I traveled through a lot of countries in Europe & took a cruise -- flying BACK now

Hello friends.

I am currently at 37,000 feet, over the Atlantic.

I am in one of those cool "pods" with lie-flat seats, and you can close the door and basically pretend you're in your own office.



The Plans

As you recall, I asked for some suggestions regarding going to Paris and London, but the trip was much more than that. The Paris and London part were at the end, and I'm on the way back from Heathrow Airport. I'm happy to report that I didn't get detained and force-institutionalized there, like someone else who was once part of the NWP community.

This trip was planned for a long time -- back to 2023, but almost didn't happen for me. As you might recall, I cashed the WSOP Main Event in 2023 and 2024 semi-deep (around 600th place both times out of 10k entrants). As I collected my $30k last summer, I knew that I couldn't got for a threepeat in cashing. The 2025 Main Event was already off the table for me.

An extended family gathering was put together about two years ago, slated for July 2025. I was not thrilled about the date, for obvious reasons. However, there were people who had more important June and August commitments than a poker tournament, so I didn't object when the date was presented to me. The Main Event will be here every year. In addition, due to my absence for most of the month of July, suddenly the month of June became difficult for me, as I had a lot of other things I had to take care of, and couldn't spend that month traipsing around Paris and Horseshoe while ignoring life's responsibilities. I'm sure you have noticed that, for the past 15 years or so, I haven't played a full WSOP schedule, but rather would make multiple trips back and forth, so I could take care of things at home in between. This became impossible if I were also to be gone for 3 weeks in July. Therefore, I played a whopping 2 events this year -- the $3k Limit Holdem, where I never got going and busted early, and I max-late-regged a $500 donkament for fun, got it in semi-close to the money in a 51/49 spot, and fell on the wrong end of it. So that was that for me. However, this visit to Vegas was more than just to squeeze in two WSOP events. It was an important test.



We Meet Again, Old Nemesis

Most of you know about the crippling anxiety and depression I had in 2018, which was physically induced by medication and caffeine withdrawal. Despite believing at one point that I'd be stuck that way for life, I was able to craft my own solution to push it out. The depression went away 100%. The anxiety went away about 85%, and I could tell would never completely be gone. I knew I had taken some permanent psychological damage from the whole thing, but I was thrilled to be living normal day-to-day life again. One of the things I couldn't do in mid-2018 was fly. It wasn't fear of crashing, but rather I was just going to not be able to handle being on the plane, no matter what I logically told myself. After mostly defeating the generalized anxiety disorder in November 2018, I waited four months, then tried a "test flight" in March 2019 to Vegas. Great success! I had no issue at all, and I went forth to plan a summer trip where we flew to New England and then drove up the coast to eastern Canada. I had no issues on those flights, either. In fact, I took various other flights between 2019 and 2023, and had absolutely no problem. In general, occasionally I'd feel the anxiety creeping back in, but I was able to (responsibly) use Xanax to push it away, and for the most part, I lived a normal life for the next 6 years.

However, in early 2025, this changed. I'm not sure why it changed, but it did. I started to notice a few signs of it in 2024, but I dismissed them as nothing. However, it really ramped up in early 2025, and by April I was in bad shape once again. So why haven't you heard about it until now?

That's because it was a much lighter version of what was occurring in 2018. The original problem seven years ago was unbearable, to where it felt I had very little quality of life. In 2025, I could go about my day normally and would appear normal in my interactions with people. I wasn't stuck with fight-or-flight anxiety 24/7, and the depression hadn't returned at all. It was just anxiety, but unlike 2018, I could not pinpoint a cause, and it arguably felt like it would be tougher to get rid of.

This was a problem because I had a trip to Hawaii coming up in April 2025, which I had put a lot of time and expense into planning. In a way the trip felt like a bit of overkill because I'd be taking a major trip in July, but Ben really wanted to go there again (he had last been to the islands at age 5), and it just seemed like a nice idea.

Well, as we got closer and closer, I knew there was no fucking way I'd be able to take a roundtrip flight to/from Hawaii. I finally had to break the news to Ben. I was able to cancel my hotel, car, and activity reservations, but Hawaiian Airlines has borderline scammy policies regarding the "no change fees" tickets they sell. I currently sit with a bunch of Hawaiian Airlines credit which hopefully I can use before it expires, though it's 100% guaranteed I will have toe at some of it. But that's another story for another time.

In its place, I decided to make a consolation trip out of it.

I put a few days of hard work into planning a last-minute Arizona trip, which involved no flying. It wasn't Hawaii, but Benjamin enjoyed it, the weather was good, and it was a success.

Unfortunately, the feeling of dread was coming over me. I had an expensive, largely non-refundable vacation looking just 3 months later, and I was barely able to get through the Arizona driving trip without a lot of heavy anxiety. How was I going to fly to Europe? It seemed almost impossible, as the anxiety had largely worsened and my prior solution to solve it from 2018 wasn't working for me.

Obviously, since I'm typing this message from a plane on the way back from London, I made it happen. So what's the story? Read on...


(by the way, please do NOT troll or shitpost this thread)

The Road to Recovery... Again

My anxiety symptoms of 2025 peaked in early-mid April, during the Arizona trip. Don't get me wrong... it was a very nice trip and I quietly suffered myself without ruining it for anyone, but I was wondering once again if my days of flying would be permanently over, and if I'd be permanently stuck in North America.

