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February 13, 2007
Reasonable place to stay
In December 2006, i stayed in Bern, Switzerland at a hotel called Metropole Bern City-HOtel. It was booked at www.ratestogo.com. It was a pretty nice place and fairly reasonable. It was a short walk from the train station and near to a lot of restaurants and the Christmas market area. The rooms were a bit small but were clean and comfortable.
Posted by jclarke at 9:47 AM
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February 10, 2007
Crime in Brussels - Beware
Although it hasn’t happened to me, I have heard of a fairly frequent scam going on in Brussels where bags, especially briefcases and laptop, are being stolen from overhead racks on trains just before the trains depart from the platforms. I heard that Brussels National airport and Midi, central and Nord stations are the worst places for this crime to happen. What they do is moments before the doors close, the thief takes a bag from the overhead rack and goes straight to the door and the door closes behind them as they jump off. They have it timed perfectly evidently so that the person they are stealing from either a. doesn’t notice them or b. cannot do anything anyway as they have already exited the train with the stolen bag. I have also heard that it happened two weeks ago on the Thalys TGV train bound for Köln while it was sitting in Brussels Midi station before departure. Another frequent crime is pickpocketing on the crowded metros, the bump and run variety where there are two people involved. One person bumps to distract you while the other person reaches in and takes your wallet.
Posted by jclarke at 4:06 PM
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Staying in Madrid, Spain
I usually stay at a hotel called Quo Puerta Del Sol Hotel Madrid, which I book on www.ratestogo.com. It is located near the threatre district of Madrid, close to the metro station Sol and Sevilla. It is a short walk from the Prada museum and to the Sol. I find that partners that are located in Madrid tend to want the partners visiting to stay in hotels near their location for some reason, which doesn’t sit well with me as I always prefer to be nearer to the city centre areas, which is where the consortium social dinner is generally held. I will never forget before one of my trips to an FP5 project being held in Madrid, the host had only sent around the names of two hotels near their facility, which was located somewhere out near the Madrid airport. In the emails going around between partners about where they were staying, I sent one out stating that I was going to stay at the Quo Puerta Del Sol Hotel (which I had already stayed at a previous trip). Almost immediately after sending my email, one of the staff from the host company sent an email to everyone in a polite yet firm way that they should ignore my advice and it wasn’t a good idea for the partners to stay in the city centre as it would cost a lot of money and time to get a taxi from there to their office location. Even though this was long before Google maps came into existence, I had already researched that I could also get to their location via the Metro system but just kept quiet not wanting to draw the ire of the host and ended up staying out in the Quo Puerta Del Sol Hotel on my own. The first night there, I was able to walk around the city centre, go to a nice restaurant etc. The next morning, I took the metro out to the venue of the meeting and ended up arriving long before the other participants, who all ended up having to get taxis from their locations and got caught in horrific traffic jams around the business arks where the meeting was held. As an ironic twist, the social event on the first night was held in a famous Cubano restaurant in Madrid city centre and it was only a 5 minute walk from my hotel. All of the other participants had to taxi it back to their hotel from the venue while I took the metro, and then taxi downtown and then get a 30 minute taxi ride back to the hotel later that night after the meal. They were none to pleased. In addition, they all were complaining about the location of their hotels on the first night and how boring it was as one of them was alongside a motorway and they ended up having to get a taxi for the 2 km drive to the meeting venue anyway since there was a lot of road construction in the area and there were no safe footpaths to walk on. To this day, I have never figured out why this meeting host subjected all of these partners to this lousy information about where to stay in Madrid. It just didn’t make any sense. Also, I have never been able to figure out why he didn’t tell them to take the metro to the venue. In their recommendations, they only recommended taxis and never once mentioned the metro system, which had a stop less than 200 meters from their building.
Posted by jclarke at 3:53 PM
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travel to Pretoria, South Africa
In April 2006, I spent a week in Pretoria for an EU/South Africa conference. I flew from Dublin to London with Aer Lingus and then London Heathrow to Johannesburg (JHB) with Virgin Atlantic (see my blog on Virgin Atlantic high-lights). Through the conference organisers in conjunction with the hotel, we were able to organise a hotel shuttle bus from JHB airport to the Holday Inn in Pretoria (it was a one hour drive). Upon checking in, the hotel staff told all attendees that it wasn’t safe to go anywhere on foot from outside the hotel doors. They would shuttle us everywhere we wanted to go either with the hotel shuttle, or that was not available, they would organise a private taxi. It ended up being quite expensive but was the safest option (around 10 euros each time even if you were going 50 metres up the road to a local restaurant). Some of the EU attendees felt the hotel staff were exaggerating and tried to walk down the street to a famous steakhouse and they were robbed at knife point right outside the hotel on the footpath. This story spread around like wildfire and after that, everyone because extremely cautious and vigilant. Due to the conference, I didn’t have very much time to go on any organised tours, which was a bit of a pity.
Posted by jclarke at 3:31 PM
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Flight to South Africa
Don't know whether it was just the sheer length of the flight, but I found that the seats in the economy section of the A340 were incredibly tight and cramped on the flight to SA. Also, for the heck of it, I recently checked the Virgin atlantic web site to see if they ever corrected this anomaly of not being able to book Dublin – JHB and they haven’t (according to the lady I spoke to, they were in the process of changing it over a year ago).
