Jun 8, 2007
A week in Orlando should be split between Disney and non-Disney
Recently, Walt Disney World introduced its new "Magic Your Way" ticket pricing and lowered the per-day cost for people who spend several consecutive days at its theme parks ("pay less per day the longer you stay"). Never mind that the vast majority of visitors are satisfied to visit Disney for only a few days. Whereas families spending a week in Orlando, Florida used to visit Disney on days one to three, and then devoted days four to six to Orlando's other noteworthy entertainments, they are now being enticed into lingering on Disney property by the considerable economy of lower ticket prices for longer stays.
I'm unhappy about that. Although Walt Disney World is a remarkable achievement in tourism, it would be a terrible mistake to spend your entire Orlando vacation on Disney property. Orlando hosts seven of the nation's ten most popular theme parks, and three of them -- SeaWorld, Universal Studios, and the stunning Islands of Adventure -- are not Disney properties. Neither is the stirring Kennedy Space Center where you can see the actual Space Shuttle being readied for launch. If you refuse to leave Disney's campus, you're missing a lot.
Universal has struck back by offering a price of $85 (including tax) on the Internet for the right to spend all week at the Universal theme parks in Orlando (that compares with a price of $67 a day for single-day admissions to the Disney properties). And this June, Universal adds a permanent production of "Blue Man Group" to entice guests to stick around well into the night. Moreover, the four non-Disney theme parks currently offer an Orlando FlexTicket for about $190 which gives unlimited entrance for up to two weeks to Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, SeaWorld Orlando, and the Wet 'n Wild water slide park. It's sold in any of the four parks.
What's a good overall strategy? In my opinion, most people will be more than satisfied with a schedule that calls for one Disney park per day for a total of two or three days. Don't let Disney pricing lure you into staying a minute longer than you really need to.
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I'm unhappy about that. Although Walt Disney World is a remarkable achievement in tourism, it would be a terrible mistake to spend your entire Orlando vacation on Disney property. Orlando hosts seven of the nation's ten most popular theme parks, and three of them -- SeaWorld, Universal Studios, and the stunning Islands of Adventure -- are not Disney properties. Neither is the stirring Kennedy Space Center where you can see the actual Space Shuttle being readied for launch. If you refuse to leave Disney's campus, you're missing a lot.
Universal has struck back by offering a price of $85 (including tax) on the Internet for the right to spend all week at the Universal theme parks in Orlando (that compares with a price of $67 a day for single-day admissions to the Disney properties). And this June, Universal adds a permanent production of "Blue Man Group" to entice guests to stick around well into the night. Moreover, the four non-Disney theme parks currently offer an Orlando FlexTicket for about $190 which gives unlimited entrance for up to two weeks to Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, SeaWorld Orlando, and the Wet 'n Wild water slide park. It's sold in any of the four parks.
What's a good overall strategy? In my opinion, most people will be more than satisfied with a schedule that calls for one Disney park per day for a total of two or three days. Don't let Disney pricing lure you into staying a minute longer than you really need to.
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For theater tickets, wait until you get there
People write to me that they are planning to represent their company at a convention in Las Vegas but then would like to stay on for a few more days on their own, and where can they get good prices at hotels and evening performances? I respond not simply with the key Las Vegas websites for discounts at hotels, but with the advice that they wait to buy their show tickets until they arrive in Vegas and can go to the two half-price ticket booths that now operates on the Strip. Those kiosks are a real money saver, and depending on the time of the year they will even sell reduced-price seats to the popular Cirque du Soleil show that is normally sky-high in price. All over the nation, theaters with unsold seats sell them at sacrificial rates on the day of performance, at special central kiosks or ticket booths maintained for that purpose.
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A long-deserved tribute to a small tour operator
A travel organization called Escapes Unlimited operates as much for the love of travel as for profit. It was founded 25 years ago by a California social worker named Roe Gruber to deals with the world’s most exotic destinations at prices well below what everyone else asks. Imagine enjoying a five-night stay in Bali or Vietnam, including breakfast, sightseeing, and round-trip air from Los Angeles or San Francisco for $899 per person. Or five nights in Ecuador or Panama, including round-trip air from Miami, for $599. Or five nights in Buenos Aires, on the same basis, for $649. Roe Gruber’s obvious goal is to bring about learning and heightened social consciousness through travel. If you’d like to join her trips, simply go to www.escapesltd.com.