More importantly, would I miss this expensive, long-planned extended family gathering?

I decided to sit down and figure out what could possibly be the cause. I then figured out something major I changed early in the year -- my blood pressure meds! While these meds were doing a good job bringing my BP down (whereas the others had failed), I wondered if this new medication -- Olmesartan -- was causing anxiety. After all, my problems in 2018 were medication-induced -- that time by Nexium, a medication which at the time wasn't believed to cause anxiety, but has since been acknowledged to cause a major issue with a fair percentage of people. What if Olmesartan was the same way?

In June, I made a tough decision. I decided I would go off my BP meds for the short term, until the trip was over, and see if it would help. I replaced it with some HCTZ pills I had laying around from before. I was already taking HCTZ also, but it was a combined pill with Olmesartan, so this allowed me to separate it and see if the Olmesartan was indeed the cause. Indeed, Olmesartan was listed as anxiety-inducing for 1-10% of people. I also started taking "maintenance" Xanax doses like I did in 2018 -- a pill about every 5 days, which I noticed helped bring me back to normal, which I then subsequently quit once I got better.

For a few weeks, there was zero improvement. Coming into mid-June, I was very pessimistic. I was to leave in early July, and yet wasn't anywhere close to better. The thought of taking not one, but TWO long flights to get to Europe, seemed impossible. In fact, I hadn't even booked the flights yet. That's how pessimistic I was. Here I had a non-refundable cruise, and had planned to book the flights in early 2025. I still hadn't done it.



Testing, Testing, 1... 2... 3...


Finally, I bit the bullet. I planned a "test flight" from LAX to Vegas for June 21. I bought myself a first class seat (only $210 or so), and rented a car to drive BACK. That was my brief Vegas trip.

The flight was late at night. I stupidly let time get away from me, and it started to look close whether I'd make it or not. I returned my rental car (the way I got to the airport) and jumped on the shuttle. There was HORRENDOUS traffic within LAX. Like, not moving at all. The gates were going to close for boarding in 31 minutes, and we were now just 51 minutes away from takeoff. I was still on the fucking bus, in traffic. And I had luggage, so I had to check that in. Chances of making that flight were almost zero, and it was the last one of the night.

Suddenly, I heard the voices of two saviors.

They were loud, obnoxious Arabs. Usually Jews don't get along so well with loud Arabs, especially these days. However, we were all of one mind here. My two Arab friends were also going to miss their flight, and were shouting at the driver. I had said nothing at all to anyone. I was just quietly accepting my fate. But this Arab couple wasn't taking this traffic situation lying down. They were demanding the driver let them off in the middle of the street -- something illegal and definitely not allowed by company policy. He told them this was impossible, but they progressively got louder, shouted obscenities, and the male half of the couple started banging on the door of the bus. "LET US OUT NOW!! WE ARE GOING TO MISS OUR FUCKING FLIGHT, YOU ASSHOLE!", they shouted.

Finally, the bus driver popped open the doors, perhaps fearing a jihad was coming next. I was standing there in shock, but then piped up, "Hey, if they're getting off, I'm getting off, too!", and I grabbed my luggage and scampered out of the bus as well. I then ran down the street, luggage in tow, crossed LAX, and made it to my terminal with 22 minutes left to board, and negative minutes left to get my luggage on. I was actually proud of myself regarding how fast I ran over there with this heavy stuff, given my age and weight.

"Sorry, it's far too late", I was told by the first airline employee. He told me there was zero chance I would get on, and I had to go to the information desk to rebook for the next day. Fuck!!!

But... once I got to the information desk, the guy there was oddly cooperative. I asked if there was any chance he could get me on the flight. He at first said no, but then said, "Wait a minute", typed a bunch of stuff, then said, "Put your bag on the scale". YES!! I had to sign a waiver that I agreed not to bitch if the bag failed to make it on that flight, and would arrive the next day. I then sprinted to security, but was held up because TSA was inspecting...

... My WSOP bracelet. I'm not kidding. That's what alarmed them, and the woman was asking about what it was. I explained it was a WSOP bracelet, and suddenly she got excited and said, "Oh wow, that's so cool", and ran over to show her colleague.

:wtf2

Must have been a poker fan. I politely told her that I had 6 minutes left. She gave me my stuff BACK and I sprinted to the gate. I boarded with 1 minute left. Amazingly, 2 people boarded behind me.

Closest call ever regarding missing a flight.



How did the flight go?

Excellent. I didn't have a single issue. I called my parents and said, "It went great. Couldn't have been better, aside from almost missing it. I'm coming on the trip after all."


More next post...

I then had the difficult task of planning a lot of details of a massive European trip in a few weeks.

The cruise was booked, but nothing else was. I was spending night after night going through possible flights, but I was finding the maddening situation that any kind of real business class was going to be over $11k per ticket per way!!

:shock

This was going to set me back a massive amount of money, and was unacceptable. I also discovered that many European airlines didn't have a "real" business/first class, but instead just gave you coach seats and left the middle seat open. And those that did have a real business class had a shitty one -- and those were also very expensive!

So how did I handle this?

You might not know this, but airlines miles are an incredibly powerful way to book flights nowadays. Acquiring mass number of miles isn't easy (credit cards are the best way), but once you have them, they often don't inflate like last-minute cash prices do. More importantly, you can cancel/rebook miles bookings instantly, with zero penalty, up until flight time!

