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Desert_Captain's avatar
Desert_Captain
Explorer III
Jun 01, 2015

A trip without our coach.... never again!

Just returned from an 8 day vacation to Hawaii which was a little beyond the capabilities of our Class C and all I can say is "Never again!" Don't get me wrong, we had a blast. Our neighbors gave us their condo for a week so our costs were limited to air fare and a rental car (as food and drink are basically a wash).

This was our second trip to the islands and we thoroughly enjoyed exploring all that Hawaii has to offer but the travel (unlike in our coach), was nothing but a nightmare. When flying anywhere you surrender all control to the chuckleheads at the airlines/travel sites.

Despite having booked and paid for our flight months ago Travelocity {NEVER, EVER use Travelocity... but I digress}, :S we found our flight pushed back 8 hours and severely downgraded from American to US Airways {hands down the worst airlines on earth}.

A mere 30 minutes prior to leaving our (seriously overpriced), Phoenix hotel (near as I can tell there was no extra charge for the food poisoning :E that I got at their in house restaurant), for the airport I got a Robo call informing us that our flight had been canceled and they would try and get us out the following day. After 40 minutes on the phone I convinced them that this was unacceptable and they got us on a flight to Maui that came with a 3.5 hour layover before we could connect back to Honolulu.

The return flight was not much better and we spent most of it agreeing that travel in the motorhome was far and away our best option (unless you want to go to Hawaii). :R We love our coach and if it is even possible, appreciate the joy of our motorhome more than
ever. The food is way better and you can eat with out health concerns {Duh, what a concept}.

You won't see many (if any), motorhomes in Hawaii unless you count the hundreds of Prevost 42 - 45' Tag axle tour bus's but given the traffic on O'ahu you really would not want to drive a motorhome there. Gas was running around $3.25 for regular.

So here's to RV'ing... Like that old commercial said "It's the only way to fly". We had a great time once we got there and it was a thrill to get back in the water for a week of Boogey Boarding in the 80* water {especially at the ripe old age of 63} Sorry for the grainy cell phone pic:



Looking forward to lots of trips for the rest of the year but rest assured... none of them will involve an airport. :B
Seeking Advice
  • PA12DRVR's avatar
    PA12DRVR
    Explorer
    Jun 04, 2015
    Crowe wrote:
    I must be blessed when I fly. Few delays, great staff, no real issues. Even my husband, who amassed about a million miles on American, did not have a lot of issues when traveling for business. I'm wondering how many people just look for things to pick on or have unrealistic expectations. I could sit here and find all the things wrong with camping and put it in the same negative light if I so chose, but I'm choosing to look at things in a more positive manner. In short, no matter how I get there I'm still going to enjoy myself and I'm NOT HOME!


    Ditto. While I'm trying to limit my travel now (this getting old thing ain't all daisies), I found a couple of simple rules made travel much easier:

    - Book/deal directly with the provider
    - Build in a decent amount of time between connections...even if the airline initially suggests a short connection time, ask for more. Maybe this is a leftover from (early days) when checking luggage all the way through was not common

    I think it's also important that air travel is recognized as a convenience. If one has the time, energy, ability to drive...go for it. But if one needs to go to Hawaii (alternative to flying is a long boat ride) or across country (i.e. Texas to Alaska....a 6 day drive at fastest), flying is the only alternative. I remember a sense of wonder (after a few years of making the trip in DC-4's, DC-6's, and similar) when Alaska and Western offered jet service that would go ALL THE WAY from Anchorage to Seattle WITHOUT STOPPING.

    In recent years my window of drive vs. fly has expanded to 6-8 hours (if I can drive there in 6 hours, I'll drive vs. fly) and in what I hope is the near future of retirement, that window will expand to probably 15 days, but there are still circumstances and destinations that are best achieved by flying. Even with all the time in the world, there are limits to where one can drive.
  • Crowe's avatar
    Crowe
    Explorer
    Jun 03, 2015
    I must be blessed when I fly. Few delays, great staff, no real issues. Even my husband, who amassed about a million miles on American, did not have a lot of issues when traveling for business. I'm wondering how many people just look for things to pick on or have unrealistic expectations. I could sit here and find all the things wrong with camping and put it in the same negative light if I so chose, but I'm choosing to look at things in a more positive manner. In short, no matter how I get there I'm still going to enjoy myself and I'm NOT HOME!
  • 4X4Dodger's avatar
    4X4Dodger
    Explorer II
    Jun 03, 2015
    In my past working life I had a job that meant I traveled about 300 days a year all over the globe.

    A typical week for me was to end a project in Munich, fly to London catch the BA Non Stop home to Seattle. I would be in Seattle about 16 hours then on the United Non Stop to Shanghai or Beijing. After FIVE internal flights within China Culminating in Hong Kong I would then take One of the Asian airlines home.