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Labels: budget, tour companies
The large new cruiseships have opted to be merchandise marts of products and services
What is the general level of culture aboard the giant new cruiseships designed to house from 2,500 to 3,000 passengers? In a word: dismal. Having just returned from one of those ships, and heard from a great many travelers commenting on others, I can confirm that the ships' operating companies have quite obviously resolved to cater to the lowest intelligence and taste.
The largest single area on the mega-ships -- a vast expanse -- is the casino, where various thousand-dollar jackpots and other windfalls are marketed to pitiable addicts of the slots and tables; they're found there, glassy-eyed and silent, at 3am and later. The runners-up in size are the shops -- not simply a few of them but whole arcades duplicating a suburban mall. Every day at sea, leaflets are slipped under your cabin door advertising various sales and mark-downs, and tables of bargain-priced merchandise are placed in the public corridors, under signs urging you to buy, buy, buy! Most afternoons, heavily-marketed art auctions (more leaflets slipped under your door) are scheduled to fool various innocents into believing they can pick up a genuine work of art.
In marketing and sales, no one matches the ocean spas. Their leaflets are found everywhere on the vast ship, promising through cellulite treatments to reduce your waist size by one inch. Aboard one of the mega-ships, the most heavily promoted treatment is a $175 massage involving large, heated stones placed atop your back. Not to be outdone, the managers of various optional, extra-charge, restaurants stand at the entrance to the main dining room displaying menus and exhibits of the gourmet delights that can be yours by agreeing to a $30-per-person cover charge at their snooty eating places.
I'm sorry to have burdened you with this detailed listing of pricey vulgarity, but the massive marketing aboard these mega-ships would hardly be believable without an actual inventory of excess. That astonishing commercialism is totally at odds with the better traditions of ocean travel, and a vast disappointment to those of us with cherished memories of previous trips at sea. As to the lectures and other presentations aboard, they have been limited -- in my experience -- to the most trivial of topics that mostly consist of diet discussions ("a flatter stomach in two weeks'), cooking demonstrations, beauty and make-up advice.
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The largest single area on the mega-ships -- a vast expanse -- is the casino, where various thousand-dollar jackpots and other windfalls are marketed to pitiable addicts of the slots and tables; they're found there, glassy-eyed and silent, at 3am and later. The runners-up in size are the shops -- not simply a few of them but whole arcades duplicating a suburban mall. Every day at sea, leaflets are slipped under your cabin door advertising various sales and mark-downs, and tables of bargain-priced merchandise are placed in the public corridors, under signs urging you to buy, buy, buy! Most afternoons, heavily-marketed art auctions (more leaflets slipped under your door) are scheduled to fool various innocents into believing they can pick up a genuine work of art.
In marketing and sales, no one matches the ocean spas. Their leaflets are found everywhere on the vast ship, promising through cellulite treatments to reduce your waist size by one inch. Aboard one of the mega-ships, the most heavily promoted treatment is a $175 massage involving large, heated stones placed atop your back. Not to be outdone, the managers of various optional, extra-charge, restaurants stand at the entrance to the main dining room displaying menus and exhibits of the gourmet delights that can be yours by agreeing to a $30-per-person cover charge at their snooty eating places.
I'm sorry to have burdened you with this detailed listing of pricey vulgarity, but the massive marketing aboard these mega-ships would hardly be believable without an actual inventory of excess. That astonishing commercialism is totally at odds with the better traditions of ocean travel, and a vast disappointment to those of us with cherished memories of previous trips at sea. As to the lectures and other presentations aboard, they have been limited -- in my experience -- to the most trivial of topics that mostly consist of diet discussions ("a flatter stomach in two weeks'), cooking demonstrations, beauty and make-up advice.
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Labels: cruise
Jun 7, 2007
Volunteer vacations are the current craze
For reasons hard to explain, but easy to speculate about, the volunteer vacation is currently surging, and people are flocking to places where they can work at a socially beneficial cause; we Yanks apparently feel guilty about many things. The three leading organizations to arrange such vacations are, of course, the American Hiking Society (restoring trails and other facilities in national and state parks), the Sierra Club (every sort of environmental improvement), and Habitat for Humanity (construction of low-income housing). But perhaps the broadest program is that of Earthwatch, accessed at www.earthwatch.org, on which you volunteer to accompany a university scientist on various research expeditions. Though you pay heavily for such a privilege the modest net cost seems well justified by the thrill of the effort.