This allowed me to book with miles, and then obsessively check if the miles price had gone down. If it had, I would cancel and rebook the whole thing. When it was all said and done, I got a not-so-great deal on the flight out (since that was the sooner one), but not horrendous. And I got a really good deal on the return flight, which I'm on right now.

I was also picky regarding the aircraft. If I'm getting business class seats, I don't want shit planes or shit business class. For example, I avoid the new Airbus A321neo like the plague -- not due to safety concerns, but rather comfort.

Anyway, I got lie-flat business seats the entire way, including the "pod" type seats on the return flights.

I also needed an intra-Europe flight between Copenhagen and Paris. That was also a challenge because there was no actual business class on any flight for that route. I settled for an Air France flight where I paid only a tiny bit more than the coach rate for their "fake first class", and grabbed the only seats on the plane (the front ones) with real legroom.

I then had to book hotels, as I would be traveling on to Paris and London after the cruise. I stayed in a very luxurious hotel in Copenhagen (expensive, though), and then grabbed some mid-grade hotels in Paris and London for a great rate and further Jewed my way into free upgrades. So while it wasn't easy on the Jew wallet, it also wasn't as bad as it otherwise would be in cities like London and Paris if you want to stay anywhere reasonable.



So where exactly did I go?

I flew into Stockholm, saw that city, and boarded the cruise. Here was the cruise itinerary:

Stockholm
Helsinki (if gimmick were still posting here, I'd have said hello and seen if he could speak English as well as he writes it)
Tallinn, Estonia
Riga, Latvia
Rostock, Germany (about 115 miles east of Hamburg)
Copenhagen

From there, we stayed in Copenhagen, then flew to Paris, stayed a few days there, and then moved on to London. We did NOT fly to London. As mentioned in the thread about my upcoming trip there, I decided to take the unconventional route of driving from Paris to the coastal town of Calais, and taking a ferry across the channel, and arriving in Dover, England. Then we took a train into London.

On the way to Stockholm, I intentionally picked a long layover in New York, so we could spend the day there. We went to the top of the Empire State Building, visited Liberty State Park in New Jersey, bought some NY Pizza which was pretty good, and drove back to the airport. I found a miracle parking spot right by the Empire State Building, which as you might guess, was quite unlikely. I had a "free day" I had earned from my rental car company, so I used it to splurge on a Mercedes convertible, since the free day covered the luxury category.

I actually showered at the airport during the layover, which was a first for me. Felt weird, but was refreshing, especially after the hot day in NYC.

I will post pictures of some of this stuff later, but I don't feel like it right now, as it's a pain in the ass to do in the plane since I have to transfer it from my phone.

In addition to all of the flight and hotel booking, I also had to book a shitload of rental cars and figure out what to do in each city. Cruise ports were easier to figure out, because you only get a short time at each one, but in some cases requires planning.

Here were my plans in each city:

NYC layover: Rent car, go to various sites (described in last post)

Stockholm: See old town area

Helsinki: See city and the Suomenlinna fortress island

Tallinn, Estonia: See old city and visit bog in National Park

Riga, Latvia: Take canal boat ride and visit former KGB Building with tour

Rostock, Germany: Drive to Schwerin, a scenic town about an hour away with a big castle

Copenhagen: See city

Paris: See major sites in Paris, go to Versailles, drive through northern France

London: See major sites in London, drive to Stonehenge



I realize many of you suggested things like going to Normandy or other places a good deal out of the Paris/London areas. I decided not to do any of that, because it was too much of a hassle, and we were already doing so much jumping around and travelling that it just didn't feel worth it.

I also had to keep in mind that Ben is a teenager, and I wanted the trip to be fun/interesting for him, so I didn't want to drag him to a lot of museums or overly saturate him with historical stuff, or he'd get bored.

The weather was mostly good. Many days were forecast for rain, but it didn't pain out, and the days were nice. The one exception was Estonia, where it was very windy and showery, so we cancelled the bog part of the day, and I didn't bother renting the car. I did rent a car in NYC, Germany, Paris, and London, though the London rental was only on the final day, and the Paris rental sat in the parking structure while I took public transportation on some days.

Costs of Uber/taxis sucked big time in Denmark, France, and England. I was glad I had a car when I did in those places, especially going to/from the airport, where the roundtrip taxi fare would be more than the car rental! Taking the train/subway/bus was not feasible to/from the airport because we had too much luggage.

I did not take any ship-provided excursions, as they are expensive, rigid, and slow. I hate them. I also did not take any tour buses of any kind. Aside from the airplanes, cruises, and taxi rides, my getting around was entirely via public transportation or driving myself. As many of you know, I am a big do-it-yourself guy when it comes to travel. I like to go off the beaten path, make my own plans, and stay away from organized excursions.


I'll get into the ship portion of the trip next...

Actually, before I get into the cruise part, I want to mention something I said in the other thread.

Despite enjoying traveling and having the money to do so, I really slacked when it came to leaving The Americas.

My last time in Europe? 1991.

My last time in Israel and northern Africa? 1989.

My last time in Asia? 1993.

My last time in Australia/New Zealand? 1994.


It's been 31 years since I traveled more than 4 hours time difference from LA.

I had various trips planned, but for one reason or another, they didn't pan out. This one looked like it also might end up getting cancelled (with a very expensive loss of an expensive cruise), but I made it.

It was nice to finally go to the other side of the world again. I did it so much from 1989-1994, and then just stopped. I plan to go back to Europe soon. You Canucks can at least be satisfied that I have seen your weird country many times over in the past decade or so.

