miércoles, 27 de junio de 2012

Day 2



4rd Day Puerto Montt- Christmas Eve
5th Day At Sea
6th Day At Sea (Straight of Magellan)
7th Day Punta Arenas
8th Day Ushuaia
9th Day At Sea
10th Day At Sea
11th Day Puerto Madryn
New Years Eve
12th Day At Sea
13th Day Punta del Este
14th Day Montevideo
15th Day Buenos Aires
2nd Day in BA and flight back to Mexico

Well after a bad night of seasickness of my kids, we got to La Serena, Coquimbo.

 First of all we had breakfast, and after that we decided to descend to La Serena, well practictly is Coquimbo but the nice city is La Serena, like New Jersey and NYC lol.
 When we arrived at the port we went to the exit were bunch of taxis were and for 20 dollars per hour we made a city tour, to different points of the city. The church, the center, the little market, there was not too much too see, but well we finish up in 3 hours, for 60 dollars, and Celebrity was giving the same excursion for 45 dollars each person, but well they have a professional tour guide, but personally I will save the money for other parts.

The principal attraction

v.s.

The "adult" pool (On the cold sea days, expect kids)


If you ask me I would not go to La Serena. Some cruises offer Port Stanley instead of this small place. So enjoy the nice hot weather and stay by the pool, which was kind of cold when we came back (or the jacuzzis) 
The worst part of this day was leaving the port, not because we liked the city, but because of the movement of the ship. We all felt bad, took pills, chocolate and nothing! 
So I wouldn't imagine feeling like this the whole trip.

martes, 26 de junio de 2012

1st Day


4rd Day Puerto Montt- Christmas Eve
5th Day At Sea
6th Day At Sea (Straight of Magellan)
7th Day Punta Arenas
8th Day Ushuaia
9th Day At Sea
10th Day At Sea
11th Day Puerto Madryn
New Years Eve
12th Day At Sea
13th Day Punta del Este
14th Day Montevideo
15th Day Buenos Aires
2nd Day in BA and flight back to Mexico



To start I arrived like at 4:00 p.m., so I had the "luck" to be escorted to my room.
 And I had quite a surprise when I entered my room , I thought it was going to be super small and it was a little more longer, and it was the smallest room category with a balcony. After that I went to make a tour of the ship.


Wow!, was the only word that came into my mind. The Infinity is very big but still not overcrowded as some of the Royal Caribbean Cruises. At first, like everyone else,  I got lost and to be honest it was so tiring to go from one point to the opposite one, but we finally we did it and in a few word its a very good ship and Celebrity is an excellent cruise line.
And after touring the ship around we had the typically drill and then the cruise ship left Valparaiso. And I don't know if it's because we were on the Pacific Ocean, but right away you could feel the ship moving A LOT! So we hit the room early and went to sleep

lunes, 25 de junio de 2012

Celebrity Cruise Intro/Arriving at Chile


3rd Day At Sea
4rd Day Puerto Montt- Christmas Eve
5th Day At Sea
6th Day At Sea (Straight of Magellan)
7th Day Punta Arenas
8th Day Ushuaia
9th Day At Sea
10th Day At Sea
11th Day Puerto Madryn
New Years Eve
12th Day At Sea
13th Day Punta del Este
14th Day Montevideo
15th Day Buenos Aires
2nd Day in BA and flight back to Mexico


Introduction

A couple of years ago I took a cruise from Chile to Buenos Aires through Cape Horn with Celebrity Cruises. I also blogged about it but in a very simple way.
So I'm changing some stuff and putting it all on my blog

Arriving at Chile



After arriving from an 8 hour flight I arrived at Chile.
The bad thing was that they received us with another hour just to pay a tax for Mexicans, U.S., Canada and Australia citizens. After that I met with some friends that they just moved there, and they took us to the hotel (you can check my reviews at http://www.tripadvisor.com/members-reviews/charal95).

I stayed 3 days at Santiago. I went to the Turistik in the mall, and took a tour in the city, we also went to the Cerro San Cristobal. We also want it to go to a Viña (Vineyard ) but we didn't have reservations 

Well the 3 days passed fast and Im sad because Santiago is a beautifull clean city.

On the last day we went to Valparaiso, (I notice something in Chiles ports, that they have the port city and next to it a nicer city: Valparaiso and Viña del Mar, Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas, Coquimbo and La Serena)
We only went to Viña to the beach and to eat and after that we went to the cruise, when we get in Valparaiso it looks like a insecure city and also a not world heritage. When we get to the port we did the fast check in (oh if you were Captains Club you need it to wait more) and then boarded a bus and finally to the ship.



For all the info about the ship wait for my next days.

jueves, 14 de junio de 2012

Analysis: US Airways merge with American Airlines

Last year I was actually pretty excited about the merge of United and Continental, but little did I knew that mergers do affect travelers' economy... A LOT!
Flights that were 330 USD (almost all the time) went to 550 USD.
Now a flight that was 380 USD from Mexico City to Houston (2 hours) is now over 650 USD!!



So I'm totally against this merger,
Yes it would save thousands of jobs, although many jobs including those at US Airways will be lost.
And I wouldn't imagine in just 4 mayor airlines (UA,DL,SW,US Air).
Of course prices will be higher, and not only from US Airways but from the others too.

And of course I would feel bad for OneWorld, that if this merger would go on, it would lose the only North-American carrier and one of its most important members.

So this just means

*Higher prices
*Less flight options
*Less award-flight availability
*Lost of US Airways jobs.


Do you think the merger should happen?
Do you think that one of the current airlines can become one of the big main airlines? Which one?

Airport Review/Guide: Denver International Airport

As something new I decided to create airport reviews. I do reviews for hotels, attractions, restaurants, so why not review airports?

To start off, Denver International Airport or locally known as DIA is very different than any airport in the U.S. The check in, TSA check -point and baggage claim of all airlines is located in one medium size terminal: Jeppesen Terminal.


Here you can find Rental Car options, restaurants, etc...
And here is where you have to arrive to do the check in and to be picked up.
United is the main airline here, Southwest and Frontier are also the big bosses.
United offers plenty of room to check in with almost no-wait at all even if you fly in coach.

One of the great features is that in the TSA checkpoint there is a Pre-Clear line plus a Business/First Class/Premier line, which saved me at least 15 minutes.

After the TSA checkpoint you can proceed to your terminal.
You can walk or take the train if using terminal A.
And you must take the train (ONLY OPTION) to go to terminal C and B(United and US Airways only).


Of course I just visited terminal B, which is huge. And thankfully there are two well located United Clubs. But apart from that there aren't too many options. The only shops are the typically airport stores but it does have a lot of restaurants but only one Starbucks and it's not in the middle of the terminal.

This airport is good to say the least. Although because you do have to take the small train and walk a bit more, I would arrive at the airport at least 1 hour and 15 minutes before the flight. 



But most important, it offers one thing that I think we all look at an airport:

FREE INTERNET
(although it didn't worked on mobile devices)

FOOD: 4.5
SHOPS: 3.7
ENTERTAINMENT: 4.4
SERVICE/EFFICIENCY: 4.5
LOCATION: 4.0
"WALKING"(the least, the better): 3.7
OVERALL:
4.1