Why did my plans change?

Unfortunately, Pope Francis passed away early morning on Monday, the day after Easter. For me, this was unsurprising given his failing health over the last few months, but it was unexpected given that he was able to do his normal things as Pope on Easter Sunday.

And honestly, I knew that him actually attending and presiding Carlo Acutis’ canonization would be a concern. And…now it isn’t. Because the Vatican has now also cancelled and postponed the canonization (unsurprisingly).

Because of Pope Francis’ passing, that set in motion the usual and traditional things that happen whenever a pope dies.

I almost canceled my trip

One of the glorious things of booking with miles and points is flexibility. Cancellation policies are more generous, and generally I can get all those points and miles back should I cancel.

When I found out Monday morning about Pope Francis had passed away and the canonization canceled, I did contemplate canceling this trip because the primary reasons or me going to Rome was no longer going to happen.

Ultimately, I decided to still go.

Why am I still going to Rome?

I have a few reasons for still going to Rome given the circumstances. Firstly, I still wanted this trip to be a review trip. I saw that both of my flights are on AA’s B777-200 aircraft, and I realized that I hadn’t yet made review notes for Main Cabin and Main Cabin Extra for this aircraft type. With these two flight reviews, I would’ve reviewed every seat type on this aircraft! Also, I’m staying at a Tapestry property for Hilton, and I’ve never stayed at one before, and I’d like to share my thoughts on that.

Secondly, the theme of papal plot twist continued. I found out on Tuesday (yesterday) that Pope Francis will lie in state at St. Peter’s for the remainder of the week, with a generous window of time for people to pay their respects. Additionally, the Vatican announced that his funeral is this Saturday at 10AM Rome time.

Given all this, my goals for my time in Rome and Vatican City regarding Pope Francis are now:

• Pay my respects at St. Peter’s
• Maybe attend a Requiem Mass for Pope Francis at a local church
• Attend the funeral (which may be a challenge)
• Be part of or observe the funeral procession (which will be historical since practically every pope is buried at St. Peter’s and this will be the first time that one …is not)

What else am I going to do in Rome?

…whatever the Romans do! Lol

I’m actually keeping this trip pretty open-ended as not even the papal stuff is set in stone for me as I will have to figure everything out on the ground on the fly. Winging it, really, since I have not booked these things for myself.

I did however book a cooking class for Saturday evening! I’m pretty excited about that. When I was in Barcelona last September, I used a food tour company at the recommendation of a coworker to do a food and wine tour and that was an incredible experience. I used the same company to boost his cooking class, and the reviews are really good!

Other than that…I plan on visiting churches around Rome. Eating Filipino food. And whatever seems cool to look at or do in the moment.

Bottom Line

My Rome trip for the canonization had a papal plot twist with Pope Francis’ passing. Now my itinerary in Rome is loosey-goosey and focused on attending the different mourning events.

But even then, I’ll have time to do a cooking class, visit churches and other things around Rome, and eat Filipino food!

How would you handle a big change to your travel itinerary?

The post A Papal Plot Twist appeared first on Where Is Randell?.

Not gonna lie—I’m stressed. But excited! Work is ramping up as we hit busy times for various projects, and because these projects have had some delays, they’re now kind of lining up on top of each other. Whatever. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. 

Despite all that, I’m super excited! This upcoming week I’ll be going to Rome for the first time in like 8 years! I actually booked everything back in November rather impulsively, but that’s the beauty of not using money to book flights and such, which I’ll share below.

Background on this trip to Rome

Several years ago (during the pandemic, I think), I learned about a young man who died of leukemia when he was 15 years old, in the early 2000’s. But in his short time on this earth, he was a remarkable individual. His name is Carlo Acutis, and he’s from Italy. 

I find Carlo to be remarkable because of his enthusiastic love for his faith and willingness to share that with others. A devout Catholic, he frequented going to Mass and was not afraid to befriend others and share his faith with them. He had a particular devotion to the Eucharist, and he created a website that talks about various Eucharistic miracles around the world (where the Communion wafer literally turned into flesh). The website is still online.

Additionally, Carlo was a nerd! Like…he learned programming languages so he could create that website. But what really resonates with me was that Carlo was also a video gamer! Apparently he played games like Mario, Pokémon, and Halo (I’m a fan of all three!), and he owned a PS2! (Which… those video game series aren’t on that console so hmmm…). I read books on Carlo, and he was self-aware enough to temper his playing of video games so as not to become addicted and distract him from God.