The one advantage of waiting this long is the fact that Ben is a teenager, so he will get more out of such a trip compared to taking him at an age like 8. He's not an adult, and I had to keep that in mind the entire way, but I know his likes/dislikes extremely well, and was able to put together a plan where he would find our activities interesting, while also being stuff I actually wanted to do/see myself.

Okay, moving on...

Druff- These posts are nice, but these stories were lived to be best be told on radio. (Just don’t go past eight hours)

Also- Who WiFi service did you use on the airplanes?

Almost all of my past cruising has been on either Norwegian or Princess. They are both quite similar, and are what I call "middle-end lines". If cruises were hotels, Norwegian/Princess would be the Hampton Inn, which is better than Motel 6 (Carnival), but definitely not luxurious or upper-end.

I finally tried my first luxury cruise line, after all these years. I went on the recently-ill-fated Crystal Cruises, the one formerly owned by Genting -- the same company which owns Resorts World. Crystal operated independently from Genting, and mismanaged their finances really badly. They not only abruptly went under financially, but they handled it terribly, with passengers being abruptly kicked off some of the cruises because Crystal couldn't afford to pay its taxes or port fees. In addition, anyone who had prepaid for future Crystal Cruises was left high and dry, and their money was gone. Sad! I covered this on PFA at the time it occurred.

Crystal got bought out by another company, in two ways.

Two of Crystal's ships were bought by competitor Silversea, while the other two ships were acquired by A&K Travel Group, who also got the rights to the brand.

This was a boon for those who had previously been scammed by Crystal, as they got the equivalent credit for BOTH companies!

Anyway, I booked the Crystal Serenity, which is owned by A&K Travel. It would also be interesting to see how "new" Crystal compared to what I had heard about the old version.

As I'm sure you're aware, cruise ship rooms are substantially smaller than hotel rooms. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the Serenity, as even their standard rooms are large by cruise standards. Interestingly, I also noticed the Serenity had mostly suites, whereas middle-end lines have far more balcony/oceanview/inside rooms than suites.

Crystal Serenity is a smaller ship, which is good and bad (mostly good). On the good side, you are not constantly fighting crowds. On the bad side, activities requiring a large passenger population simply don't exist on Crystal, so some people might find the ship boring. I don't care about "boring" because I use cruises for eating, sleeping, relaxing, and transportation.

I made what I like to call a "Druff Suite" -- connecting two rooms together to form a makeshift 2-bedroom suite. The problem with cruise ship suites is that nearly all of them still have just one bed. Anyone else in the room has to sleep on the couch, or on bunkbeds. Fail! There's also only one bathroom in most cruise suites. What I did was combined their lowest category suite (more resembles a standard hotel room in size), and a standard balcony room, with a connecting door in between. That gives me two bedrooms, two bathrooms, extra storage space, 2 refrigerators, etc. Plus, it's cheaper to do that than the next category suite up (which isn't even that much better).

Funny enough, the balcony room was the one recently renovated, while the suite portion was not! This was especially noticeable because the suite had no plugs or USB ports by the bed (a big pet peeve of mine in modern times), while the balcony room had both a plug and 2 USB ports on each side of the bed!

Fortunately I brought a power strip with me, so I just left that in the suite and charged most of the devices there.

The most beloved feature on Crystal ships is the "Umi Uma" restaurant -- which is essentially a shipboard Nobu. I'm serious... it's actually a Nobu, run by Nobu Matsuhisa, just with a different name. That is by far the best restaurant on board. Ben is a huge fan of Nobu (dating back to when I took him there as a toddler/kid when I was a Seven Stars at Caesars), so he was thrilled about this. They have a second specialty restaurant called "Osteria" which is Italian. Osteria was also once beloved on Crystal, but apparently the executive chef from old Crystal didn't make it over. The new one sucks, and therefore Osteria also sucks. There have been so many complaints about new Osteria that they're going to "reimagine" it within a few months. We ate there once and quit it. The two regular restaurants are "Beefbar", which is a tapas-like restaurant with a beef theme to it, and the Main Dining Room. The Main isn't anything to write home about, and Beefbar is pretty good.

The casino was a complete joke. It barely operated, only being open a few of the nights, and for a few hours. I mickeycrimmed the slot machines there for like $20 profit. There were only two AP-able machines -- Buffalo Link (which never got into a +EV state), and Ultimate Fire Link Cash falls (which was in a +EV state a few times, and I played sporadically).

I entered a blackjack tournament where, as you'd expect, everyone was stupid, but I didn't run well and came in 2nd at the table, which wasn't good enough to advance. No poker tables.

We did not take any ship-run tours, nor did we attend any of the shows, nor did we do any activities on the ship.

Here's what I liked and disliked about Crystal Serenity....

Liked:
Room size
Bathrooms (surprisingly nice and large for a cruise ship)
Nobu/Umi Uma
Free room service 24/7 which was pretty good
Empty feeling to ship -- you could often walk around and encounter no other passengers!
Clientele was classy and respectful (opposite of Carnival)

Disliked:
Opening hours of restaurants was stupid -- there was a food "dead zone" from 11am-12pm and 3pm-5pm, the ice cream shop closed at 6pm, and the pizzeria closed at 3pm. WHY???
Tiny casino barely operated
Incompetent maintenance staff -- we had an issue with the suite refrigerator which I ultimately solved after they failed 3 times
Osteria restaurant
No karaoke (I like having it on cruises!)


