I recently interviewed Jody of Have Kid Will Travel about her experience with kids at Glendine House in Arthurstown near Wexford.  This property sounds like an amazing option to use as a home-base to explore this breathtaking part of Ireland.

Here’s what she said:

Glendine Country House is a gorgeous, historic Georgian manor. Full of antiques, the interior is like stepping back in time and the atmosphere is inviting and comfortable. We loved the warm welcome from the owner with fresh scones and tea. This is a huge property so there is room for kids to run around outside, as well as a kids play area and animals that they can feed. It is a ferry ride from Waterford with easy access to area sights.

Rates start at 190€ night for a family of 4.  Read the complete family-friendly hotel review on Ciao Bambino.

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The Cinque Terre – an area famed for the beauty of its coastline, its five picturesque villages (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore) and its famous ancient footpaths. Before the railway has been constructed, these foothpaths were the towns’ only link to the outside world.

This coastal region is one of the most amazing locations I have ever experienced with its spectacular terraced hills and sparkling blue seas.

There are different ways to experience Cinque Terre: begin by enjoying a cooling swim in the beautiful blue water, preferably in Monterosso which is the best Cinque Terre town for swimming. There is a sandy beach where it is free to swim and sunbath. If you like hiking or walking, Cinque Terre is a Hikers Paradise! You can hike from town to town, the five villages are all linked together by a series of hiking trails, a bit hard and exhausting but it is worth to do it.

Not a hiker? Don’t worry, you can still enjoy the beautiful views of the Cinque Terre: just jump on the ferry that takes you on an unforgettable sightseeing tour through Monterosso, Vernazza, Manarola and Riomaggiore. You will admire this famous coastal path of the five seaside villages that make up the ‘Cinque Terre’: the olive trees, vineyards and the colorfully painted villas offer a breathtaking panorama of the coast.

The train is the easiest way to get to the Cinque Terre (just be aware that the trains in Italy have got also their delays, especially in summertime). From Milan, the train takes you directly to Monterosso within four hours. Monterosso is the first stop of the Cinque Terre.

If you are in Genova, just take the express directly to La Spezia to your Cinque Terra destination. This train takes an hour and a half. From La Spezia, take the local trains (’Regionale’) toward Sestre Levante, stopping at your destination. Riomaggiore is the first stop after La Spezia.

Having said that, this is one of the most delightful areas I have ever been to and I can fully appreciate why this region has been listed as a World Heritage Site.

Photo “Vernazza, Cinque Terre” from Photolupi on Flickr

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There’s one thing besides your identification you should never leave home. It’s your electronic ticket number.

Electronic or e-tickets as they are called, are getting to be standard. Most U.S and European carriers won’t issue paper tickets anymore, and if they do, they generally charge extra. And IATA – the International Air Transport Association – is close to their goal of 100 percent e-tickets. Even skeptical travelers have become used to the concept and are relaxing about not having paper in hand.

But don’t get too relaxed. Especially if your itinerary includes more than one airline.

I just got another call from a client at the airport. And it happens at least once a month, sometimes once a week.. She flew out on Northwest to Boston via Minneapolis, and was flying home on United. The gate agent told her “You don’t have a ticket,” and wanted her to buy a new one.

Fortunately, this client called me, and I gave her the ticket number. I could hear in the background “Oh, there it is.” And she got her boarding pass.

Had I or another agent not been available, we would have had to hash it out with United and/or Northwest’s refund department.

Most e-tickets work smoothly. But if you are in the minority when they don’t, it’s no fun. I missed a plane myself earlier this year because a Delta agent couldn’t pull up a United electronic ticket on a close connection in time for the flight.

Besides having more than one airline on the ticket, other factors that increase the chances of a problem include having changed your ticket, having made a reservation that was canceled at any time before you bought your ticket and having had any schedule changes on the ticket.

If the fare allows, ticketing each airline separately helps with check-in, though this may expose you to secondary screening because the airline will show it as one way tickets. But having that ticket number in hand, whether as a receipt or a printout, will definitely increase your chances of solving any problem.

And the trip you save may be your own.

photo by matt.hintsa on flickr

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We all know Darren Cronian for being an award-winner blogger on TravelRants, where he’s been delivering news and advice on travel for consumers for quite some time now. Darren is now up to something new and very interesting: MyLifeInLeeds is a brand new magazine on things do to, to see, to eat and to drink in Leeds, his hometown.

