Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Travel Tip #5: Phone Chargers

If you are like me, you continually forget to pack your cell phone charger when traveling. Countless times I've found myself in my hotel room talking to my wife when the low battery signal would remind me of my forgotten charger. If away from home for more than a few days I would go to the local mall and purchase a replacement charger. Very frustrating!

The next time this happens to you and if you are staying at a hotel save some money by asking the front desk attendant if they have any spare cell phone chargers in "lost and found". If the hotel is like the 15 managed by Professional Hospitality, the front desk associate will return from "lost and found" with a box full of cell phone chargers forgotten by past guests. In most cases the associate will let you have a charger or at the very least allow you to borrow it during your stay.

In my 17 year hospitality career here is a list of some of the odd things that guests have left in a room after checking out.

duffel bag with a large sum of money
various musical instruments
prosthetic arm
prosthetic leg
clown costume
kittens
various fire arms
wall mounted pay-phone
wedding dress
1 empty urn
3 full urns
parachute
and my personal favorite...2 small alligators

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

New Beiging Airport Terminal Becomes 'largest building in the world'


BEIJING: The new Terminal 3 at the airport in Beijing is twice the size of the Pentagon.
Adorned in the colors of imperial China, with a roof that evokes the scales of a dragon, the massive glass- and steel-sheathed structure, designed by the British architect Norman Foster, cost $3.8 billion and can handle more than 50 million passengers a year.
The developers call it the "most advanced airport building in the world," and say it was completed in less than four years, a timetable some believed impossible. It opened in late February with little fanfare, but also without the kind of glitches that plagued Heathrow's new $8.7 billion terminal near London, which took six years to complete.

Click here for more...

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Survey Results #3: Expensive Hotel Rooms

What is the most you've spent on one night of lodging at a hotel/resort? 48 people responded

less than $100 - 0
between $101/200 - 28
between $201/300 - 14
between $301/400 - 3
between $401/500 - 1
more than $501 - 1

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

InsideTrip.com


Most third party travel sites are very similar. Sites such as Expedia, Travelocity, Hotwire, and Kayak show you a list of fares from least to most expensive. These sites as well as others are best at giving the user several options when it comes to finding the lowest fare. However, they fall short on letting the user know if the fare is a true value in regards to key factors that can help determine whether the flight is worth the money or is one to avoid - like how much legroom you get, a flight's on-time performance and mishandled luggage rates.

Enter InsideTrip.com, a new travel site that arrived a few weeks ago. InsideTrip.com, like other sites, still lists several options along with price. However, Insidetrip.com is different that it lists those fares in accordance to 12 "pain points". The pain points involve 4 factors in each of the following categories: Speed, Comfort, and Ease.

I decide I want to fly to San Diego from Milwaukee. After entering in desired dates I choose the pain points that are important to me, such as: on-time stats, lost bags rank, and aircraft age. The list of fares will then appear in accordance with these pain points...not price. Sometime the first option is the cheapest, other times not. The user can then scroll down and decide which fare to chose.

The site seems easy to use and is definitely worth checking out when booking your next flight.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

A Really BIG Boat!

The 220,000-tonne cruise liner that has its very own New York-style Central Park




The world's biggest cruise liner is to have a New York-style "Central Park" on the ship, its owners have revealed. Royal Caribbean is building the 220,000-tonne liner with the working name Project Genesis and the announcement is the latest salvo in the intensely competitive global cruise market. The company said the park would be "a revolutionary design in which the centre of the ship opens to the sky and features lush, tropical grounds spanning the length of a football field".



To read more, click here.