[AFKAE]

Just back from snorkelling with some sharks. I think the longtail boat driver was an experienced old pro and found a narrow inlet and there were 5 of them swimming around this inlet. They didn’t zoom off immediately and hung around for a while so it was really good. This was just off the SW corner of Phi Phi Island.
I was worried we might be surrounded by moon parties and influencers, but it’s been very pleasant and peaceful.

[AFKAE]

Good, enjoyable read. We will be following a similar path to meet up with our son who is a safari guide in the Eastern Province near PE. Then we’re all going to Rwanda to see gorillas and chimpanzees.

[AFKAE]

Chiang Mai was excellent, I had heard about the burning season, but there was no evidence of it. Sunday walking street market was fun. We’re now in Khao Lak about 1 hour north of Phuket staying at Moracea. Next stop is Phi Phi, then Koh Lanta before heading home on 7th March.

[AFKAE]

A bit of entertainment sitting by the gate waiting for a Bangkok Airways flight from Chiang Mai to Phuket. About 45 mins before boarding a gate attendant wheeled out a set of scales (there’s a 7kg carry on limit). First one person casually tested his bag and he was happy, and the another. Before long there was a queue of people at the scales. The gate agent noticed this and decided to join in the fun, taking and tagging overweight bags. In fairness they were just putting them in the hold and not charging. When boarding started there was no interest from anyone from the team in the bags. Everyone could have avoided the stress by just ignoring the scales. I think I might offer M O’L some consultancy exercise on this.

[AFKAE]

Similar situation today with Thai Airways Bangkok to Chiang Mai, I was in row 36 and expecting to be right down the back (A320-200), but turned out I was in the first third of economy. Mini bonus of empty middle seat too.

[AFKAE]

Shambles again this morning on presale release. I’m currently in Bangkok on holiday (2-4-1 voucher thanks). The launch time was favourable for me compared to Europe. Got to the front of the queue after 2 hours and it threw me out……I’ve been seething all day and must apologise to the Golden Buddha for my late arrival.
Got back in this afternoon and lo and behold it’s now working but only higher category tickets available. Gambled on Englands potential path to semis and spent twice as much as I was expecting. Just need the Sydney 2-4-1 later this year……..sigh. Or as Froggee would say sad face.

[AFKAE]

Man of Kent wrote:

@davefl were you at the 1999 division 2 playoff final? Being from Kent I was supporting my home team – still have the nightmare flashbacks!

I was, what a cracking day out that was. Went to both the semis as well vs the PieEaters.

[AFKAE]

SBIre wrote:

AFKAE wrote:

Tracey wrote:

Indy500 wrote:

Got a 3 week Canada trip this July. Any recommendations for mobile eSIM? Apple iPhone. General data use for maps, WhatsApp etc.

Indy

Airalo works well. Another alternative would be to buy a 3 PAYG Sim, as far as I know they still come with free roaming.

If you’re travelling generally i the future, it might be worth going for Roamless esim. This works globally on one esim, so no requirement to keep buying different ones. You just put some money on it and then it’s pay as you go. The app tells you the rate in each location, I’ve always found it very competitive. Here’s a referral code which will get us $5 each 4TVMYSNU

+1 for Roamless. It is much better than any other I’ve tried. I had no problems with in the US, Europe or Africa. The pay as you go model makes much more sense than buying a few GB here and there, and having half it go to waste. Brilliant for short trips in particular

Thank you to whoever used my referral code-$5 credit appeared this afternoon.

[AFKAE]

Tracey wrote:

Indy500 wrote:

Got a 3 week Canada trip this July. Any recommendations for mobile eSIM? Apple iPhone. General data use for maps, WhatsApp etc.

Indy

Airalo works well. Another alternative would be to buy a 3 PAYG Sim, as far as I know they still come with free roaming.

If you’re travelling generally i the future, it might be worth going for Roamless esim. This works globally on one esim, so no requirement to keep buying different ones. You just put some money on it and then it’s pay as you go. The app tells you the rate in each location, I’ve always found it very competitive. Here’s a referral code which will get us $5 each 4TVMYSNU

[AFKAE]

Gordon wrote:

@AFKAE – I had a 3 week safari in Kenya, Uganda, and Mombasa 16 months ago, passed through Rwanda for our return flight KGL-NBO.
We had a few days chimpanzee and Mountain Gorilla trekking, in Uganda, one of the highlights was the Gorilla trekking in the Bwindi impenetrable rain forest, we will 100% return.
I have a trip report in destination advice, that may help, if you have not already seen it.

Thamks @Gordon, I’ll track it down.

[AFKAE]

We’ve got Thailand for 3 weeks starting middle of Feb. Then a weekend in Paris for France vs England 6 Nations finale. A bit of a gap to a week in Bilbao middle of May for Rugby Champions cup final. Then another gap to combined South Africa and Rwanda. Got 2 days on Gorillas and 2 day on Chimpanzees-those permits soon add up when it’s for 3 people! We’re picking up our youngest son in South Africa, who works there as a safari guide.

Nothing after that, but Mrs has never been to China-I’ve done loads of work trips, so that could be on the cards.

[AFKAE]

I went to Porto Allegre about 15 years ago. We were looking at buying a business and their shared service centre was down there.

The airport is small and easily passed through in either direction.

Flying from Sao Paolo it’s Congonhas airport which is the one closer to town.

The most remarkable thing I remeber is on arrival back into Congonhas how close youare to high rise apartment blocks, you can pretty much see into peoples bedrooms!

