Two weeks into 3 and how that seems long but is too short

Hi,

Yes I know, I say this every time, but it has been a while since I created a post.

This post will be divided over 3 parts, you're reading part 1 of these 3.

Recently I took my annual vacation. My sons had their summer vacation and of course that means that as a family we had to spend time.
Late last year we bought a little place at the beach in Turkey and my wife and kids spend some time there. Instead of spending the whole summer there. They stayed in our place at the Akbuk'ian beach for about 2 and a half weeks, during which I was working full time in Cairo. No need for me to fly to Holland. Although I have nice neighbors in Almere, I have nice friends in Cairo and a weekend in the Egyptian sun is nice as well.

On a side note, it was Ramadan and this year Ramadan was brutal. Days were long, hot and humid. I tried to fast for a day and decided that being divine-agnostic (that's how Facebook puts it) has its benefits. Nevertheless, the catering at the office was totally geared towards Ramadan, close to not existing is what that means.

We decided to fly to the USA and visits our very close friends in Waltham, MA. It's close to Boston. The week in Boston was preceded by a week in Orlando, FL.
My main reason to go to Orlando was to go to Florida and show the boys alligators in the Everglades on an airboat. The reason we went to Orlando instead of Miami was a matter of logistics. The trip would be Amsterdam, Florida, Boston and finally Amsterdam again and the best schedule was through KLM/Delta airlines. And since I've got KLM gold status and so does my wife we went through the airports smoothly and swiftly.
A couple of days before we went on vacation I arrived in Holland and the next day the family returned from Turkey. 3 days later we went to Orlando.
The journey took close to 13 hours as we had a transfer in Atlanta. No direct flights by any of the Sky Team airlines from Amsterdam to Orlando.
Jay, our oldest, pretty much was done with the whole traveling when we arrived in Atlanta. Fortunately the flight to Orlando from Atlanta took only an hour.
We collected our luggage, 3 suitcases, one filled with presents, and I got the rental car from Dollar. A Ford Taurus, nice car. It's the last time I rent a car from Dollar. "Why?", you ask me? Because their prices on the web are totally misleading. Although in the end not more or less expensive than the competition, the other car rentals prices online were way more accurate. Lesson Learned.
Thanks to my pretty good memory and my Nokia Lumia 800 we were at the hotel without any problems. Well, dusk had set in and I couldn't find the switch for the headights until my wife looked it up in the manual. Nevertheless the driving in the US is kind of different from what you experience in Cairo. The lanes on the roads are as wide if not wider than in Cairo, but the biggest difference is that in the US there is only one car per lane. This is quite refreshing. Of course, in the Netherlands this is the same, but it feels more relaxed in the US.
Our hotel, Wyndham Grand Orlando, was perfect. Not The Atlantic Palm Dubai perfect. But perfect nonetheless. I'm still happy I went for a luxury hotel.
Very friendly staff, swift service and excellent spacy room. The boys slept on bunk-beds and a comfortable bed was set for my wife and myself. All in a single room, but still with enough privacy as needed for a family of 4.
The little cafe in the hotel lobby was actually a Starbucks affiliate, so Starbucks espresso. Very nice indeed. The restaurant in the lower lobby (LL on the elevator button) was very pleasant and very much tailored for kids. And OMG, the Man vs. Dog hotdog at the pool side. Gosh, that was some mean hotdog. Foot long with cheese and jalapeno's and sauerkraut and all kinds of other stuff. I finished it twice.

I won't bore you to sleep with every little detail of the hotel.

This first week of our vacation in the US was spend between Disney parks and the hotel pool. The swimming pool and the pool table in the rec.room. De kids loved it, especially Jay. He'd rather play pool than go swimming. The Disney parks were very nice and big. But admission was a matter of big bucks as well. Would I say "but worth every penny"? Nope. I think they were over priced. But we had fun.... Until I got my AmEx bill obviously.
The highlight of this week in Orlando was actually not the Disney parks and we enjoyed it our last day in Florida. It was the airboat ride we did at Wild Florida in Kenansville, about 45 min drive from Orlando. We booked a private tour, meaning just the 4 of us and our guide were on the boat for an hour. My reasoning behind paying a little more was that
whenever the guide explained something we could translate it for the kids. Without other tourists that didn't want to wait for translations and go on with the tour. It was awesome, on the boat across the swamps of the Northern Everglades. Looking for gators and we saw some. Not the big ones, but small ones, still 1.2 m (4 ft) nonetheless. And we saw an American Bold Eagle. In hindsight we should've done the night tour, that's when the big gators are hunting. But since it was our last day...
We did see the big ones though. There was a small park as well, very nice setup, with a large pont that had like 6 big gators, by big I mean about 4-5 m (12-15 ft) long.
Whenever you go to Orlando, this is what you must do. Forget about all the parks. They're fun, but you should go to Wild Florida.
The trip to Wild Florida marked our last day in Florida. Next day we flew to Boston to visit our friends in Waltham. That I'll cover in my next post. I thank you for getting this far.

