ski-air travel stories

jamesdeluxe said:
A bit apples and oranges but in a similar vein (something that annoys me and thousands of other people every day), Penn Station NYC posts train times only ten minutes before departure. Everyone is staring at the display signs in hoards waiting for their track assignment and when it goes up, there's often a stampede effect. It's one thing for commuters, who are usually only carrying backpacks or briefcases, but can be challenging for people on long-distance Amtrak trains schlepping suitcases.

As I understand it, the reason is that Penn Station isn't a terminus like Grand Central -- whose 67 tracks provide enough capacity to allow passengers to calmly board a train parked in the station well before departure (like in Europe) -- but a through-station where incoming and outgoing trains need to be constantly maneuvered across only 21 tracks. In any case, it's unfortunate for Penn Station riders because train travel is otherwise so much more civilized and pleasant than planes.
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My wife and I ran into a somewhat similar problem when we went to France in late October. We flew into Paris and then were scheduled to take the high speed train, the TGV, from Paris (Charles De Gaulle Airport) to Avignon. We discovered once we landed in Paris that they don't post the track assignment for the various trains until about 20 minutes before departure. It didn't really bother me (partly because there are, I believe, only 4 departing tracks from that train station at the airport) but my wife was somewhat freaked out and made me stand in front of the large departure display screen until the track assignment was posted. There was, then, a somewhat large crowd of travelers, many with multiple suitcases (like us), rushing to get to the correct track to catch the train.
 
berkshireskier said:
We discovered once we landed in Paris that they don't post the track assignment for the various trains until about 20 minutes before departure
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Right, that's the RER commuter train. Interesting about your wife's concern, as 20 minutes seems like plenty of time to get on a train (as opposed to 10).
 
Sbooker said:
I’m keen to know about your thoughts on the area as we will be there late March.
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Yes, Booker, a beautiful area of France. Admittedly, my wife and I and our daughter and her boyfriend were there for only a few days. We were attending my wife's niece's wedding about 15 miles northwest of Avignon (at an old winery) and it was one of those 3-day, "destination weddings", so we didn't have a huge amount of extra time to sightsee. But Avignon is a beautiful, medieval city - definitely worth spending a day or part of day exploring and there are several other similar small cities or towns in that area that you should visit. Many wineries and vineyards too - I understand the area is well known for its rose wines (not really my favorite). I'm not sure what the weather is like in March but I assume fairly mild - it's quite far south in France.
We flew to Paris and then took the high-speed train to Avignon - about a 3.5 hour train trip and very nice scenery for most of the train ride.
Are you planning to also ski on the trip? I know it is not that far to the southern French Alps from that area.
 
It is the same religious festival. It has been going on a few weeks. Wilderness Travel ran another trip to it earlier in January. We are spectators not participants so not too worried about it. It occurs only every 12 years; thus Liz' interest in the tour. Today we found out that the current one extra special in conjunction with a celestial alignment, occurring once every 144 years, so that 100 million number is not that surprising.
 
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berkshireskier said:
Yes, Booker, a beautiful area of France. Admittedly, my wife and I and our daughter and her boyfriend were there for only a few days. We were attending my wife's niece's wedding about 15 miles northwest of Avignon (at an old winery) and it was one of those 3-day, "destination weddings", so we didn't have a huge amount of extra time to sightsee. But Avignon is a beautiful, medieval city - definitely worth spending a day or part of day exploring and there are several other similar small cities or towns in that area that you should visit. Many wineries and vineyards too - I understand the area is well known for its rose wines (not really my favorite). I'm not sure what the weather is like in March but I assume fairly mild - it's quite far south in France.
We flew to Paris and then took the high-speed train to Avignon - about a 3.5 hour train trip and very nice scenery for most of the train ride.
Are you planning to also ski on the trip? I know it is not that far to the southern French Alps from that area.
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We’ll ski in Tignes for a week before taking the train to Lyon and then driving to Avignon. What we do after that is up in the air depending on conditions and how my wife’s troublesome knee is going but we plan to fly out of Amsterdam so we can catch the Tulip Festival.
 
Sbooker said:
We’ll ski in Tignes for a week before taking the train to Lyon and then driving to Avignon. What we do after that is up in the air depending on conditions and how my wife’s troublesome knee is going but we plan to fly out of Amsterdam so we can catch the Tulip Festival.
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Sounds like a nice trip! Hope the snow is good in Tignes. How long will you be in Provence? How do you fly back to Australia? I assume you have to connect somewhere?
 
Sbooker said:
We’ll ski in Tignes for a week before taking the train to Lyon and then driving to Avignon
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I flew in/out of Lyon in 2006 for skiing (LA GRave, 3 Vallees, Val d'Isere/Tignes). Spent one day in Provence via TGV. It took an hour to get to Avignon, then did lunch in Aix-in-Provence, finished in Arles (local trains), and then returned to Lyon via TGV. Seeing three places was hectic, but 2 Provence stops would be easy. No car on that trip.
 
berkshireskier said:
Sounds like a nice trip! Hope the snow is good in Tignes. How long will you be in Provence? How do you fly back to Australia? I assume you have to connect somewhere?
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As the base is already established at very least we should be able to ski nice corn at some point at that time of year but I will be hoping for powder like I got last April in Tignes.
Probably 4 or 5 days in Provence depending on weather. It’s low season and lodging is abundant so we’ll do it on the fly. We connect in Singapore on the way home.
 
