the “chambre prestige” and was quite happy with it.  Plenty of space to walk around, and what looked like a nice balcony.

It was still pretty early, and again, based on TripAdvisor reviews, I decided to hit Lili’s Beach Bar, which was located in the next town over called Schœlcher, about a 10-15 euro and 15 minute taxi ride.  It was located in the Hôtel Batelière down on the beach, and was really more of a bar than a restaurant.  I’d gotten there about 8, and there were still plenty of people eating so it was fine.  By the time I finished at 9:30, however, it had gone full bar mode and as the reviews note was completely packed with people buying expensive drinks and “paying to be seen.”  Food was decent – not stellar, but pretty good.  Ended up having a conch pizza which was pretty tasty, along with a Planteur Rum Punch.  They were around 10 Euros per drink, but decently tasty.

Back to the hotel and crashed so I could get up and walk around a bit in the morning.  Got up in the morning, and went straight out onto my balcony to take in the view.  Not bad!

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Aug 292012
 

Originally, this trip was prompted by a sale that Delta was having to Georgetown.  Sale + country I haven’t been to = instant interest to me.  However, when I discovered the Delta flight was a redeye in both directions, combined with the fact I have little interest in accumulating more Delta miles, meant I wasn’t as interested.  However, I had the Guyana-bug now, and started looking for options.  American had a fantastic discount business fare into the country next door of Trinidad and Tobago, so after a little exploring and figuring it out, I booked it.  I would also help me towards the 55,000 elite qualifying points I would need to requalify for American Executive Platinum for 2013, so it was a no brainer.  Flights booked, I was set.

Morning came way too early (I know DCA is only 2 miles from home, but seriously, why do I keep booking these 7am flights in 2012?  I know I’m trying to conserve leave time, but really….) and I was off to DCA with plenty of time to spare.  After only three visits so far, the AAdmirals Club agent recognized me, which I was pretty impressed with.  At the new United, you’re lucky to get a grunt as they let you in, the American agents have genuinely thanked me for my business, and truly seemed appreciative.  I know I’m always saying the airlines are all the same, but honestly, American seems to be making a real effort to thank customers.  It’s not going unnoticed!

So, before you ask about the routing – yeah, the point of Dallas was to maximize miles.  Fare was only a few dollars more, and the cost of 3-4 hours of sleep, but with only 4 months left to earn elite points, I needed the extra routing.  Figured I could always sleep on the plane if needed.

American Airlines Flight 467
Washington National (DCA) to Dallas (DFW)
Depart 7:10, Arrive 9:15, Flight Time 3:05
Boeing 737-800, Registration N845NN, Manufactured 2010, Seat 5E

Great flight, decent crew, first meal choice.  Other than that, there’s not too much to say.  Flight had GoGo Wifi, but chose not to use it and slept most of the flight.  Also the first time in eons that I actually had an airline breakfast that I chose to not only eat…but almost enjoyed.  It was quite tasty!  Mmmm….biscuits!

Landing was about 15 minutes late due to ATC, no excitement, and a short walk from one end of the D-terminal to the other, and I reached my gate just as boarding had started.  I know some people think DFW is like MSP in that your walk can be FOREVER if you get unlucky, but fortunately on this occasion mine was short, and there was zero drama.

American Airlines Flight 2074
Dallas (DFW) to Miami (MIA)
Depart 10:20, Arrive 14:10, Flight Time 2:50
Boeing 757-200, Registration N635AA, Manufactured 1990, Seat 2E

Relatively short flight without too much to say.  This was a lunch flight, and it was another excellent crew.  Arrival was on time, got first meal choice, and really that’s all there is to say!

I know some folks feel the need to be “wined and dined” when they fly first, but I actually appreciate American’s relatively light lunch salads.  Just enough to fill you up without making you feel gross.

I had about four hours to kill in Miami, so I did some e-mail and work in the lounge, and then decided since I was in Miami that I needed to have a bit of Cuban…so it was off to La Carretta for lunch.  Delicious Cuban Sandwich (I can see this becoming a regular obsession in the future when I fly through MIA) and soon it was time to board the flight to Port of Spain.

American Airlines Flight 1819
Miami (MIA) to Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago (POS)
Depart 18:05, Arrive 21:50, Flight Time 3:45
Boeing 757-200, Registration N652AA, Manufactured 1991,  Seat 4E

I don’t remember why, but decided not to take any meal photos.  It was a generic mid-con type domestic meal, a generic chicken or pasta choice…and the chicken was actually quite tasty.  Also on offer were fresh cookies before landing.  Requested (and got) the “big boy” glass of red wine, which the excellent crew kept well-filled until landing in Trinidad.  Killed most of the flight catching up on tv on my iPad – one of the best things I ever did was get rid of cable and just start subscribing to tv series that I like on iTunes.  This way, I never waste evenings waiting for shows to come on, and I can just watch them when flying and I’d be doing nothing else anyways.

Transit airside is not possible in Port of Spain, so had to wait in a 5 minute queue for immigration, cleared with no drama, and then did the short walk to the departures area to check in for my flight with Caribbean.  Had plenty of time, absolutely no drama whatsoever, and soon was in the security line to get back into the departures hall.  A few notes:  1)  Port of Spain has two terminals/wings, each with their own security.  There was a 20 minute wait for security in the terminal I needed to go into, but zero in the other.  Go figure.  2)  Trinidad and Tobago has very strict laws against wearing camoflage clothing of all colours.  Don’t even try it or customs will nail you.  3)  Don’t count on lounge access.  One of the two wings has a Caribbean Airlines lounge you can use if you’re in their business class or an elite in their frequent flier program, the other has a Priority Pass lounge….yeah, I was in the wrong one, and wasn’t going to pay $200+ more for business class on a 1 hour flight at 1am that I would likely crash on anyways.

