We just got back from a 2 week trip to Europe- apologies if there've been posts I missed (I don't believe so). This post is mostly just a quick rant against United Airlines/an attempt to do my small part against a shiit corporation.

We got delayed 24hrs flying out- supposed to fly SD to Dulles, then Vienna. We knew about the delay from SD to Dulles 12 hrs in advance. Obv United didn't do anything, couldn't rebook, etc. From here on out, just assume every time we got boned the app was non-functional/confusing to the point of inducing rage and as a bonus it bombards you with ads/credit card signups while you're tilting. Customer service unreachable, multiple hrs long holds, waiting for chat/text etc that were never answered.

So, we go to Dulles with a 30 min connection time- that's tight. I'm hopeful United can make up some time in the air- obv there's zero chance of that and they LOSE an hr in the air (my personal guess- they know the customers are already pissed, meh F it fly slower and save fuel). I RUN through the cluster F that is Dulles in time to see our Austrian Air flight leaving the gate. The Austrian Air employees literally laughed at me while I collapsed in a chair, completely out of breath and soaked in sweat. If I had any energy I would have raged but I was tapped. When I got my breath back they obv refused to help and sent me back to United for rebooking.

We had bought econ plus seats, the 2 hr long wait to rebook gets us standby on Econ for a full flight. The econ plus seats actually looked pretty good but now we're going full econ (if we have a seat at all). We get a crappy motel and wait for the next day's flight. My 75 yr old mom pays to upgrade to Business (500$ more per person, that was actually way cheaper than I thought). I still don't want to think about if we hadn't been willing to pay to upgrade- would we have gotten a seat at all? They pointedly did not issue us boarding passes or a seat number until we upgraded to Business. Oh, and our bags were trapped at the airport too (United says with Austrian, Austrian says with United, either way there's no way to find the bags). We took it on faith our bags would make it to Vienna with us, and we make it 24 hrs later than planned, as did the bags.

Delayed 6 hrs leaving Europe- again, United knew all this well in advance. Supposed to be Paris- SFO- SD, we would have missed the connection in SFO, I initially booked us a flight from SFO to SD on the SW app, took 2 sec from Europe while waiting for hrs to talk to a physical person from United in the airport. Then, United decides to add a stop in... where else, Dulles, to be able to exchange pilots. So now the delay is bad enough that we can't make the Southwest SFO-SD flight. I cancelled the SW SFO-SD flight (fully refundable), booked SFO to LAX instead, Uber'd home from there. Just being able to do that easily with SW vs shiit United was like a breath of fresh air. 27 hrs transit total.

So yeah. F United. Rant over, and I know I'm nothing, but if the only way I can get back at them is to reduce the amount of money they see then so be it. I encourage you all to do the same.

I'm just going to say I agree with Leon. F United. And I'm 5 years (damn, 7 now) past my United trauma.

Sorry to hear about the shitty travel experience, leon. If it suits you (even though it's not what this thread is about), I'd be interested in hearing about the trip.

Obviously it sucks for you and I am not saying United is great, but they did refund me when they cancelled and rebooked my flight. They also gave me flight credit for the full amount on top of the refund. They have a ton of options out of EWR, so I need to use them more than I'd like.

Wow- shocked. Good for you!

The flight was cancelled more than a month out. When they cancelled flights the current flights were cheaper than when I originally booked. I received a bit of resistance from the first employee, but the manager instantly refunded me (as they have to when they cancel a flight). I know United isn't liked by many, but I fly at least once a year to Vegas and have never had a problem. I also fly direct, so my experience is very much not like yours.

Having flight/hotel/travel problems on vacation really sucks. I know it changes trips that are supposed to be exciting, relaxing, etc.

For sure- zero gambling content ahead and no pics- my wife took all the photos and when I'm not doing a Vegas TR I actually prefer to just live in the moment rather than trying to document everything in pics/videos.

As I may have mentioned, my wife is dual French/American as are my kids. She grew up in Paris and my MIL still lives there, so that's like home base in Europe for us. My wife and kids went for 3 weeks, they hit London, Vienna, Paris. I could only join for 2 and went with my mom for Vienna and Paris. From this point, I'll just mention things I found interesting/other people may find helpful rather than trying to describe everything top to bottom and not do the cities justice.

Vienna

We stayed for 6 days (5 for me since I lost 24hrs trying to get there). Vienna is an awesome city to visit, small enough that a week will let you see lots of things, most people speak English, etc. If you're going for the first time, I'd recommend staying in InnerStadt which is central to 90% of the tourist attractions etc. This was our first time, but I made the mistake of booking a hotel outside of InnerStadt. It was only a mile away and I figured we'd be walking a lot and I know the public transportation is awesome, but I didn't take into account that we'd be traveling with 75 and 85 yr old women, and how much of a drag it would be to walk back at the end of each day. We used public transport for the vast majority of our outings, but even that can be a pain in ass depending on the circumstance (eg, we get out of dinner around 11pm and just want to head back to the hotel).

