Doha, Dubai, Israel, Egypt and Jordan.

[Pushka]

And Thankyou everyone for your input here re Peking. I did some later googling and wondered why it was even offered. I know RJ aren’t the best but it seems better than the other option.

 

[Pushka]

Should be ok unless your flight is delayed. My mother recently had to do this going PER-DOH-LCA-TLV in Y. It was tight, but do-able. Any reason this wouldn't be as one PNR though? I've got the same as my mother and managed it on one PNR making LCA a breeze.

@Daver6. Reprising my question as the booking window nears for possibly better flights out of Adelaide on EK on Christmas night and which will get us into Tel Aviv the night before the trip starts.

So, it seems that Aegean Air flights aren’t open until maybe mid year and I can’t risk waiting that long before booking an award flight into Larnaca. And I can’t seem to get the multi flight to pick up Larnaca into Tel Aviv so cant do the same PNR.

So likely I’ll have to go through immigration, luggage then recheck. How crazy is Larnaca airport for immigration? And big guess, assuming all flights on time, what is the absolute minimum time to allow between flights. And do you see any other issues?

The Aegean flight, if schedules stay stable allows me a gap of 2.5 hours arrival - departure. The El Al flight gives us several hours. So I’m thinking it will have to be the El Al flight. Is the Larnaca airport gruesome?

 

[Daver6]

Personally I went through Larnaca once and didn't have to re-check or clear immigration so can't comment on that. From memory it was a smallish airport and rather pleasant. I had no lounge access there and was pleasant enough to sit by the gate. In fact, I don't recall any negative thoughts about the airport at all.

I'll give my mum a call a little later to clarify her experience and timing as she has to collect and re-check. I do recall her saying it was a little tight, but I think there may have been other factors at play. So let me get the facts and I'll respond back.

 

[Pushka]

Personally I went through Larnaca once and didn't have to re-check or clear immigration so can't comment on that. From memory it was a smallish airport and rather pleasant. I had no lounge access there and was pleasant enough to sit by the gate. In fact, I don't recall any negative thoughts about the airport at all.

I'll give my mum a call a little later to clarify her experience and timing as she has to collect and re-check. I do recall her saying it was a little tight, but I think there may have been other factors at play. So let me get the facts and I'll respond back.

Thankyou. That’s very nice of you.

 

[Daver6]

Ok, spoke to my mum. She had 90 minutes between flights, but said her flight did arrive a bit early into Larnaca (cant recall exactly, but how early could a short flight from Doha really be?). She said there were queues to pick up backs, immigration etc and landed up going to the front of the queues to plead her case.

I don't know if you're in J and whether that would make much difference in terms of priority queues. I guess checking in and getting your bags you'd expect to be quicker.

So it sounds like 2.5 hours would be plenty of time, but could be stressful.

You mentioned issues with the booking process not picking up the Aegean flight. Perhaps worth calling and seeing if they can do it? Would really make life so much easier.

 

[Pushka]

Ok, spoke to my mum. She had 90 minutes between flights, but said her flight did arrive a bit early into Larnaca (cant recall exactly, but how early could a short flight from Doha really be?). She said there were queues to pick up backs, immigration etc and landed up going to the front of the queues to plead her case.

I don't know if you're in J and whether that would make much difference in terms of priority queues. I guess checking in and getting your bags you'd expect to be quicker.

So it sounds like 2.5 hours would be plenty of time, but could be stressful.

You mentioned issues with the booking process not picking up the Aegean flight. Perhaps worth calling and seeing if they can do it? Would really make life so much easier.

Agree but looking at Aegean airlines they have only released flights up to 26 October. At worst I’ll call when they are available and see if I can work something out.

 

[OATEK]

The practice Aegean has of releasing flights in blocks, instead of adding progressively, is certainly a pain when you want to book at the limits of scheduling around award availability. I am watching with interest to see how you go.

 

[Pushka]

The practice Aegean has of releasing flights in blocks, instead of adding progressively, is certainly a pain when you want to book at the limits of scheduling around award availability. I am watching with interest to see how you go.

I think I might not bother. If I can get EK into Amman then I’ll go that route. It’s impossible even to tag in flights that have been released as a trial run. I need to sort out return flights soon, but that’s from Amman and not Tel Aviv. I’d like to get everything on the same PNR as fog can be an issue that time of the year.

 

[Pushka]

Wow I just lucked out. I had enough points to do return booking when they are released and have been tracking EK award seats on Qantas website just in case a better option of getting to Tel Aviv appeared on EK. We depart Christmas Day. And I wanted as late as possible for family reasons. EK and QR gave me that best option but QR awards were never released. So waiting for EK release much later. I knew 24th was bookable so thought they might appear sometime later today. Checked at 9.30am. Nada. Wanted to double check I had enough points so logged in again at 10.35am thinking I’d check points for 24th so clicked on 24th. Next screen then did a double take - 25th J award appeared! Dashed back to the next screen and sure enough, direct out of Adelaide at 10.30 pm and through to Dubai, 6 hour wait in Dubai then RJ on to Amman, a wait in Amman and then RJ on to Tel Aviv arriving at 10.30pm. So we should arrive at midnight, get some sleep then ready to start the tour the next morning. Perfect.

New 777-200 on Adelaide to Dubai on flat beds for 13 hour flight.