Posted by jclarke at 3:27 PM
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Flights to South Africa
In April 2006, I had to fly to Johannesberg, South Africa to attend an IST Africa conference. After checking ebookers.com to see the possible routes (a helpful way of figuring out which airline sites you should search to get tickets), I saw that there was a through Aer Lingus/Virgin atlantic option that had nice connections and also was coming in at around 800 euros, which was very competitive compared to others. Knowing that Virgin Atlantic would have State of the Art IFE systems (seat back tvs even in economy), I decided to pursue this option as a priority. I exited ebookers.com and logged onto the Virgin atlantic web site directly and for some strange reason, I could get the outbound airport Dublin in the pull down menu, but it didn’t then allow you to select Johannesberg as the final destination. This seemed strange as ebookers.com indicated that the two airlines had a code sharing arrangement on this trip and a through ticket could be purchased so usually, the company’s web site will allow these selections if they allow other agencies to sell them. For the time being, during the initial investigations, I selected London Heathrow as departure point and Johannesberg as arrival point and the price was around 600 pounds sterling (around 800 euros at the time). I then called the Irish office of Virgin Atlantic, which I think routed me through to a UK call centre and spoke to a very nice lady. I explained to her that I was planning on originating the flight in Dublin and would prefer to buy the tickets as a through fare, in case anything would go wrong. I explained how I didn’t seem to be able to do this from their web site. She apologised and said that was the case and that they were revamping their web sales part of the site and this would be fixed eventually. However, she said she could get me the exact flights that I wanted as a full ticketed Virgin atlantic ticket with the Aer lingus flights combined and amazingly, the price she quoted me was 550 pounds sterling, 50 pouns less than the web price for LHR to JHB only. So somehow, not only was I getting the return Dublin - London Heathrow ticket free but even less. I told her that I would think about it and let her know. I thought about it for all of about 10 minutes, got in touch with Eimear at TSSG, passed on the details and this ladies name and direct number and asked her to immediately book the return ticket to JHB from Dublin with Virgin atlantic. All flights went extremely well on this very long journey and the connections were excellent on both legs.
Posted by jclarke at 3:19 PM
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Flights with Cathay Pacific
The eticket for my New York to Vancouver from Cathay Pacific was mailed directly to me so it sat in my inbox for a while before the flight dates approached. I was then able to book the Dublin - New York flights around these dates to enable me to also go visit my relatives on the way over and on the way back for a week in New York, which worked out very well for all concerned. Less than a week before the flights, I printed out the e-tickets and luckily read the small writing on the Cathay Pacific e-ticket. It said that upon check-in at your first flight, I would have to produce the credit card used to purchase the ticket at the check in airport (in this case New York JFK). I asked Eimear to call up the airline (their closest number was UK based) and, sure enough, they told Eimear that they would insist upon this requirement as it had something to do with the anti-terrorism policy of Cathay Pacific to verify purchaser with traveller. They explained to Eimear that there was an alternative and that was to fill in a Visa card verification form provided by Cathay Pacific (they emailed it) and us filling it in and faxing it back to them in the London office for examination and approval. When Eimear went over to WIT Finance to explain the circumstances and get them to fill it out, they point blank refused to do so as the form required too much information about the WIT Visa card and they had a strict policy on not disclosing details of the WIT credit card to outside parties. Their refusal was quite understandable but I was now in a real dilemma as if this wasn’t done, I would be turned away from checking into the flight in New York. Eimear suggested that I phone Cathay Pacific and see if I could simply swap the credit card used to pay for the ticket with my own credit card and I would get reimbursement for the ticket on expenses or a cash advance if I wanted it earlier. I phoned the same people (in fact the same lady Eimear had been dealing with) in London, explained the dilemma to them and asked if I could “swap” payment credit cards so that I would actually produce the purchasing credit card when I got to new Your JFK to check in. Even though she was extremely helpful and sympathetic to the situation, when she checked my ticket rules, she informed me with the bad news that the only way they could carry this out would be if I would cancel the existing $400 booking and rebook it again at a higher price of $900 (so much for my theory about people not wanting to fly on 9/11). There seemed to be no other way around this problem apart from convincing WIT finance to fill in the form, so eventually, Eimear was able to persuade the finance department to send the fax to the Cathay Pacific personnel in London and they eventually waived this restriction for me to produce the WIT credit card details for the form and fax it to them (they insisted that we ensure that the receiving person stood at the fax machine when it was sent by fax, which, of course, we adhered to). BTW, I also tried another angle and asked the lady in London whether I could physically produce the filled in Visa verification form in New York JFK instead of the actual VISA card and after she went off to check on this question, she eventually called me back and said that would NOT be acceptable either as it would be too late for them to verify details at the airport itself the day of the flight. I asked her if this requirement is adhered to on all their flights as it seems to put a very heavy burden on the business travellers as most of them would have their organisations purchasing their long haul tickets and she said yes, this was their policy and everyone had to adhere to these rules.
Posted by jclarke at 3:09 PM
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Flight experience
Cathay Pacific Airlines have a flight from New York to Vancouver, which I was able to use for a recent trip to Vancouver in September 2006 when I needed to attend the IEEE Enterprise Networking Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. I decided that, if feasible, I would try to stop off in either on the way over or back to/from Vancouver to visit relatives in New York. I did my usual initial search on ebookers.com to find the connecting travel options from Ireland and a number of other EU states to Vancouver, and I discovered on one of the returned results that there is a direct New York JFK to Vancouver flight with Cathay Pacific Airlines. It seems that Vancouver is the stopover airport for the New York - JFK to Honk Kong Cathay Pacific flight. Once I had this clue, I went on the Cathay Pacific web site directly and checked their prices for the dates that I wanted on the JFK – VAN flights. Amazingly, for flights on 10th and 11th September, a couple of days before the conference, they had prices of 400 dollars for these dates of travel, which at the time was around 350 euros (I reckoned it was because no one in their right mind would want to fly on 9/11). I immediately contacted Eimear O’D in TSSG and had her book the return JFK – VAN flights with Cathay Pacific airlines on the web site.