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A word about those one-week safaris
In an earlier post, I wrote about the curtailed (in length) African safaris operated by Lion World Travel of Toronto, for under $2,000 per person, including round-trip air to Nairobi from New York City (via London). The ability of that remarkable Canadian company to operate such a trip for so little money is based on the short, one-week nature of the activity. If you've ever been on an African safari, you'll agree with me, I think, that five days of lengthy games drives in Kenya are perfectly sufficient for the first-time safari-goer. Surrounded as you are by constant migrating herds of wildebeest, giraffes, elephants, cheetahs, monkeys, rhino (in the rivers) and -- most important -- prides of lions, you will have more than your fill of this eternal natural life in five days of safari drives. It is by reducing the normal two-week pattern of safaris to five days that tour operators like Lion World have been able to lower the air-included, meals-included, games-drives-included price to $1,999. We should all be grateful.
Unlike safaris in South Africa, Botswana and elsewhere, safaris in Kenya and neighboring Tanzania never fail to present the passenger with a full-scale immersion into the world of wildlife. In the other countries, whole days can go by with only the hoofprints of a single animal to keep your anticipation alive. In Kenya and Tanzania, Africa comes as close to guaranteeing a massive array of wildlife on nearly every day of the trip.
And the experience of viewing wildlife in such quantities, seeing the eternal battle between predator and prey, experiencing what the world was like before human beings inhabited it, driving for hours on end through open countryside unmarred by roads or power lines, becomes something mystical, an important part of your life experience. Along with trips to Alaska or to such closer-in wildlife areas as a Yellowstone National Park, it comes close to being an indispensable trip that every human being should enjoy at some point in their lives.
You contact Lion World Travel at www.lionworldtravel.com or 800/387-2706. Though a Canadian tour operator, the majority of their clients are from the United States, and the price benefits from the cost-conscious nature of the Canadian travel industry.
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Labels: safari
Add a new website to your list of top-flight discounters
Despite the claim by the largest cruiselines that they have wiped out the discounting of their prices, all sorts of cruise discounters remain in business and offer whopping big discounts; the prohibition is obviously being violated. Among the discounters whose websites you might visit is a rapidly expanding firm called www.bestpricecruises.com. And the clearest evidence of their success is an eruption of bitter complaints by travel agents in the trade press saying that their clients have been won away by lower prices offered by these piratical bandits. From this moment forward, when you look for a low-priced cruise, and after you've gone to places like www.cruisewizard.com, www.vacationstogo.com, or www.cruisesonly.com, you might take a look at www.bestpricecruises.com.
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Labels: cruise
Believe it: you must get a passport
A survey this May by the Travel Industry Association discovered that more than half of all Americans are still unaware that a U.S. passport is now required of all citizens flying back to the U.S. from any foreign country. And it gets worse. A full 7% of all Americans actually denied to the polltaker, categorically, that any such passport is needed. Since people embarking on an international flight will be denied boarding if they have no passport, it's quite serious that so many of our well-informed neighbors are unaware of this new security requirement. You will be performing a great service if you take pains to advise a friend that whenever an American flies outside the U.S. to any place other than Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, or American Samoa, they must have a passport.
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Labels: passports
Jun 6, 2007
It's impossible to over-estimate the importance of the "home exchange"
Friends of mine -- he's a college professor, she's a psychotherapist -- left town at the end of the college semester to spend three weeks in Tuscany living in the home of a Tuscan couple while the latter, the Italian couple, occupy the apartment of my friends in New York. Later this year, in July, my friends will swap their New York apartment for a one-month stay in the city of Victoria in British Columbia. They are enjoying these two remarkable vacations without any expense for accommodations, by doing a home exchange. While I have several times mentioned this brilliant method of vacationing, it can never be mentioned too often. And the top names for arranging such exchanges are: www.homeexchange.com, www.ihen.com, and www.intervac.com. There are many more.