Enjoy the remainder of your day or good night,

Iwan

Getting in and out...

Well, this is kind of odd since "getting in and out" implies quickness. Okay rewinding my thoughts a bit. This post is supposed to be about flying between Amsterdam and Cairo. My flights are always booked Amsterdam - Cairo - Amsterdam, it's something that has to do with the first ticket I bought.
But I stay relatively long in Cairo compared to my stays in Holland. I stay 11 days in Cairo to every 3 days in Holland, although ever since the Revolution in Egypt it's 10 to 4 (of which I spend 2 in transit).

Basically in terms of airliners there are 2 options: Egypt Air and KLM/Air France (or is it Air France/KLM?). Although KLM and Air France are really 2 separate airliners. They really have nothing in common. So I have 3 options then.

Egypt Air is, just like KLM, offering direct flights, Air France offers a flight with a transfer in Paris.

At the time I started my job in Cairo I chose KLM over the others because they had red eyes (night flights) which would leave on Sunday night 21:00 from Amsterdam, which would allow me to spend the whole day with the family. And I would arrive at 08:00 in the morning in Amsterdam again so I
could spend the whole Friday with the family as well. 3 days with wife and sons.

But ever since the revolution in Egypt on January 25th, there is a curfew which to me means that the red-eyes are no longer an option. Understandably when you're not allowed to be outside, KLM doesn't fly at those times. So the flights moved from 9 PM on Sunday to 8 AM the next morning and from 4 AM Friday to 3 PM Friday. This therefore means that the Friday I could spend with my family is now spend in transit and I either have to sacrifice another vacation day to be the whole of Sunday with the family and fly on Monday or I sacrifice a day with the family and fly back on Sunday morning.

Alternatives are Air France, which has a better flight on Friday, they leave in the morning meaning that I get to my home in Holland Friday late afternoon, but they also fly on Monday morning, so I still loose that vacation day. Until now that Monday hasn't really been a big problem due to the many public and bank holidays in Egypt in the first half of the year and those are pretty much always around the weekend. At least this year, but from now on, that is no longer the case.
Egypt air has the better flights as they fly Friday during the day and I would arrive at my home around 4 PM and fly back to Cairo on the Sunday around 4 PM. Not as perfect as KLM's flights used to be, but not too bad either. Down side, the Egypt Air flights don't add to my KLM status since Egypt Air is Star Alliance and not Sky Team which is the alliance KLM belongs to.





Anyhow, apart from the flights I still prefer KLM over both Egypt Air and Air France as well. In general I think that the cabin crew of KLM is very friendly and not that formal. Always greeted by a smile and a friendly face, something that doesn't come natural with the Air France flight attendants. The Egypt Air crew is very Egyptian. Which is not a bad thing at all. They're very helpful, as pretty much every Egyptian I've met so far. But they're also very business, or let me put it this way. They won't stop for a second to do a little chitchat. I've flown a couple of times with Egypt Air and I've never seen them display a friendly interest in the people they're serving during the flight. Same goes for Air France by the way, all business.
But more importantly for a 4-5 hour flight is the inflight entertainment system, which lacks on the flight to Amsterdam in Egypt Air flights. At least in economy. And recently the same goes for the KLM flights as well. So I thank Steve and Jeff for the iPod and the Kindle to get me through these hours.
There's a good thing about the Air France flights, although you're longer in transit, you're also flying double the flights that add to your status. KLM is a direct flight, so you're adding two flights to your total, Air France is thourgh Paris, with a real transfer, thus you're adding 4 flights. And better status means better chance to get upgraded to business when relevant.

I've become quite a routine traveler, at least on the flights between Amsterdam and Cairo. I'm lucky to have KLM's gold status so I get to hang out in the KLM Crown Lounge and the Air France business lounge when flying either one of them. And I get priority boarding and priority this and that.
But on top of that, I applied for Privium, a service at Amsterdam Schiphol airport (and supposedly also at New York airports), which gets me through immigration by iris-scan. No long lines with people from all over the world, some with questionable visa, some with other challenges. This is a real time saver. Especially coming back to Holland because I get to the train pretty fast and therefore I'm home as soon as possible. Same goes for the chip-card with the Dutch public transportation system. No more tickets to be bought, with long lines in front of the ticket machines.

Well I now realize that this might be a boring post, but thanks for reading until here any way. Highly appreciated. Next time I'll try to make it more interesting.

Iwan