Posted by jclarke at 3:05 PM
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Transport very expensive
Since my flight arrival was going to be close to 11pm, I asked the company that I was visiting organise a taxi shuttle, which got me to the hotel around 23.30. It costed 26 euros and it was only about a 10 minute drive. As it was off season, there were very few places open to eat at that time but I eventually found a nice brassiere open down along the promenade des Anglais near the large casinos and Radisson SAS hotel. Fortunately, I didn ‘t have to get to Antibes the next day until around 12 noon so I had a nice stroll along the promenade the following morning and grabbed a leisurely breakfast at a sidewalk cafe overlooking the water. I then had the same taxi/shuttle company bring me to the meeting location in a office block outside Antibes. It was a costly 66 euros for the taxi shuttle but according to the host, there was no other real alternative as the bus from Nice to the office locality didn’t run very frequently and there was no real way of getting from the bus stop to the office block where the meeting was being held. In addition, he was not really sure where to get this bus and neither did the desk personnel at the Citadines hotel. Therefore, I just decided to get the taxi shuttle again. N the second night, I stayed at a hotel that was located close to the SAP building and was able to get a lift with some of the other participants who had hired a car. In hindsight, if I had known what the other attendees were doing (I wasn’t really following the emails where people were letting each other know their plans), I would have went directly to the local hotel to SAP on the first night as it wasn’t that much further to get from Nice airport to the hotel compared with Nice airport to the office location (around 15 minutes further). In hindsight, I would have gotten the taxi shuttle once and stayed at a hotel near the office that I was visiting. It would have saved the one journey costs.
Posted by jclarke at 2:59 PM
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Reasonable places to stay in Nice
In Feb. 2007, I had to attend a project meeting near Antibes starting at 12 noon so I decided to fly Dublin - Nice and overnight in Nice the night before and travel down to Antibes the following day. In Nice, I stayed at a Citadines hotel called Citadines Nice Buffa, which was located two blocks away from the Promenade des Anglais. I booked the hotel on www.citadines.be It was very reasonable at 49 euros not including breakfast but with free wired internet connection in the room. My flight was supposed to depart Dublin at 16.40 and supposed to arrive at 20.00 hours but the flight was delayed 3 hours due to a broken de-icer machine and running out of fluid in the spare machine and ended up not arriving until after 11pm.
Posted by jclarke at 2:55 PM
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February 8, 2007
Reasonable places to stay in Brussels
One of my most frequent destinations. I usually try the following in this order - www.citadines.be for the Ste Catherine Citadines hotel, which is located in the famous fish restaurant area. This is an apartment style hotel so it may not suit everyone's idea of an ideal place to stay. Breakfast is generally not included unless you go for the European Commission rate (but you need to phone them to book this and last time I got it, they were charging 94 euros/night, which inlcudes b'fast). Generally, if you book well in advance, you might be able to get a special rate of 60 euros/night (make sure youscroll down through the prices in their reservation section as the higher prices come up top and lower at the bottom and you need to scroll down to see them). After I book and they send me the confirmation email, I always email back and ask for a quiet room facing the courtyard, which they generally oblige. I have learned that rooms with an even number are facing the courtyard so when they are giving you the key, you can realise right away if they forgot your request. The hotel is right across from the M1A stop called Ste Catherine, which is on the line that goes to the EC buildiing in both Schumann and Beaulieu. So great location for that. It is also a short walk from Grand place area and there are a number of good restaurants right across the street from the hotel if you arrive late. Good recommendation is one restaurant called Jacques, which is acrss the road from Citadines. If I cannot find a good rate at Citadines web site, I have gone off trying to get the EC rate by phone (they were getting a little sticky lately asking for details etc.). Update February 2008: The EC rate is now 104 euros and includes breakfast. For a short while in the latter part of 2007, the breakfast was dropped from the EC rate but I think they got smart and added it into the room rate instead, which makes life a whole lot easier. The only problem is that you cannot book the EC rate directly on their web site so you need to ring them directly to obtain this rate.
I have instead recently been getting fairly decent rates at the Royal Crown hotel in Botanique (right next to North Station and Metro Line 2 stop Botanique, which you can take to connect to Line 1A for the EC or go to Gare du Midi directly on M2. There is also a tram that runs from Rogier to Gare du Midi but I have never quite got my head around the tram systems in Brussels and never had much of a need for this anyway. The web site for the Royal Crown is http://www.royalcrownbrussels.com/ Update Feb, 2008: this hotel is now called Hotel Bloom and has gotten a recent facelift. I stayed there in Dec. 2007 and had a nice recently refurbished room at a fairly decent room rate (not including breakfast, which seemed a very high price). Their web site is http://www.hotelbloom.com/
another one is the Tulip Hotel, which are offerring some decent rates lately on their web site http://www.tulipinnbrusselshotel.com/ this is right next to Rogier, which is also a M2 stop and Brussels Nord Station is very close. If these fail to produce good results, I go to www.ratestogo.com and generally stay at the Queen Anne hotel, which is a short walk from the area DeBrouchere about half way between Debrouchere and Rogier. It is a fairly old style hotel but is good value for money, usually around 80 euros for B&B and free wifi in lobby.
