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Fresh out of the Lufthansa First Class lounge at Frankfurt’s Terminal B, we headed around the corner to board the flight we’d been looking forward to the most: Thai Airways Royal First on their new Airbus A380-800.
CHECK-IN
We took the train in from Frankfurt after having spent the night in the city for a ~24 hour layover (read: Bratwursts Galore! Sightseeing around Frankfurt, Germany and Westin Grand Frankfurt Hotel Review – Frankfurt, Germany). The good news is that Frankurt’s airport is a short and very easy 15-20 minute subway ride from the center of town.
Thai Airways actually has 2x daily non-stops to Bangkok: a 9pm/10pm departure on [...]
Even though we had a full night’s layover in Frankfurt (see our adventures in Frankfurt here), Jeffrey casanova’d our way into the First Class Lounge at Frankfurt’s airport, duh. Be forewarned that we had just visited the Lufthansa First Class lounge in New York-JFK and this post will make lots of comparisons: Lufthansa First Class Lounge – New York-JFK Airport.
Frankfurt Airport is one of the three mega-hubs in Europe, with more than 52 million passengers/year, 60% of which are Lufthansa travelers (that’s about 100,000 Lufthansa travelers per day!).
Given the above stats, it’s not surprising that they’re a bit stingy with access to [...]
Booking
I had a conference here and booked a 3 night stay about 4.5 months in advance. I was able to get a corporate rate of $125 per night.
Check-in
I booked a 2 Queen room and, despite there being a large conference for the next few nights and the Coachella music festival starting on the weekend, rooms were still available for for the length of my stay. The agent said that they were able to give me an “upgrade” to a Deluxe golf course view room (Deluxe golf, non-smoking: 2 Queen Beds, 525 sq ft / 49 m²) but, after I asked, said that a suite upgrade wouldn’t be possible due to the high occupancy. I confirmed this on the Starwood app: a [...]
While in the Lufthansa First Class lounge in New York-JFK, we had to scurry and find a place to stay in Frankfurt the following night. Since we had just switched our flights hours before take off, we didn’t have very much notice but were very glad to have an opportunity to visit Frankfurt–a new city!
Booking
Because I have Diamond status with Hyatt and Platinum status with Starwood, I preferred to book a property at either one of those chains. When I jumped online, I found that my only Hyatt option for “Frank…” would be Franklin, Tennessee:
The good news is that Starwood has a few more options:
Oak is, allegedly, a Charleston staple. You won’t hear this from everyone, however.
Oak is part of the Indigo Road group of restaurants, along with the likes of O-Ku, the Macintosh, etc., and, with a track record like that (all of these restaurants, we’ve tried and loved), how could Oak be bad? In fact, Oak was the first restaurant in the Indigo Road, so surely it’s fantastic?
I made the reservation this time, and Oak is never easy to just glide into last minute. About a week out, we had to settle for a reservation close to 9pm. Jeffrey didn’t know where we were headed when we left home and, though I tried to get him not to, he [...]
We made a very last minute, overnight trip to Philadelphia a few weeks ago and needed a place to stay. We were looking for a place in the heart of the city (within walking distance to everything) and decided on Le Méridien Philadelphia.
BOOKING
I made a booking the day before check-in after planning our last minute trip to Philadelphia. When I looked on Monday, literally every hotel in the city was sold out. Nothing at Starwood, Hyatt or Marriott. Worried that our only option was going to be the airport hotels, I kept checking back a few times a day. By Tuesday, some availability opened up at a Hyatt property and I jumped on it using 12,000 Hyatt GP points. [...]
Bereketzade Mh., Galata Kulesi, Beyoğlu, Turkey 18.5 TL (~$8.90 US) Hours: 9am to 8pm everyday
After lunch at another outdoor cafe (…because Charleston has exactly 0 fun outdoor streetside cafes), we walked over the Golden Horn to the more modern side of Istanbul. Trying to get our tourism on, we headed to a must-see site: the Galata Tower.
View of the Galata Tower from across the water
In the context of Istanbul, the Galata Tower is brand spanking new at 650+ years old. This is especially evident in the context of the Hagia Sofia, built in 537, whereas the Galata Tower was completed in [...]
After exploring Paris in the snow, and getting all engaged up, it was time to bid adieu to Paris and hop our short commuter flight from Paris-CDG to Italy’s famed town of Florence-FLR (but be careful, I’ve heard at least half the flights actually land in Firenze, not Florence…yikes!).
CHECK-INAfter having a bit of bad weather, all of the public transit and flights were finally back up and running smoothly. We took the RER from the city out to Charles de Gaulle-Roissy airport. Somewhat annoyingly, they don’t announce the gate or terminal you’ll be leaving from until just a few hours before departure, so we ended up having to wait for a bit in the [...]
