The Flight(s) Home

As I think I've said previously in the blog, I spent quite a bit of time on the planning end of this trip working with the airlines. This involved the on-line reservation via Cheapoair.com (whom I'd never heard of before) as well as spending much time on the phone with the airlines themselves.

The most time was probably taken up with insuring that at least two hours existed between the landing of one flight and the taking off of the next flight. I'm an absolute fanatic about having sufficient time between flights to cover any contingency. When there are three legs outbound and three legs inbound on your journey, the slack time between flights can become critical. On this particular trip, we didn't have any problems outbound with the planes being on time. But inbound two out of the three flights were an hour late or more, which would have been disastrous if I hadn't booked intelligently.

I also spent much time on seat selection. Though many might think selecting seats is not that important, I always insist on having the aisle seat and the middle seat for Concetta and me rather than the window seat. This insures that you don't inconvenience anyone who might want to sleep the whole flight away. On this trip, it took at least an hour on the phone on two different occasions to finally nail down the seat assignments for all six flights. Thanks to all that careful planning and diligent phone work, the flying part of our trip came off flawlessly.

Like anything else that lots and lots of people want to do at the same time and place, flying can be a gigantic pain. One of the things that made our experience as pleasant as possible is the carry-on luggage. You see some folks who buy the biggest darn carry-on bag possible in order to, what? Put something over on the flight crew? Then they struggle and struggle to get the stupid things on board and into overhead bin. Take my advice, check one big bag and buy a carry-on about half the legal size with a good set of wheels and a telescoping handle and let it go at that.

Our carry-on bags are easy to get on the plane and easy to get in the overhead. Don't put any clothes in them except some clean underwear and socks in case they lose the checked bag for a day or two. Into mine when the computer and the Nikon, two things I wouldn't dream of checking, and all the electric stuff like phone and laptop chargers, etc. Into Concetta's went the above-mentioned clothes, the medicines, the GPS unit, her headphones (always wonderful to have on an airplane), and a few personal items.

We also take what the airlines call a, "personal item." Naturally, for Concetta the personal item is her purse. For me, I have a small bag about ten inches high, six inches wide, and five inches deep that holds my reading book, my headphones, the passports, the boarding passes, my journal, my glasses, and a bunch of other stuff like a tiny flashlight and a bottle of Tylenol. This bag, which I found at Target, is just perfect for sliding under the seat ahead of me.

By the way, our checked luggage is a rolling duffel bag which has a telescoping handle. This soft-sided bag has a host of separate compartments, won't be damaged from having a ton of other luggage piled on it, and with the handle extended it's easy to put your small carry-on above it for wheeling both around the airport. To make them extra visible on the turnstile, we bought a couple of those fluorescent yellow canvas belts that you wrap around the bag and clasp. We also use the TSA-approved combination locks on the the main zippers to deter crimes of opportunity.

Yesterday, you may remember that I booked us into the airport Hilton in Rome to make our appearance at the terminal at the required hour extra easy. That turned out to be a wonderful idea, one that I intend to use in the future. Staying at the Hilton allowed me to get rid of the rental car the day before, thus cutting down on the stress that always results from trying to turn in the car and get to your flight in the same time period. The Hilton had a van and a very helpful driver who deposited us at the proper terminal at the proper time and we were on our way.

This time we rented from Avis instead of Eurocar. Though the Italian woman at the Avis desk didn't seem to care much for her job the day we arrived, I'd have to say that my experience with them was largely positive. Four years ago our experience with Eurocar was a slightly different story.

Anyway, that's it for now on the subject of airlines and baggage. Next time I'll go into what we packed and what we should have left home.

Ciao.