Overall it was a very superior experience to Norwegian, where you feel like you're on a cattle car. I'll definitely consider doing this again, though I'll be looking more closely for a Jew deal next time around...

Oh I forgot to mention how the flights there worked out for me.

It went great... but I barely remember them.

The first flight to NY, it was at midnight, I had a sleep deficit the entire way, plus I took 0.75mg Xanax. So I was tired and slept most of it.

It was also a WEIRD fucking configuration, with EIGHT lie-flat business seats across each row, half of which faced backward. I ended up in a backward seat in the middle, section, so I was sitting there facing the wrong way and couldn't see out any windows. Didn't even feel like I was in a plane. Seemed like I was in some bizarre alternate universe bus. I mean, it was fine, and I was comfortable, but just bizarre, and I don't think I'll do Boeing 777 business class again for that reason.

Second flight to Stockholm, which was over 8 hours, I remember almost nothing. I piled on another 0.5mg Xanax (combined with the earlier 0.75) which knocked me the fuck out. I couldn't even stay awake for takeoff. I fell asleep before, woke up briefly 2 hours after meals were served, only to find out the captain ate my steak (sounds like a scene from an Airplane! movie). They gave me a different meal instead. Then I went back to sleep, and other than 2 trips to the bathroom, I was sleeping the entire way. That 8 hours felt like 40 minutes.

This flight, where I slept the first two hours after taking 0.75mg Xanax, I woke up, again got my food late, and then started hammering out this post on MS Word Lockdown.

Anyway, I'm going to catch a little more sleep now before I land, so I'll continue this later.



----

To cover a few unrelated items:

1) Yes, I will return to WSOP 2026 with a normal-type schedule.

2) This trip is why I have spent little time on the forum for the past 3 weeks.

3) Sorry for not uploading the last emergency radio. I did it right before the trip and never edited it. I'll get to that very very soon. Fortunately it's still topical.

Good trip report, thank you for sharing it with us Druff. Did you take any pictures that you're willing to share?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 420powersme

Good trip report, thank you for sharing it with us Druff. Did you take any pictures that you're willing to share?

---

There's a lot more to come. I am just done writing for now.

Sounds like a good trip, and an excellent experience for Ben. What was the reaction of the waiters in Paris when you ordered your tomatoes on the side?

Look forward to reading more and seeing pics.

Plus the inevitable customer service issue stories.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Boz

Look forward to reading more and seeing pics.

Plus the inevitable customer service issue stories.

---

Okay, you want a customer service story?

Because of my anxiety issues discussed earlier in the thread, I was not comfortable booking any mega-long flight of 10+ hours. I decided that the 8 hour flight from NY was the most which would be reasonable. I based this upon my own experience from the '80s and '90s (a time I didn't have any anxiety at all), when those 10+ hour flights just seemed interminable. Up to 10 was fine, but once we got past that I just felt like I'd been there forever. Perhaps this wasn't a fair comparison because there was nothing to do on planes in those days (whereas now I can buy the internet and use my laptop), but still... I put effort into having no more than 8.5 hours scheduled in the air at once.

Going there, it was great. Landed in NY, they had our bags checked through, grabbed a free Mercedes with a free rental car day I had previously earned, saw stuff, returned it, got back on the plane, proceeded. Went exactly as planned and was a great success.

On the way back, I could have booked straight from London to LA, but I decided to go London-Chicago and then Chicago-LA. I made the layover overnight (intentionally) so we could do a quick sightseeing visit of Chicago, as well as break up the otherwise long travel.

:baddecision

What went wrong? Let me count the ways...


I hit traffic going to Heathrow. Then the rental car shuttle wasn't able to stop in front of the terminal because there were "too many buses", so we were dropped elsewhere and had to walk. I got to the counter 68 minutes before the flight. A gay-looking middle-eastern dude was at the counter, and muttered, "Flight number?" I told him our flight, and he repeated it out loud in a questioning fashion, like it didn't exist. I told him the number again. He then said, "That's at 12:00". I replied, "Yes, I know. It's 10:52 right now, so we can check in. The cutoff is 60 minutes, right?" He answered, "So now we have 67 minutes. You expect me to get this done in 7 minutes? Check you in, print your bag tags? All in 7 minutes?" What an asshole! I'd never seen this before where STARTING checkin before the deadline isn't sufficient. He then lectured me how I need to be at the airport "3 hours before the flight" and how I'm probably going to miss the flight. I realized he just wanted the power trip of scolding me, so instead of telling him off, I replied, "Well, if you could do your best to get us on, I'd appreciate it. Thanks." He got it all done within like 4-5 minutes, and we were good to go.

So no harm, no foul, aside from him trying to run a power trip and scare me into thinking I'd miss the flight, right?

No, it gets worse.

As we were approaching Chicago, we were told that there were bad thunderstorms in the area, so we had to circle for an hour. Finally we got authorization to land, only to spend another 40 minutes on the ground, because of lightning danger to the ground crew. Shit! I could've been halfway to LA by then (seriously) if I had just booked nonstop!

But was the fail over?

Nope!

Hertz, a company I have grown to hate more each and every day, screwed me over hard. At least the earlier difficulties were just a difficult airline rep and some bad luck with the weather. This Hertz thing was entirely fixable, but they wouldn't fix it.