Posted by jclarke at 5:39 PM
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Rationale for this Blog
I decided to try to capture some of my travel experiences, situations, lessons learned, anecdotes, ... that could potentially help my fellow WIT/TSSG employees in setting up future travel itineraries. It is not meant as a definitive Wiki type list of information that has been well researched but just a memory dump of mine wth regard to some of my recent travel experiences. I am trying to use categories and levels of categories for the best advantage and the format will be something like the following: For each main category, Airlines, destinations, etc., there will be a sub category pertaining to each and for each subcategory, there will be a standard General Information category, a High-Lites category, which contains positive experiences and Low-lights, which contains negative elelments that i have encountered in that sub category. I have also tried to cross link to other relevant categories where appropriate e.g. an entry for continental could have a link to Newark airport, which is their hub airport.
Posted by jclarke at 12:38 PM
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My positive words about Delta Airlines
Ever since the debacle when Continental changed to lower standard equipment from Ireland, I started using Delta airlines instead fairly frequently. My brother had been using them for years when he used to come visit me in Ireland from Florida. He would normally travel on the Palm Beach – Atlanta – Dublin route. Generally, I am a bit more inventive, as i need to also visit friends in New York on my trips. So I normally use their multi-city function on the delta.com web site from Dublin – New York JFK, stay in New York for a while, New York Laguardia to Palm Beach and them when finished with the trip, Palm Beach – Atlanta – Dublin. With their multi – city facility on the web site, I usually find that they do not price gouge when you are staying in cities for a period en route or switch airports within the same city etc., which is a very positive experience. Recently, I went over the Christmas holidays and got a Dublin - New York JFK, New York LGA to Palm Beach and then a Palm Beach – Atlanta – Dublin, all for 600 euros, including taxes, charges etc. Delta also have a very good frequent flyer programme point per mile and MBNA have a Visa card in Ireland that gives you 1 Delta frequent flyer point per 2 euros spent on the card. Depending on number of transatlantic trips in conjunction with how much spent on the credit card, I generally have enough points for an upgrade to business class on all legs of the journey every 2-3 trips. However, they do charge a premium price on the upgrade fare class, which is slightly annoying (around 300 euros more than the economy fare on the same routes and days.) And sometimes it is difficult to get upgrade seats on all of the legs especially the internal US flights. Usually, as long as I get the transatlantic legs upgraded, I am happy enough. Another nice thing about Delta is that even though you are travelling on an upgrade fare, they give you frequent flyer points for the whole journey (Aer Lingus give you zero points when you are travelling on an upgrade). So even though you are travelling on an upgrade fare, you are automatically well on your way towards ending up with another upgrade when you fly with Delta.
Posted by jclarke at 12:21 AM
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My negative words about Continental
As already mentioned in my high-lights section for Continental, I was once a frequent traveller on their US services into and out of Ireland. A few years ago, I found a web site reviewing different airlines called http://www.airlinequality.com and destinations and when reading reviews about Continental in/out of Belfast and Manchester, I read some really bitter reviews from people saying that the plane that was used for these destinations was a Boeing 757 with a 3 X 3 configuration with one aisle up middle. You can imagine my chagrine when I went to book a Continental flight a few months after reading this and when I went to select my seat just before hitting the purchase key, noticed that the plane was a Boeing 757 and not the B767-400 that I had come to expect (with the seat back tvs at every seat). I immediately backed out of my transaction and telephoned the Dublin office of Continental and asked for a clarification as to whether they had indeed changed their equipment and to my amazement, the guy on the phone tried to tell me that Dublin and Shannon always had the B757 and had never used the B767-400 for these airports. After giving the man some history lessons, I told him that I would be boycotting Continental until they changed their equipment back to the B767-400 from Dublin. To this day, they are still using the B757. I followed up my phone call with an email to the customer service email address and eventually received a glib response saying that there are complicated algorithms the airlines use when changing equipment for particular airports and schedules based on supply and demand, supplying new routes with a/c, etc. I responded by saying that unlike Continental, I had a very simple algorithm when deciding who to ly with out of Ireland and if they used a B757, I would not fl with them. My Father has two elderly cousins that visit him every year for a month in florida and they fly every year with Continental (they actually buy the ticket for the next year while they are on their holidays). When he asked them if they noticed anthing different about the plane, they said they didn't notice anything so maybe i am being too picky. However, they are definitely still using this aircraft as i have recently checked it.
Posted by jclarke at 12:11 AM
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My good words about Continental
Although I have gone off them at the moment, I would like to include a brief complimentary word about Continental here as I did travel a great deal with them up to about 2 years ago from Dublin or Shannon to the US. They are one of the best US airlines and I did this trip with them on numerous occasions sometimes per year so I was a good customer. They were the only airline out of Ireland to the U.S that offered the State of the Art in flight entertainment(IFE in frequent traveller lingo) systems in all seat backs including economy on their Boeing 767-400 aircraft, which have a 2 seat by 3 seat by 2 seat configuration with two aisles. They also had a fairly decent frequent flyer program where they awarded you one point per mile so you could really rake up your travel points with them when travelling my routes and occasionally (after 3 or so return trips) get a nice upgrade to their business class. This all came to a grinding halt, however, when they switched equipment out of Dublin and Shannon to the Boeing 757, the 3 by 3 configuration with one aisle up the middle (see my low-lights section for Continental for more details) and no SOA IFE any more.
Posted by jclarke at 12:05 AM
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February 7, 2007
Change in flight times to Brussels/coach to city policy changed also.