Music lover/pianist that I am, I was really looking forward to Vienna. We hit the Music museum which honestly is no big deal, but it's good for an hr or so if you want to dive a little deeper into music history/Viennese music history. I booked a practice studio twice while I was there- easily findable online and I was shocked that "anyone" could just for a few euros bang away on a grand piano if they wanted. There are a ton of dinner/concert packages available- if you go that route, I'd look around and try and find a concert that you actually care about. I booked one with Mozart/Strauss and just stopped reading, but it ended up being a little boring. I wish I did my homework more and found artists that I'm much more into (eg, Beethoven, Chopin), but it was a package museum tour, dinner, concert... what can you do?

Transport- already mentioned, but the public transport system is the nuts and easy to use. Highly recommend. Plus, not once was my pass checked or scanned- I honestly think my party of 6 could have gotten around for free the entire week if we wanted to scam the system.

Food- decent... not great. We tried as much as we could to avoid touristy stuff so let's start there. We ate street food and classic Viennese cuisine as much as we could (eg, Schnitzel, Sachertorte, etc) and booked a couple Michelin or near Michelin restaurants as well. The desserts were good but not overly so. We even went to one of two places that claim they invented the Sachertorte (so much so that they've had a lawsuit over who invented it)- it was good but nothing to die for. Nothing was ever bad, I guess I was just expecting to be overwhelmed and wasn't. Any decent restaurant on the Strip is going to be just as good or better. The street food was as good as street food can be, if I go back I'll mostly stick to that and just eat things that are hard to find in the US.

Other stuff- general lack of A/C everywhere. Plan accordingly. One can probably see most of the Innerstadt stuff in 3 days, plenty of time to see other things Vienna has to offer (which we basically didn't).

Paris

I know Paris much better and have probably been about 20 times in my life. When we go, it's more like visiting a second home or in the case of my wife, outright coming home. We got an airbnb right by my MIL, my mom stayed with my MIL. Because we've been so many times, we found ourselves actually cancelling or modifying plans much more so than making them. There's always next time, we don't feel like XYZ this time, etc. Very untouristy. That said, here are some things I can offer-

We walked a ton and used public transport a ton too. Paris might be the most walkable city in the world IMO. It's still pretty small, subway system is the nuts, and every block there's some amazing attraction/something 300 yrs older than the US. If you're visiting, you can probably stay anywhere in the city and you'll be fine.

We were going to go to the Army Museum (for probably the 5th time, my youngest is a huge military buff), but for some reason day of he wasn't up for it. I'd definitely go if you've never been. Walking from the Arc de triomphe to Trocadero or beyond is easily doable. You basically can't go wrong, honestly. There's so much to see and do that I would recommend at least a week for anyone who hasn't been. I also got a piano session in at a Bechstein gallery (rooms for rent just like in Vienna).

Food- eat everything. Do NOT get anything on the Champs Elysees- you will over pay and it will be bad. Other than that, basically eat everything. OK, don't bother getting Chinese (I have yet to see real Chinese in Paris, it's all Vietnamese masquerading as Chinese) or Indian (will be bland, spiceless). But street food/Mid East/everything else? Go nuts. It's France after all. The real challenge will be not being ******edly full for the entire trip.

Gambling- ok, I thought there wouldn't be any gambling but I just thought about this. I doubt anyone reading this will need the advice but here goes anyways. When you go Sacre-Coeur/Montmartre (think the steps in John Wick 4 at the end of the movie that he has to fight his way up), and really any major touristy area, there are so many scam artists out and about. The 3 cup/3 card monte game, as an example. I'm always shocked to see how many people will stand around and watch/play as if they have a chance to win. Even the onlookers are basically setting themselves up to be pickpocketed. Paris' pickpocket game is strong, I gotta say that. People coming up to you with a petition to sign? That's a scam- they're distracting you while someone else picks your pocket. Gang of gypsies on the subway? Hold the F on to your belongings. It's sad but I guess expected- Paris is such a huge tourist destination from all over the world that at any given time there's a huge collection of fish. I love the city and wish it didn't deserve that rep, but it's real- if you don't watch yourself in the city you could easily get F'd.

Those are my thoughts in no particular order. Oh, WTF is up with French people getting up from their seats the INSTANT an airplane lands? I don't think I've ever been on a plane landing in Paris where that hasn't happened. Cue flight attendant yelling, etc- makes no difference. To be fair, my own people seem to do this an awful lot too- I cringe whenever some rude-ass Chinese does some stereotypical rude-ass Chinese thing... dude, you're giving the rest of us a bad name.