I booked my Chicago car while in London. Why wouldn't I? That's where I was when I made the decision that I wanted a car, rather than take taxis/uber. Everything seemed fine with the rental, I got a confirmation email, etc.

Was it a Seinfeld situation where they didn't have my car?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2D_2l46LQE


Nope. They had plenty of cars. That wasn't the issue.

They refused to honor my fucking reservation!

Did they see my reservation? Yes.

Was I banned or restricted in any way from renting there? No.

Did I have a confirmation email I could easily show them? Yes.

So why wouldn't they honor it? They claimed it was an "international reservation" which required an international license.

:wtf2

They went on to blame me for having booked it from London -- as if I'm supposed to know that booking while in London will internally make the reservation only open to international drivers.

They also repeatedly blamed me for "not logging in" to my Hertz account when booking. I insisted that I did login, and they refused to believe it. I offered to login on my laptop through a London VPN, show them exactly what I did, and prove I did nothing wrong (by showing it would come through the exact same way). They refused to look. Just kept insisting it was my fault somehow.

I said, "Well, you said you have plenty of cars, so can you honor my reservation anyway?"

Nope!

I said, "Okay, if I cancel and make a new one right now, can you honor the same rate?"

Big nope to that, too. I was lectured, "It ain't our fault you booked without logging in. I gave you your options. You can call customer service or you can make reservations at the rates right now."

I checked, and the new rates had more than doubled, because it was last minute. They refused to help me. Either pay more than double because their system fucked up, or call offshore customer service which is always useless.

I told them I was going elsewhere, and to cancel my reservation. Laughably, they couldn't cancel it, either, and I had to call Philippines-based customer service to do it. So I did, and while the Filipina rep (supposedly) cancelled my reservation then, she had no way to send me a confirmation email indicating so. Awful.

I ended up renting with a different company.

All of that fail ate up most of the day, and by the time we finished eating Chicago Pizza, Ben was exhausted from the time difference and didn't want to do anything further, so we all just went to sleep.



Does the fail end there? No.

The rest of the story is in this thread.

Crosstown Classic is tonight… Cubs at White Sox. 6:40 PM first pitch. Just in case…

I have traveled thru Europe mostly with my dad rip. Fave place was in Wengen in Switzerland home to the Eiger(yes eiger sanction with (clint eastwood) and jungfrau yoch. I would really like to visit Matarhorn didn't make it there. My uncle died climbing the Matahorn so would really like to see it. He was hanging from a rope at his waist had to wait like six months or so to get him down

on my bucket list is cruise down the danube river

Decided not to hijack my own thread and moved the American Airlines stuff here: https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...catering-truck


I will start posting actual trip details shortly.

What pizza joint did you hit in Chicago? Did you get an Italian Beef dipped with giardniera from Portillo’s or Johnny’s Beef?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dmndkutr

What pizza joint did you hit in Chicago? Did you get an Italian Beef dipped with giardniera from Portillo’s or Johnny’s Beef?

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Just went the simple route and went to Giordano's. Which I realize is a chain and I could have had right here in California, but it was walking distance from the hotel, and everyone was too tired by that point for me to drive elsewhere and find parking.

I will redo the whole Chicago thing sometime soon enough when I have more time there.

Okay, back to this topic.

I'm going to do the trip report out of order. I'm going to start with the very last thing we did in Europe -- Stonehenge.


Most people who experience Stonehenge do it via tour bus. This makes sense, because it's 90 miles from London, and once you include the traffic and slow speed limits in London itself, it becomes a big trek to get over there (and back) yourself. Furthermore, most tourists don't rent a car in London, both due to the inconvenience/parking issue AND the unfamiliarity many have regarding driving on the "wrong" side of the street.

Note that Paris, Germany, and most of Europe drives on the right side of the road, just like the US does. I had driven on the left side once and only once -- in St. Kitts in 2017. I felt that I did it well enough to be able to give it a shot in England.

At first I was going to use the "Enterprise Car Club" to drive around England, as necessary. This is a car-sharing club where you pay a (very small) membership fee, and then basically rent cars by hours and mileage. The advantage is that you just pick up one of many cars parked throughout the city, drive it, and return it where you found it. It's quick and easy, and very convenient for those who want a car on and off, but don't need to constantly have access to it.

Unfortunately, the "Enterprise Car Club" was incredibly difficult to sign up as a foreigner. Their webpage didn't work for it, and instead I had to go to their office and jump through a lot of hoops. Not worth it. Instead, I elected to take public transportation around London, and then get the car near the end, and also use it to drive to the airport.

Note that cabs/ubers are quite expensive in London, and since neither airport is not all that close to the city, you rack up a lot of charges taking one to or from the airport. Therefore, renting a car near the end of the trip would save me that cab fare, and make the cost of the car rental fairly negligible.




But why didn't I just take a bus to Stonehenge, like everyone else? Why hassle with a car?

Because I hate tour buses. I'm just not a tour bus guy. I like doing everything at my own pace, on my own schedule, and seeing what I find interesting, rather than what a tour operator thinks I should see.

Stonehenge gets a lot of criticism, so my expectations were low. Prior to my Stonehenge visit, I was warned:

- It's underwhelming

- You can't actually touch the rocks or get super close

- It's boring. You get there, look at it, and wonder why you spent so much time and money getting over there, just to go right back after seeing a pile of rocks.


Still, I felt like I had to see it. How could I be in London and not see Stonehenge? I was there just once before -- in 1991 -- and did not see it then.


