Royal Caribbean is good at entertaining kids during a cruise. Not so good at booking flights.
Photo: Conde Nast Traveler

by Brook Wilkinson

Unless you like the thrill of running between gates in distant airport terminals to make a tight connection, be careful of who you let book your flights these days. That's the moral of the story that Richard Turen tells in his most recent column for Travel Weekly. Regular Perrin Post readers will be familiar with Richard; he answered a reader's question about group trips to Italy the other day, and is an Italy, Cruising, and Culinary expert on Wendy's list of the world's best travel specialists.

Richard's story is about a family that's booked a cruise on Royal Caribbean this summer. They decided to book their flights through the cruise line as well. But Royal Caribbean gave them only a 50-minute layover to make their connection in Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport. The computers that Royal Caribbean use to do their flight booking call that a legal connection. However, anyone who's flown through CDG knows it's a bear to navigate. (If you don't believe me, check out Skytrax's Airport Opinion page.) And if this family's flight from Barcelona to Paris is even a smidge late, what are the chances that their checked bags will make it to Chicago? At least the tight connection is on the way home and they won't have to worry about missing the boat . . .

So if you ever leave your flight arrangements in someone else's hands -- when booking a cruise, group trip, or even just a complicated itinerary you're doing yourself on the Web -- take note of the connection times. Or I'll just have to say "I told you so" when I see you sprinting from Gate A36 to D15.