For more info about Carlo Acutis, here are 10 things to know about him.

With all that background, the reason why I’m going to Rome is because of Carlo Acutis’ canonization! This means that the Catholic Church will officially declare him a Saint (capital S)! He’s the first millennial saint to be canonized! (And first video gamer!).

Pope Francis announced his canonization date back in November 2024. As soon as I saw news about that, I immediately booked airfare and hotels. I’m glad I did that because I knew that the longer I waited, the costs would go up.

What my itinerary looks like

Let me slide in here and say that having points and miles is a great flexible way to book travel. I tend to hoard hotel points and airline miles, usually saving them for aspirational redemptions (like the world’s longest nonstop flight). But in this case, I’m glad I had enough hotel points and airline miles saved to book this trip impulsively. I’ll briefly talk about each booking and a little bit of my thought process for each, but the details of how I booked them will be shared in the reviews and trip report. 

Flight: American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin DFW-FCO

First thing’s first (let’s buckle those belts)–gotta get to Rome. As I am DFW-based, I needed a way to get to Rome.  Luckily, American Airlines runs a nonstop DFW-FCO flight. It wouldn’t have been a problem for me to connect to AA’s other hubs and onwards to Rome, but having a nonstop flight makes this convenient.

Because I’m approaching this trip with a pilgrimage mindset and trying to keep costs as low as possible, I opted to book only in the Main Cabin. I used miles. Besides, for review purposes, I don’t think I’ve reviewed AA’s B777-200 in economy yet.

Hotel: The Spring House Hotel

For the hotel, I wanted something Hilton since I’m a Hilton loyalist and Diamond member. Luckily, Hilton has added more hotels to its portfolio in Rome since the last time I was in town (which was 2017). I opted for The Spring House Hotel because it is conveniently located near St. Peter’s Square just outside the walls of the Vatican. That’s an easy walk. When I went to Mother Teresa’s canonization in 2016, I had stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn across Rome, and it took a while to get to St. Peter’s via the tram and walking. 

Also, I’ve never stayed at a Tapestry Collection brand of Hilton. These are a curated selection of hotels that “offer guests unique style and vibrant personality”. So I’m excited to see what makes it unique and different from the standard brands I’m familiar with.

Hilton lets you book with a combination of points and cash. And I did just that in order to book The Spring House. I didn’t want to burn a lot of my points in one go so this was an ideal option for me.

Hotel: Hilton Rome Airport

I’ve stayed at the Hilton Rome Airport before back in 2017. It’s a good Hilton hotel for the “one last night before my flight tomorrow” stay. And that’s exactly how I am treating it. I’ll be checking into this hotel after the canonization so I’m sure I’ll be tired and sweaty from the day’s activities and will be interested in chilling out.

For this hotel stay, I actually booked it with cash. My thought was I wanted to earn points to get my balance back up closer to 1 million Hilton points, lol. It’s gonna be an expensive one night stay, but that’s alright.

Flight: American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra FCO-DFW

Actually, I booked my flights as a round trip. But two weeks before this trip, I ended up semi-upgrading my Main Cabin seat to Main Cabin Extra. I figured the extra leg room on the way home would make it a little more comfortable. And I don’t recall this type of seat and aircraft being on my review queue.

The American Express Hilton Aspire credit card that I used to book the Hilton hotels above has an airline credit benefit. Basically every quarter, I can get up to $50 credit on purchases directly made with an airline on certain purchases. So I justified paying the upgrade to Main Cabin Extra knowing that I’ll get a good portion of it back in airline credit. It’s the same benefit I used to upgrade into First Class on my way home from Alaska last year.

Bottom Line

I’m excited to go on this trip to Rome for Carlo Acutis’ canonization. With two flights and two hotels booked, I’ll be reviewing each and posting those here. 

Honestly, apart from checking into each of these portions of this trip and attending the canonization, I don’t have any other rigid plans. I’ll have time to explore Rome for two days before the canonization. We’ll see what I end up doing!

So how would you have booked this itinerary? Lemme know down in the comments!

The post Booked: A Canonization in Rome! appeared first on Where Is Randell?.