Caribbean Airlines Flight 525
Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago (POS) to Georgetown, Guyana (GEO)
Depart 00:25, Arrive 1:35, Flight Time 1:10
Boeing 737-800, Registration 9Y-JMA, Manufactured 2002, Seat 5C

That said, time went by quickly, I managed to get a bulkhead aisle seat, and all was good.  Beverage service was offered, and a beer was just what the doctor ordered.  Landed on time in Guyana, and little to say here again.  Immigration and customs were quite quick and efficient, I was one of the first through, and was out into the taxi queue in less than 10 minutes.  Had a bit of a hard time finding the driver the hotel had sent (yeah, they said he would have a sign, but he didn’t….and he had no interest in searching me out.  I was literally walking up to random people asking if they were him…and that’s how I eventually found him.)

But even then…he wasn’t going to drive me.  He was “maybe waiting for someone else” so he pawned me off on some friend of his.  Now, I’m going to be politically incorrect a second, but I was a bit nervous about the minivan he put me into.  My driver was a spitting sterotypical image of Aunt Jemima, right down to the big flowing dress and mile-high do-rag.  I was once told in DC that “do-rag” is an offensive term, but when wandering Guyana the next day I actually saw a vendor with a sign that said “DO RAGS $400” – so, I figure it’s at least the local term in Guyana!  She was driving the minivan with her mid-teens friend/son/etc, and they refused to acknowledge that they spoke English, speaking in a very rapid creole.

All was fine, however, and 30-40 minutes later I was at my hotel, the Herdmanston Lodge.  The night manager was waiting for me, quickly walked me to my room, got me bottled water, and left me alone – just what I needed at 2am!  It was time to crash, and sleep a few hours to enjoy the very early morning daytrip I had booked the next day.

Aug 102012
 

I’ve been sitting still too much.

Well, not really.  I just spent 6 days in Las Vegas, but that’s not blog-friendly.  I might post about the flights and hotels at another time, but that’s not all that exciting.  It’s time to count some countries, and that’s just what I’m planning on doing shortly.  I was inspired by the FlyerTalk thread on the cheap Delta fares to Georgetown, Guyana.  Didn’t really work for me (especially since I don’t “do” Delta, and it’s a redeye to boot) but I found a great American fare to rack up some EQP, so booking done, it’s time to plan!

Originally, I wanted to get to Georgetown, Guyana.  That’s easy enough.  But I don’t do one country in a trip, not when there’s another right next door.  I could have bought a round-trip ticket to Suriname, but the times were inconvenient, and I was curious about doing it overland on a combo of bus and ferry.  Get out of the city, and see a little bit of the “real” country.  Only one problem….Suriname?  Only way out by plane is back to Guyana, or to Amsterdam.  No thanks….so keep going east overland to French Guiana.  Not really a “country” but definitely distinct and interesting….and a way out that wasn’t Paris….Martinique.  That figured out, the route was cast:

So in brief, the plan is:

1)  Fly to Trinidad, and connect 3 hours later to Guyana, arriving at 2am
2) Sidetrip to Kaieteur Falls – one of the world’s most amazing waterfalls – on a tiny single engine prop
3) Overland by bus/ferry to Paramaribo, Suriname
4) Hang out in Suriname
5) Overland by bus/ferry to Cayenne, French Guinana
6) Hanging out in French Guiana, and hopefully seeing the Guiana European Space Centre
7) Cayenne to Fort-de-France, Martinique
8) Exploring Martinique
9) Martinique – St Lucia – Port of Spain, and a night in Trinidad
10) Trinidad to DC on American again

I have 9 days, so plenty of time for this trip…but alas, it’s not much planned yet. Kinda winging it as I go. Only place I need a visa is Suriname, so better get on that one! Also, it looks like a yellow fever and malaria hot zone, so better get hopping on that too! Lots to plan, not much time to do it! Recommendations welcome, it’s under two weeks to go….

Aug 232011
 

“In the event that anyone is scheduled to fly into or out of POS (Piarco International Airport, Trinidad & Tobago), be aware that our Prime Minster has declared a limited state of emergency starting at 9pm on August 22.

Limited State of Emergency At a Glance

Soldiers will exercise powers enjoyed by police during the period of the Limited State of Emergency:
– Search and seizure powers enhanced because you don’t need a search warrant
– Powers of arrest and detention are included; they will be able to arrest but will hand over detainees to police.

Police can arrest and detain for up to 24 hours after which a magistrate, or assistant superintendent (or higher), will be able to add an extra 7 days
– No bail for those arrested during the State of Emergency; courts no longer will have the power to grant bail.

You must comply with all requests by police to stop for search and seizure protocols
– A special 3-person tribunal will be set up by Chief Justice to oversee and adjudicate all possible cases of abuse of power
– Religious services, educational services, entertainments, etc. are exempt from requesting advanced permission from the Police Commissioner

NB: The entire country – Trinidad & Tobago is under a State of Emergency.”

Oh…well…isn’t THAT just swell!  I’m scheduled to do that in just a few days.  Seems this is fallout from last week’s riots in the UK, part of what was concentrated in the Trinidadian community in London, and has now crossed the Atlantic back to Trinidad, which is experiencing an explosion in robbery, murders, etc.  It might be time to start looking for alternate routes from Curaçao to Caracas!