[AFKAE]

I’m just back from Antigua. We stayed at 3 different places in 2 weeks. 6 nights in a condo at Dickenson beach-ate in local restaurants every night. 5 nights in an absolutely fabulous apartment (Energie) at English Harbour, again ate local every night. Finished 2 nights at Tamaring Hills, this is the only place we ate in the hotel.
Weather was glorious.
Don’t know about snorkelling places.

[AFKAE]

This might have already been discussed and might be very obvious but…………(this will only help if you want to access a booking), if you log in with booking ref and passenger name it then lets you into the app as normal. Found out yesterday to check in return from ANU.

[AFKAE]

danimal wrote:

Roamless – 1 eSim that works everywhere and doesn’t expire. No buying a new eSim every time you visit a new country. Use code 9O90Z for $5 credit 😉

Thanks, I’ve signed up and used your referral. I also have one to offer now of 4TVMYSNU.

[AFKAE]

Aston100 wrote:

So I’ve got this to work after refreshing and clicking the link again.
However, just to make sure I’m not being stupid, can anyone kindly confirm the purchase price remains unchanged. It’s just the amount of boosted Avios that has changed?

Yes, 0.92p for 3x, 4x and 5x.

Apologies, reported post in error!

[AFKAE]

We’ve got a few lined up:

October-Antigua on a 2-4-1
Feb/March-Thailand on a 2-4-1
March-Paris France vs England 6 Nations
May-Bilbao European Champions Cup Final
July/August-South Africa & Rwanda on a 2-4-1.

Unusual to have so much in the diary!

[AFKAE]

Jovihammer wrote:

Many thanks to all the super helpful people on this thread. Thanks to your guidance I have booked 4 rtn tickets to Orlando in the peak August school holidays next year usung my 2-4-1 voucher.

I was able to book the outbound flight at 1am online and following some expert advice had to make the dreaded 1am phonecall to book the return. The agent stayed online with me whilst we waited for the seats to become available. On both legs all the Avios seats were shown to be gone by 0110! Thank you guys!

My question is my reservation has been updated to show the return leg and my avios have been debited. I paid the return leg taxes over the phone to the agent using my Amex (£300) but they said the payment would go through the back office and be taken within 48 hrs. I still dont have a pending payment on my Amex 48 hours later? Is this normal or should I call them straight away?

I’ve done a couple of these recently and they both took 10 working days to come through. On the 8th working day (on both occasions) I phoned up, chased and reprovided CC details. They were ticketed a couple of days later.

[AFKAE]

I purchased an Ivy gift card on Monday 30th June and it has just credited this morning.

[AFKAE]

I used Nomad for 6 weeks in Australia and New Zealand and it was absolutley perfect. Something ridiculously cheap for 45 days and I think it was 30GB.

[AFKAE]

FH2 wrote:

I am considering a trip to Brazil next year. Does anyone have any travel agency recommendations (UK or Brazil based)? I plan to ask Trailfinders for a quote (Audley seem very expensive generally). Any others that people here have used? Thanks.

I used this organisation https://trips-southamerica.com/about-us/ for a trip that got interrupted by Covid. I used them again when I went back to finish off the stuff I hadn’t done. They are based in Argentina and I’m not sure if they are strictly consumer facing or more B2B. Everything they did worked well and otel choices were good (not luxurious-as I specified what I wanted). Won’t do you any harm to ask them for a quote. Covered Argentina/Chile and Brazil.

[AFKAE]

JaneDoe wrote:

Thank you all for your thoughts. Have taken it all into consideration and contacted the agencies mentioned. I have travelled a lot in Asia but never to India, it was always one of those of “I think i should go but not sure” but now that I have done more research it has become a bucket list and we should really visit it at least once.

A bit late to the party, but I used these guys https://rajasthantours.travel they’re based in India and did a great job for us. We had the same driver for all the road elemwnts of the trip. It was mainly Oberoi hotels and we got a brilliant upgrade in Udaipur.

[AFKAE]

Way back in 1996 I flew a dalmatian and a boxer from LHR to IAD. You have to use approved crates, but it was very straightforward. At IAD they arrived in the oversized baggae section looking abolutely fine. US CBP didn’t bat an eyelid as we wheeled the two large crates through customs.

Returning IAD-LHR in 1998 was slightly different as it was rabies quarantine time still. In those days you needed an appointed agent who would receive them and take them straight into quarantine. This is the hardest part. We sent ours 3 months before our return, so the wait when we got back wasn’t so long. It all seemed to go uneventfully and after the quarantine period they were fine. Sadly no longer with us.

[AFKAE]

goldenface wrote:

To avoid a new thread, is the info here still up to date?

I.e. call at 1am, use 1800-247-9297 or attempt to call the other locations

Thanks

I used +1 800 452 1201 a few weeks ago, because I’m now a lowly Blue member.

[AFKAE]

Jess wrote:

@AFKAE – thanks for that information. I had already looked at the Merrijig and it is highly recommended in all the reviews I read.
Do you think 3 days is about the right amount of time to cover all the sights? Perhaps we could skip Port Fairy if there is not much to see there.

If you’re returning to Melbourne, I would say 3 days is right.

Just after Apollo Bay is Cape Otway which is an interesting visit to the lighthouse and we managed to see Koalas up in the trees.

If you’re tight on time and didn’t want to go as far as Port Fairy you could stop at Port Campbell, we had lunch there. If you stayed there you would have to travel a little bit further west to see London Bridge, Bay of Islands, Bay of Martyrs and the Cathedral. The Merrijig and Port Fairy are fine but not exceptional-it depends if you are tight on time or not.