That's a nice write-up, thank you.

+1

I also liked the Costa Rica writeup (I think it was CR), so please include any travel that you feel is post-worthy.

can't remember the last time i flew united, but i know never overseas.
we've had multiple successes on direct delta flights between pdx and amsterdam.
reduces variance and once in europe transportation becomes much more convenient.

US carriers suck so bad.

I flew them to and from Vegas from Sydney via SF last month

Economy long haul but I paid for bulkhead seats so I had a ton more room.

The seats were decent and the tv screens were best in class.

The service is terrible though and the food is the worst I’ve ever experienced. Now, granted I often fly business class when I go long haul but the economy food was so much worse than Qantas and Emirates who I flew with last year to the UK

Worst though was that Like Leon, my flight from Vegas to SF got delayed. I got a text telling me this 6 hours before the flight that the flight would be delayed 5 hours and I’d miss my connection. Impossible to get anyone on the phone, the app was crashed and the live chat told me to email them! I had to cab to the airport 4 hours earlier than the scheduled flight (and 9 hours ahead of when the delayed flight was leaving) to get to talk to someone.

To their credit I got a very helpful ground staff member who got me on a flight from another carrier and I made my connection

A couple decent United stories to try to balance (thought I have to agree with Mojo).

Went to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day. In 2020. Yes, that one. United came through to get me home when Orbitz/British Airways not only failed, but failed to make an effort.

Going up north around the time my Mom died (so wintertime), flight got cancelled from O'Hare to Duluth due to snow/ice. The woman that helped me at the customer service desk was able to get me booked on Delta (I think) through MSP to get up north (while pretty late, still the same day).

This is definitely another related lesson I've learned for good this trip- cost CANNOT be the main priority at all times anymore. We always try and fly as direct as possible, but what this will now mean is a) get the hell out of the country with minimal connections THEN b) connect in Europe, Asia etc instead. If this means we drive to LAX to get a direct international flight, so be it. Domestic connections are the nut low.

And the cost thing- we're flying business whenever we can, even if it's just me and wife. Kids can sit econ. The business seats on Austrian ALMOST made up for all the shiit that happened before.

This is the most annoying part to me. It's impossible to talk to a human to fix the problem unless you wait in line at the airport. It's infuriating when you know there are multiple fixes to a problem that only a person on their end can implement, and if you could only contact someone... obv they purposefully set their customer "service" up this way, makes some non-zero % of people just go away and they don't have to deal with it.

IME, unless I cannot avoid it, I try not to cobble domestic flights together with different airlines. At least if you miss your connection with a single airline they will reroute you, and they will have at least some concern with respect to scheduling with not disrupting connections. When you're on different airlines, you're on your own. I've done it because it was necessary for timing reasons, but I'd never do it to save a little bit of money.

Yes, always same airline/connecting partners unless no other option. Guess that's not going to be United/Star Alliance partners from here on out (unless I book a Star Alliance flight devoid of any United involvement).

You took an Uber from LAX back to your house in SD? Sheesh, what did that cost you? And the driver didnt balk at the distance?

About 300$ with tip. Cheap when you consider there were five of us (vs plane tickets). I doubly confirmed with the driver (once when he accepted the ride request, once in person when he showed up), he had no issues with it.

Haven't been in here in awhile, lot of catching up to do. This thread was still getting me locked out as an attacker, but supposedly they've got it fixed now. We'll see.

Came back because I was thinking about you leon and wondering how you're liking your piano. I stumbled on this guy from another random thread and have been watching his videos all morning. He's probably a well known guy, just not by me. Had this one on in the background and he does some really cool stuff, just jamming. Never seen anyone hold the strings inside the piano to change the sound. Is that common and I've just never seen it?

I probably play 3hrs a day on avg, and scheduled multiple practice sessions while I was on vacation in Europe, does that answer the question?

I'm no expert, but generally you don't see artists mess with the inside of the piano while playing to generate different sounds, mostly bc it's too unwieldy. As if playing with both hands and feet wasn't hard enough haha. I do know there's been some fringe/new wave sound creation with some people trying to create cutting edge unique sounds- they do all sorts of internal mods/messing with the piano in an attempt to generate sounds no one's ever heard before.

Maybe I'd mess around with someone ELSE'S piano one day.

Marknfw, well known attacker, lol.

hah when I went to a Parisian Japanese restaurant the staff were Chinese~

Leon, when's the next trip?

Coming up pretty soon... but not soon enough. You all will be (amongst) the first to know!

Friday night at South Point I watched a guy and his GF put $100 into one of those hundred play machines. They started fighting because he hit max credit and it lit up the whole board. He said he thought he was doing max credits for the bottom line only.

Machine deals him 4 jacks off the rip for like 16k I believe.

God definitely has his favorites.