Recently, I have noticed that Ryanair seem to have abandoned the earlier afternoon flight from Dublin to Brussels (following suit with Aer Lingus??) and now it arrives much later and by the time you get the coach to the city, it would be after 10pm when you arrive to the hotel. I often wonder what rationale they use when making these deplorable changes in schedules. This being the case, I will go over on the Aer Lingus flights instead, and maybe return on the Ryanair flight. The Aer Lingus to Brussels evening flight, all going well, gets you to your downtown hotel around 9.30pm. Please note in addition to the later flights also that the Ryanair/Charleroi coach policy has changed now and they no longer depart 20 minutes after the flight arrives  . They only depart once an hour on the hour. In other words, if you get out of the baggage area and front door at 17.02, you have to wait 58 minutes to the next departure. Willie Donnelly and I found this out the hard way on a recent trip and waited in a queue for an empty bus for around 55 minutes (no one bothered to come out to tell us eegits standing there. At least, we weren't on our own there. They neglect to tell you this when you are purchasing the coach tickets inside by the way!. I tend to break up my journeys in legs and when going Ryanair now from Dublin to Brussels, this consists of 4 legs (imho): 1. home to Dublin airport (3 hours); 2. flight from Dublin to Charleroi (1.5 hours);
3. waiting for airport - city centre coach (up to 1 hour); 4. coach to Brussels Midi and journey to city centre hotel (1.5 hour).
Dublin to Brussels Nation is considered 2 legs only imho . 1. home - Dublin airport (3 hours)
2. Flight to Brussels National (1.5 hours).
I don't even consider the trip to the city centre from the airport another leg since the train every 15 minutes to the city centre from the National airport is such a joy when compared with Charleroi options. Update February 2008: I have started using the Charleroi Transfer service, which are door to door minivan service from Charleroi airport to/from Brussels city centre. They are very reasonable (18 euros if paid on line or 23 if you pay driver) and reliable and can be booked on http://charleroitransfer.com/
Posted by jclarke at 6:12 PM
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Possibly worse travel day of my life
I will classify this blog under low-light for Dublin airport but will also cross link it as a low-light of Ryanair also.
Sunday 3rd December 2006 was a travel experience that I will not forget in a long time and gave me some food for thought as to the possible problems when trying to marry the old way of doing things and the new way of doing things with always being connected, ubiquitous, buying on line, ...
I spent the entire day starting with a drive from home to Dublin airport in huge winds and well into the evening Sunday at Dublin airport where due to the extremely averse weather conditions, most of the flights into and out of Dublin were eventually cancelled. Unfortunately, in an attempt to do this in a timed and/or staged fashion to assist their staff in baggage and at the ticket desks, Ryanair, up to the boarding time and even one hour after my flight boarding time were still claiming that the Brussels flight was going to depart. Not so.
Therefore, by the time we got our bags returned, which took another hour from the time they informed us the flight was cancelled, there were thousands (yes thousands) of people with all their luggage in tow queuing up trying to change their tickets back in the departures area.
Aer Rianta Airport and/or Ryanair staff (it was hard to tell who was who) were walking through the throngs of people giving very mixed advice: For example,
1. one saying to go off and and re-book on-line and there were a significant number of people standing around trying to balance their laptops on their arms and watch their bags/children etc, (have you noticed that the DAA has ripped out most of the seats on the departures level of the airport);
2. one person saying if you booked a new ticket on line for a more expensive flight, you wouldn't get a refund to that full amount unless you waited for the next morning when their specific refund/change web site was available at 9am, at which time you would get a full refund or change; In other words, before 9am the following morning, they would only refund you the amount of your current ticket and if the new one purchased was more expensive (more than likely), you were caught with the difference and post 9am, they would allow you to trade in your ticket for a new one, if available. but the catch 22 was that the tickets would be gone already if you waited that long.
3. one person then saying NOT to book on line as there could be a double booking situation as they were changing tickets so fast for passengers at the ticket desk and their database wasn't being changed quick enough and the people on the queue would have priority in this scenario,
4. one saying most flights for 4th were already full and those more flexible should leave and re-book on line after 9am the following morning.
Eventually, I went with advice number 4 but first went off site to a local hotel where I knew they had wifi and seats were I could sit in some comfort and tried to see my options from there. Once in the hotel, the ryanair web site said that no changes could be made on line until 9am the following morning and when I phoned them, their office had already closed at 5pm. So there was absolutely no way to make any changes again that night for the 6.50 flight Monday morning to Brussels without going back out to the airport . Therefore, I decided to go home and at 9.10am Monday morning, their refund/change site did become available (feel sorry for the staff who had to work overnight on this and impressed they were only 10 minutes over on the deadline) and I applied for a full refund as all other flights were fully booked for next two days so I would have missed my project review.
Interestingly, their refund/change site didn't offer you an option to refund only the cancelled leg of your journey, which was an option i had considered since there was an aerlingus option available the next day albeit very expensive. It was an all or nothing thing, either full refund or change of one or more of the legs of your journey. You could either get a full refund on a single or return ticket depending on the kind of ticket you had OR change one or both of the legs. In other words, they would not allow you to get a refund on the cancelled Sunday leg (in my case this was the most expensive part of the return ticket) and still use the return Tuesday leg. This, of course, was to prevent you from booking with another airline the following morning for the outward leg only ;-( and still get the refund from them, which was precisely what I was attempting to do ;-) .
First time and hopefully the last time I have such an experience....the good news was our project review went well without me and I eventually got a full refund from both Aer arann and Ryanair, albeit in the middle of January 2007!
