Scoop Airport/Hotel/Travel Thread

[MuggsyB]

I know. The 2 Sisu movies are basically about him.

I did not know about the Sisu Films!!!

Thank you very much!!!


I'm surprised I wasn't given a call to audition. 

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

I did not know about the Sisu Films!!!

Thank you very much!!!


I'm surprised I wasn't given a call to audition. 

Enjoy!  Nonstop action.

[MuggsyB]

Enjoy!  Nonstop action.

There will be a HAYHA FEATURE FILM coming out of Finland in 2027.  This has been 100% confirmed.  hayhamovie.com

[pbiflyer]

Watched the first one. Only slightly less believable than Marvel movies, professional wrestling, or a player being fouled in the World Cup.

[Dish]

I've never loved it, but didn't realize how bad SEA-TAC has become. Good god almighty is it bad now.

[Hards Alumni]

I've never loved it, but didn't realize how bad SEA-TAC has become. Good god almighty is it bad now.

Was there earlier this month and the bus to get to the car rental center was ridiculous.  30 minute wait for a 7 minute bus ride.

[Dish]

Was there earlier this month and the bus to get to the car rental center was ridiculous.  30 minute wait for a 7 minute bus ride.

Yup, same here. This morning the wait was 40 minutes, absolutely ridiculous.

[MU82]

Welcome, Dish! Sorry about the airport, though.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

Malta was great.  It is remarkable that they had 2 million visitors on 2018 and 5 million in 2025 and 2026 should top 2025.  It was noted to us several times that Malta is the most densely populated country in Europe and traffic on the tiny island is always backed up.  The airport terminal is undersized for the amount of air traffic coming through.  It looks like there is an ongoing expansion.  Most importantly, the people could not have been friendlier or more helpful on the island.  This was everywhere we went.

My wife and I would go again.  Sunsets, sunrises and moon rises are incredible.  We made only one reservation for a restaurant on the rooftop with views of the dome of the tallest building/church in Valleta otherwise we were not getting into this restaurant. 

Our few things of note.
* You need the Bolt app for taxis. 
* A 1/2 day boat tour of the Blue Lagoon, Crystal Lagoon and Cominio island is a must, but pay attention to the starting point.  We accidently pre-booked a start point that was a 50 minute Bolt ride from our hotel.  We could have booked the same tour with a far closer starting point.  Bolt cost us 68 Euro to get there and another 32 Euro to get back.  An expensive mistake.  The public bus which is significantly cheaper and air conditioned would have been 1h 40m ride.
* When you go in the water bring your own towel and bring water shoes or sandals because Malta is rocky and the rocks are smooth and coated with moss that makes it slippery and bare feet is asking for an injury.  The shore is very rocky too.
* Malta has 359 churches and each church has a Saint's festival that are held somewhere between April through October.  It's a sight to see.  They break out the pedestals and statues out of storage and hang banners every 30 feet on the streets that are part of the parade route where they carry the patron saint.  Valleta was setting up for Saint Dominic.  We only got to see the start of the 3 day celebration.  We saw fireworks (multiple times a day and multiple days and always with each festival) and heard an orchestra.  From our hotel rooftop we watched fireworks from another festival going on across the harbor.

It was great having a direct Delta flight home from Malta to JFK and no Paris or Amsterdam layover.

[dgies9156]

Was there earlier this month and the bus to get to the car rental center was ridiculous.  30 minute wait for a 7 minute bus ride.

I remember when rental cars were in the garage across from the terminal. Seattle has about the worst rental car situation in the USA.

That said, I was just there and have spent a lot of time at SEA in my career and never thought it was that bad, other then the rental cars.

Try MCO's non- pre-check security lines or ORDs regular immigration/customs line if you want bad. Or anything Dulles, for that matter!

[MuggsyB]

Malta was great.  It is remarkable that they had 2 million visitors on 2018 and 5 million in 2025 and 2026 should top 2025.  It was noted to us several times that Malta is the most densely populated country in Europe and traffic on the tiny island is always backed up.  The airport terminal is undersized for the amount of air traffic coming through.  It looks like there is an ongoing expansion.  Most importantly, the people could not have been friendlier or more helpful on the island.  This was everywhere we went.

My wife and I would go again.  Sunsets, sunrises and moon rises are incredible.  We made only one reservation for a restaurant on the rooftop with views of the dome of the tallest building/church in Valleta otherwise we were not getting into this restaurant. 

