Archive for the 'travel' Category

I took my first trip to Marfa this past spring with a buddy or two… and really liked it. Want to take my wife and kids back, to entertain the idea of moving there someday.

Found this video today, and totally reminded me why I love Marfa:

[via Swiss Miss]

I got an email from Southwest Airlines today, touting a sale to Las Vegas this spring. 50% off. That’s good!

I have a trip planned for Las Vegas from January 11 – 13, so I clicked the link. Read that their fare sale starts on January 13th, so I knew I wouldn’t get their fare sale prices, so I just searched their site for pricing on regular tickets (Southwest has always had great prices, so I figured I’d check them out).

Their search engine showed me that my round trip would cost me $700 or so… which is pretty rediculous for a flight a) to Las Vegas from Austin, Texas, and b) for any flight on Southwest anywhere…

So, I went to AA.com, and check American Airlines‘ prices for a flight on the same day. The result: $150 round trip.

Sold. Flight booked.

See you in Vegas at Affiliate Summit West 2009, if you’re going (and if you’re not, you should think about it – it’s one of the best performance marketing shows out there, and it’s run by the two best people in trade shows today: Shawn Collins and Missy Ward).

I travel a lot for work. A lot.

That means I stay at lots of hotels. And rent cars. And take lots of flights…

And I really hate getting customer service satisfaction surveys from these companies. You know why? Because I don’t get anything out of taking the survey. Ever.

Here’s an example:

From: invite_doubletree@medallia.com
Subject: Your recent stay at Doubletree
Date: May 22, 2007 3:10:29 AM CDT
To: John Engler

Dear John Engler,

We were delighted to serve you during your recent stay at Doubletree. We realize that you have a choice in hotel properties, and we appreciate your business.

As a valued HHonors member, your feedback is important to us. We invite you to take a few minutes to complete a survey about your stay at Doubletree Washington, where you checked out on May 18, 2007.

To view the survey, please click on the web address below. If that does not work, please copy and paste the entire web address into the address field of your browser.

http://doubletree.medallia.com/H.pl?b=1&ID=12345678&lopt=eng

Your comments are very valuable to us, and we look forward to hearing about your stay with us.

Sincerely,

Dave Horton
Senior Vice President
Doubletree

Gee, thanks Dave. Note very valuable to us. Emphasis is mine above. How valuable are they Dave?

I ask, because your stupid survey will take me 7-10 minutes to complete, according to your survey intro page:

Seven to ten minutes ?!?!?! Give me a break!

Do you know how busy I am? Can you compensate me for my time to take this survey? Give me some extra airline miles, or hotel points, or car rental credits? Maybe upgrade me to the next level of your loyalty program for my next stay at your hotel, or give me an upgrade if you’re an airline, or a car rental company?

I’m asking for this compensation because I’ve a) already paid you a lot for the hotel room that I stayed in from midnight (late flight) until 7 a.m. You already charged me $6 for the bottle of water I drank, and $4 for the snickers bar I ate (because there wasn’t a restaurant in the hotel), and b) 10 minutes of my time is worth a lot to me.

Make it worth it to me to fill out this survey and I’ll do it. Otherwise, if I had a problem at the hotel, I already dealt with it with the hotel manager on duty… and he probably got yelled at in the lobby in front of all your other guests.

If you really want my feedback, make it worth it for me to give it to you.

(And yes, I got this same survey form from Avis for this most recent trip, and the same comments apply to them too, and to every other hotel that’s ever asked me for my comments).

If you really want my feedback, compensate me for my time somehow.

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

A few technical notes from the middle of nowhere on our cruise:

• I need a new laptop for the powerbook. Seriously. 50 minutes from charge to dead is unacceptable.
• I should carry a small firewire drive with me all the time. The 30 GB iPod doesn’t count (it’s full of shit anyways)
• I need a faster set of CF cards for my Canon D60.
• I need a better batter charger for the laptop and accessories.
• Bring a power strip with you on a cruise. You’ll need it. Your room will probably only have one 3-prong 110 volt outlet.
• Next time, take a cell phone with internet access that can talk to my powerbook via bluetooth … wireless is expensive on board

More later. We’re having fun. Should be home by Sunday.

I flew to Vegas the night before last (I had an appointment with a potential client this morning)… I was staying at the Flamingo Casino. Woohoo! Casino!

