Life at sea: 9 year cruise ship resident looking for a new home

by Anna Brones on

Some people seek out golf courses and gated communities for their retirement; others choose the ocean. That’s exactly what Beatrice Muller, an 89 year-old widow from New Jersey, did. She’s spent the last nine years living the life on the high seas, cruising around the world on the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2. Muller finds this much more pleasant than any old retirement home and she plans to keep up her worldly accommodations, except for one problem: the 41 year old QE2 is retiring in November. What is an old, sea-loving woman to do? Find another ship of course.

Muller says despite her preferred ship’s retirement, she refuses to return to land. “What would I want to do that for?” she was quoted asking The Times. Her cabin costs about $7,000 a month, and according to her estimates, that’s about the same as a retirement home in Florida, just “far more pleasant.”

Actually living on the sea isn’t as strange as it sounds. Magellan offers a Residential Cruise Line, where for $4 million and up you can buy your own on-board condo. The World is another “seagoing community” popular with the financially secure crowd.

We’ll just have to wait and see what Muller chooses as her next home. As for the QE2, it’s headed to Dubai to become a floating hotel.

That’s some weird cruise news. Click the images below to read some weird airline news:


Do the Chinese think Westerners look all alike?

by Jerry Guo on

This video seems to suggest so. In the West, there’s some who think Asians, especially those from China, Japan, and Korea, look pretty much the same. There’s even a famous website that challenges you to tell the difference.

But perhaps less-than-honed cross-border facial recognition is a universal problem. It seems in China, Westerners all look the same too. In this clip, a BBC reporter is confused for Michael Phelps. Hilarity ensues.

Gadling readers with an iPhone or iPod Touch?

by Scott Carmichael on

Our friends over at Engadget just let the world know that the mobile version of their site is now “iPhone friendler”.

In addition to the existing m.enagdget.com link, iPhone and iPod Touch users can view the site in an optimized version for their device by pointing Safari to i.engadget.com. The good news is, that this works for any site in our family, including Gadling!

If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, and you’d like to keep up to date with the news posted on your favorite travel site when you are on the road (or in the bathroom), you can browse to i.gadling.go-vip.net.

While this may seem a little unfair to all the other mobile users out there, Engadget posted the statistics of visitors to the current mobile site, and it turns out that a whopping 95.9% of all mobile browsers came to the site using an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Now you have no excuse for not keeping up to date with the latest articles posted here!

Travelon announces a lineup of TSA friendly laptop bags

by Scott Carmichael on

Now that the TSA has come to its senses, and has relaxed the rules for getting your laptop through security, we are seeing more and more bag manufacturers introduce a line of luggage to help ease the process.

Previously, I had reported on new TSA friendly bags from Mobile Edge, and the newest contender is Travelon Bags.

The Travelon checkpoint friendly bag lineup includes 6 bags; a laptop protector, a laptop sleeve (in three sizes), a briefcase, a wheeled case, a backpack and a ladies brief.

The laptop protector is a one-size-fits-all sling with a carrying handle, for placing your laptop in an existing bag. The sleeve is a neoprene case available from small (for laptops up to 10.5″) all the way up to a large (for laptops up to 17″). The computer briefcase looks like most average laptop bags, but has a pull-out laptop sling which brings your laptop out of the bag ready for inspection, a similar feature is found on the laptop backpack.

The bags start at just $24.99 for the laptop protector, up to $189.99 for the wheeled laptop bag. The first of these bags should be available in early September.

London notes: American tourists abandoning the city

by Jeffrey White on

I’ve been in London not much more than an hour and I’ve already spent $61.74.

The breakdown went something like this:

  • $31.62 — Stansted Express from Stansted Airport to London Liverpool Station (one way, 45 minutes)
  • $24.18 — Oyster Card purchase for London Underground, plus $10 in ride credit (good for 5-8 rides on Underground)
  • $5.95 — One pint of bitter at the pub where I now write this

It’s not news that London is expensive. Gadling’s recently departed blogger extraordinaire Iva said as much in her dispatches from the British capital earlier this year.

Still, the sheer expense of doing anything in London beyond strolling through museums is enough to make you think twice about visiting.

For me, this is a shame, this slight anxiety I get before every trip here, knowing as I do that I am going to part with some serious cash. London is a city I want to keep within my steady European rotation, a place with which I’ve long had an affiliation: I lived here for three years as a kid; it’s the birthplace of my brother; some of my earliest experiences as a traveler were had rediscovering the city as an adult.

According to the Associated Press, Americans in general are abandoning Britain these days, largely due to the weak dollar, which has made quick hops over the pond more costly than ever.

The AP says American tourists numbers are down 120,000 from this time last year. That’s not an insignificant number: The British government estimates that those lower numbers translates to about $650 million in lost revenue.

I should point out that it’s not just Americans who are thinking twice about London and the rest of the UK. The British government says overall tourist numbers are down 5 percent in the last year.

Right now 1 GBP is worth about $1.85.

I would continue my lament, but my friend is currently looking through the Internet and asking my thoughts for a restaurant tonight. I can almost hear my wallet now, protesting…