Archive for the ‘news’ Category

Elton John to Rock Chichen Itza

March 3rd
2010
by Becky Youman
posted in:
Mexico destinations music news

The ancient Maya ruins of Chichen Itza are one of the top attractions for travelers on Riviera Maya or Cancun vacations. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Chichen Itza is home to El Castillo, The Castle, one of the best preserved and restored pyramids of the Maya world, along with many other impressive structures. It’s a place of profound spiritual significance for the Maya people, especially during the vernal and autumnal equinox, when the rising sun casts a shadow in the shape of a feathered serpent that crawls down the steps of El Castillo.

This impressive archeological site has also become an occasional venue for the hottest concerts on the Yucatan Peninsula. The latest artist to announce a concert there is the Rocket Man himself, Elton John. Riviera Maya hotels are filling fast with fans who want to take part in the special evening concert. Sir Elton John will perform on April 3 on a stage set up at the foot of El Castillo.

Tickets are still available for the show on Ticketmaster, but many vacationers will probably end up buying the tickets as part of a package. Hotels and tour operators are all trying to create unique Elton John concert experiences. Most of the packages include concert tickets and transportation, but one hotel, the Mandarin Oriental Riviera Maya has gone a step further to create the ultimate Elton John concert experience.
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Yoga in Hotels — Ommm

February 22nd
2010
by Becky Youman
posted in:
activities news

Another Monday morning, another body part sore from my weekend adventures.  (This time it was mountain biking racing instead of snowboarding.)  Once again I’ll be headed to yoga class this afternoon to help work out the kinks. And I won’t be alone. Yoga has become so popular that even travelers aren’t content to leave their yoga practice at home. According to a recent article in the New York Times, yoga is becoming so mainstream that, “like Wi-Fi, on-demand movies and fitness centers, yoga is becoming an amenity many hotels and resorts just can’t do without.”

The article states that yoga classes are no longer offered exclusively at resorts and spas, but also at conventional hotel chains. You are as likely to find a yoga session offered at Salt Lake City hotels these days as at fancy San Jose del Cabo resorts.  According to the article, the hotels see yoga as a way to help the bottom line. While the widespread offering of yoga in hotels may be a new trend, there are some chains that deserve kudos for getting the ball rolling, or maybe I should say, “downwalk dog walking”, earlier than others.

Kimpton Hotels

Kimpton was the first chain hotel to offer in-room wellness and yoga. The idea was to make it easier for guests to maintain the practices that keep them calm and serene, even while traveling. Most of their hotels offer special yoga tote bags for guests that include yoga props, mats, and straps. Combine those with an on-demand video yoga class and you might not even need the famous complementary Kimpton wine hour in the evening.
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Earning Airline Perks

February 19th
2010
by Becky Youman
posted in:
South America news tips

Want free airfare for your unborn child? Try to give birth on one of Bolivian airline TAM’s flights. A couple of weeks ago a woman went into labor on a flight to La Paz and ended up delivering her baby at 24,000 feet. Luckily there were both a doctor and nurse onboard as passengers who assisted in the delivery. According to the Miami Herald, the child will be given free domestic flights on the airline until she reaches the age of 18. In a funny twist, the girl’s mother named the newborn Tami in honor of the airline.

While you might not be willing (or able) to go to those lengths to get cheap tickets or free airfare, there are other things that you can do to try to get airline perks.

Fly the Same Airline – A Lot: As we all learned from watching George Clooney’s character Ryan Bingham in Up in the Air, super-elite frequent fliers are treated like royalty by airlines. News stories since the movie came out have reported airlines that have private check-in areas and procedures for these fliers, as well as unique meal and boarding services. These VIPs get rebooked as soon as there is a flight delay and even have connecting flights held for them.