I got to my hotel around 4:00 p.m. Pacific, checked in, changed, and headed to the casino floor. After walking around a bit, and eating at Caesar’s Palace, I headed back to the Flamingo. (I’ve been sick recently, as has the 10 month old, so I was tired). I pulled out $20, sat down at a roulette wheel, and proceeded to order a scotch on the rocks. I then lost my $20 in the time it took for the waitress to bring me a drink.

I took my $20 scotch to the bar, and decided to buy my drinks outright for the rest of the night… it was cheaper: only $4.50 a drink.

Anyways, I turned in relatively early, got up this morning, went to my appointment (which went well) and headed back to the casino to make a conference call with some folks on the east coast. At this point, I realized that my cell phone was almost dead.

So, I looked in my little iGo bag, to find the cell phone charger part of it, and realized I’d left it at home.

I fretted… I was going to have to drop out of the conference call (not good when you’re discussing legal terms with a client). Then I thought about asking some of the folks working the front desk, in case one of them had a Nokia cell phone… Angel, the girl that helped me check-in the day before said “yes, we have lots of chargers” and she then produced a box full of cell phone chargers and computer cables and chargers…

Duh.

I didn’t think about their lost and found. They had about 200 odd chargers in that lost and found box. The first one we pulled out fit my phone, and I made my conference call… it lasted one hour and twenty minutes…

So, if you forget your cell phone charger, check with the lost and found at the nearest hotel’s front desk… I bet they’ll have one that’ll work with your phone. At least they will in Vegas.

I got up this morning at 5:15 (at least 15 minutes later than I should have gotten up) and started getting ready to get on a plane. My flight was scheduled for 6:30 a.m. and I needed to leave the house by 5:30. I was running slow this morning…

I didn’t leave the house until 5:45. I got to the airport and parked at 6:03. I got inside to the ticket counter and told the clerk that I needed to get on my 6:30 flight. She didn’t look happy.

She said “I don’t think I can get you on the flight” and then picked up her little walkie-talkie to ask the guy at the gate if I could still board. He didn’t answer her… not good.

So, I asked her to just give me a ticket for the plane, and I’d run all the way there. She said she’d try.

Ticket in hand, I rushed to the security check-point. Bad news: There were at least 30 people in front of me. It was 6:21. I decided to get to the front of the line quickly, so I started asking each person in line if I could cut, so I could catch my 6:30 flight. Thankfully, each person let me cut, so that I was at the front of the line within a minute.

I started unpacking my laptop and the entire flight crew for another United plane started cutting in front of me. I let two of them by, then I told the third one (there were 6 total) that I needed to catch a plane, and that I’d appreciate it if they didn’t cut in front of me. She aquiesced, and I got to go through security pretty quickly.

I then ran to the last gate in the terminal (United has crappy gates in Austin). Huffing and puffing, I was berated by the gate attendant, and I took the beating quite humbly. The gate attendant told me that I was only getting on the plane because the 1st Officer decided to get a cup of coffee. I smiled and asked him if I could by the 1st Officer his coffee. He told me to take it up with him… which was funny, because the 1st Officer was just walking up. I took out $2 and gave it to the 1st Officer. He got a kick out of that, and we boarded the plane.

I took my seat after cramming my bag into the overhead bin, and we got underway. I have never been so thankful to get on a plane as I was this morning.

The wife and I, along with several friends, are planning a trip to Guanajuato, Mexico soon.

We’re planning this trip for two reasons: 1) We need a vacation and 2) We’re seriously thinking of moving to Mexico in the coming years. I’ll not go into too much detail about reason #2, but will say only this: The ‘rat-race’ is getting tiring, and in Mexico they may be poor, but they’re generally happy.

We’re looking at Guanajuato as a place to get away to at the least because it’s a great old college town in the central part of Mexico. I’ve heard it referred to as one of those ‘un-discovered gems’.

