Are those kiosks for real?
Dust collectors. That is what employees at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers call their new automated check-in kiosks, as one guest who has repeatedly tried to use them found. “I was checking in, and try as hard as I might, the kiosk wouldn’t cooperate,” Henry Harteveldt recalled. He flagged down a staff member and said, “This doesn’t seem to work.”
Opulent Orlando
Cindy Nachman-Senders was duly impressed when she opened the door to her Ritz-Carlton suite. Inside, she found a 27-inch flat-screen TV, marble floors, and a private balcony overlooking a 4,000-square-foot pool. For dinner, the corporate meeting planner from Potomac, Md., supped on sea bass at Norman’s, the hotel’s “New World Cuisine” restaurant. She spent her spare time shopping for shoes at Neiman Marcus in the nearby Millennium Mall. “Orlando,” she decided, “has really grown up.”
No refund for a vacation on ice
Q: A year ago my son surprised his wife on her birthday with tickets to Europe that he had bought on Expedia.
They were supposed to fly to Amsterdam on Icelandair on Dec. 25. But Expedia notified my son at the end of November that unless he could start the trip a couple of days [...]
Of Vodka, pilots and goats
Although I have flown an average of three to four times a week for the last 26 years, my hands still sweat on takeoff. I know all the statistics about aviation safety, but my heart still beats faster until we’re at cruising altitude.
Size matters in rental scheme
Joe Beane reserved a Dodge Intrepid from Dollar Rent a Car in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., recently. Or so he thought. “At the rental counter, the associate aggressively tried to sell me an upgrade to a convertible for an additional $20 a day,” Mr. Beane said. “When I refused, she said the company had no full-size cars available and that I would have to wait for a car to be returned.”
A babymoon boom
Next month, Charis Atlas Heelan and her husband, Chris, are taking a vacation with a little stranger: 4-month-old daughter, Ella. They’ll spend a week at a San Diego golf resort, enjoying its spa services. “People have said, ‘You can’t take her on vacation; she’s just a baby,’ ” Charis says. “But I don’t buy that excuse.” And the cross-country flight from their New York City home is just the beginning. Later this year they’re planning to take Ella to Australia.
Stuck in the ticket name trap
Q: My sister-in-law, Karen, is legally blind. She made a reservation through Travelocity to fly from Portland, Ore., to Minneapolis, on American Airlines with the assistance of an aid. But the aid entered the incorrect last name on her ticket (she had legally changed her name from Parker to Peterson when she remarried two years [...]
The mystery of the $1,549 key
Q: I recently rented a Toyota Avalon from Hertz at the Denver airport. On the same day my purse, credit cards, and the key to the rental car were stolen from the driveway of my mother’s house in Greeley, Colo.
I immediately informed the Hertz office in Greeley where I had intended to return the car [...]
Elite goes platinum
On a recent flight from Denver to Las Vegas, Michael Silber was assigned a dreaded middle seat in the back of the plane. But when Mr. Silber, an executive with the Harman Consumer Group, an electronics company in Woodbury, N.Y., checked in at the ticket counter, a United Airlines employee not only upgraded him on the spot but apologized for the lapse.
Breaking the silence at a Paris cafe
Like many frequent travelers, I often mix business with pleasure. A meeting in Salzburg, Austria, is an excuse to visit Mozart’s boyhood home, for example. A conference in Spain is a chance to see Picasso’s “Guernica.”
Where is your hotel?
When Carmen Jones reserved a room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Beverly Hills, she expected the property would be, as the name suggested, in Beverly Hills. “I was looking forward to walking to the shops on Rodeo Drive,” said Ms. Jones, a recruiter for a transportation security company in Burlingame, Calif.
Surviving the ski trip from hell
Q: My friend and I were scheduled to fly to Aspen, Colo., from Fort Lauderdale for a ski vacation recently. Our outbound flight to Denver boarded on time, but then we sat at the gate for more than an hour.
The flight attendants and the pilot made several announcements that the reason for the delay [...]
When pizza goes to India, even elephants celebrate
I’ve logged nearly a million air miles the past eight years. The most memorable journeys are the ones that celebrate a milestone for our business. In Seoul, for instance, our 200th store opening included a Buddhist priest presiding over a traditional blessing with incense, flowers and a food offering.
Check your cancellation
On a seemingly perfect honeymoon, Robyn and Matthew Quist set sail on a western Caribbean cruise on the Grand Princess. The newlyweds snorkeled in Grand Cayman’s tropical lagoons, four-wheeled in the hills of Belize, and caught wahoo in Cozumel, Mexico. But it all came to an unceremonious end after a week at sea.