Monday, March 12, 2012

Getting to Norfolk?

OK, how do we get to Norfolk VA (airport code ORF) in time for a 1pm game on Saturday?

Well for starters you don't fly Saturday, that's hopeless. We gotta fly Friday night.

On Hipmunk I don't see any nonstops to ORF. You can fly United, changing planes in Newark, or US Airways changing planes in Charlotte.

Hmmmm... anybody see anything better? Post a comment!

Looking at Southwest, they don't have a red-eye, they offer leaving SFO at 1pm. No good.

Lessee .. Norfolk is 90 freeway miles from Richmond...

But: allow 30 minutes to exit the plane, get a rental car, and exit the airport, and 2 hours to drive, a hypothetical Richmond flight has to arrive no later than 9:30 am to make that 1pm tip-off.

And I don't see such a flight except for United SFO->IAD, IAD->RIC at 9:28am.

This is looking more and more like flying Friday daytime instead of a red-eye, darn it.

OK, Travelocity sees US Airways departing SFO at 10:20pm, changing planes in Charlotte, arriving 8:50am at ORF. The classic red-eye. But then I notice the price: $670 per person. Ooogh.

And that's the cheapest. If you'd rather fly a major airline, there's this United itinerary: SFO departure 11:06 Friday, change planes in Washington, DC, arrive Norfolk 9:45am Saturday. The IAD-ORF legs are in a Bombardier Q400, a propjet. $870/person.

Note that the Monday game is at 7pm local time, hence the return flight must be Tuesday.

OK I have booked a pair for the US Airways itinerary, 10:20pm SFO to CLT to ORF arriving 8:49am on Saturday. When I went to select seats, the SFO-CLT flight was just about full.

The stanford page says explicitly there are no travel packages for the first round. They do have an official travel agent for the later rounds, should you need one to get to Fresno... Well, maybe they will have something for Denver.