Posted by jclarke at 5:54 PM
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Reasonable places in Helsinki
When in Helsinki, I usually try to stay at the Radisson Seaside hotel, which is located a little outside the main city right at the waterfront but easily accessible by tram or walking. When you arrive at the airport, you can get the airport shuttle bus, either the Finnair or the Blue one and they both bring you right to the central train/bus station. From here, it is a short walk to the trams and then take the correct tram (number 6 I believe but check to be sure!) to the Seaside hotel. If I recall, you can go either way on the tram to the hotel as it goes in a circle but there may be one way slightly shorter. The hotel can be booked directly at the Radisson web site. If booked well in advance and there isn’t too much going on, you can get a fairly decent price there. They have special offers for their smaller rooms (10 sq. metres), which are sufficiently big enough as you won’t be spending much time in the room anyway. During the IST 2006 event, Zeta and I stayed at the Sokos President hotel, which is closer to the train station. The Seaside hotel was already very expensive when we were booking so we chose this hotel from the IST 2006 web site yet booked it at www.ratestogo.com at a lower rate than published for delegates on the IST 2006 web site. Closer to the time of the event, I discovered that I needed to go over one day earlier to Helsinki and all the hotels were pretty much already filled up so I booked one on the ratestogo web site called Hotel Anna or the Anna Hotel (i have seen it referred to as both of these) located at Annankatu 1, 00120 Helsinki, FINLAND. It was quite reasonable with breakfast included. Although I was a bit worried about what I would get, it was pretty good and I was later sorry that I hadn’t booked this hotel for the whole duration as it would have saved a good deal of money throughout the week. It was a little off the main street (10 minute walk to Stockmans) and was also well serviced by tram line. In future, I would probably check Seaside hotel first, followed by this hotel. For eats in Helsinki, I would recommend a restaurant called Zetor (yes, the same company that makes tractors), which is located on the main street on the same side and close to Stockmanns. Zetor is known for real traditional Finnish style food so may not suit everyone. They do have some veg. options including a nice vegetable stew but beware of burning your tongue as it was extremely hot (temperature wise). On one of the nights, Miguel Ponce de Leon kindly invited us to a Daidalos dinner that was being held in a restaurant very close to the Seaside hotel and this was a great place also. I would certainly go back there again. If interested, you would need to get name from Miguel.
Posted by jclarke at 5:21 PM
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Experiences with SAS airlines
In the last year, I have used SAS a number of times from Dublin – Helsinki. The flights operate either via Copenhagen or Stockholm airports. All experiences were very good and no negative things to report. Prices were also good when booked well in advance. I believe the Helsinki flights were around 300 euros all in and the closest competitors were all >400 euros.
Posted by jclarke at 5:19 PM
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Reasonable places to stay in Barcelona
In Barcelona recently, I stayed at an apartment style Citadines located in La Ramblas area. Go to www.citadines.be and pick country Spain and I believe it is their only property in Spain. It was excellent and not too costly if I recall. Location is also supreme. It is a few steps from the Catalyuna (spelling?) metro station in La Ramblas. The only drawback was the free internet connection that was advertised in rooms (wired connection) didn’t seem to work and the people at the desk were clueless and unable to help me. I wasn’t too pushed as I arrived late and they had a standalone pc on the mezzanine floor anyway and it was free whenever I walked past it. There is a section of the hotel that is located way off the main Ramblas frontage so when I asked for my usual quiet room, they obliged and put me in that section of the hotel and it was extremely quiet. The rooms were also very large and full kitchen area as expected in Citadines apartment hotels. I didn’t opt for the breakfast and just brought in food from a local spar a few steps away. Immediately next door to the Citadines hotel is a restaurant that Mícheál Ó Foghlú and I stumbled upon when over at the eChallenges 2006 conference called the Attic. It is a bit pricey but very good food. At this most recent meeting attended, the host of the meeting, UPC, used the Attic as the restaurant for the social event. I literally had to walk 5 steps home to my hotel ;-)
Posted by jclarke at 5:13 PM
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Another way to get to Brussels early in the evening
Another option to consider if you are going to meet someone in Brussels early for dinner is flying to Paris CDG instead of Brussels on Aer Lingus and taking the TGV train to Brussels Midi. If you are fortunate, there may even be a connection for a direct CDG to Brussels Midi station (takes 1 hour and 15 minutes on the high speed train). The Paris flight used to leave Dublin at 12 noon, which was ideal to get you into CDG about one hour before the direct Thalys train from CDG to Brussels Midi departed. This would leave you just enough time to collect your bag (if you had one checked in) and get the internal airport bus from terminal 2 where Aer Lingus arrives to Term. 1 (I think) where the TGV station is co-located. I believe this bus station in terminal 2 is outside Gate 20, which is usually a bit of a hike and you gave to wait on extremely slow and crowded elevators to get to it. I did this a couple of times last year when I wanted to get to Brussels early but recently, Aer Lingus have changed the departure time for the Paris flight to 12.20pm, which makes it fairly impossible to get across the airport to the correct terminal where the TGV station is located in time for this connection, especially if you have a checked bag (as is the case now with the restrictions on checked luggage). In this case, you can either wait an additional hour at CDG for the direct train to Midi or you can take a train to Gare du Nord and then connect with a TGV to Brussels Midi (there is one every 20 minutes or so) but it will add about one more hour or slightly less onto the journey. One time I did this (via the direct CDG to Brussels Midi) option with the 12 noon flight, I was actually checked into my hotel in the city centre of Brussels well before 6pm.) If you do the Gare Du Nord option, you will probably be in Brussels at around 7pm instead. You always have to leave time to buy your train ticket also but someone told me that there is some way of getting a ‘member’ card from Thalys that would enable you to purchase the tickets on the trains themselves with a credit card without penalty. I was going to look into this more but I haven’t availed of this option too much recently so I didn’t bother due to the flight time change. This would result in less stress and time savings when you arrive to the train stations and may even result in you making the earlier CDG to Brussels Midi train. Obviously, for the return flight, you could just buy one way Brussels - Dublin on Aer Lingus or Charleroi - Dublin Ryanair options and don't need to go back to Paris. (see my blogs on these options)
