July 29, 2007 • 11:28 pm 0
The TSA is lifting the ban on butane lighters or “common lighters” in carry on luggage effective August 4, 2007. TSA says lighters pose no serious threat. Last year the TSA confiscated more than 11 million lighters. The United States is the only country in the world to ban lighters.
Filed under: Air Travel, Travel Industry, Travel Tips, airline, airline industry
• 8:28 pm 0
Holland America wears the mantle of ‘traditional cruise line.’ While other lines have added mega-sized ships, rock climbing walls and movie nights, Holland America added the Culinary Arts Center, a venue that offers cooking demonstrations in a professionally staged demonstration kitchen. I attended a demonstration given by Michael Lomonaco on the Noordam. It was impressive. Our table thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We ate some tantalizing treats and drank a few glasses of wine…hey, what’s not to enjoy?
Now, Holland America has launched As You Wish dining. It consists of choice of seating, early and late as usual, and flexible/dining service from 5:15pm-9:00pm daily. Guests who choose the flexible seating option can also make reservations up to 4:00pm each day for their choice of dining time.
Currently, the Noordam is the only ship offering the service, but the Ryndam will debut As You Wish dining on October 11. The Volendam will follow on November 13 and the Statendam will finish the 2007 roll out of the flexible dining debut on December 18.
The other members of the Holland America fleet will introduce the service in the first half of 2008. Richard Meadows, the executive vice president of marketing and guest programs offered the following comment, “We’ve operated As You Wish dining in a pre-launch phase aboard the Noordam and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.”
I think this is a great idea and am happy that Holland America is giving their guests more options. I like an assigned dinner seating because I know what time I need to be dressed and ready to go. On the other hand, sometimes I just want to eat a bit earlier or a bit later and the ability to have that choice is liberating. This is a nod to a younger, more casual clientele who still likes to dress for dinner.
Filed under: Cruise Industry, Travel Industry, caribbean cruises, cruise agency, cruises
July 19, 2007 • 1:25 pm 0
We have an Alaska cruise tour group coming in today for a “document party.” We just reviewed our hosting duties at 8:30am thinking out loud about how many chairs we have, how many people are coming, when to order the coffee and munchkins from Dunkin’ Donuts, and finally deciding to finish our review in the office this morning.
Some of the items we will review include ‘what can I bring’ airport screening procedures and packing tips. Of course, there will be other questions and we will try to anticipate them this morning. Our group leader Diane, one of the office staffers, is accompanying the group and I’m sure she will have a check list that we will take a look at today.
In the meantime, I have another group that I am working on today. This is an incentive group who will be spending a week in the Dominican Republic in January. This has been in the planning stages for the past 6 months and has just been contracted.
I’m considering creating a password only space for this group to try to have a lot of information there for them to review. Since this group is not particularly local to our agency, I’m sure there will be a lot of emails to write and answer.
One of the interesting facets of my business is that each customer has different needs and we have to be flexible and creative enough to meet those needs. I like thinking up tech ways like private web space, wikis and, of course, emails. We are even considering instant messaging as a tool to use with the Caribbean group.
Filed under: Air Travel, Travel Agency, Travel Tips, airline industry, airports, cruise agency, cruise group, cruises, group travel, travel technology
July 10, 2007 • 3:24 am 0
The New 7 Wonders of the World were unveiled this past weekend in Portugal. The initiative was started in 1999 by Bernard Weber and 50% of all net revenue raised by the foundation will be used to fund restoration projects worldwide. UNESCO has distanced itself from the effort. Initially asked to participate or collaborate, UNESCO declined citing the many aspects used to determine World Heritage status. UNESCO uses scientific and educational criteria to determine what sites should be included on the World Heritage List as opposed to the popular opinion sought by New7Wonders.com.
The New 7 Wonders Foundation also acknowledged that it had no control over people voting more than once for their favorite site. UNESCO likened The 7 New Wonders of the World to a lengthy media campaign that supports the opinion of anyone with internet access rather than that of world opinion.
If 50% of net revenue goes to funding restoration projects, where does the other 50% go?
Angkor Wat loses to Christ Redeemer, are you kidding?
I almost voted but decided that there are many more than 7 wonders in our world and that this was some kind of marketing ploy so why bother when I can vote for something 25 times. There is no validity.
Filed under: New 7 Wonders, Specialty Travel, World Heritage Sites
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