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Labels: accommodations
The new protocol for going to airports
They may seem obvious, but special precautions need to be taken nowadays when you head to an airport for a flight. First, bring reading matter for those long periods when you'll be cooling your heels because you followed the advice to check-in two hours in advance and then unexpectedly whizzed through security in record time. Bring the tastiest sandwich of which your kitchen is capable -- for those flights on which nothing edible is any longer provided. Bring those sandwiches even if your flights is supposed to include food. A meal supplied by an airline in bankruptcy -- and two of the big ones still are -- is unlike any you've enjoyed in your earlier life. Bring nothing really valuable to the airport, like your best watch or heavy expensive jewelry that you'll need to place in a plastic tray at the security gates: There's been an uptick in airport thefts. And finally, don't argue with the one bit of advice that should be heeded by every traveler: do arrive at the airport much earlier than usual. The security procedures can cause long lines, and some overconfident flyers have missed their planes because of security delays.
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Jun 5, 2007
It's Juárez, Mexico, for cheap, well-qualified dentists
Against all the advice of U.S. dentists, Americans who don't have dental insurance are flocking to Mexican border towns, and especially to Juárez, Mexico, for all sorts of dental treatments that are too expensive for them in the States. Juárez is the sister city to El Paso, Texas, and all the big dental clinics in Juárez will send a van to pick you up at your hotel in El Paso and quickly deliver you to a dentist in Juárez. They'll later drive you back to El Paso. Interestingly enough, although a prominent late member of congress (a former dentist) once loudly claimed that using Mexican dentists is dangerous, the U.S. consulate in Juárez actually lists three recommended Mexican dentists on its website, at ciudadjuarez.usconsulate.gov. And each of the dentists recommended has an impressive set of qualifications. It's your decision, of course; but what else can you do if you don't have dental insurance and need an expensive course of treatment?
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America's most valuable discount card -- and you can print it out from your computer
Most people going to Orlando, Florida, are aware that the tourist office there distributes an extremely valuable discount card known as the Orlando Magicard. Trouble was that you either had to write away long in advance to get the card in time for your trip, or else pay an inconvenient visit to the tourist office to pick one up on the spot. Now, for the first time, the Orlando tourist people permit you to print out a workable version of that Magicard on your home computer. Simply go to www.orlandoinfo.com, click on Magicard, and then on "download a Magicard", and voila! You can print out your own Magicard and save up to $500 on hotels, restaurants, shops and attractions.
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How's about a barge instead?
The waterways of Western Europe used to be traversed by thousands of barges loaded with farm products. About a hundred of these have now been converted into hotel barges filled with comfortable rooms and staffed by skilled chefs and waiters. They drift along at, say, two or three miles an hour, while you sometimes walk or bicycle alongside, enjoying an enthralling view of the European countryside and of the villages found alongside the canals. At the top end are hotel barges charging as much as $500 a night per person, for superb service and cuisine. And if you'd like to consider that level of luxury, you simply go to www.bargesinfrance.com.
But a number of more moderately priced firms provide river and canal cruises that are still quite luxurious and in modern hotel barges, for considerably less. Their cruises are seven nights in length, preceded or followed by stays in key river cities, and yet cost as little as $300 or $350 a night, including elegant meals and lodgings. If you'd like to know more, log on to www.amadeuswaterways.com, and soon you'll be floating through France or Germany or Holland, on the most relaxing and comfortable trips in all of Europe.
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But a number of more moderately priced firms provide river and canal cruises that are still quite luxurious and in modern hotel barges, for considerably less. Their cruises are seven nights in length, preceded or followed by stays in key river cities, and yet cost as little as $300 or $350 a night, including elegant meals and lodgings. If you'd like to know more, log on to www.amadeuswaterways.com, and soon you'll be floating through France or Germany or Holland, on the most relaxing and comfortable trips in all of Europe.
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A top travel secret: those smaller, upscale cruiseships occasionally "deal"!