Why I Took This Trip

I’ve told a lot of people in person and on personal social media that I’m on a mission for 2024 to visit every aunt, uncle, and first cousin on both sides of my family. And I just happen to have two cousins who live in northern Alaska. While this Alaska trip happened mid-year, I had already made good progress, but those previous trips to visit will not be covered on this blog.

Secondly, my cousins live in Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska. This is the northernmost town in Alaska and thus also the northernmost town in the US of A. Definitely a bucket list item that needed to be checked off! A thing I considered also is that they tend to fly back and forth between Anchorage and Utqiagvik so I wanted to make sure I caught them in Utqiagvik.

Lastly, despite my vast amounts of flying, I have never flown Alaska Airlines. But flying them was required in order for me to achieve my intentions for this trip. More on that below.

My requirements for this trip were:

• Be only Thursday thru Sunday to minimize using vacation time (which I need for other planned trips!)
• No checked bags
• Has to be in summertime because I don’t want to be too cold, haha

How I Packed for This Trip

The week leading up to this trip, I started looking at the weather in Utqiagvik. It was something like highs in the 40’s and lows in the 30’s. So pretty cold for me, a Texan.

Because I didn’t plan on checking bags, everything I brought with me needed to fit in a carry-on sized rollaboard as well as a backpack. In general, this is my preference to fly weekend trips unless I know I want or need to bring or bring back lots of stuff, which wasn’t the case this trip.

The carry-on luggage was great for handling more long sleeves and pants given that I knew the weather would be cold.

My backpack handled mostly things I wanted access to easily during flight. You know, ttuff like my electronics and toiletries.

The Flights I Flew

Booking these flights took some consideration. About 4 months before my trip, I coordinated with my cousins when they would be in Utqiagvik. And once I found out what would be a good weekend, I started researching flights to book.

When doing flight research for this trip, I found out that there’s only one flight a day between Anchorage (ANC) and Utquiagvik (BRW) Tuesday thru Sunday. Therefore, it was important to me that I actually got on that flight. An option I had was to risk using my flight benefits and fly standby both to get to Anchorage and then onwards to Utqiagvik. However, I decided against that given the risk of not getting on a plane.

I ended up booking the ANC-BRW round trip flight first since there’s only one flight a day served by Alaska Airlines:

Fri 6/21/2024 AS51 ANC-BRW: Departs 2:35PM, Arrives 4:26PM
Sun 6/23/2024 AS50 BRW-ANC: Departs 5:30PM, Arrives 7:20PM

This costed me $614, which is pretty steep for a 1.5 hour flight. Since Alaska Airlines is the only airline that operates commercially to Utqiagvik, they have no competition to help lower the price.

I ended up creating an Alaska Mileage Plan account anticipating that I’ll likely fly Alaska Airlines again in the future. However, I included my American Airlines AAdvantage number on my profile to be able to earn AAdvantage miles instead since I’m actually spending money on these tickets.

About a week after booking the roundtrip flight between ANC and BRW, I decided to go ahead and book the American Airlines portion that would be a roundtrip between DFW and ANC. Now, I suppose I could have booked everything in one itinerary since AA and Alaska Airlines are partners, but the system didn’t find BRW flights. This ended up being fine for me so that I could book a round trip DFW-ANC and use my 20% airline employee discount on it, which only works on AA metal flights anyway. I paid $414 for this in Main Cabin:

Thu 6/20/2024 AA395 DFW-ANC: Departs 7:12PM, Arrives 11:01PM
Sun 6/23/2024 AA399 ANC-DFW: Departs 8:40PM, Arrives 6:18AM+1

I know DFW-ANC is about a 6 hour long flight. Because of this long flight, I wanted to ensure that I’d be sitting in my ideal row, which is Row 27 seats D, E, or F on AA’s A321neo aircraft. Why is it ideal? Large amounts of leg room, and you still have underseat storage with Row 26. And it’s a Main Cabin Extra row so … free booze!

Given that I have the American Express Hilton Aspire card that has a $200 annual airline credit that’s dished out $50 every quarter, I went ahead and paid for being able to sit in this MCE row. It was $78 to select the seat, but with the $50 credit, it was only $28! Worth it to me for sure, especially for a 6 hour flight!