Even if you don’t make the super-elite status, having any status at all on an airline is a good thing. People who qualify for the lowest level of elite status on US Airways for example, get free space-available upgrades, are allowed to check in via the always shorter first class lines, and are one of the first groups to board the airplane, meaning they don’t have to fight for overhead space. Another perk, not having to pay for checked bags, is a bonus with true monetary value these days.
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Cuzco, Peru

February 2nd
2010
by Becky Youman
posted in:
South America destinations news

Famed Inca ruins, Machu Picchu, were in the news last week when torrential rains in the area caused flooding and landslides that temporarily stranded thousands of travelers. Once the skies cleared, helicopters were sent in to transport the wet and weary vacationers out of the area. Now the government has announced that Machu Picchu will be closed for up to eight weeks because the floods washed away entire sections of the rail line that provide access to the ancient site. The site itself was unharmed, but there is no way for people to get there.

While Machu Picchu is an incredible South America vacation destination, there is no need to cancel your Peru hotel reservation if you have a trip planned in the next eight weeks. There are enough archeological ruins and cultural opportunities in Cuzco, the closest city to Machu Picchu, to make the trip worth taking.

Here are some of my favorite Cuzco area attractions and activities:
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What’s New in Vegas?

January 28th
2010
by Becky Youman
posted in:
U.S. West destinations news

The New York Times recently published an article naming The 31 Places to Go in 2010. While the number seems rather arbitrary, I love these kinds of lists because they get me thinking about taking vacations in places that might not have been on my radar otherwise.  Although there are several places I hadn’t heard of before, like Koh Kood in Thailand, there were a surprising number of old standbys. Checking in at number 17 on the list was perennial party favorite Las Vegas.

Although there are great travel deals on Las Vegas hotels and entertainment right now, the article didn’t tout the bargains as reasons to go. Instead, it cited a number of new hotel projects that continue to raise the bar on Las Vegas luxury and fun.

Here is what’s new in Vegas in 2010:
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A Closer Look At Airport Body Scanners

January 23rd
2010
by Joshua Ritchie
posted in:
news

You have probably heard a lot lately about new security measures being introduced at airports worldwide, so we prepared an infographic to help you understand how the machines work and where you will encounter them. Let us know your thoughts on the topic in the comments below. Have you been scanned? Would you avoid flying to cities that already have them implemented, or do you think it is not a big deal? Click on the infographic below to enlarge.

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Blackberry Burial Ceremony in Cabo

January 22nd
2010
by Becky Youman
posted in:
Mexico beaches destinations news

Marquis de Los Cabos, a luxury hotel at the tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, announced on its Facebook page that it has introduced a Blackberry Burial Ceremony. This ritual is designed to help guests symbolically disconnect from the outside world upon arrival.

In today’s reality of instant communication, it is often hard for people to unplug from their daily lives. Even if they are not online for work, they tweet and update friends with posts about their Mexico vacations.  The Marquis de Los Cabos has created this ceremony to assist with the letting go process.

Upon arrival guests are greeted with the standard welcome drink and cold towel. That is not where the welcome ends however. Those who wish to take their initiation into the world of relaxation a step further are led to the beach for the Burial Ceremony. While “Blackberry Burial”, with its alliteration, sounds the best, all manner of smart phones from IPods to Palm Products are welcome.

The phones are placed inside coffin-shaped boxes with Mexican calavera skeleton decorations on front. (You might want to put your phone in a baggie before dropping it in the box just in case any sand gets in there.) While the phones are laid to rest, the hotel guests are treated to  ten-minute hand massages to help invigorate and restore text-weary fingers. Although the phones are returned after the ceremony, the idea is that people will have mentally let go of their need for constant communication and will actually keep their phones off long enough to truly relax.
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Airline moves forward with “Pee Fee”

January 20th
2010
by Becky Youman
posted in:
news

Eye for Travel, a travel industry news service, reported yesterday that Ryanair is moving forward with its plans to charge passengers to use its aircrafts’s toilets. (Make that “toilet” in the singular.) Ryanair, an Irish low-cost airline with its headquarters in Dublin, offers cheap flights throughout Europe. The airline said that it was in talks with Boeing to retrofit its 737s to have a single coin-operated toilet. The other two toilets would be removed to add six additional seats.

