For the same reason people go to a car race (to see a fiery crash) or a hockey game (bare-knuckled fight) Shamu Stadium was packed to the gills for the 12:30 p.m. show Sunday, on Shamu’s second day on the job after the unfortunate incident in which he killed his trainer. Everyone wanted to see if something would happen.
Posts tagged as:
death
After a death in the family, Art Wallace tries to cancel his pre-paid reservation at a Days Inn. No can do, he’s told. The rate is totally nonrefundable. Appeals to Days Inn are useless. Is Wallace going to lose the money?
Michele Keller was all set to take a dream vacation to the Dominican Republic through Apple Vacations last year, when her significant other fell ill. After he took an unexpected turn for the worse, she learned that the insurance on her vacation didn’t cover her the way she though it would. Now she’s holding a voucher for a vacation she’s never likely to use.
Chou recently experienced a family tragedy. Just two weeks before his wedding day, his father died unexpectedly. He had to postpone his wedding and honeymoon in order to take care of the funeral arrangements.
I had to wonder what was wrong after numerous travel agents posted furious responses to today’s story about an agent that acted in an apparently unethical manner. Why were they being so defensive of a colleague who probably ought to be looking for another line of work?
Laura Brown is the acting assistant administrator for communications at the Federal Aviation Administration. After the death of Billy Mays yesterday, she was quoted as saying the TV pitchman wasn’t wearing a seatbelt on a plane that made an emergency landing. I asked her about the interview and the importance of seatbelts.
Believe it or not, the latest celebrity death has a travel angle. TV pitchman Billy Mays, who was found dead in his Tampa home this morning, was a passenger on a US Airways flight yesterday. His son first reported the news on Twitter.
And here’s where things get a little weird.
The highly respected TV Newser blog [...]
Megan Gallardo cancels her flight because of a death in the family, and her online agent suggests she may get a refund. But more than a year and countless letters and faxes later, there’s no sign of her $303. What gives?
No one expects to come home in a casket. But more Americans are. The number of claims made on death benefits by On Call International, a travel assistance service in Salem, N.H., has almost doubled in the last three years, rising from 125 claims in 2005 to 247 last year. Its numbers reflect a broader industry trend.
Castor probably died quickly.
There’s always been a fine line between taking a calculated risk and foolishly gambling with your life. At a time when more tourists are coming home in caskets, that line is becoming increasingly faint. Can we tell the difference between being brave and being stupid?
Here at the travel industry’s unofficial complaints department, we count on having a day or two off, Good Friday being one of them. Not this year. Here are three recent stories of compassion-less customer service that arrived in the “in” box on what was supposed to be our “off” day.
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