Ok, now backtracking to the fact that my return flight ANC-DFW departed at night on Sunday and arrived first thing in the morning on a Monday… I foolishly decided to still go into work that day. Again–I didn’t want to use more vacation time, and I would actually save a vacation day by going into work on Monday! Therefore, I knew that I needed to be comfy enough to be able to sleep on the (basically) redeye flight back home.

And that’s when I decided to check the AA app maybe like a month before departure to see what kind of upgrade offer was available for the return flight. At the time that I checked, the offer was $263 to upgrade to First Class. Over a 6 hour flight, that’s basically ~$44/hour. The common frequent traveler rule of thumb is that you take such an upgrade if it’s less than $50/hr. So…I did!

A few weeks before departure, I popped into the Alaska Airlines app and the same thing happened for the return leg from BRW to ANC! Except that upgrade offer was ~$40! And over a 1.5 hour flight, that’s ~$27/hr! No brainer, right?? So I upgraded that one too!

To summarize and to read my reviews on each leg of this trip:

• American Airlines A321neo Main Cabin Extra (DFW-ANC)
• Alaska Airlines B737-800 Economy Class (ANC-BRW)
• Alaska Airlines B737-800 First Class (BRW-ANC)
• American Airlines A321neo First Class (ANC-DFW)

Also, as part of these flight reviews, I do a little mini-review of the following airline lounges:

• Admirals Club at DFW Terminal A
• Alaska Lounge at ANC

What I Did In Utqiagvik

I should definitely mention that I took this trip the weekend of the summer solstice–longest days of the year. Made even longer by being so dang far up north!

Thurs June 20, 2024

So actually… I did spend one night in Anchorage the night I flew in. My cousin and I hit up a liquor store to pick up a bottle per a family member’s request, then we went home where I pretty much went straight to bed.

Fri June 21, 2024

The next day was chaotic in the morning as I helped my cousin and her husband load up an SUV with like 11 or 12 plastic totes that they were planning on bringing back to Utqiagvik. All while also minding/watching their two young boys. I detail the check in process in my review of Alaska Airlines B737-800 Economy Class.

Once we landed in Utqiagvik around 4:30PM, it was still quite the process to retrieve all those totes, loading them up in a truck, then driving the short distance to my cousin’s house.

Driving through town, I was amazed at the style of living here in Utqiagvik—all dirt roads, most things look old and dusty, and the town itself is pretty small (I’m a big Texas city kid so it’s kinda shocking!).

Before we arrived at my cousin’s house, though, we stopped by the whale bones for a photo op.

Once we unloaded all the totes and kind of settled at my cousin’s house, we drove over a short distance to my other cousin’s apartment to visit him and his wife for a minute. Somewhere towards the end of the visit, we all agreed to tour me to the northern part of Utqiagvik. The wild thing to me is we left my cousin’s apartment past 8PM but the sun was still blazing in the sky!

The north part of Utqiagvik has a few things.

I didn’t take a pic of it, but there’s a small settlement of huts that the natives like to use when it is hunting season. My cousins also showed me the local university and research institute before touring me around the main parts of Utqiagvik.

I wish I had taken a picture of the hospital because it is the most modern-looking building in Utqiagvik. Alas.

We didn’t get back home til about 10PM. And yep! The sun was still shining. I stayed up for a little while then finally went to bed at around 11:30PM. Yep—that sun is still blazing outside lol.

Sat June 22, 2024

Just for completeness, I did wake up naturally around 3:00AM, and it was still very bright outside. The sun never went away!

We had a late start to the morning. Big day as my cousins were gonna host a birthday party for their oldest, Filipino-style. In the morning, I mostly helped watch the kids, helped my cousins do some prep work for the birthday party later, and watched YouTube videos while helping them unload their totes. We did a late breakfast at Niġġivikput cafe at the Top of the World Hotel. At my cousin’s recommendation, I got the chicken fried steak, and it was pretty delicious!

After breakfast-for-lunch, we hit up the local grocery stores to pick up some last-minute things for the birthday party.

I was shocked at how expensive things are! $10 for 18 eggs??? $79 for the 12-pack roll of paper towels from Kirkland Signature??? Ridiculous!

Once we returned home, I helped with watching the kids, prepping for the party, and even took a brief nap before people started showing up for the party.

The party had a pretty awesome spread of food. While my cousin and her husband provided a few of the main things, the food kept multiplying as guests arrived!