Though nearly every new cruiseship is a monstrous box carrying 3,000 and more passengers, a few older, smaller cruiseships remain in operation and on very special occasions are rather affordable -- for reasons I'll discuss in a moment. These are the treasured vessels that take a limited number of people to exotic ports, and leave you alone to lie on a chaise lounge with an interesting book while breathing the sea air -- but they normally provide you with these delights at a cost that only higher-income Americans can consider without flinching. They are the exquisite Seabourn Cruise Line (200-or-so passengers apiece), Silversea Cruises (three to four hundred passengers, depending on the ship), Regent Seven Seas (400 to 700 passengers), Crystal Cruises (900 passengers), and SeaDream Yacht Club (110 passengers, who mainly sail on chartered cruises that aren't sold to the public at large).
But even the smaller ships can miscalculate the demand for a particular date and itinerary of sailing. If you will go to the websites of the major cruise discounters -- companies like www.vacationstogo.com and www.cruisewizard.com -- you'll see a great many luxury cruises marked down in price by as much as 50% on particular sailings. At Cruise Wizard, you'll find a half-dozen dates on which berths aboard Silversea Cruises in European waters can be booked at half off. On Vacations to Go, you'll find isolated instances in which a departure of Crystal Cruises in the Mediterranean can be booked at 48% off (reducing a $600 a day cruise price to only $350 a day). You'll even find an early sailing of the ultra-deluxe SeaDream Yacht Club marked down by 40%, which reduces a price of $7,320 for a seven-night cruise to only $4,419 (i.e., a $1,000-a-day cruise suddenly available for $600-some-odd a day).
No one expects that small, elegant cruiseships will ever sell for a truly cheap price. But if you're to enjoy the pleasures of the sea aboard a smaller, quieter, less frenetic ship, they will soon be your only choice.
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But even the smaller ships can miscalculate the demand for a particular date and itinerary of sailing. If you will go to the websites of the major cruise discounters -- companies like www.vacationstogo.com and www.cruisewizard.com -- you'll see a great many luxury cruises marked down in price by as much as 50% on particular sailings. At Cruise Wizard, you'll find a half-dozen dates on which berths aboard Silversea Cruises in European waters can be booked at half off. On Vacations to Go, you'll find isolated instances in which a departure of Crystal Cruises in the Mediterranean can be booked at 48% off (reducing a $600 a day cruise price to only $350 a day). You'll even find an early sailing of the ultra-deluxe SeaDream Yacht Club marked down by 40%, which reduces a price of $7,320 for a seven-night cruise to only $4,419 (i.e., a $1,000-a-day cruise suddenly available for $600-some-odd a day).
No one expects that small, elegant cruiseships will ever sell for a truly cheap price. But if you're to enjoy the pleasures of the sea aboard a smaller, quieter, less frenetic ship, they will soon be your only choice.
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Jun 4, 2007
Bargain of the day: REI Adventures
Where: The great outdoors
When: Throughout the year.
Imagine kayaking the San Juan Islands or hiking Death Valley for $1,099 to $1,299. These are sample, six-day mini-vacations (not including airfare) from REI Adventures, run by America's greatest co-op chain of outdoors gear stores. They cover all seven continents but offer a far greater variety of domestic adventures than most outfitters. Though REI tends to be pricier than most, it has impeccable credentials, and is ideal for those for whom being active is as important as the destination.
Contact: tel. 800/622-2236; www.reiadventures.com
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When: Throughout the year.
Imagine kayaking the San Juan Islands or hiking Death Valley for $1,099 to $1,299. These are sample, six-day mini-vacations (not including airfare) from REI Adventures, run by America's greatest co-op chain of outdoors gear stores. They cover all seven continents but offer a far greater variety of domestic adventures than most outfitters. Though REI tends to be pricier than most, it has impeccable credentials, and is ideal for those for whom being active is as important as the destination.
Contact: tel. 800/622-2236; www.reiadventures.com
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In travel journalism, what's reality, what's fantasy?
No one can write intelligently about travel without knowing something about the incomes enjoyed by most Americans. If you truly believe with all your heart that large numbers of people earn more than $100,000 a year, then it makes sense to fill your columns and blogs with delirious raves about three-star restaurants and deluxe hotels.
But they don't. In actual fact, only 7.2% of all employed Americans earn more than $75,000 a year. (I base this and all following statistics on a recent Annual Demographic Survey of the Bureau of the Census). Seven point two percent. Another 7.8% earn between $50,000 and $75,000. Seven point eight percent. That leaves a full 85% of all employed Americans who earn under $50,000 a year.
