Hot and cold in Palau, Philippines, Mexico, Canada & Solomon Islands

[luxury-lizard]

Amazing tale @Mattg - you can't even say there were any "lessons learned"

I'm surprised your travel insurance paid out anything given the cause, "civil disruption" , is usually an exception. I'm also wandering if AC wouldn't have assisted if you had been able to them on an online chat when you couldn't get through on the phone.

PS can all AFF'ers who have followed this thread remind me never to travel to Mexico again (I was there 50 years ago and at this time it was amazing' e.g. gravel runway on Cancun. Oh yes and I also got food poisoning that time)

 

[kpc]

Food poisoning whilst travelling is just disastrous...remember once a friend was driving me from KUL airport to hotel in city...1/2 way, I said to take me to nearest hotel immediately...all the doorman could say was Welcome to... as I blurted out where is the toilet? ..made it...just!

 

[AIRwin]

Food poisoning whilst travelling is just disastrous...remember once a friend was driving me from KUL airport to hotel in city...1/2 way, I said to take me to nearest hotel immediately...all the doorman could say was Welcome to... as I blurted out where is the toilet? ..made it...just!

Food poisoning from MH?

 

[kpc]

Food poisoning from MH?

Sq or Changi airport

 

[Seat0B]

Wow @Mattg what an experience! I now feel a bit guilty for prodding you about this TR and hope it wasn’t too traumatic re-living all of this. As a ski fiend myself, I just wanted to hear how much you now love skiing!

 

[Mattg]

Amazing tale @Mattg - you can't even say there were any "lessons learned"

There are small things that I would have done differently in hindsight - like not changing my original Viva flight (or just not going to Guadalajara in the first place on that day) - but those aren't really helpful for future trip planning. The main thing I got out of that experience, I think, was practice in dealing with an unexpected situation where you're stuck and in danger. I've unfortunately also had practice with this after being detained on arrival at a certain airport in west Africa (I believe the police was trying to get a bribe out of me).

Perhaps there will be some skills that I can take away from these experiences that might help me in later life.

As @Flyfrequently pointed out, devising a travel version of a DRSABCD chart was quite useful in dealing with what was a very stressful situation in Guadalajara. I didn't set out to do this, but it served me well on the day.

Unfortunately, I think I have also taken away a very small amount of PTSD. Since that day I've had a couple of nightmares where I was in an airport with an active shooter, and I got triggered recently when watching a documentary about American school shootings in a way that I wouldn't have been in the past.

I'm surprised your travel insurance paid out anything given the cause, "civil disruption" , is usually an exception. I'm also wandering if AC wouldn't have assisted if you had been able to them on an online chat when you couldn't get through on the phone.

You're quite right that Air Canada might have done nothing, even if I did get through to them. The travel waiver was for travel booked from GDL or PVR. That said, I figured there was at least a chance of getting a sympathetic operator if I could get through to them, so worth trying. In the end, waiting 3 hours on hold and not even getting through to an operator just added to my stress on the day.

Regarding travel insurance - it took a couple of months to get this sorted. Initially they said they needed more information before they would pay out - specifically, the issue was the reason for my Viva flight's cancellation. Viva's email just said "operational reasons", which the insurer did not find sufficient. However, actually getting anything more out of this airline was like drawing blood from a stone - impossible. They don't have an email address, their online chat is a useless AI bot, and even their call centre just puts you through to an AI assistant who disconnects the call if you ask to speak to a human.

I ended up having a very long call with the travel insurer, with a supervisor getting involved, where I explained this and eventually they accepted that I would not be able to get a better explanation from Viva. The discussion then turned to whether or not power at the airport was "usurped". Eventually they accepted my point that some flights were actually running, the national guard was called in and retained control of the airport, and the direct reason for my particular flight getting cancelled appeared to be a lack of airline & airport staff. They paid out in the end, but it wasn't straightforward.

Wow @Mattg what an experience! I now feel a bit guilty for prodding you about this TR and hope it wasn’t too traumatic re-living all of this. As a ski fiend myself, I just wanted to hear how much you now love skiing!

Haha don't worry, I wanted to write about this experience at some point but as you can see, it wasn't an easy thing to do and I have been short on time lately, so was putting it off. Now the story is out there, and it's time to move on to the next part of my trip report - which indeed is the skiing part!

 

[Mattg]

So, after a few days in Kelowna and a side trip to Kamloops, another friend arrived at YLW and the three of us headed up to Big White Ski Resort for a few days.

This is about a one-hour drive from Kelowna and a popular holiday spot for Australians (as well as Canadians and Americans, but Aussies were quite disproportionately represented given how far away this place is from Australia!). Many of the staff there were backpackers from Australia, New Zealand or the UK, staying for a few years on working holiday visas.






We ended up with enough time at Big White for two full days of skiing. The two friends I was with have been skiing for many years and are basically professionals. I, on the other hand, have skied only once before in my entire life - for about two hours at a mountain resort in Kazakhstan, where I didn't get proper lessons and basically didn't know what I was doing. As you can guess, I didn't get very far last time.

This time, I decided to do things properly. I enrolled in two days of ski lessons, starting from the absolute beginner class where you learn the basics.



I then "graduated" onto the intermediate level.



I'll be honest, at the start I was a bit skeptical. At the time, I was thinking that you have to pay a lot of money, wear & carry all this heavy gear, and put yourself at high risk of injury, all to slide down a very cold hill.

But so many people rave about how much they enjoy skiing, so I went in with an open mind and gave it a red-hot-go. After two days, I was hooked.



The lessons were really, really good on two levels. Firstly, they taught me the technical skills I needed to actually be able to ski. Secondly, they boosted my confidence so that I wouldn't just freak out when I got to the top of a mountain and looked down at the track below. Well worth the money and would definitely recommend to people who have never skied before or want a bit of professional guidance.