Our few things of note.
* You need the Bolt app for taxis. 
* A 1/2 day boat tour of the Blue Lagoon, Crystal Lagoon and Cominio island is a must, but pay attention to the starting point.  We accidently pre-booked a start point that was a 50 minute Bolt ride from our hotel.  We could have booked the same tour with a far closer starting point.  Bolt cost us 68 Euro to get there and another 32 Euro to get back.  An expensive mistake.  The public bus which is significantly cheaper and air conditioned would have been 1h 40m ride.
* When you go in the water bring your own towel and bring water shoes or sandals because Malta is rocky and the rocks are smooth and coated with moss that makes it slippery and bare feet is asking for an injury.  The shore is very rocky too.
* Malta has 359 churches and each church has a Saint's festival that are held somewhere between April through October.  It's a sight to see.  They break out the pedestals and statues out of storage and hang banners every 30 feet on the streets that are part of the parade route where they carry the patron saint.  Valleta was setting up for Saint Dominic.  We only got to see the start of the 3 day celebration.  We saw fireworks (multiple times a day and multiple days and always with each festival) and heard an orchestra.  From our hotel rooftop we watched fireworks from another festival going on across the harbor.

It was great having a direct Delta flight home from Malta to JFK and no Paris or Amsterdam layover.

Ty so much for all of this valuable info.  I can't wait to get there in Oct. 

[pbiflyer]

I remember when rental cars were in the garage across from the terminal. Seattle has about the worst rental car situation in the USA.

That said, I was just there and have spent a lot of time at SEA in my career and never thought it was that bad, other then the rental cars.

Try MCO's non- pre-check security lines or ORDs regular immigration/customs line if you want bad. Or anything Dulles, for that matter!

New Orleans new airport says "hold my Sazerac"

[MU82]

Wore one of my Marquette hats onto my flight at Sea-Tac today. The woman behind us in line said she went to MU, too. And as we stepped onto the plane, the flight attendant said, "Hey, my daughter goes to Marquette!"

[JWags85]

Malta was great.  It is remarkable that they had 2 million visitors on 2018 and 5 million in 2025 and 2026 should top 2025.  It was noted to us several times that Malta is the most densely populated country in Europe and traffic on the tiny island is always backed up.  The airport terminal is undersized for the amount of air traffic coming through.  It looks like there is an ongoing expansion.  Most importantly, the people could not have been friendlier or more helpful on the island.  This was everywhere we went.

My wife and I would go again.  Sunsets, sunrises and moon rises are incredible.  We made only one reservation for a restaurant on the rooftop with views of the dome of the tallest building/church in Valleta otherwise we were not getting into this restaurant. 

Our few things of note.
* You need the Bolt app for taxis. 
* A 1/2 day boat tour of the Blue Lagoon, Crystal Lagoon and Cominio island is a must, but pay attention to the starting point.  We accidently pre-booked a start point that was a 50 minute Bolt ride from our hotel.  We could have booked the same tour with a far closer starting point.  Bolt cost us 68 Euro to get there and another 32 Euro to get back.  An expensive mistake.  The public bus which is significantly cheaper and air conditioned would have been 1h 40m ride.
* When you go in the water bring your own towel and bring water shoes or sandals because Malta is rocky and the rocks are smooth and coated with moss that makes it slippery and bare feet is asking for an injury.  The shore is very rocky too.
* Malta has 359 churches and each church has a Saint's festival that are held somewhere between April through October.  It's a sight to see.  They break out the pedestals and statues out of storage and hang banners every 30 feet on the streets that are part of the parade route where they carry the patron saint.  Valleta was setting up for Saint Dominic.  We only got to see the start of the 3 day celebration.  We saw fireworks (multiple times a day and multiple days and always with each festival) and heard an orchestra.  From our hotel rooftop we watched fireworks from another festival going on across the harbor.

It was great having a direct Delta flight home from Malta to JFK and no Paris or Amsterdam layover.

Awesome, glad to hear you had a great time, as I knew you would.  I forgot about Bolt vs Uber/Lyft.  It obviously has been 6-7 years since I was in Malta, but I remember that was the first European country that had a clear non-Uber necessity (not counting places like Belgium that for a long while were completely no ride share allowed).

The water/rocky duality is also worth noting.  The Mediterranean is magically clear in many places including Malta and many Greek islands, but the trade off is that its often due to the sea floor being really rocky and almost entirely devoid of the sand you're used to in the Gulf or Atlantic in the US.  No silt and cloudy water, but way less cushion too.  I never wore aqua shoes cause I always thought they were kind of dorky and unnecessary...but when I went to Corfu with my family, we all got them cause at a couple of the beaches, if the rocks wouldn't get you, the countless little black sea urchins would.