Posted by jclarke at 5:00 PM
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Generally on time departures on this run
For a while, I was tending to go to/from Brussels using the Ryanair options on a fairly regular basis because a. they had an earlier afternoon flight than Aer Lingus that would get you to your hotel around 7pm in Brussels and also because they had the on line check in long before Aer Lingus for both Dublin - Charleroi and more recently Charleroi - Dublin flights, which enabled me to go to the gates earlier or later than previously if I arrived early/late at the airport. However, with the new handbag restrictions, I generally have to check in my bag now and as far as I know, Ryanair's on line check in doesn’t allow for dropping off bags for the flight at the airport. Another reason was that the return flights from Charleroi were usually on time (as compared to that very late Aer Lingus flight, which always seems to be delayed as well as leaving after 9pm now!, which is not good if you live otside Dublin) and more importantly, with Ryanair, there was an earlier option to get you back at a fairly reasonable time to Dublin (6pm if I recall). Therefore, if you were a bit inventive with your consortium or people you were meeting in Brussels, you could meet the night before and then start early the next day and finish in time to make this earlier flight. We recently discovered that there is a train that goes directly from Schumann or Luxembourg Belgian railway stations to Charleroi Sud so if you are at a meeting near these locations, it isn’t necessary to schlep out to Midi to get the Ryanair coach or the train from Midi. You can find out train times on the Belgian Railway web site – just do a google on Belgian Railways to get the web site address. Take note that when you get to Charleroi Sud train station, you still have to get either an airport bus or a taxi to the airport, which is around 10km away from the train station. If in time, I usually walk over and get the bus, it is at the first platform to the right when you cross over the tram line. It costs around 1.60 and you can now pay on the bus. It used to be frustrating in that you had to pay in the office for the bus ticket and you could literally see the bus pulling off as you were waiting in the line to buy the ticket (buses only run 3 an hour). A taxi will cost around 12 euros.
Posted by jclarke at 4:45 PM
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February 6, 2007
Reasonable places to stay in Brussels
One of my most frequent destinations. I usually try the following in this order - www.citadines.be for the Ste Catherine Citadines hotel, which is located in the famous fish restaurant area. This is an apartment style hotel so it may not suit everyone's idea of an ideal place to stay. Breakfast is generally not included unless you go for the European Commission rate (but you need to phone them to book this and last time I got it, they were charging 94 euros/night, which inlcudes b'fast). Generally, if you book well in advance, you might be able to get a special rate of 60 euros/night (make sure youscroll down through the prices in their reservation section as the higher prices come up top and lower at the bottom and you need to scroll down to see them). After I book and they send me the conf. email, I always email back and ask for a quiet room facing the courtyard, which they generally oblige. I have learned that rooms with an even number are facing the courtyard so when they are giving you the key, you can realise right away if they forgot your request. The hote is right across from the M1A stop Ste Catherine, which is on the line that goes to the EC buildiing in both Schumann and Beaulieu. So great location for that. It is also a short walk from Grand pLace area and there are a number of good restaurants right across the street from the hotel if you arrive late. Good recommendation is one called Jacques. If I cannot find a good rate at Citadines web site, I have gone off trying to get the EC rate by phone (they were getting a little sticky lately asking for details etc.), so I have instead recently been getting fairly decent rates at the Royal Crown hotel in Botanique (right next to North Station and Metro Line 2 stop Botanique, which you can take to connect to Line 1A for the EC or go to/from Midi directly. Web site is http://www.royalcrownbrussels.com/ another one is Tulip Hotel, which are offerring some decent rates lately on their web site http://www.tulipinnbrusselshotel.com/ this is right next to Rogier, whichis also a M2 stop and North Station is very close. If these fail to produce good results, I go to www.ratestogo.com and generally stay at the Queen Anne hotel, which is a short walk from the area DeBrouchere about half way between Debrouchere and Rogier. It is a fairly old style hotel but is good value for money, usually around 80 euros for B&B and free wifi in lobby.
Posted by jclarke at 6:55 PM
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Reasonable place to stay in Köln, Germany
I left the booking for this trip to the last minute so discovered that there weren’t too many good value deals on hotels left due to an ICT 2007 event being held there. I did a google on hotels in Köln and found that there were some Ibis hotels and when I did a further google on them, I saw some decent write ups about one located literally inside the Köln Haubtbahnof train station. As I was arriving quite late by train, I decided to go with this one and booked it right on the Ibis web site. It was around 119 euros not including breakfast, which was still pretty good value compared to other ones on offer at ratestogo. The reviews all said that even though the hotel was located directly in the train station and all rooms were facing the front, they all claimed it was a very quiet location as they must have double glazed windows. I was a little sceptical about this but sure enough, it was incredibly quiet there. The rooms were standard Ibis fare (in fact, I couldn’t seee any difference between this room and all the others in Brussels the ugly plaster of paris walls etc.). I didn’t opt for their breakfast option (9.95 euros) or pay Wifi and instead had spotted a Starbuck’s coffee place right next store (with free Wifi also) so I had breakfast in there and checked mail before heading out to the Köln Messe, which was a 10 minute train ride. This hotel is also very close to the Dom Cathedral and the river so location was absolutely fine.