By the end of the second day, I felt confident enough to ski solo down some of the medium-difficulty slopes.




Big White itself was also just a beautiful place. We had some great weather, the level of snow was decent, and the scenery is picturesque. The resort also has lots of bars and restaurants to enjoy some après-ski drinks. I really enjoyed the few days there and will probably go back again sometime.

 

[Mattg]

I flew from Kelowna back to Vancouver on a WestJet Dash 8 Q400. WestJet Premium was not that expensive and included a checked bag (which regular Economy doesn't), so I booked that. It basically gets you priority check-in & boarding, a seat in the first couple of rows with slightly more legroom, and a free snack during the flight. For this flight I also received 220 Qantas points, but no status credits since WestJet is not part of oneworld and this wasn't a QF codeshare. I'll try not to spend those points all at once. The flight ran a bit late but was otherwise uneventful.

I then enjoyed a few days staying with a friend in Vancouver, before flying to Honiara for the final destination of this trip. Another friend was planning to visit Honiara over that following weekend (a long weekend in Australia) and invited me to join. I had never been to the Solomon Islands and this looked very interesting, so I agreed and then set out trying to find the best way to fly from Vancouver to Honiara.

As you can imagine, there aren't many people flying from Vancouver to Honiara - nor is there really a simple way to do it. The only 1-stop option would be Fiji Airways via Nadi, but that requires a minimum 26-hour layover in Nadi and is only possible 2 days per week - none of which were days that I wanted to arrive in Honiara.

The most logical way to do this trip ending up being to fly YVR-SYD-BNE-HIR on Qantas. There was Business Reward availability for the SYD-BNE-HIR portion of the trip, and I managed to also get a Business Classic Reward seat released on a Qantas flight from YVR to SYD as a Platinum member (this is such an underrated and useful Platinum benefit). All sectors were on the same ticket/PNR.

There was only 4.5 hours between the Qantas YVR-SYD flight landing and the BNE-HIR flight departing. If you take the shortest possible connection times in both SYD and BNE, then in theory this is doable. But if either of the first two flights were delayed, I probably would have been a bit stuck as the next BNE-HIR flight would have been two days later.

Luckily, my first 2 flights ended up running on time and the BNE-HIR service was actually delayed, so I did make it. I even had a bit of spare time for a much-needed shower in the Qantas lounge in Sydney, but skipped the lounge in Brisbane as I didn't have enough time there.

It did feel a bit odd clearing Australian immigration in SYD, and then leaving Australia just a few hours later! Obviously I had to do this because I had a domestic sector between the two international flights. This did cause some issues with my travel insurance, though - I effectively needed a second policy to cover the Solomon Islands part of this trip (which thankfully, I didn't end up needing to claim on).

 

[Mattg]

It was obvious when I checked in for my Qantas flight in Vancouver that the check-in agent had never heard of Honiara. She started saying "your bag is checked through to..." and then paused as she couldn't work out what airport HIR even was. She finished that sentence by saying "...your final destination."

I had enough time before boarding QF76 for a visit to the Cathay Pacific lounge, which you can access if flying Qantas Business or have an eligible Qantas/Oneworld status or Qantas Club membership. This is probably my favourite lounge at YVR, and I especially love the noodle bar there. It has the typical style of a Cathay Pacific lounge, great service and runway views. All that's missing is real champagne.




The YVR-SYD flight itself was calm, pleasant and uneventful. I was very grateful to have a lie-flat bed for the long overnight flight.




I was pretty tired when I got on board, and I think the cabin crew sensed that I just wanted to get to sleep - so tailored their service accordingly. They completed the dinner service quickly and didn't bother me too much, which was exactly what I wanted on this particular flight.

I did have something to eat on board before nodding off, and thought the food was decent.





I then slept pretty well for most of the rest of the flight, waking up around 4 hours out of Sydney. I did get woken a few times during the night by turbulence, but it wasn't anything worse than you usually experience on a long trans-Pacific crossing.

Breakfast was served a couple of hours before landing, and I got exactly what I'd ordered on the printed breakfast card that I had completed on the ground in Vancouver the night before.

 

[Mattg]

My next flight from SYD to BNE was a standard domestic Boeing 737-800 experience.



I was in 2F for this flight, and from the moment I sat down, I could sense that the older, slightly snobby lady in 2D was annoyed by my presence. As soon as I arrived at my seat, she commented "I thought that seat was going to be empty". She warmed up a bit during the meal service and we chatted for a bit.

After having already eaten breakfast on QF76 and then a second light breakfast in the lounge in Sydney, I had a third breakfast on this flight - a toasted sandwich. I declined the offer of more bread on the side to go with all that bread.



I raced off that plane once we arrived in BNE and headed straight for the terminal transfer bus. Thankfully, I only had to wait a few minutes for that and the queues for security/immigration at Brisbane's international terminal weren't too bad. I met the friend I would be travelling with to Honiara at the gate for the BNE-HIR flight that we would be taking together, just as that was about to start boarding. Phew!

The BNE-HIR flight was on an Alliance-operated Embraer E190. Although we boarded on time, that flight ended up leaving late for no particular or obvious reason.

The crew on this flight were great. There were probably only about 40 passengers on this flight, with only a handful of us in Business, so the relatively light workload probably contributed to their good spirits.

This was the lunch served after take-off in Business:



After 3 hours of flying, we approached and landed in Honiara from the southwest.

 

[Seat0B]

After two days, I was hooked.

Now that’s what we like to hear!

 

[LinaLee]

Now that’s what we like to hear!

Time for an Aff ski meet up