According to the report, the remaining bathroom would cost one euro to enter. This so called “pee fee” would only be in effect on flights of one hour or less. The carrier says that the charge will allow them to reduce average fares on these flights by at least five percent. A Ryanair spokesman claimed that there were no health and safety issues with removing bathrooms and charging to use the remaining one.

“One toilet will discourage overdependence” he said. “There is nothing in the rule book to say that an aircraft has to have any toilets at all, which may sound strange, but we believe three toilets are excessive.”

Charge to use the bathroom? Really? Okay, there may be ‘nothing in the rule book’, but how about a little common sense? I would argue that there is no sanitary alternative to using the aircraft toilet when one is flying at 30,000 feet. It’s not like you can walk a few blocks and find the nearest Starbucks bathroom.  All it’s going to take is one incident of somebody with no pocket change and inflammatory bowel disease to get those lawsuits going. Or there will be the drunken vacationer who tries to save some money by taking care of nature’s calling at his seat. It seems like a bad idea all the way around.
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Cancun Beach Recovery

January 13th
2010
by Becky Youman
posted in:
Mexico beaches destinations news

The beach is back in town (To steal a variation on a line from Elton John and Bernie Taupin), and people on Cancun vacations couldn’t be happier. While it is natural for beaches to shift over time with storms and hurricanes, Cancun hotels depend on their expanses of white sand to draw in travelers. Knowing that Cancun’s powdery beaches are essential to maintaining the popularity of this thriving tourist destination, Mexican officials have started a massive beach restoration project.

The Mexican government allocated roughly $71 million USD to restore almost seven miles of beach on its Cancun coastline. According to the plan, two underwater sand banks, one off of the island of Cozumel and the other off the island of Isla Mujeres, were slated to be dredged. The sand would then be transported not only to the beaches of Cancun, but also Playa del Carmen and Cozumel. Officials and environmental groups from Cozumel were opposed to “their” sand bank being used in Cancun, so that aspect of the project was held up for a while as it made its way through the court system, but permission was later granted to move forward with the project.

To prevent the new sand from washing right back out to shimmering Caribbean Sea, construction teams placed and partially buried giant tubes along the beaches to help keep the sand in place. Then, on November 1 of last year, the first 16 thousand cubic meters of new sand were pumped onto the beach area in front of Cancun’s Royal Sunset hotel. As of the beginning of December, about 1.5 miles of beach had been recovered, using about 23% of the eventual 6.1 million cubic meters of sand that the project will necessitate.
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Is that a bird/gecko/lizard in your pants, or…?

January 12th
2010
by Becky Youman
posted in:
news

pantsAs anybody who traveled last week knows, the Christmas Day Underwear Bomber and his thankfully failed attempt to detonate an explosive device sewn into the crotch of his BVDs, have created new levels of scrutiny at airports these days. TSA employees are taking all potential threats very seriously, even when it means going a bit overboard, like confiscating a three-year-old’s Play-Doh in New Orleans.  When are you standing in that slowly moving security line, keep in mind that officials aren’t trying to spoil your Mexico vacation, they are just trying to keep everybody safe.

Okay, so they didn’t find the explosive materials in Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s tighty whities, but to be fair, airport officials have found some other crazy things stuffed down people’s pants. Here is a sampling of instances when they have done their jobs well:

Geckos and Skinks: Just last month officials in New Zealand caught a German tourist with 23 geckos and 20 skinks hidden in his panties. A small package in the man’s underwear contained eight compartments that separated the various wiggly animals. Apparently the street value of the geckos was about $50,000, which would explain why anybody would put lizards down his or her pants.

Asian Songbirds: Last April a man in California was caught at the Los Angeles International Airport with 14 live birds in his pants.  Apparently officials were tipped off “by the bird features and droppings on his socks, as well as birds’ tail feathers visible under his pants.” Ya think? Those are probably good clues. The guy had made a special bird smuggling carrier that he had wrapped around his calves and then hooked the birds, which were in pouches, to the carrier. Sounds like he needs to go back to the drawing board on that one.
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