It took 2.5 hours to get out of Delhi airport upon arrival. The skis were not at the oversize delivery area, must have flummoxed baggage handlers who had never seen such items. We weren’t that anxious because the AirTags showed them in the vicinity about 0.2km away in opposite directions from baggage claim. Liz went to the claim desk and they were eventually rounded up. Oh, the handle by which I tow the ski bag had been ripped off completely. :icon-evil:This is only the second season for that bag.
 
Tony Crocker said:
Oh, the handle by which I tow the ski bag had been ripped off completely. :icon-evil:This is only the second season for that bag.
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Sounds like a bag damage claim for/to the airline. Annoying in the meantime.

I still have one more purchase to make from my recent bag fiasco. I haven't added up all the receipts yet but certainly over $2K including my brand new bag heading home from it's first ever trip.
 
EMSC said:
Sounds like a bag damage claim for/to the airline.
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When submitting a reimbursement claim, do you need to produce a "before" photo to prove that it was damaged on that flight?

Tony Crocker said:
the handle by which I tow the ski bag had been ripped off completely
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I'd love to to see a video that shows how something like this happens and who or what ripped the handle off. Reminds me of the old American Tourister commercials. A great touch at the end when a lone shoe is thrown out.

 
jamesdeluxe said:
When submitting a reimbursement claim, do you need to produce a "before" photo to prove that it was damaged on that flight?
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Since I've never had to do it I'm not sure, but it's clear as I go through my process that claims for damaged baggage is one of the things that they deal with. I'd say one of the keys is to immediately complain to the airline baggage folks at the point of pick up. Officially not required to do so, but I'd bet a lot that that puts your claim at the top of the list of believable claims that they see.
 
Bag lost Jan 13th, bag found February 11th.

Expected delivery by UPS in 1-2 days. Apparently someone somewhere must have accidentally ripped off (in Seattle handling somewhere) and then reattached the wrong tags to two different bags as they said it had the wrong tags on it and it was sent to somewhere else that day. 'Found' by opening it up at a lost bag warehouse and confirming matches to the contents list I had given them.

So now I will have double the stuff... mostly for skiing; as I had finished replacing it all about 10-12 days ago.
 
Put an AirTag in my ski bag for a Southwest trip to ABQ in early February. Southwest now has luggage tracking. However, it's based on hand scanning. It didn't get scanned when being loaded onto my connecting flight. Since I could see that it was unloaded at that airport and than it was close to my location after boarding, wasn't worried. Sure enough, it showed up on at the destination airport. It was scanned properly there.

I've watched my ski bag get scanned as it was being loaded into the plane a couple times. The new info shows up within a minute or two.
 
We have traveled a lot but no question India wins the award for most bureaucratic airports in the world.

I’ve lost count how many times you have to show a boarding pass. You must show ID and ticket with your name on it on the sidewalk before entering the terminal and for domestic flights checked baggage is X-rayed at the curb and then zip-tied. Today in Delhi I was flying Uzbek Airways and my printout did not display my name. I did have an email receipt on my phone with name and ticket number but not flight info. It took at least 10 minutes for the security guys with poor English to understand that printout and email showed the same ticket number.

Once inside at the Uzbek ticket counter they tried to change an extra $100 for the oversize ski bags. I had prepaid $67.50 for each of two extra checked bags. Liz had to go into full Karen mode to get a supervisor with decent English to finally let us go through without the surcharge.

Boarding passes are stamped at emigration, entry to security and by the pat down officers after the scanners. Both of our boot bags were flagged for extra scrutiny and Liz’ was completely taken apart due to the large DSLR camera in there. From my boot bag they removed one ski boot and the avalanche transceivers and sent it all back for separate rescans. The transceivers were in the boot bag because twice I had to dig them out of my checked luggage after the curbside X-rays. Oh, we also made the error of putting a roll of duct tape in my boot bag, so that was confiscated.

Boarding passes were scanned again at the gate and upon entering the plane. Liz was detained at the gate for 10 minutes because her boarding pass did not have enough prior blue stamps. A security guy in full camo gear was summoned to inspect her passport and boarding pass to let her through.

Two hours total from curbside to gate today.

Yesterday we left the Kumbh Mela festival at 6am for a 3pm flight at the airport 25km away. About 20 minutes along we were gridlocked and our guide Indrajit got out of the car and directed traffic personally for another 20 minutes to shake it loose. We got to the airport 8am but were not allowed inside until 11am though Indrajit got that backed up to 10am.

It is fortunate we had competent tour guides because India traffic is on a completely different level. I would never consider our usual rental car strategy there.
 
Interested to hear about your trip. I'm sure that the country is fascinating on many levels; however, I've heard this from too many people:
Tony Crocker said:
We have traveled a lot but no question India wins the award for [fill in the blank with unpleasant experience(s)]
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I'm still traumatised from my (LHR to EWR) Air India flight eight years ago.
 
jamesdeluxe said:
. I'm sure that the country is fascinating on many levels;
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Yes it is, but James is the last person to whom I would recommend it due to his crowd phobia.

In fairness only one of our 8 stops was in a rural environment. And the current festival season raises the level of foot traffic to the max in Varanasi as well as at the Kumbh Mela.

Hotels were 5-star when we had breaks from sightseeing and included 2 massages and 2 yoga classes.
 
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