Some of this pages I’ve found on the net are useful, but others are horrible at actually telling me anything about the town/region. And finding a page about the hotels in the city is just about impossible with Google… I ended up using Frommer’s to find most of the hotel information I could find, but even Frommer’s is horrible at giving more than cursory information. Heck, maybe I’ll start an internet tourism site just for Guanajuato some-day…

Anyways, here’s a few pieces I’d recommend people read if they’re looking to visit Guanajuato. Feel free to add your links in the comments:

Hotel Posada Santa Fe
Guanajuato Real Estate – useful in case reason #2 becomes a reality.
Official Government site
Photos from McNolo
Weather Underground Guanajuato Forcast
A good page on geocities about Guanajuato.
Google Guanajuato State Directory page
Map of Guanajuato from Frommers

A few more links:

VisitMexico.com (great informational site run by the Mexican Tourism Board)

The Cultured Traveler: Guanajuato: One of Mexico’s Colonial Gems
FoodandWine.com: Mexico’s Heartland | Guanajuato

Mexico Connect
TourbyMexico.com

Monday was our last full day on the island, so we got up early and headed out to catch the ferry over to Pinel Island, since we hadn’t done that yet. We found the ferry to Pinel around 8:45 (this was a chore, since there aren’t any signs at the ferry telling you that you’ve found it… we ended up driving around the town of Cul de Sac before finally asking a postal worker, who told us where it was — we’d already been there and thought we were in the wrong place). We asked the men at the dock when the ferry was leaving for Pinel and the ferry man said “Well, it’s gonna be a slow day, so maybe not ’till 9:30, maybe later.”

The wife and I looked at each other and decided to head to Orient Beach. We spent the better part of the morning at Orient Beach, enjoying the sun and the surf. The term ‘clothing optional beach’ is true. We saw a few topless women, and a few fully nude women… most of them were semi-attractive, but the majority of them weren’t at all attractive. The fun part of the day was watching the wife react to the completely naked men walking down the beach… I got a kick out of her reaction… most of the time it was “ewe!”

You see, just because people can get naked on a beach doesn’t mean you want them to. Who wants to see 250 pound, 5’8″ men naked? And how about 55 year old European women who really don’t shave any part of their body anymore and have had gravity and poorly built bras working against them their whole life?

Ugh… or should I say Ugly…

After spending 3 hours baking in the sun (yes, my legs were quite burnt… should’ve put sun screen on the legs) we ate lunch at Kakao’s again, and then headed to Phillipsburg to shop…

We shopped for the rest of the day, trying to stay out of the sun, and picking up souveniers and gifts for friends back home.

Around 5:00 we retired to our villa to rest and clean up, and then we went to dinner at a place close to our villa on Pelican Key. The meal was so-so, but the service was horrible. Our waitress didn’t know what the specials were, and took a good long while between her visits to our table to check on us. We left as quickly as we could and walked back to our villa. (A little too much wine and rum punch).

We went to bed early, and savorerd the last night of sleep on the island.

We finally slept in a bit, or at least got a late start on the 24th.

We were planning on heading to Anguilla for the day, but didn’t arrive in Marigot (where one boards the ferry) until 10:00. It took us so long to get there because we sent postcards today to our loved ones back home, so, I spent the morning writing 10 postcards and addressing them… then it took us a good 20 minutes to buy stamps at the french post office because we got in the wrong line on accident.

After putting the cards in the mail, we realized we would be late for the ferry we were trying to get on, so we walked through downtown Marigot. There was a marketplace area set up, so we strolled through. (I was looking for a hat to replace the one I lost in the surf on Friday). The wife found a cute little outfit for $20.

We went to the ferry dock, and paid our $2.50 embarkation tax and signed up for the next ferry. We had 30 minutes until it left, so we toured the Mall of the West Indies… a very upscale mall built in 2000 in Marigot. The shops were quite charming… very French and very upscale. The prices weren’t outrageous though.

At 10:50 we boarded the ferry for Anguilla. The ride was fun, if a little bumpy. It took 18 minutes, and the seas were slightly choppy with swells in the 6-10 feet range.

Our ferry pulled into Blowing Point and we went through Anguilla’s immigration office (Anguilla is a British Island).

We we instantly accosted by the local taxi drivers, asking us if we needed a taxi. We, of course, needed one, as we had no car, and there were no rental agencies around… besides, we were told to just get a cab, because the driver would stick with us all day, and take good care of us. Our cab driver’s name was John Lake, and he drove an old Toyota mini-van with vinyl seats and doors on both sides of the van.

As we drove, Mr. Lake gave us the nickel tour of Anguilla, and told us a bit of the history of the island.

He dropped us off at Dolphin Fantaseas (near West End) on the west end of the island around 11:50 am. We checked in, paid our fee for swimming with the dolphins, and went to Corals, the restaurant next door for lunch.

Let me say this: The beaches in Anguilla are just breathtaking.