I then looked up admission to Stonehenge, and I was disappointed. It was 30 pounds ($40) for adults, and 20 pounds for kids. Ouch. Just to walk in and look at some rocks? That wasn't sitting well with me, and the Jew in me was starting to push myself to say "fuck it".

Then I googled if there's a way to see Stonehenge for free, and I learned some very valuable information.

Continued next post...

Googling how to see Stonehenge for free didn't just save my Jew wallet some money. It unlocked a way to experience it the way locals do.

It turns out that Stonehenge isn't that far from the road, but seeing it from the road isn't feasible because there's nowhere to park or stop. However, a gentle hiking trail exists from a neighborhood near Stonehenge to the sight itself, and that trail runs incredibly close to the trail used by the suckers that pay for it.

I found that if you set your Google Maps to direct you to the corner of Willoughby Rd and Fargo Rd in Salisbury, England, you'll be dropped right at the trailheaad. From the Google satellite view, it looked like about a 1.5-mile flat walk on a trail sandwiched between fields of dirt and trees.

I will admit that getting out of London was a challenge. It didn't help that the car I rented -- a Jaguar SUV -- had all kinds of annoying features I had to figure out how to turn off. It had a REALLY aggressive auto stop-start feature, which would kill the engine every time the car would come to a stop for a few seconds. That's brutal when you're driving in big city, heavy traffic. Additionally, it had an annoying loud beeping sound every time I exceeded the speed limit by 2mph or more. It wasn't straightforward how to get rid of either of these, but eventually I figured them out -- but not before they tortured me on my initial drive back to the hotel to get everyone else after picking up the car.

The most difficult thing about "wrong side driving" for me was unlearning the natural feel of where the car sits on the road, relative to where I'm sitting. When sitting on the left side of the car, I have a great feel for that, as I have been driving that way for close to 40 years. However, sitting on the right side, I kept drifting over to the left side and nearly side-swiping parked vehicles or whatever was on or near the curb. This was because sitting on the right side made me always feel like I was too far over to the right, so I'd incorrectly move left to "correct" the feeling. This was tough to get used to, but fortunately I didn't hit anything.

Anyway, I finally got us over to the streetcorner where we'd park. It was a normal-looking residential/commerical street, and the parking along the curb was totally free and without limit. There were a number of other cars parked there (I'd say about 10), presumably all locals who knew this trick to see Stonehenge.

We got out, and Ben noticed a bunch of blackberry bushes. He wanted to pick and collect them to eat, but I told him we were running short on daylight and would do it after we got back. These were wild blackberry bushes, and didn't belong to anyone.

Why were we running short on daylight in the summer? For reasons not worth explaining, I wasn't able to get the car until after 4pm. Then I had to go back, pick everyone up, and then we also stopped to eat on the way. Also recall that it's 90 miles away and London has a lot of traffic. By the time we pulled up to the parking spot, it was about 8pm, and the sunset was 9:15. This gave us about 100 minutes or so of daylight, so obviously I wanted to get over to Stonehenge and spend the time we needed to look at it, and deal with the berries later.



Recall I said that Google Maps showed a boring, 1.5-mile flat trail to Stonehenge. Fortunately, it was FAR more interesting, and the walk to Stonehenge ended up quite charming.

After walking through a scenic little corridor of trees, you pop out along various interesting farms. First, there was a huge field of wheat. Believe it or not, I had never seen a wheat field in person (at least not on foot), and this one stretched a long way:




Then we noticed sheep and cows in the fields along side of us. This was becoming a far more interesting walk than across fields of dirt like on Google Maps. But I found a surprising sign on the fence on both sides.

The sign proclaimed that these animals were here for "fire abatement grazing", and amazingly, that it was a "conservancy" where you are allowed to enter and interact with the animals!

:what

What was this, a petting zoo? So when in Rome... (volume up)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwFpzcjlsgE

(notice Stonehenge in the background)



Anyway, after dodging our way through sheep shit (there was a lot of it), we went back on the main trail and headed toward Stonehenge itself....

I liked Stonehenge. It's not gigantic, but it's not small, either. There's 2 security guards who mill around, so you can get an idea of the size of it. If you look carefully in the below picture, you'll see a little yellow spot in the middle of it. That's the security guard's shirt. You can see the other guard all the way on the left.




And in case you want to see the difference between the pay trail and the free trail I did, here's the two trails right next to each other. The main difference is that the pay trail circles around it, whereas the free one only sees it from one side. But who cares? It looks similar from all angles.




So which picture did it actually look like? One is obviously a lot closer-looking than the other.

Well, the first picture is zoomed in, so it didn't look THAT close. But the second picture doesn't do it justice, as it makes it look much farther away than when actually there. So imagine between the two sizes, and that's about how it looked in person. I felt I was close enough to get a good view without wishing I were much closer.



There are more sheep right by Stonehenge, so it turned out we didn't even have to get off the trail to see them.

By the time we walked back, it was pitch dark once we got to the car. Ben picked his blackberries, we placed them in a paper cup I had in the car, and we ate them on the way back to London.

Successful day (night) trip!



In my opinion, the free version of Stonehenge is far superior to the pay one, provided you have a car. This is because:

- Far less crowded

- It's open 24 hours, unlike the pay version which has its last admission at 5pm

- Easy on Jew wallet (free, other than transportation costs)

- Scenic hike there with wheat farm, sheep, and cows

- You don't feel like you're in a tourist trap



I highly recommend you do it this way, provided you don't mind the drive and the hassle of getting a car. We used the car to drive to Heathrow the next day to being the flight home.