Also, had no idea that Delta had a seasonal direct to Malta, that's amazing.  For all its faults, United has a great network with a bunch of random flights to "smaller" Summer destinations.  Kudos to Delta for a fun one of their own to Malta.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

Awesome, glad to hear you had a great time, as I knew you would.  I forgot about Bolt vs Uber/Lyft.  It obviously has been 6-7 years since I was in Malta, but I remember that was the first European country that had a clear non-Uber necessity (not counting places like Belgium that for a long while were completely no ride share allowed).

The water/rocky duality is also worth noting.  The Mediterranean is magically clear in many places including Malta and many Greek islands, but the trade off is that its often due to the sea floor being really rocky and almost entirely devoid of the sand you're used to in the Gulf or Atlantic in the US.  No silt and cloudy water, but way less cushion too.  I never wore aqua shoes cause I always thought they were kind of dorky and unnecessary...but when I went to Corfu with my family, we all got them cause at a couple of the beaches, if the rocks wouldn't get you, the countless little black sea urchins would.

Also, had no idea that Delta had a seasonal direct to Malta, that's amazing.  For all its faults, United has a great network with a bunch of random flights to "smaller" Summer destinations.  Kudos to Delta for a fun one of their own to Malta.

Wags - like in the autumn 2025 Delta was asking Medallion Members to vote where they would like to see a direct flight too.  I forget the choices but they ended up adding seasonal flights to Malta from JFK and to Sardinia (unsure from where) from the vote.

[dgies9156]

New Orleans new airport says "hold my Sazerac"

Gosh, I forgot about MSY car rental. Built a new terminal and forgot to move the rental cars.

Last time I rented a car there, I thought the rental lot was in Mobile, AL or something!

[JWags85]

Got back late last week from a week in India.  First trip to India in 16 months for me, which is a huge gap historically.  I don't think I ever went 6 months without going to India since 2016, with the exception of 2020-2021 for COVID.  Naturally there had to be travel drama.

The Ukraine war has made flying to Mumbai from the US a pain since you can no longer get there directly from NY.  And now the Iran conflict has cut off the Dubai option for United, so you either connect in Europe or a few flights to Delhi from EWR (but those have become crowded and expensive.  So I flew from Tampa to Houston to Frankfurt to Mumbai, and then Mumbai to Munich to Newark to Tampa coming home.

Heading there, I fortunately had an upgrade clear into Business going to Frankfurt, so I was calm and looking forward to getting some sleep.  But my flight from Houston was delayed nearly 3 hours due to mechanical issues with the plane that required a full aircraft swap out.  So my 2 hour connection to Lufthansa in Germany was rendered void and I got switched to an Air India flight before I was even halfway there.  But now I had a 6 hour layover in Germany and would arrive in India at 7 in the morning instead of midnight the night before, not ideal for a full day of work, but such is international business travel.  Fun note, given all the AC conversations about Europe, it was 97 degrees in Frankfurt that day.  Obviously the airport has AC, but its not pumping like the US and FRA is a bunch of HUGE glassy terminals, so it was absurdly hot to roam around.  Don't take a nice chilled 72 degree US terminal for granted.

Coming back was smooth and painless, arrived in Newark 30 min early so switched to an earlier United flight to avoid a couple hour layover to end a long day.  Hustled through security and got to my gate...only to have boarding delayed by 30 min.  Then got on board and we sat on the tarmac for almost 2 hours due to mechanical and then weather delays.  Then once we departed, the weather in the Northeast last Thursday was so severe that we flew directly West from NJ all the way to Cleveland before heading south...and then randomly got put into a holding pattern and flew in circles above Kentucky for 20 min.  Truly one of the most bizarre flights Ive ever been on.  A normally 2:15 of actual flight time was almost 3:30 of flight time.  I landed 30 min after the originally scheduled later flight I switched off of to save time 

Two airline "snob" anecdotes that will land with some of the regular/frequent travelers here but I realize sound like champagne problems to most  ...Lufthansa has had a TERRIBLE business class product for some time.  Still 2-2-2 so if you have a window seat, you need to climb over your seatmate if you're going to the bathroom.  Spacious leg room and seat, but not at all competitive with many other business class products, including all of the Big3 US airlines.  But they've been steadily upgrading the planes with new seats, including some former Aeroflot plane they acquired with nice seating.  My flight was on one of those planes, so I was excited...until we got an aircraft switch to an older configuration 2 days before the flight.  Fortunately there was nobody next to me, but the tray table was so old that the FA would elbow drop it each time to make it pop up and go back in, which was admittedly hilarious.  The TV screen was so low resolution that it was basically CRT.  Wild when even economy on the much maligned US airlines have a bright new touch screen.