Even when you group the incomes of all breadwinners in an American family, the resulting totals are still far below the dream levels of the elitist travel publications. Nearly 70% of all Americans live in families with combined incomes (husband, wife, children) of less than $70,000 a year. Deduct both income and social security taxes from those earnings, as well as housing, food, clothing, car, light and heating, an occasional beer, and how much is left for $400-a-night hotels and $100 meals?
Given the actual amounts of money that Americans have, what sort of vacations do they take? Budget or deluxe? Cautious or spendthrift? How does the world of low-cost travel stand up against the Ritz-Carltons and the luxury limos, the haughty waiters and the maître d's?
It c-r-e-a-m-s them. It overwhelms their numbers. It makes them funny. And it transforms most of the haughty commentaries and luxury magazines into narrow, special-interest journalism. For every American tourist who sleeps in deluxe hotels, ten are staying in tourist class hotels or economy motels. For every patron of a gourmet restaurant in vacation areas, twenty are taking their meals at budget buffets. And if you were to add up the yearly traffic of fifty high-priced tour operators, their totals would not remotely compare with the business of such popularly-priced companies as GOGO Worldwide Vacations (www.gogowwv.com) or Funjet Vacations (www.funjet.com), which every year handle millions of passenger movements -- and get no attention at all in trendy travel pages.
This blog will concern itself with matters of sensible, cost-conscious travel. If there are particular subjects you'd like me to cover, don't hesitate to suggest them by posting a message in Frommers.com's message boards.
But they don't. In actual fact, only 7.2% of all employed Americans earn more than $75,000 a year. (I base this and all following statistics on a recent Annual Demographic Survey of the Bureau of the Census). Seven point two percent. Another 7.8% earn between $50,000 and $75,000. Seven point eight percent. That leaves a full 85% of all employed Americans who earn under $50,000 a year.
Even when you group the incomes of all breadwinners in an American family, the resulting totals are still far below the dream levels of the elitist travel publications. Nearly 70% of all Americans live in families with combined incomes (husband, wife, children) of less than $70,000 a year. Deduct both income and social security taxes from those earnings, as well as housing, food, clothing, car, light and heating, an occasional beer, and how much is left for $400-a-night hotels and $100 meals?
Given the actual amounts of money that Americans have, what sort of vacations do they take? Budget or deluxe? Cautious or spendthrift? How does the world of low-cost travel stand up against the Ritz-Carltons and the luxury limos, the haughty waiters and the maître d's?
It c-r-e-a-m-s them. It overwhelms their numbers. It makes them funny. And it transforms most of the haughty commentaries and luxury magazines into narrow, special-interest journalism. For every American tourist who sleeps in deluxe hotels, ten are staying in tourist class hotels or economy motels. For every patron of a gourmet restaurant in vacation areas, twenty are taking their meals at budget buffets. And if you were to add up the yearly traffic of fifty high-priced tour operators, their totals would not remotely compare with the business of such popularly-priced companies as GOGO Worldwide Vacations (www.gogowwv.com) or Funjet Vacations (www.funjet.com), which every year handle millions of passenger movements -- and get no attention at all in trendy travel pages.
This blog will concern itself with matters of sensible, cost-conscious travel. If there are particular subjects you'd like me to cover, don't hesitate to suggest them by posting a message in Frommers.com's message boards.
Labels: travel guides
Tell your grandmother -- quick!
In a recent newspaper column, I pointed out that the cost of taking a seven-day cruise from Miami was less than an elderly person might pay for a week in a nursing home or home for assisted living. And I speculated that some retired Americans might prefer the glamour and interest of constantly cruising to staying in such a home. I am now told by several travel agents that they occasionally receive inquiries from retired Americans about staying on a ship for several months. And travel professionals insist that there's one such elderly lady who lives aboard the QE2, paying for her cabin on a continuous basis. To check the possibilities, go to any cruise website and you'll find numerous successive one-week cruises selling for $499, $549, $599, and so on -- and then compare that cost to what a senior citizen residence now charges.
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More cut-rate means for visiting London
On the steps of the museum
Uploaded by Mister Rad.
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Labels: accommodations, london
Fifty years ago, 
Arthur Frommer is generally acknowledged to be the nation's foremost travel authority. He is the founder of the
