USA (thanksgiving, featuring unclaimed baggage centre) trip report

We chose the worst time to get ourselves to the US, let me start by saying that. It was a week or so after the A380 debacle, so QF had embargoed all travel. I had to get myself from SIN-Aus and then to USA which would have been easy on DL or UA, but I had my gf in tow who could only take CX or oneworld - and we had used her CX sectors for the year! To get to Aus I used EY via BNE which was quite comfortable, much nicer food and service than EK I must say.

So thankfully her sis who works at Virgin Blue came to the rescue and we got J staff tickets on V Australia from SYD. They were quite $ for staff tickets, but still cheaper than a confirmed Y ticket so can't complain. The service, food and wine was great and very personal. The seat was a bit odd in that it wasn't terribly stable and during the night you could see peoples legs bouncing up and down with the plane!

Arrived in LAX - impressed with the renovations, Mig! Made our way to LAS on WN buddy pass easily. We stayed at Encore at the Wynn and it is BY FAR my fav hotel to stay at ever. I will most definitely be back. I forwent my annual trip to Dallas and we extended in LAS for one night.

Then we flew to JAN via MDW to meet my friend who was to drive us to his parents place in Alabama for thanksgiving. The day we got to MDW was the day before thanksgiving when people were said to be protesting the new body scanners so I was a little concerned. We had 3hrs layover and took the L downtown for some deep dish. It was freezing and I got lost, but thankfully my buddy in ORD (who was in DTW at the time) directed me on the phone!

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Once we got to JAN and then Alabama the smoked and deep fried turkey for thanksgiving was an interesting thing to see and try. My friend's dad drove us around his small town after lunch, but I was so tired I fell asleep in the car! Thankfully my gf stayed awake... :(

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The highlight of the trip was of course the unclaimed baggage center in Scottsboro, Alabama. We all piled in the car around 4am on black friday and hit the road as it was quite a drive to get there. It took us a little longer than we thought, so we only had around 1hr to shop. I got about 10 business shirts for <$10 each. I also got a Sony camera for $35.. the same model my mother wrecked in MSY a few years before during a downpour. The catch was it has no charger and is in Japanese! The charger I can get on ebay, I suspect the Japanese can be changed, but no one in small town Alabama new Japanese to do so... so I will give to my friend to have a look.

The place was quite interesting, but not exactly as big as it is made out to be. It is great for getting cameras or bose headphones etc. The business clothes are decent as well as coats and scarves, but I can't say much about the casual clothes - they weren't very nice. They even had wedding dresses (and some big ones at that)!!!

I've attached a pic with all my bargains!

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Then we hit LGA via MDW again and shopped shopped shopped.

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The hotel was great and in a great location right next to columbus circle, but the staff at reception left a lot to be desired. They kept telling me my card was declined, so they managed to auth $1000, 5 times over different credit cards! The room was only worth $800 and holds of $5000 were held over our cards for 2 weeks. The next morning we were told they went through and they couldn't understand why she had told us they had been declined. If they were pure credit cards that would be OK, but as I got increasingly desperate I gave her my debit and US cash card, so she wiped us out.

Thankfully the general manager was responsive on email, and will give me a nice discount when I come back next year. Decided to make it November again, those thanksgiving sales are such an attraction!

To get out we took Porter from EWR-YTZ (I just wanted to ride the ferry from airport, how neat!). Then we took CX from YYZ-HKG and spent a few days.

Pretty good trip... going to repeat it this year!

But before that, we are going to Xi'an this month, then Egypt in April :) RJ and MH have some cheap confirmed fares right now but I think we will take Turkish and stop in IST for a day or two to check it out. Will ask for some advice on IST in another thread...