August 2007 - Posts

• Global Warming? (En)

  Weather is always an important concern to vacation travelers.  You hope for good weather, so you can enjoy your vacation.  You fear bad weather that could spoil it.  Hurricanes and tropical storms are a great concern to folks planning a visit to Florida or the southern coastal regions of the USA.  High winds, severe prolonged rainfall and flooding can certainly dampen your enjoyment of a sunny Florida vacation.  After the intensely devastating hurricane season in 2005, forecasters predicted another bad season in 2006.  It never came!  The 2006 hurricane season was relatively mild with no severe storms making landfall in the USA.  This year, they once again predicted a fairly severe hurricane season; but so, far it has been pretty mild.  A few tropical storms developed in the southern Atlantic Ocean, but they weakened or disappated before reaching the US coasts.  We still have a few months left to this hurricane season, lets hope our good luck continues. Thunderstorms and tornados have been a real problem during the summer of 2006 and once again this year.  Great electrical storms with heavy rains and hailstones are common across the great plains of the Midwest during the summer months.  Some of these storms spawn devastating tornados that leave behind paths of destruction.  We have already experienced quite a few storms and tornados this year, and more are expected.  In addition, the weather patterns in the Midwest caused massive flows of moist tropical air to move up the Mississippi valley eastward.  These brought intensely heavy rainfall that resulted in severe flooding in many areas. For a traveler to the USA, such storms can create some problems.  They disrupt air travel throughout the areas affected.  Those disruptions create a ripple effect throughout the air travel grid that causes numerous flight delays and flight cancellations all across the USA..  It is not uncommon for travelers to become stranded for hours or even overnight due to storm related complications.   Posted Aug 15 2007, 11:16 AM by Mike Leco with no comments Filed under: hurricanes, tornados, storms

• New York City Hotels (En)

  I just returned from a short business trip to New York City. The Big Apple was hot, crowded, congested and teeming with tourists. Most of the travel polls now say that New York City is the number one destination for overseas visitors, and my observations certainly support that. Times square was packed with thousands of multilingual tourists snappin each other's photos in front of the glittering neon signs. It is the height of the tourist season for the Big Apple and it usually gets fairly congested at this time of the year, but this is the worst I have seen since before 2001. Most of the hotels in the city are fully booked and rooms are hard to find. The prices for a night's accommodation have reached some exhorbitant levels. It is becoming nearly impossible to find a decent affordable hotel room in New York City. If you plan on visiting New York City this year, you should make your hotel reservations far in advance of your stay. The best prices are available to those who book early. Once the occupancy rate gets above a certain level, many hotels cease to offer their lowest rate rooms and begin charging premium rates for their remaining rooms. Eventually, they fill up completely and no more rooms are available. Some business travelers forced to make last-minute arrangements have been forced to pay $500 or more per night for a hotel room. When the hotel rooms in Manhattan get scarce and the prices elevate, you can look for hotels near the airports. Hotels in the vicinity of John F Kennedy International, LaGuardia International or Newark International are typically lower priced than similar accommodations in Manhattan and less likely to sell out. If you are driving to the Big Apple, the hotels in Secaucus New Jersey are also convenient to Manhattan and typically lower in price. Posted Aug 02 2007, 11:06 PM by Mike Leco with no comments

• Airport Security Screening (En)

  You may have heard some rumours about US airport security screeners harassing foreign visitors. You may be wondering if the rumours are true. Last week, another story concerning harasment by airport screeners just appeared in the US newspapers. All of which may be causing you some concern about your next visit to the USA. In the most recent episode, a woman passenger, traveling with a little baby, claims that she was stopped, harassed and detained by airport security screeners simply because she had water in her baby's sippy cup. Her story appeared in many US newspapers. The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the agency responsible for airport security, took the unusual action of issuing its rebuttal to the original story. It claims that the airport screeners simply told the woman that she was not permitted to carry any liquid through the security checkpoint including liquid inside a baby's cup. The woman responded by pouring the liquid on the floor in front of the security screeners. They barred her from passing through security until she cleaned it up with paper towels from a nearby ladies room. I am not sure that this would constitute harassment? It sounds more like they were responding to a very rude individual. I have traveled throughout the USA by air many times in the last few years. In my experience, most of the TSA employees are very professional, very polite and often quite friendly. Occasionally, I encounter a less friendly screener who is possibly having an off day. My only complaint is that the TSA screeners are often so overly security conscious and so bound by their rules and regulations that they do not take time to empathize with the inconveniences faced by the passengers. Posted Aug 01 2007, 10:57 PM by Mike Leco with 2 comment(s)