Corals overlooks a beach on the west end of Anguilla. We had a lunch consisting of pan-fried Grouper for myself and a Chicken Pita for the wife, on a terrace adjoining the dolphin ponds, overlooking a beautiful beach. The breeze was wonderful and the scenery was truly breathtaking.

After lunch, we went back to the Dolphin Fantaseas and changed in preparation for our little ‘swiming with the dolphins excusion’. I think we paid way too much to swim with the dolphins, but it was a lot of fun. We were treated to being able to swim with two fully grown dolphins, as well as a 5 month old baby dolphin that was born in captivity on December 26, 2002. He is the first dolphin born in captivity in Anguilla. It was pretty cool. The dolphin trainers tell us that many dolphin trainers don’t ever get the chance to swim with a baby dolphin. I honestly think it’s cruel that the dolphins are even in captivity in the first place.

After the dolphin experience, we were treated to an hour drive with Mr. Lake to Shoal Bay, which our local villa rental office personell had told us was the most beautiful beach in the Caribbean. The drive was quite educational. Mr. Lake is in his 60s, or so, and has live on Anguilla his whole life, so he knew the history of pretty much everything. It was neat learning from him, and well worth the price of the taxi service for the day. During the course of the trip we learned, for example, that the really old houses on the island are the two or three made of wood in the central city of the island. Those wooden houses were very rare because of the way a hurricane can wipe out just about everything on the island when it hits. He said that anyone on Anguilla that owns a wooden house has ‘plenty of money’.

We arrived at Shoal Bay around 3:30 pm, and were amazed by its beauty. Imagine clear crystal blue water streching as far as the eye can see, as well as bright white coral and shell beaches running to your left and right as far as you can see. Then add the impression of a small breaking wave about 100 feet out in the ocean due to a shallow corral reef, so that by the time the waves hit the beach, they’re quite pleasant, and not rough at all.

Then imagine beautiful bodies glistening in the sun in small pockets to your left and right, all soaking up the suns rays from a slightly cloudy sky.

You’re close to seeing Shoal Bay in your head.

Shoal Beach is the most beautiful beach in all the Caribbean.

We stayed at Shoal Beach until roughly 5 pm, and headed back to the ferry at Blowing Point, stoping once on the way to get some cash out of an ATM to pay for our cab ride and ferry ride back to St. Martin.

After returning to St. Marin, we went to Le Gaïac, which, we both agreed is the best restaurant we’ve visited on the island. The service staff was wonderful. The appetizers and entreés were deliecable, and the setting was quite “St. Martin”. Le Gaïac is a french restaurant in downtown Marigot, set on the Terrace of the West Indies Mall, which is on the north side of the Marigot Bay/Harbor. We watched the sun set behind a cloudy horizon while we dined on tasty dishes and sipped house wine (which rivaled most $20 bottles we’ve had at home). The dishes were the kind of dishes that you eat each bite, and chew as long as you can, because each time you chew, you bring out a different flavor that you don’t want to go away, but at the same time can’t wait for the next flavor to exude from the bite.

Le Gaïac truly is one of the best restaurant’s on the island. Be prepared to spend $200 for dinner though… it’ll be easy there.

After dinner, we retired to our villa for a quiet after dinner drink.

Oh, and I finished The Bretheren by Grisham today.

The wife and I awoke to a sunny breeze and a clear sky on Thursday, May 22nd.

We drove to the north western corner of the island, and drove through Terra Basses (the Low Lands) where there are many large mansions (probably owned by rich celebrities from the U.S. Some of the homes are quite beautiful. On our way there, we drove through the golf course in Mullet Bay, which is still pretty much a dump. The golf course was beat up pretty badly in the Hurricane that ravashed the island back in ’95. It’s too bad the course is so run down, because it looks like a wonderful setting to play golf, if it didn’t looks so scary.

We found a parking spot for Long Beach (Baie Longue) and walked out to the beach. It was beautiful, but there were rocks in the beach (sort of like the beach right outside our villa, so we just walked the beach for an hour or so.

Around 11:00 we headed to Marigot, and had some wonderful crepes for a late breakfast at a little french bistrot.

Then we walked around the town before getting suckered into a timeshare presentation (around noon). We spent 3 hours listening to a timeshare pitch that we ended up not buying (even though it sounds like a good deal) mainly because the accomodation, while nice, weren’t very kept up on the outside. We were close to buying, but we didn’t.

