Bests And Worsts Of 2007
Hard to believe, I know, but my favorite hotel night this year was at The Great Wolf Lodge in Scotrun, PA. Hey, when the kids are happy, I'm happy.
by Wendy Perrin
It's time to wrap up 2007 by sharing my best and worst travel experiences of the year. Perhaps you can benefit by learning from both my good fortune and my worst mistakes.
BEST HOTEL NIGHT:
The Great Wolf Lodge, Pocono Mountains, PA.
Before kids, I wouldn't have come within ten feet of an indoor waterpark resort. For
an exhausted mother of two inexhaustible young boys, however, it's
what the doctor ordered. (That's Doug in the pic below.)
There are ten Great Wolf
Lodges around the country; we chose the one closest. I
could list the many child friendly touches such as
the abundance of conscientious lifeguards, the bedtime stories in the lobby, the kids'
buffet, and the childproof room design, but here's what really made it parent friendly: By day's end the boys were so worn out
that they were asleep in bed by 8:00. Now that's what I call
vacation.
WORST HOTEL NIGHT:
The Pudi Boutique Hotel, Shanghai, China
At a brand-new five star property in a futuristic city where business is so booming it's practically on steroids, there is
no excuse for rooms lacking WiFi. Imagine my frustration when I
arrived at 11:30 pm desperately needing to email a document from my laptop to my office, I plugged my universal plug adapter into the
electrical outlet (the same adapter that worked in every other hotel room in China), and it blew out the power in my room, leaving me in total darkness with no electricity (meaning, no phone with which to call for help). I walked down to the front desk, got the hotel engineer to come . . . and he managed to blow the fuse twice again. He eventually brought a different plug adapter, but that didn't solve the no-WiFi problem. When I tried connecting by wire and still couldn't get on the Internet, the engineer wanted to go into my computer and change the IP address (if you're in Conde Nast's Tech Support Dept. you know what a disaster that would have been). I switched hotels the next morning ... to a little three-star inn nearby where my laptop connected just fine.
BEST DEVICE FOR STAYING CONNECTED:
Palm Treo with AT&T service
I could not have survived 2007 without wireless email in the palm of my hand. I had it 24/7 -- whether I was on a train in China, at an ancient ruin in Algeria, on a ship hugging the coastline of Spain, or in the mountains of St. Lucia -- thanks to my Treo 650. The 650 is a dinosaur, I know, but it fits like an old glove. True, I could gripe about the phone sound -- which is often weak and unclear -- and the Internet access -- which is slow and incomplete. But that's why I also carry a SYNC by Samsung phone, also with AT&T service. I use it not for email but when I need strong, clear sound quality or need to get on the Web. For some reason, even though the service provider for both is AT&T, there are a few spots around the world where the Treo works but the SYNC doesn't, or the SYNC works but the Treo doesn't. Between the two of them, though, I can always reach my kids to sing them their bedtime songs, no matter what time zone I'm in.
WORST TRAVEL SNAG:
When our Dream Trip winner's ship sank
Remember that ship that sank in Antarctica over Thanksgiving? That's the ship that Gene Pembroke, the winner of Conde Nast Traveler's
Dream Trip Contest, was supposed to board this coming Friday for his Antarctic cruise. Since it's my job to make sure his $20,000 dream trip does indeed turn out to be a dream and not a nightmare, I had to scramble to get Gene
and his girlfriend Arlene booked onto another ship sailing out of the same port around the same time -- no easy feat,
considering that Antarctic cruises sell out a year in advance and that everyone else who was booked on the sunken ship was also looking for a replacement. Well, I got Gene and Arlene onto a great ship that sails out of Ushaia, Argentina, on Wednesday (yes, the day after tomorrow). Then the latest potential snag hit: Argentina decided, at the last minute, to introduce daylight savings time starting yesterday. There have been a slew of international flight changes with little advance notice, including Gene's flight tomorrow from Rio to Buenos Aires. It's now leaving an hour early. If he misses it, he'll miss the cruise! So at this moment he's in Rio, celebrating New Year's Eve on Copacabana Beach, while I'm home spending New Year's Eve trying to reach him on his cell phone. Correction: MY cell phone. I leant him my SYNC for his trip, in case of emergencies like this one. God, I hope he gets my messages.
Update on Jan 1 at 12:30 pm: The SYNC saved the day! Gene got my messages, and he and Arlene are happily en route from Rio to Buenos Aires on Aerolineas Argentinas. What a relief! Starting next week, Gene will be guest blogging here, by the way, as he continues his dream trip traveling the length of South America from tip to toe.
More bests and worsts, after the jump.
My "mangojito" on the Caribbean island of Nevis, Feb. 2007
BEST DRINK:
A mangojito on Nevis
If you saw my reports on "Customizing A Big-Ship Cruise" and "Ten Tips
for the Perfect Port Call" in the August Conde Nast Traveler, you
know that in each port on my most recent Caribbean cruise I had a
jam-packed journalistic agenda. On St. Kitts, for instance, my
assignment was to test whether it was possible -- during the six hours the ship was in port -- to ferry over to the nearby island of Nevis, get to the Four Seasons there, play golf, grab lunch, and get
back to the ship before it left. So when the ship
pulled into St. Kitts -- late! -- I ran as fast as I could to the
public-ferry pier, jumped on the just-leaving hourly shuttle to Nevis,
grabbed a cab to the Four Seasons, shot pics of the golf course for the
"Where's Wendy?" contest, enjoyed a rare moment of relaxation with that
mangojito you see above, and then raced back to the ship, only to encounter my . . .
