It’s just after midnight, and I’m heading to bed shortly, excited as a little kid on Christmas Eve, waiting for Santa Clause! We’re leaving for our nearly three week trip to South America in the morning, and I’m just finishing up loose ends before we go. We’re flying COPA airlines 
at 11:30am for 3 1/2 hours from Orlando (MCO) to Panama City (PTY); then have a two hour connection, followed by a 6 1/2 hour flight to Santiago, Chile (SCL). If all goes well, we should arrive around midnight. It’s a long day, but at least it’s a ‘daytime flight’; most airlines fly overnight to South America.
I’ve heard mixed reviews of Copa Airlines, but I’m going in with low expectations, so anything positive will be wonderful. I’ve been reading too many comments on www.flyertalk.com/, and as they say – everyone has an opinion. I’m not trying to compare it to American or LAN like some posters do, but then again COPA is probably half the price of the majors, and they have daytime flights, normally on-time as well. Actually COPA has set up a niche market by connecting their flights thru Panama, and can do so by operating smaller, single aisle 737 jets instead of larger wide-body jets requiring more fuel an passengers to break even. We’re in ‘Business Class’, (their version of First Class) which looks like it will be comparable to domestic First. Fortunately they allow two 70 pound bags in Business Class, and Dos and I are close to that limit! We never can pack light! I’m too tired to take pictures, and have already taken a couple bags to the rental car we’ll drop off at MCO tomorrow. Will have to take a couple photos of our luggage at the airport – should be fun traveling around to 3 different hotels when we get to Santiago! We’re then sailing on a 14 night repositioning cruise aboard the Celebrity Infinity from Santiago to Ft. Lauderdale. (Pic on the intro page shows the Celebrity Constellation, but didn’t have a close up of the Infinity. Identical ship though, in the ‘M’ class of Celebrity. I’ll write up a review of Copa when I get there, and hopefully can blog along the cruise. Until then, nightie-night!