Now I will change our booking over to the way back which will be simpler - Amman - Doha/Dubai - Adelaide.

The availability of these Award flights broke a few understandings for EK award release. 1. They are much earlier than the stated 330 days out, more like 340 days out. 2. They appeared at the release time of 10am Brisbane time which is the time usually just for Qantas award release times. 3. They were released before revenue seats for this date.

 

[Pushka]

And now ticketed!

 

[Pushka]

And now ticketed!

I will make one more change. When EK flights are released into Amman in a couple of days I will change to EK. Gives us glorious time for refresh in the F EK lounge. Massage. Shower. Indulgence.

 

[Pushka]

So, have now finalised everything and thought I should close off.

Christmas night, flying EK from Adelaide on the refurbed 777-200. No F class but the newer J class fitting. Arrive into DXB then on RJ 8 hours later into Amman then another few hours wait then into Israel arriving Tel Aviv around 11.30pm on 26th. A Viking rep will meet us at the airport and take us to King David Hotel. Our tour starts at 9am next morning.

Viking then gets us to Cairo four days later. We are on their Egypt tour, visiting Giza, then the Egyptian Museum over the next few days. Then a flight with Viking on Egypt Air to Luxor to start the cruise returning to Cairo. Then a flight to Jordan completing that tour, again escorted by Viking.

We leave Amman on Qatar in J into Doha, a few hours wait then across to Singapore on Qatar J. A night sleep in Singapore then on Qantas A380 to Melbourne in F.

All done with Award points but needed to buy some points to finalise the booking.

The only issue I see will be in getting RJ boarding passes in Adelaide. I expect we will need to do some pfaffing around in Dubai to get that sorted out and ensure luggage gets to Tel Aviv with us. We might even exit immigration, collect bags then re book into RJ. Sadly we won’t get F lounge access in DXB but we do have access to a lounge for RJ. And we do have 8 hours to fill in and no interest this trip in going into Dubai. It’ll be too early anyway, arriving around 5am. This trip is on the same PNR.

 

[VPS]

Excellent that it's all come together. I flew Egypt Air out to Abu Simbel on an old Fokker Friendship - that was interesting!!

You'll love Egypt. One of my enduring memories is sitting at the back of the boat sipping a gin and tonic and watching the sunset over the Nile.

 

[Pushka]

Excellent that it's all come together. I flew Egypt Air out to Abu Simbel on an old Fokker Friendship - that was interesting!!

You'll love Egypt. One of my enduring memories is sitting at the back of the boat sipping a gin and tonic and watching the sunset over the Nile.

I think Abu Simbel is an optional excursion out of Aswan. On Egypt Air.

 

[JohnM]

I think Abu Simbel is an optional excursion out of Aswan. On Egypt Air.

Correct - on a B737.

 

[pagingjoan]

I think Abu Simbel is an optional excursion out of Aswan. On Egypt Air.

Highly recommend Abu Simbel. It was a highlight of our recent ten days in Egypt.

Doing it as a “day trip” gives you a very limited time on the ground there, which is way better than not seeing it at all, but - if the opportunity presents - a slightly longer stay would be well worth the effort, in my opinion.

The information we were given, in advance, was that overnight stays were not possible. However, once we landed, we found that not to be the case. It was too late for us to change our plans, at that stage, of course, so we just made the most of the time available.

Although we had only a couple of hours before our return flight, we chanced upon an excellent local guide, who added great value to the experience.

 

[Pushka]

Highly recommend Abu Simbel. It was a highlight of our recent ten days in Egypt.

Doing it as a “day trip” gives you a very limited time on the ground there, which is way better than not seeing it at all, but - if the opportunity presents - a slightly longer stay would be well worth the effort, in my opinion.

The information we were given, in advance, was that overnight stays were not possible. However, once we landed, we found that not to be the case. It was too late for us to change our plans, at that stage, of course, so we just made the most of the time available.

Although we had only a couple of hours before our return flight, we chanced upon an excellent local guide, who added great value to the experience.

We will be lucky to get the day in as there is limited opportunities to book and longer isn’t an option as the boat will leave us stranded! So fingers crossed it happens for us. We will be travelling with an Egyptian Archaeologist so we’ve got that covered!

 

[pagingjoan]

We will be lucky to get the day in as there is limited opportunities to book and longer isn’t an option as the boat will leave us stranded! So fingers crossed it happens for us. We will be travelling with an Egyptian Archaeologist so we’ve got that covered!

Yes, we had our own Egyptian archeologist guide with us on the Nile boat cruise - but “the system” required a locally registered guide at Abu Simbel. We happened to find an excellent person but it was pure chance. He was heaps better than the guide who accompanied us on the river.

Our earlier guide, pre-cruise, was with us for four or five days and was also very good.

 

[michaelangelo]

I would do everything in my power to ensure Abu Simbel was NOT optional. I was there a little over a year ago and had the place to myself. Absolutely spectacular.

 

[Pushka]

I would do everything in my power to ensure Abu Simbel was NOT optional. I was there a little over a year ago and had the place to myself. Absolutely spectacular.

There’s nothing I can do just yet as we are on a cruise ship and have to wait for a bit unless I stump up a lot of money to pay for the whole trip. I know it’s fabulous from reading the reports.