This has been a wonderful beginning to our trip. In the last post I said we couldn't get on a different flight to Seattle. Well, we indeed did. When we got off the plane in Juneau, AK we went straight to the ticket 
counter and asked if there was another flight that might get us to Seattle earlier? Lo and behold, they gave us seats on the plane we just got off from and away we went. So instead of getting to Seattle at 9 PM we arrived at 4 PM. We will now be able to get a good night's sleep before the grueling flight to London. Another good thing happened while we were checking in at Anchorage, Alaska Airlines checked our bag all the way to London. That is really wonderful. We won't have to worry about that until Saturday morning. Hopefully it will get there.
Something else didn't happen as well that we were worried about. Mt. Redoubt remained quiet at least until we left. Have no idea what it's doing now and don't really care!
I did pack the SD card reader in the checked bag so I can't update any of the pics until Saturday. I'm not going to buy another because we already have three. Obviously I've done something similar before.
We are supposed to leave at 7:50 AM tomorrow for New York and the Seattle airport doesn't have "public" wifi so won't have an entry until New York or London. Don't know what the wifi situation is at JFK in New York. So hope the rest of the trip goes as well as this part has so far. More later.
Tried to get on a different flight to Seattle but all flights are overbooked so there was no chance to do it, too bad. So we are waiting to board the flight and will get to Seattle at about 9 PM this evening. More later.
Seems like I have said I was going to post this forever ago. Well here it is.
Thursday, March 5 -- Leave Anchorage at 8:10 AM
Arrive Seattle 8:56 PM (don't ask it's a long story).
Friday, March 6 -- Leave Seattle at 7:45 AM
Saturday, March 7 -- Arrive London 6:30 AM (very tired I would guess).
There are no firm plans for our stay in London yet but I'm sure we will find something to do.
Tuesday, March 10 -- Depart London for Cairo
Arrive Cairo 8:45 PM.
Will be met by our host family in Cairo and transported to Port Said, about 2 hours north, and this will be our home base.
On Wednesday and Thursday we will spend our time getting to know one another and the Eshak family will be showing us around Port Said.
On Friday we will go to Alexandria. We will visit the Alexandria Library, Montaza, and other places yet to be named.
Saturday and Sunday we will spend in Cairo and Giza. We will take in the pyramids, ride a camel, go to the national museum, the Cairo tower, have a trip on or a dip in the Nile don't know which. And according to our guide many other things that will be a surprise.
On the 16th, Monday, we will go to Elfaioum and see Elsawaki and do other things.
On Tuesday we will return to Port Said and rest for a few hours before we go to Nardeen's favorite place in all of Egypt.
The 18th through the 20th we will spend in Sharm El Shik on the Red Sea. No schedule was given except that it would be a surprise for us. We really do like surprises and I know we will have a wonderful time with our hosts.
On the 21st we will return to Port Said and the rest of our time is open to do as we see fit. I'm sure there will be many places we would enjoy returning to and this will be our opportunity.
It is a busy schedule. We will try to keep you posted on all the developments along the way. More tomorrow.
It's been quite a while since the last entry. We have been very busy getting things together for the trip. Seems like the time to leave takes forever to get here and then when you are close there isn't enough time to get everything done.
Credit cards and debit cards are taken care of. The housesitter was over to get the lay of the land. Our ride to the airport has been set up. The birdsitter is ready for Sunny. The house is mostly clean and new luggage has been purchased. The list have been checked and added to and subtracted from. All seems ready to go. Just have to put stuff in the suit cases, decide what to carry on the planes, and do the final check on the must have things. We must keep the philosophy that if for some reason we need it and didn't bring it we can buy it when we get there. I don't really want to take any just in case stuff. We won't use it if we take it and will have to haul it around. If we need it we can buy it. With that in mind we will still take too much stuff.
Giving a test tonight in my late class so I will try to put the itinerary in while I proctor the test.
One more thing we must put together is a checklist of all the things we must take with us and things to do prior to departure. The list will include the really important stuff:
Pay Bills
Call Bank
Call Credit Card Company
Passports
Meds
Glasses
Credit Cards
Camera(s) and paraphernalia
Cash
Itinerary(s)
Phone numbers
Confirmation codes
Computer
Tour Books?
I'm sure we will add to the list. I didn't include clothing and the like because if we forget anything we might need along those lines we will be able to buy it. We certainly won't be traveling in remote areas were there won't be stores both clothing and grocery. Things may look different or be unfamiliar but we will still be able to purchase them.
I obviously figured out how to post links without including the website URL in the text of the entries. That sure does make things a lot cleaner and easier to read. The process was really pretty simple. I just didn't take the time (5 min. or less) to figure it out. Highlight the text you want to stand for the link, click the icon on top that looks like a green ball with glasses, key in the URL, then click okay. Like I said pretty simple, but easily overlooked. There are many other things you can do in this blog that I haven't even begun to look at. Once again I'm amazed by technology.
All of the reservations for the trip are now complete. Have overnight at the Red Lion at the Seattle/Tacoma airport. I used PriceLine to bid on the room but according to what I've read I paid too much even though is was less that half of what the site was selling rooms for there on a regular basis. Oh well, next time I will bid lower. They do have a shuttle to and from the airport on a 24 hour basis so we won't have transportation worries in Washington. Will be staying at a Comfort Inn when we return to Heathrow from Egypt on March 23rd. The rate for the room was cheaper directly from the hotel than the home website for Comfort Inns and Suites and it was also cheaper than on the big hotel booking websites. Bidding for that night wasn't an option as PriceLine is only good for the US.
We still need to contact the credit card companies and the credit union to let them know that we will be travelling so they don't block the accounts on us. That would really be a nasty thing to happen. Last week we did request a credit increase on one of our cards so we would have a margin of safety in case one gets stolen or some such thing as that.
We bought some new luggage on Monday as well. We got a three piece set that includes a bigger roller than we have and a small one that we will be able to use as a carry-on and not have to worry about carrying it around during some of our generally long layovers. If the set would have included two of those smaller bags I would have really liked that. Alaska Airlines says they will honor American's luggage policy for overseas so will have to get in touch with American to have them put the luggage limitations in our record so Alaska can see them and not hassle us when we board next week. We will probably have to retrieve our bags in Seattle and check them again on American since we are staying overnight.
I guess overall for this trip we have done our homework pretty well. I talked with a travel agent the other day and she could not believe how cheaply we were going to Egypt with a stop over in London. At least that made me feel pleased about all of the work I have put into this.
counter and asked if there was another flight that might get us to Seattle earlier? Lo and behold, they gave us seats on the plane we just got off from and away we went. So instead of getting to Seattle at 9 PM we arrived at 4 PM. We will now be able to get a good night's sleep before the grueling flight to London. Another good thing happened while we were checking in at Anchorage, Alaska Airlines checked our bag all the way to London. That is really wonderful. We won't have to worry about that until Saturday morning. Hopefully it will get there.