Flying to Venice the EZ way

When we first booked these cruises, we were prepared to pay $675pp for one way air to Venice, and even that was a bargain. We booked that rate using Princess' EZ Air program, where Princess obtains consolidator fares for flights to and from its embarkation and disembarkation cities. We booked Flexible Air, meaning it could be changed or cancelled up to 45 days prior to the flight with no penalty, and didn't have to be paid for until final payment for our cruise, 75 days prior to our embarkation date. As we were very unsure of our plans until mid-summer, it was the ideal way to go.

Like cruise prices, I checked EZ Air fares every subsequent day. It wasn't too long before we were able to change our flights to Air Canada (we thought) for just $350pp. If $675 sounded good, $350 sounded even better, at least until we realized our reservations were actually on Air Canada Rouge. Reading nothing good about them or their planes, I kept an eye open for a better deal, and it eventually came in the form of Lufthansa flights for $371pp. Though the fare bounced like a ball over the next couple of months (up to nearly $900pp!), it never dropped any lower. And that is how we came to find ourselves flying to Venice via Frankfurt. 

Even before we'd actually paid for our flights in July, I was able to go online to Lufthansa's website and pay an extra $35pp for the long haul flights and $11 for the short haul to get exactly the seats we wanted. Assuming we actually get these seats (memories of Air Tahiti Nui still haunt me), it was money well spent to avoid middle seats and galley areas. As soon as the 45 days pre-flight date passed, I received an email from Princess with an additional reservation code which led me to the e-ticket numbers for our fights. And every day since then I've checked to make sure we have 1.) ticketed reservations, and 2.) our assigned seats. So far so good...

We've never flown Lufthansa before. The name means Air (Luft) Guild (hansa) in German, but given its airline code of LH, we're convinced the name really means 'Late, Habitually'. We've checked that too, daily, and never once have the flights departed on time. Sometimes they're just slightly behind schedule and actually have an early arrival but we've seen as much as an 8 hour delay. Luckily, we have a couple of things working in our favor. There are two later connecting flights to Venice the day we arrive, and the Pacific Princess is not sailing from Venice until the next day. Couple those with the fact that Princess will get us to our next port at no extra charge and the next port of Dubrovnik is just a train ride away, and we are not going to stress. That's the benefit of booking everything - flights, insurance and even transfers- through Princess.. 

We woke early today, another attempt to get ourselves used to the time zone in Venice, and our reward was a gorgeous sunrise. I'll admit it was a strange feeling to realize that, after months when these cruises with the biggest thing on our radar, in 24 hours we would actually be IN VENICE!!  We enjoyed breakfast (the last of the Fage Greek yogurt, cereal and almond milk and OJ that was left at home, carried in shopping bags to the hotel, and coffee) as we watched the sunrise. Next up was another (very brief) workout and hot tub visit, willing our muscles to cooperate with the 12 hours of sitting that lie ahead. It was well worth the damp swimsuits we packed in Ziplock bags to do that!

First thing this morning I had checked to see if the inbound flight from Frankfurt was on time. It wasn't, and was an hour late. That is the same aircraft that would be serviced and turn around for our flight to Frankfurt. Sure enough, while we were in the gym, we received text messages that our flight was delayed also. We're not yet concerned...these eastbound flights seem to make up a lot of time in the air. 

 ABC- Always Be Charging- and we kept our iDevices and earbuds charged to 100% but needed to use both of our 10-foot charging cords AND the extension cord we always pack in our carry on luggage to reach from the wall outlet to the bed where we were sitting. For such a new and large hotel room, the outlets were surprisingly sparse, and there were no charging ports at all. 

After lunch at the hotel, and final showers, we left our checked bags at the Lufthansa counter (where they made no mention of the extra $100 we owed. Go Lufthansa!!). They also didn't weigh our carry ons (ditto), which was a good thing. They were both hovering around the 18 pound limit. With beverages still on hand from our refrigerator st home, we made ourselves comfortable and continued to ABC. 

In addition to checking Lufthansa.com every day to ensure we still had our selected seats, I checked that our Global Entry (Known Traveler Number) was still in our reservation. We have quickly become very spoiled by Global Entry, bypassing long security lines and leaving our shoes on and our Ziploc bag filled with 3 ounces of liquids in our carry ons. I was grateful yesterday, when doing our online check in for our flights, to see that not only were our selected seats on our boarding passes, but our TSA Pre-check was, too. We had seen the lines for TSA security at the airport last night when we went back over for dinner. There is no doubt that these programs (TSA Pre-Check and Global Entry, which includes TSA Pre-Check), are worth every penny they cost. 

I think I will wrap this up for now. If anything blogworthy occurs, I'll be back to report it. Otherwise, ciao for now!