After the timeshare experience, we headed out on a quest to find a good relaxing place to sit on the beach. We found Rouge Beach (Baie Rouge) on the French side, just east of Terra Basses.

We spent the better part of the afternoon and early evening there, and watched the sut set. It was beautiful and quite an experience. I finished The Eaters of the Dead today.

To end the day, we drove to Grand Case for dinner and had a wonderful meal at the Rainbow Cafe. We ate duck and lamb downstairs before retiring to the second story deck for desert. It was truly a beautiful place to eat dinner. The owner was very kind, and treated us to a shot of banana Rum on the way out.

When we got home, I gave the wife her sapphire bracelet, because I just couldn’t wait to give it to her one more day.

The wife and I arrived in St. Maarten around 1:30 local time on a Tuesday. We deboarded the plane, went through ‘immigration’ and then grabbed our bags prior to meeting our rental car agent and the villa agent. After picking up our very cute Honda Fit rental, we drove out to Pelican Key to our villa (Puesta Del Sol, Apt. G).

Our villa agent got us settled in a beautiful 3 bedroom villa over looking the ocean, with a porch that has see-thru plantation shutters and sliding glass doors that we kept open all the time.

The view from our villa was fantastic, but we were really quite hungry…

So, we set off in search of food. We headed north on the main road of the island, driving through Marigot, headed towards Grand Case (which is the gourmet are of the island, or so we’re told). It was about 3:00 local time, and to our surprise… nothing was open. All of the restaurants aren’t open for lunch, expect for one that we found to be delightful: California.

California is a french restaurant that’s open all day, breakfast lunch and dinner, in Grand Case, St. Martin (the French spelling). It’s quite an amazing little restaurant. The waiter/bar tender was a great little frenchman, accent and all. I started lunch/dinner with French Onion Dip Soup (best I’ve ever had), and the wife Creamy Asparagus with Lobster Soup. I ordered a Carib beer (brewed in Trinidad) and she had a pina colada (which was made completely from scratch — meaning with real coconut milk).

Our main courses were Pork Tenderloin with Mango Sauce (for her) and Monkfish in Curry sauce (for me). They were truly delicious.

The neat thing about the cuisine and feel of this restaurant is that our waiter didn’t rush us at all. He waited until we were done with our soups to bring us our main course (in fact, we’d been done for a while) allowing us to really enjoy the food and the ambiance (the restaurant is on the beach in Grand Case with a lovely view of the Anguilles Islands to the north). It was late afternoon, and while we were the only people in the restaurant for the better part of an hour, we truly felt like we were ‘the only people there’. The waiter took excellent care of us. After dinner, when I asked for the check, the waiter (in his quite french accent) said “No, I’m not finished with you…” and trotted away. We were both quite amused by that notion, and awaited his return.

He promptly brought back two shot glasses, which he filled with “homemade rum” which we ‘shot’ — toasting our “one week on St. Martin, let it be our first of many trips”.

The homemade orange rum was terrific also… quite applaudable as an after dinner drink.

So, there you have it.

The best restaurant we’ve eaten at thus far is Californian in Grand Case, but… there are 6 more nights, and we plan on eating at many places, so there’s likely a few that’ll top this particular establishment… but you can’t beat it for a late lunch when nothing else is open

Sucks to hear that National Airlines is shutting down. For those that don’t know, I just quit a job at a travel related website, and one of my reasons for leaving is that the airlines out there are pretty much fucked. All of them are having a hard time, but I honestly don’t think it’s because of 9/11, I think the majority of the problems in the airline industry are related to bad business practices among the big carriers.

I honestly just hope that America West Airlines holds on through Thanksgiving, as I have tickets to Las Vegas from Dallas for that week (time to take a small vacation, and who really wants to spend time with their huge extended family’s on Thanksgiving? really?)

On Sunday, I wrote about Dave’s experience with CheapTickets. Today Doc reports his most recent experience with Hotwire. Sad, indeed.

Here’s a guy that’s pretty much embedded in the inner workings of the uber-geek, and Hotwire manages to piss him off. That’s just plain stupid.

So, now I can’t use CheapTickets.com, cause I can’t trust them. I can’t use Hotwire.com cause I can’t trust them to get it right, or at least right in a timely manner. Who can I trust?

(BTW, I’ve recently booked a vacation package for the family to go to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving through America West Vacations, but I haven’t tried to alter my tickets yet, or anything spectacular. I’ll let you know the results if I do).