Still need to post more trip details, which I will soon enough.

Just wanted to update that I got a pleasant surprise from Hawaiian Airlines, related to the credit I would have otherwise had to waste from April 2025, which would have set me back about $3300.

After a lot of effort, they agreed to help me out and gave me until August 2026 to travel. Additionally, they converted the credits into a more flexible form. This is excellent, and is like found money that I had written off as lost.

:yes


Now I have to get to work to book a future Hawaii vacation (my first in over a decade).

I keep forgetting to post more travel stories from this Europe trip.

The recent poll I did, regarding the filthy restaurant, was of course from this trip.

Anyway, while Hawaiian Airlines surprisingly issued me full airline credit for the missed April 2025 trip (which was much better than I was asking them for), their website and overall booking system is beyond terrible.

To make a long story short, I got a gigantic stack of credit vouchers (21 total lol) for different amounts, and I had to use them to rebook. Pain in the ass, but obviously I was thrilled to have them.

However, what wasn't thrilling was the fact that I got an error trying to use them on the website. No matter what I did, I couldn't get them to work. I called the support number the site gave me when the failures occurred.

The first Philippines rep had some backwater internet and his VOIP connection was awful, so we got nowhere.

I called back and got him again, because it's a small department. Again his connection was awful. We tried to book manually, with me spelling out the names and giving all the vouchers and PINs individually, and of course it disconnected him again about 20 minutes in. Ugh!!

I called back and got a different guy. This one had a good connection but had the IQ of a potato, yet thought he was competent. I tried rebooking with him, but he was understanding less and less about what I was doing (he thought all 21 vouchers were in my name and kept saying I couldn't use them for other passengers, and couldn't get past that), so I had to abort and ask for a supervisor, which he kept resisting but finally got one.

The supervisor was smart and competent. Yay! However, the voucher system was such fail that even he was having trouble. In one case, a voucher wasn't working and kept giving him unspecified error messages. He finally realized that the voucher was issued to me as Todd Witteles with 3 spaces after my name, and that apparently is seen by the system as different than just Todd Witteles with no trailing spaces, so it kept giving errors. My phone actually clocked a full 2 hours before I was done with that call. Had I stayed on with the regular rep (the stupid one), it would have never gotten done.

Upon further research I learned that Hawaiian just has an awful website and a super antiquated and buggy reservations system, and you just have to deal with it if you fly with them. Maybe this will improve when they fully are merged into Alaska Airlines' system, but I hear that's no prize either.

No idea how the average person handles this. Even for me and all of my Jew skills, it took hours and I was tearing my hair out. I couldn't even consider abandoning ship because I had $3300 worth of vouchers, so it's not like I was putting in this effort to save $20.

BUMP

I plan to post more about this trip as time goes on, but here's a weird story from the Crystal ship which some of you might find amusing...


Crystal will do your laundry for free, but I really hate letting cruise staff do my laundry because they tend to do a shitty job. I also wonder if it's mixed with other people's laundry, perhaps placed with some kind of barrier so it doesn't mix up. Kinda think it has to be something like that. Every time I let a cruise ship do my laundry, it came out smelling only half clean.

Anyway, they have (also free) laundry facilities on each floor, and I'm more of a serve-yourself guy in general, so I chose to do my own laundry.

I walked in, and the only person in the room was a woman in a sundress who looked about 65. It was about 11pm, so honestly I was surprised to see anyone else.

She immediately remarked, "Oh! Things just got a lot nicer looking in here!"

:wtf2

Did she really mean what I thought she meant?

I just said hello, and tried to keep to myself. She kept trying to engage me in small talk, and it became clear pretty quickly that I was being hit on by an old lady.

She was just about done with her laundry, as her dryers were just finishing up. After the second one rang, she pulled out her clothes and then asked, "Can you do me a favor? I need a tall man with long arms to reach into that dryer and make sure I didn't leave anything."

I agreed to do it, but part of me thought this was just a story so she could stare at me doing it, like some kind of fetish of hers or something. I was praying that I wasn't going to reach in and find her granny panties, or perhaps worse.

Fortunately, the dryer was empty. She thanked me, talked a little bit more, then finally left the room and said goodnight. I assumed she finally got the picture that I didn't want to have senior citizen cruise sex. I didn't see her after that, though this was like the second-to-last night of the cruise.

So it looks like I'm now at the point of my life where old ladies are going to hit on me.

Lovely.

I will say that most people on Crystal cruises are wealthy, so I probably could have parlayed this into a 2026 WSOP stake had I shown any interest in her.

A Jew With Anxiety?
A possible title for your thousand page biography

spoiler alert. Jewish parents

Were you aware that many countries do not permit the carrying of a firearm in public, licensed or not. Claiming you are an American citizen means zero. Their country, their rules. Saying sorry never works.

In Canada there is no law against burning the American flag.
Should make the news

Carnival offers ridiculously cheap offer sometimes this is one i've got now from Seattle--->Hawaii, then around Hawaii and back to Seattle for only $370



lol maybe its just me but its so cheap hard to not think about..

Did just return from a Cruise out of Miami maybe why im getting this good offer but, very good hard to not notice..



im going to NJ in a month tho but further out idk..