    The key to flying and minimizing problems is if possible Do Not use US based airlines. Generally speaking they are some of the worst in the world for service and customer relations.

    Try this next time: Decide where you want to go, look at all of the airlines that go there and who has the best FF plan. Go to their website and sign up for their FF plan. Later book your tickets through that carriers web site. More often than not there will be special deals for FF card holders regardless of miles on the card.

    Internet "deals" from consolidator sites like Travelocity are usually not such a good deal..although in some cases they can be.

    After spending a good share of my life in airliners I really hate flying in the US.
  • Crowe's avatar
    Crowe
    Explorer
    Jun 03, 2015
    I've said this before and I'll say it again-ALWAYS book directly with the hotel and airlines so you have control. Yes, flying can be a bear, but there's too many places I'd miss out on if I didn't fly. I don't abide by the mindset "if I can't take my RV I don't need to see it"-it's too self-limiting. Airline delays should be expected-weather, mechanical or staff issues can have an impact. So can traffic, breakdowns, weather, lousy campgrounds, etc. IMHO, the middle can justify the ends no matter how you get there.
  • OFDPOS's avatar
    OFDPOS
    Explorer
    Jun 03, 2015
    I know this is about a bad flight to Hawaii , but years ago we did a round trip flight , booked it straight with American the flight to our destination was a nice I believe DC10 thought wow this is nice for my first ever air travel !!
    Then our flight home was a nightmare come true.
    It was an old prop eng plane right out of maybe the 40's 50's ???
    (did anybody see that movie Major League when they walked out on the tarmack and seeing this nice big plane only for it to roll on by and there was their plane an old prop eng plane ??)
    That was our flight home, we taxied out only to sit out there for a 1/2 hour then to taxi back in for a delay of "we are experiencing some brake failure so there will be a delay ".
    The inside had real solid wood cabinets overhead for storage and solid wood trays that would not stay up on the back of the seats !!
    Yeah my window seat consisted of looking out right smack at the side of one of those prop eng's !
    Remember those cheap motels years ago you put a quarter in and the bed shook I mean vibrated that was our flight home !
  • seaeagle2's avatar
    seaeagle2
    Explorer
    Jun 03, 2015
    Makes me appreciate living in Seattle, our son attended college in Ohio, and like I keep pointing out to my wife, we can fly for 5 hours and be in Hawaii, or Cleveland....
  • tatest's avatar
    tatest
    Explorer II
    Jun 02, 2015
    I've come to hate air travel today. Though I've been flying for more than 50 years, the past three to five years it has gotten much worse. The problem is not just the increased security hassles, it is that demand for travel has greatly outpaced capacity growth so flights are now always packed full and queues everywhere are long and slow.

    However, the destinations make the travel problems worth what they cost. I do try to make sure that I am at least a whole day at the destination for each flight hour it takes me to get there, thus I tend to book very long cruises or escorted tours, with pre- and post- cruise stays.

    Most of the time my destinations are in Europe or East Asia. Even using a repositioning cruise for part of the travel, such a trip requires a one-way oceanic flight to get there or get back.

    But there is a to visit destinations you might not drive to, using round trip cruises from U.S. or Canadian ports. Hawaii, by itself, is not a destination for me, but I did enjoy the islands from a two week round trip cruise from the West Coast. If you have a lot of time, you can even do a 50 day round trip out of San Diego that visits most of the South Pacific. Several cruise lines offer round trips to Pacific ports in Mexico, Central America, and South America from West Coast ports. Most Alaska cruise visitors tend to book a one-way land and sea tour, forcing them to fly, but you can book round trips. Of course with a RV, you can drive to Alaska.

    There are round trip cruises as far as Antarctica from southern or Gulf ports, although most go only as far as Caribbean islands or Caribbean ports in Mexico, Central and South America. From Atlantic ports you tend to get round trips to Bermuda, the Bahamas, Canadian Maritimes.
  • down_home's avatar
    down_home
    Explorer II
    Jun 02, 2015
    Deregulation, Unnecessary Regulations, and this is what we have along with TSA.
    Travelers were not clamoring for deregulation. In fact everyone was happy but convinced deregulation would make traveling so much better.
    It did for the Investors. No need to state or restate what everyone experiences now.
  • poppin_fresh's avatar
    poppin_fresh
    Explorer
    Jun 02, 2015
    Don't believe everything you read.

    The reason air travel is so inconvenient these days is due to consolidation. Less choices and less competition means flights are more crowded, less staffed and with less overall service. The industry figured out how to go from losing money to making it hand over fist and there is no incentive to go back.
  • lbrjet's avatar
    lbrjet
    Explorer
    Jun 02, 2015
    We are in Hawaii right now and flew Hawaiin Airlines direct from Phoenix. Best flight I ever had and I had to fly a lot during my working years. Booked direct through them and paid 378 bucks for roundtrip tickets.

    American and US Airways are now the same airline.

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