The magazine itself seems structured to easily give you all the information you need to plan your vacations: each article is a guide in itself, with pratical information about specific aspects or your trip. It soft-launched to his followers with a tweet, and we’re very happy to tell you all about it, so that you can bookmark it for your next trip to Leeds. Taking advantage of this its large student population (University of Leeds attracts more than 30.000 students every year), Leeds is a perfect place if you want to enjoy a weekend of fun and nightlife. Darren’s advice extends to hotels as well, starting with those who can satisfy the needs of the most exigent traveler.

It is obviously a work in progress, but everything seems mapped out very conveniently: we’ll be watching the next step of this very interesting project, and we can’t help but asking ourselves (and Darren): is this just the beginning of something bigger?

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Whether you are a do-it-yourself, or book through a travel agent, hotel reviews are often an important part of the booking procress. Except they are also often the most controversial part of the process.

Tripadvisor, for example, uses as its motto – “Get the truth, then go.” And they allow “real” travellers to post reviews.

But one of the problems with allowing anyone to be a critic is that, not only is the process subject to abuse, but people have different standards. A basic motel with clean sheets may get a rave review; a five-star resort with expensive food and drink choices can get a terrible review.

And booking sites, such as Travelocity, Expedia and Orbitz, use a rating system that is capricious at best, and usually heavily tilted towards making the hotels sound as good as possible.

In fact, I am sure most travellers have had the experience of either having stayed at a so-called three- or four-star place, that really isn’t up to its rating. Or of seeing an online review of a place you already know and thinking, “What were they drinking to give it that rating?”

One option is Star Service, which uses paid reviews, and is a favorite of many travel agents. But it is a subscription-only service that starts at around $249.00 a year, which is probably out of the reach of most do-it-yourself travelers. Personally, I have found it to be a great tool for my clients and very reliable, albeit not perfect. Because even with paid reviewers there are differences of opinions, and hotels can change quickly.

Now, a new entrant is joining the field, called Oyster.com

Oyster.com is starting out with four areas for review, Aruba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Miami. They plan to add New York and Las Vegas. The site employs reporters to write all reviews, pays for their own hotel nights, and does not function as a booking engine. And at the moment, they are free. In answer to the question – “How do you make money?”, their response on their site is:

Oyster.com does not currently make any money. We don’t, however, plan on that being the case forever. We are currently focused on building out additional destinations and improving our site experience so that we can acquire more customers. Over time, we believe there will be a lot of ways for us to make money while ensuring that our editorial opinions remain independent and unbiased. In the meantime, our first priority is creating a site that will help millions of people make the right decisions about where to stay.

The founders have obtained funding from venture capital companies including Bain Capital. Clearly, they have convinced some smart people that they have some hopes of making this work.

Admittedly, even if Oyster becomes successful, they will probably not cover many smaller towns and motels. Sites like Tripadvisor and online travel sites will probably still be the only source of information in those cases. But a preliminary look at the site is encouraging; it is fast, well-written, and the reviews are interesting.

As with most startups, it remains to be seen if Oyster.com can become a viable option, but for now, it’s a promising new contender in the hotel review wars.

photo by gailf548 of Sandals White House in Jamaica on Flickr

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Today’s post is a collection of questions I have been asked or heard asked in and about the state of Hawaii. And I promise I have not made any of them up.

The inspiration came from a manager from the Four Seasons Lanai, who told me that when he talked to a guest about spear-fishing, was asked

“Can you swim all the way under the island?”

Another true questions, either asked of me personally or vouched for by hotel or boat staff:

“Is there water on the other side of the island?”

And to hotel employees regularly,

“Do you live on the island?”

Along with,

“Where do you get electricity?”

Asked to me as a travel agent,

“Can you use U.S. money in Hawaii?”

And its corollaries,

“Do you need a passport to go to Hawaii?” and “Do the natives speak English?”

“Can you drop off a rental car on a different island?” (The person in question thought it was like the Florida Keys with bridges.)

Asked on a catamaran off Maui,

“What altitude are we at now?”

“Where do the whales sleep?”

And of an island in the distance,

“Is that Catalina?”

And my all time favorite:

“How do they keep the islands from floating apart?”

(The person in question here was commenting on the “nice” formation of the islands, with Hawaii as the most southeast, Kauai on the west. The hotel employee who told me the story said he still wishes he had told her they were all anchored to the ocean floor with really big anchors.)