Several hours later, we were several cases deep in White Claws and Trulys, our chips exchanging constantly through poker and Left, Center, Right games, and at some point someone busted out the Magic Mic so we had karaoke amidst all the chaos.

Was this really a kid’s birthday party? I’m not sure.

This party lasted close to midnight before most everyone went home, haha.

Sun June 23, 2024

I don’t remember what time I went to bed, but I got up early enough to take a shower and get ready to go to Mass. My cousin accompanied me as we went to the 10AM Mass at St. Patrick’s.

It dawned on me that I had gone to Mass at the top of the world, this being probably the northernmost Catholic church in at least the United States! I feel like I should write about this on my other blog, but ehhh…

When we got home from Mass, my cousin made spam and egg fried rice, and it was oh so delicious, especially when eating it with seaweed (the snacking kind). Kind of like deconstructed musubi, haha.

This being my last day, my cousin’s husband wanted to make sure I had a chance to go shoot some guns. Apparently his buddy has an M1 Garand, a gun I’ve always thought would be cool to shoot after liking it from the original Call of Duty games. So after lunch, we packed up the goods then headed out to some empty hillsides on the other side of town to go shoot. We shot AR-15s, pistols, and the M1 Garand.

We had to call it quits after like an hour because it was pretty windy and cold. And I also had to get to the airport. So we went home where I packed my stuff, then we all headed to the airport.

My cousins stayed with me as I checked in, went through security, and boarded the plane. You can read my flight review here of Alaska Airlines B737-800 First Class.

And that wrapped up my time in Utqiagvik! I’m glad to have had the opportunity to spend time with my cousins and be shown around town.

What I Learned From This Trip

During the down times, I got to chat with my cousins about life in Utqiagvik. It is so different from anything I’ve seen or am used to!

The most immediate thing is the dirt roads everywhere! I’m pretty sure the only paved road is the runway of the airport. Apparently the entire town is built on permafrost, and that’s why all the roads are dirt and most of the buildings and structures are elevated on blocks or stilts. Multiple times, I saw tanker trucks spraying water on the roads to help reduce dust going everywhere. The other crazy thing I learned is that…Utqiagvik is not driveable from anywhere else in Alaska! Except maybe in winter when lakes and rivers freeze over. My cousin told me that they receive supplies via air or via ship.

Because a lot of supplies are shipped in, most of your basic food and supplies are super expensive. This is why my cousins, and many other Utqiagvik residents, fly down to Anchorage every so often to pick up necessities for a much more reasonable price. My cousin told me that they tend to go like every six months–crazy!

As far as employment goes, I’m still a little unsure of what most everyone does. Apart from the few restaurants, services, and infrastructure, I’m assuming most everyone probably works for agencies or helping with hunting. My older cousin is the IT guy for the hospital, and his wife works in some sort of administrative position at the same hospital. My younger cousin works as an admin in the local government office, and her husband is a heavy machinery mechanic.

Apparently there’s only a few thousand people that live in Utqiagvik. Over half are natives (mostly Inupiat). And for some reason there’s a good handful of Filipinos because … we’re everywhere! lol. My cousins made sure to point out a street festival that happened over the weekend that the natives have in celebration of the summer and/or celebrating the hunting season (I forget which).

Temps were in 30’s/40’s for highs, and like 20’s for lows. Apparently 30’s/40’s are considered a heat wave in Utqiagvik!

Trip Stats and Achievements

Response and Bottom Line

This was a cool (literally and figuratively) trip up to Utqiagvik to visit my cousins! They have lived there for years, but I finally had the opportunity to seize and actually go up there to visit them. Learning about the town and its way of life helped me appreciate living a simpler life without the stresses and struggles of big city life. Sure, the temperature, sunlight, and paper towel pricing are its own challenges in Utqiagvik, but I know those are things that become more like an acquired taste.

So far this was probably my most expensive trip regarding airfare this year, but it was well worth the cost to guarantee that I would make it all the way up to Utqiagvik from Dallas/Fort Worth comfortably thanks to American Airlines and Alaska Airline. For the north Texan, Alaska is very accessible!

When I wrapped up this trip, I remembered thinking to myself that I would love to go hang out in Utqiagvik for a longer stay in order to further learn more about life in the northernmost city in Alaska/United States. Who knows, maybe that day will come sooner than later! …just maybe not so much during wintertime…

Would you ever go up to Utqiagvik? Let me know in the comments!

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