Cruise Planners on the Road - South East Asia - Mekong River Cruise on AMA Waterways AMA Dara

Our departure day has finally arrived.  Both Happy and Sad. We were to meet our friends Mike and Karen in Japan and fly our last leg into Bangkok together. Alas - but so fortunately - Mike had an unexpected medical issue pop up that forced them to remain in San Diego during his recovery period. We will truly miss them - but we are already planning a make up trip. 

Pre-departure, and for the last several months leading up to today, we have used Trip-it Pro to build and keep track of our itinerary. It does a good job of getting your various flights, hotels, and cruises organized and then monitors changes that occur along the way.  Based on our usage to date I would definitely recommend it for your personal travel. Not sure yet how to fold it into our Cruise Planner client itineraries but it could be a real plus. 

Here is a photo of Trip-it Pro monitoring our progress. 

We are flying Coach tickets with 200,000 miles of upgrade credit attached. So our United legs are in First or Business First except for our ANA leg from Narita to Bangkok.  First leg was a smooth 737-800 ride from Ft Myers to Newark. Very nice to have access to the United Club here in Newark, NJ for free wi-fi and a quiet 90 minute wait for our next flight. Our next leg from Newark to Narita is a 14 hour non-stop flight on a 777-200ER. Long ride but will be a lot nicer in our Business First seats. I am looking forward to taking Valerie into the ANA lounge at Narita - my second favorite lounge in the world thus far - after Virgin's Club in London. Why is it a nice lounge?  Draft Japanese beer on tap, a Soba (noodle) chef and nice showers to refresh after the long flight. 

Time to sign off and walk down to the gate.