Although if any TripShake readers have heard questions to match or top these, please feel free to add them in comments.

Photo from the Fairmont Orchid on the Big Island of Hawaii.

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This week on Tripwolf Blog we loved the news of the upcoming iPhone App that will allow users to bring Tripwolf everywhere on their mobile! Still it’s just a sneak peak, but I’m sure soon we’ll have more news.

Another great post was about the top ten islands in the world, as users are asked to vote which island of the world they think is the best!

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We all know that word-of-mouth is one of the best ways to find decent accommodation. Without it, we can search the internet to our heart’s content, looking for deals. But if all we have to go on is a webpage or advert without any reviews, we could be very (unpleasantly) surprised when the time comes to check in.

Darn Good Digs is a website featuring user-recommended accommodations around the world for under $150US/night.

For example, knowing that I’ll be in India shortly, I searched for local good digs on the site. In so doing, I discovered that the Inn Seventh Heaven has a great vibe, awesome food, I learned a little about the area, and I even read a few tips for booking the less expensive rooms by a user from Australia who has stayed there before.

User nominations are all screened by the website administrators, who research and elaborate on good digs nominations if not enough information is given by the user. Thus, the quality of each review is kept to a high standard and is consistent throughout the Site.

Darn Good Digs has even more reason for you to visit them now: they are having a contest, and are giving away a Brooklyn Industries Travel Bag to make it worth your while.

Contest entry is easy: Simply sign up for their newsletter, or for two entries, nominate your own fav digs for the Site.

Click here to enter the contest, which ends July 27, 2009.

Note: The author has no vested or affiliate interest in Darn Good Digs

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Over and over again, I read travel writers saying that travelers should use travel agents for complicated or exotic trips, but that generally they can just book “simple trips” on their own online.

And as a travel agent, I can say honestly, that the service fees most agents get from domestic trips are often not what’s keeping us in business, so this isn’t a pitch for more sales. But actually, there are reasons travelers might consider an agent, even for “simple” trips.

The first reason is if the flight is delayed or canceled. Service cuts at the airports and all those check-in kiosks mean that the wait to speak to a human is longer than ever. Travelers with an agent can get on the phone and be rebooked before they get to the front of the line.

Also, if a trip is booked in advance the chance of schedule changes is high. Sometimes these schedule changes are trivial, other times they can result in a missed connection or hours waiting at an airport. An agent can get this resolved, even say, changing travel cities if a service cut means no good alternative.
For example, I have talked airlines into changing tickets from Fort Lauderdale to Miami, and San Jose to San Francisco recently. Which an individual can do too, but it make take a while.

Then there’s the issue of seat assignments. Lately, it seems as if, except for bookings made months in advance, there are no decent seat assignments left — sometimes even for elite mileage members. Most good travel agents, however, will keep checking back for seat assignments for their clients, and most of the time, something opens up. (And then there’s Northwest, in a class by themselves by only pre-assigning seats 90 days in advance.)

In addition, a few airlines, like British Airways and United Airlines, have special deals with some agents for seat assignment priority.

And finally, it’s another pair of eyes. I lose track of the number of requests I get for a flight say, on Monday May 17. Except that May 17 is a Sunday. It’s an easy mistake to make, getting day and date wrong, but the airlines are not terribly sympathetic. An agent is more likely to pick up these and other discrepancies, name issues, misspellings, etc., before a ticket is issued.

One of my favorite clients finally gave up booking online some years back after several airport problems. He likes to tell his co-workers, “You know, I am just thrilled when I have paid Janice her fee and she only had to do a few minutes work for it. Because it means everything went super smoothly. Unfortunately, with the airlines these days it happens a lot less often than I would like.”

Photo “Too early to Check in – Sydney Airport” by Charlie Brower on Flickr

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I toured China with a ballet in 1993. And back then, China was a steal, but I still spent thousands of dollars on the experience.

Now, you can see a good chunk of China for under $1,000, courtesy of Friendly Planet Travel.

I’m really impressed with this package. It includes return airfare from Los Angeles, all domestic flights, transfers, taxes, accommodation for the entire ten days, touring, most meals, and of course – the opportunity to see China with a knowledgeable tour guide.

For more information, check out their China deal (and many others) here.

Note: The author has no vested interest in Friendly Planet Travel

Photo “The Great Wall of China” from exfordy on Flickr

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