Also, my regular international travel began as the 747 was beginning to phase out, unfortunately.  Given that the US airlines don't fly A380s, it was my first time flying on the top section of a jumbo, which was very exciting.  However, given that the top of a A380 is fully business and premium economy, they board it through a separate door up top and you never even encounter the stairs on or off, and they had it blocked off during the flight, so that was a bummer.

The other was more positive.  It was my first time flying Air India internationally in 5+ years, especially since it was privatized by Tata and Singapore Airlines.  I was VERY impressed.  Air India used to have decent service but the planes were a joke, terrible thin seats, one of the worst premium cabins I had ever seen (first, business, premium economy alike).  I was in premium economy from Frankfurt to Mumbai and it was lovely.  Printed menus with choices for the meals, a really nice little Tumi amenity kit, nice headphones, etc...  Still silly stuff like no WiFi on flights and TVs won't turn on until you're airborne, but overall much improved.

[LloydsLegs]

Great recent experience with Istanbul.  Airport is beautiful, filled with amenities and efficient.  Turkish Air was a delight (ahem).  Business class from ORD substantially less expensinve than United or Ameircan.  Food was good and plentiful (ahem),  though not as amazing as I had heard.  And Turkish Air lounge in Istanbul is pretty amazing- huge, variety of seating, good food options etc.

[MuggsyB]

Great recent experience with Istanbul.  Airport is beautiful, filled with amenities and efficient.  Turkish Air was a delight (ahem).  Business class from ORD substantially less expensinve than United or Ameircan.  Food was good and plentiful (ahem),  though not as amazing as I had heard.  And Turkish Air lounge in Istanbul is pretty amazing- huge, variety of seating, good food options etc.

Tyvm for this info Lloyd.  Dod you wear MU gear on tbe flight and Turkish Air lounge? 

[pbiflyer]

Anyone toured northern Spain?
Thinking of spending a couple weeks exploring next year.  Would cover from Basque through Cantabria, Asturias to Galicia.
Typically of late in Europe, I've avoided renting cars, relying on trains and public transport. But that seems not possible for this. Too many small towns and trains don't go everywhere.
Anyone visited this area? Any thoughts?

[SoCalEagle]

Northern Spain is a great trip with lots to see that many visitors miss.  My advice is to rent a car for a large stretch of your trip across the top of the country.  Too many small towns and, even if there is train service, it's not that frequent.  Two weeks is a good call.  Any shorter than that and you're just hitting the bigger sites.  Of course there are many Ignatian sites if that is of interest to you.  We started in Madrid (whatever you do, don't miss the Prado Museum), then did a clockwise trip through northern Spain, working our way down to Barcelona.  After a few days in Madrid (perhaps my favorite international destination), we worked our way north.  Some of my favorite stops include:

• Avila: Took the train here from Madrid and picked up our car here.  A beautiful, small city with a nod to the past, with the central portion being walled off from invaders.  Also, a lot of history connected to St Teresa of Avila
• Burgos: Awesome cathedral.  Worth a stop even if you are just passing through
• Bilbao: The Guggenheim Museum was wonderful, but the city has much more to see.  It has a much bigger metro area than I thought.  Food there was great
• Zumaia/San Sebastian: When traveling through northern Spain, a stay at the beach is a must, right?  These two beach areas are relatively close to one another, but worlds apart.  Most tourists go to San Sebastian, but we opted to stay in Zumaia.  Off the beaten path kind of vibe.  More locals come here, and the beaches are awesome.  Prices are also much cheaper
• Loiola: You won't want to miss the birthplace of St Ignatius.  Beautiful area and lots of history (especially for those of us who are Jesuit educated)
• Pamplona and Xavier: Stopped at both of these sites.  Would have enjoyed more at these stops, time permitting
• Manresa: We worked our way down to this mid-sized city that also has Ignatian history.  It was a short stop for us
• Montserrat: This was our last stop on the way to Barcelona.  It has a monastary that was established about 1,000 years ago.  If you are anywhere near Barcelona, stay here for at least one night.  You will not regret it
• Barcelona: Loved it, especially the trip out to Sagrada Familia

Overall, northern Spain, has so much to offer that I can't come close to describing it all.  Beautiful sites, wonderful people, and the food was top notch.  Any questions about specific sites, let me know. 

[pbiflyer]

Thanks for the great post. A ton of great information. Love the tip about Zumaia. Perfect for me.
I have frequently visited southern Spain. In Madrid, the Prado and nearby Retiro Park are always on my to-do list.

I will probably have more questions as I start to work through an itinerary and timeframe.
Was there a drop charge for the car since it sounds like you did not drop it in the same city you picked it up in? And if so, was it outrageous or fairly reasonable?