WORST JOURNALISTIC MOMENT:
When 3-year-old Doug was banned from the cruise ship's day-care center
Given my jam-packed business schedule in each port, I was relying on the
ship's child-care facility, the Fun Factory, to watch my kids
while I was off the ship. So imagine my dismay when Doug, just turned 3
and newly potty-trained, peed in his pants one time too many and fell prey to the Fun Factory's "three strikes and you're out" policy. He was exiled for the rest of the cruise. (The Fun Factory doesn't allow diapers unless you're going to stay there with your kid.) It's all in my report on "Cruising with Kids" -- including the part about how Doug wasn't allowed in the pools either, as swim diapers are banned from cruise-ship pools. (The Great Wolf Lodge this was NOT.) For the rest of the cruise I had to drag Doug along on my assignments in port. Aaah, the glamorous life of a travel writer.
BEST THING IN MY SUITCASE:
Mephisto walking shoes
When I'm going to be doing a ton of sightseeing in a foreign country, the most important gear I can pack is a pair of comfy walking shoes, sturdy but lightweight, in a color that blends in with what the locals are wearing (NOT bright white sneakers that scream "I'm American"). The black Mephisto "Rush" shoes I bought for my trip to China turned out to be the #1 item on my "Thank God I Packed This" list. Second on the list? The high-tech socks I bought with the shoes. The saleslady at The Walking Company talked me into it, and boy am I grateful: The socks kept my feet not too hot, not too cold, never wet, and blister-free.
WORST OVERSEAS FLIGHT:
New York-Hong Kong in coach on Cathay
The
coach seats on Cathay Pacific's 747s that fly from J.F.K. to Hong Kong via Vancouver are designed for people who are
about 5'5" tall. This means that, if you're 5'9" like me, the footrest
is unusable -- you can't use it without digging your knees into the
seat in front of you -- and the seatback TV screen is so low that the
picture is messed up and there's no comfortable way to watch it.
Believe me, I tried -- I slumped down
into the seat, throwing my lumbar spine into contortions in an attempt
to bring my eyes closer to the level of the screen, but I couldn't
lower myself far enough because my knees jammed into the seat in front
of me. I'll spare you the other details because I've already covered them here and, frankly, I'd prefer to forget the whole thing. The seats on the Airbuses used on Cathay's nonstops between J.F.K. and Hong Kong are much better.
BEST BLOGGING TOOL:
Sierra Wireless AirCard 875U with AT&T service
My life changed when I learned I could get a wireless USB modem that would work with my Apple MacBook. Used to be that when I needed to get on the Internet from my laptop and was in a spot without WiFi, I'd have to drive to the nearest Starbucks or McDonald's (if I was in the U.S.) or walk to the nearest Western-hotel lobby or Internet cafe (if I was overseas). Now I just plug the wireless aircard into my laptop and I can get a WiFi connection nearly anywhere (except in a five-star hotel in Shanghai). I can post blog entries on train trips, during car rides, at my mother-in-law's house . . . . I was even able to get on the Internet while on that Cathay Pacific plane, while we were sitting on the tarmac in Vancouver!
Stay tuned for my New Year's Resolutions, coming as soon as I have a spare moment to make them.
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Great round-up, Wendy!
I agree on the Great Wolf Lodge - we stayed in the one in Williamsburg, VA and all that racket is normally just not my style, but my son wore himself out and I had a travel "a-ha" moment - it's not all about me. :)
Here's to you and yours in the New Year.
Posted by: Seafarer | January 01, 2008 at 02:00 PM
Fantastic post Wendy!
I wondered why I had missed reading about your trip to China and your *wonderful* time in the economy section of the plane, and that's because I was in my own economy class nightmare. I'm 5'9" too (and have long legs, longer than my husband's even, and he's 6'1"), and let me just say, your seat on that horrible flight had a whole inch more of seat pitch than the 777 that I was on. We flew British Airways to London on the same day you were flying to China. I was in aboslute agony, partially because the jerk in front of me put his seat all the way back for the entire flight, save for the meal portion where the stewardess made him put it up. I've decided that I can't fly economy on such a long flight any more (and we were only on it for 9 hours...I can't imagine being on a twenty hour flight like that!). My knees just can't take it. They were crammed into the seat back for the entire trip, and they bothered me the entire time I was in England and for an entire month after I got back. Naproxen was my friend!
For a few hundred more dollars I could have flown economy-plus and had seven more inches of seat pitch. I think next time it will be well worth it. I think it's a better plan than having my knees cut off ;)
I think it's interesting that the seat pitch in economy on an international flight is the same as on a short-haul domestic flight. We had the same seat pitch on the international flight as on the American flight from San Antonio to Dallas.
BTW, I got some really nice Merino wool hiking socks for my trip to England. They worked great as well, as the Merino wool keeps your feet warm (and dry), but not hot. The right socks are definitely as important as the right shoes.
Minus the terrible flight we had a great time in the UK! I'm planning another trip to Europe (three or so weeks backpacking in the UK, France and Italy) in July 2009, provided the dollar doesn't slip into an abyss. LOL
Posted by: tracker1312 | January 01, 2008 at 05:19 PM
Overall, this was a great travel year for us! Our best travel moment this was introducing our two year old to churros and chocolate in an old fashioned chocolateria in Barcelona, Spain. What toddler wouldn't love the combination of dipping, chocolate, and fried dough.
Our worst was arriving to pick up our rental car in San Diego only to find that the car rental agency had a scrapheap of filthy, decrepit seats to choose from (full story and pictures on http://www.deliciousbaby.com/journal/2007/dec/22/advantage-rent-cars-frightening-car-seats/)
Debbie
Posted by: debbied | January 01, 2008 at 11:47 PM
Love reading the Perrin Post. As I told my husband, I need a 12 step travel blog withdrawl program. I spend WAY too much time reading travel blogs.
Here's wishing you more leisure time with your family in 2008! Nancy Brown
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