Posted by jclarke at 6:50 PM
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Reasonable places to stay in Frankfurt
I have had the opportunity to overnight in Frankfurt twice recently. I stumbled upon a number of hotels in the general vicinity of the main Haubtbahnof train station that are good value for money. They seem to be in a fairly fierce competition with each other in this vicinity and offer various extra goodies to attract customers. I believe that I booked them both at www.ratestogo.com, the site that I usually use for hotel booking. On one of the recent stays, I stayed at one called the Hotel Excelsior, which is right across from the train station. It was something like 49 euros incl taxes and fees and they were offering free wifi in their business centre on the ground floor, breakfast included AND free mini bar - Yes, you read this correct! If you were so inclined, I reckon you could drink the minibar dry and probably have a free stay there as it was a fully stocked minibar. The room was quite small but clean and they gave me a nice quiet location at the back of the hotel as per my usual request. More recently, I went a little more upscale and decided to try one called Hotel Savoy, again booked at the same site above and they were far superior in terms of room size etc., free breakfast, they had a tray of finger foods, fruits, snacks, tea/coffee and selection of red and white wines in reception 24/7 and in the room a complimentary large bottle of sparkling water, which I thought was a nice touch. They were 60 euros plus I paid an extra 12 euros for 24 hour Wifi in room. This is also in the same vicinity of Excelsior (about 20 steps away from same entrance to train station). Both of these hotels are only about a 10 minute walk (along the river, which was nice) from the main cathedral area where you find the nice large Beer Hauses and German restaurants. The railway area is not like Brussels Midi and seems to me to be a very safe area.
Posted by jclarke at 6:41 PM
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Beware of legacy systems for return tickets
I usually have good experience with Iberia but recently had a rather unpleasant experience in which they cancelled a return leg of a ticket purchased on line from their web site. Reason was I did not use the original outbound portion of the ticket and I had not made contact with them to let them know before the flight commenced. The circumstances were the following. A few months prior to a scheduled trip to Barcelona (echallenges 2006), I had purchased a return ticket from Iberia web site for a nice cheap fare of 99 euros for a 3 night stay over for the entire duration of the conference. As the trip date approached, I realised that there was no need to be in Barcelona for the whole 3 nights as originally thought, and only needed to be there the last two nights. I started to look at options on the Iberia web site and discovered for my ticket class (lowest possible), there were no refund or change options available. Therefore, I bought a new one way ticket for around 50 euros going out24 hours after my original flight and intended to use the return leg of the original ticket for the trip home. As the days approached of my original flight, I had a strange inkling in the back of my brain to ring them to let them know I wouldn’t travel on the outward leg of the original but then forgot to do this eventually as with the usual point to point aspects of Aer lingus and Ryanair tickets now, it didn’t really worry me too much. When I checked in at the airport in Dublin for my one way ticket portion, everything went smoothly for this ticket but I then asked if they could confirm that my return ticket for the following Friday was OK. They directed me over to the BA ticket desk who handles Iberia at Dublin airport and they told me that my return ticket was already cancelled when I didn’t turn up the previous day or and/or let them know ahead of the flight. When I asked for my options, they said that they could re-instate the ticket there for a change fee of 25 euros and a fare difference of 50 euros or vice versa – 75 euros total. Being cost conscious, I asked if I could ring Iberia instead and they gave me an 800 number and I was bluntly told by an uncaring Iberia staff member that they had indeed cancelled the ticket and, furthermore, my only option now was to purchase a whole new one way ticket from Barcelona to Dublin for a whopping 180 euros (it was a Friday night). I quickly hung up with them telling them never in my travel days etc. and quickly slinkered back to the BA desk with tail between the legs and credit card in hand (obviously not mentioning the phone call with Iberia) and paid the 75 euros and got my ticket ‘re-instated’. Of course, I worried all throughout the trip that I would have some unpleasant surprise awaiting me when I went to check in on the Friday evening in Barcelona but nothing untoward happened and I even was able to check in at their kiosk with my re-instated ticket. Lesson learned, not all airlines work on the point to point concept and they still have the legacy systems of the past. Beware when trying to change tickets this way.
Posted by jclarke at 6:36 PM
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Tried the new On line check in feature
I recently tried the On Line check in for Aer Lingus on a Dublin – Frankfurt flight. It worked out quite well even with a checked bag to drop off (remember if you claim the bag when buying the ticket on line, it is 4 euros/bag per leg instead of 8 euro/bag per leg if you declare at the airport !). However, with the usually vacant check in kiosks at the airport, there isn’t really too much of a need to check in on line; But I decided to give it a try as I was planning to arrive quite early before a flight to Frankfurt due to the train arrival times. The experience was mainly positive and enabled me to get through to the departures area 3 hours before my flight time; the only slightly negative aspect, which would have equally applied to the kiosk system was the tag and drop areas at the airport are not all designated for universal destinations. I waited on a fairly long queue (15 minutes approx.) in area 8 to learn that I had to go to a tag and drop desk in area 5 instead for the destination Frankfurt. As far as I can tell, this information is not available anywhere on the screens. Luckily, there was no one on those queues in area 5, so it only went into the slightly annoying category. From now on, I will ask the floating Aer Lingus staff standing around the kiosks to find out which area applies to which flights from now on before waiting in the queue for tag and drop.
Posted by jclarke at 6:33 PM
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February 5, 2007
Beware of Aer Lingus's policy on Lost Luggage
I recently purchased a r/t ticket to Germany from Aer Lingus as a Christmas present for someone. On the trip back, Aer Lingus lost her bag. After a number of weeks, they still were not able to locate the bag. They made a big deal out of the fact that she did not hold onto the baggage tag (dropped it in cabin as we all do) so I called to the desk on a return trip to discuss with them at which point they really seemed to make an effort to start looking for her bag. W |
