The best time to visit amusement parks

by Meg Massie on

Amusement parks are great fun — except for the heat, the crowds, the noisy kids running wild, and the cost of admission. We’re doing what we can to help you with the ticket prices, and we’ll tell you how we avoid all those other problems, too.

Most amusement parks in the US operate on about the same schedule as your community swimming pool: closed in the winter, open with shorter hours on some weekends in the non-summer months, and then open all day, every day in the summer — and that’s when most people visit. They’ve got more free time, and the park is open longer hours, so you get more enjoyment — or do you?

When you visit an amusement park during its peak season, think about all the time you spend waiting in line. For the best roller coasters and the newest rides, you’re often stuck waiting in line over an hour for just a three-minute ride.

Try visiting instead sometime at the very beginning or end of the park’s season. Most kids are in school by then, so even on weekends the crowds will be much smaller. The heat won’t be so killer, and the lines will be so much shorter that even if the park is only open for six hours, you’ll probably get more rides in than if you’d spent a whole day there in July. And tickets are almost always cheaper, too. The end of the summer is not the time to stop thinking about amusement park getaways. Actually, it’s the perfect time to start thinking about them.

Pronunciation error costs Spanish couple over $5,000

by Abha Malpani on

Whack me but I found this funny more than anything else: A Spanish couple traveling in Norway wanted to go to Olden to catch a cruise they had left to sort out some health issues. Traveling by taxi, due to a mispronunciation of their destination, the taxi driver took them to Halden instead, which is 560km away. Their fare came to 15,000 Kroners ($2765).

Still oblivious to the mistake, they tipped the driver 1000 Kroners ($184!) and spent the night in a hotel, only to find that there was no cruise ship waiting for them — that’s when they realized that they were in the wrong city. They jumped back into a taxi and and head towards Olden which was 610km away and the taxi ride cost them another 15,300 Kroners ($2,820).

So their pronunciation error cost them over 30,000 Kroners (over $5,300), the approximate cost of 2 round the world tickets.

Funny thing is, Spaniards don’t pronounce “h”; so they would pronounce Halden as “Alden” — which sounds more like Olden than Halden. When they try to pronounce the “h” it’s very strong and sounds like a “khhhhh”, so I’m not quite sure how they ended-up going to Halden. Perhaps the driver saw they were rich and decided to dupe them.



Delta to raise award ticket fees, passengers to give up on award tickets

by Grant Martin on

One of the most sensitive places that airlines have been pandering for extra money in has been in their frequent flyer programs. We’re well past the “I thought award tickets were supposed to be be free” argument in the airline circles — at this point, many travelers are just in hand-on-the-forehead mode, waiting to see how high fees will go.

Award tickets have always incurred a few fees. Taxes, most obviously, are always tacked on top of “free tickets” because the airline has no control over their imposition. But recently, “fuel charges” have started to appear, ranging in prices from 25$ for domestic tickets well into the hundreds for international fares.

While booking fees for award tickets have been around on some airlines (not all of them) for a while now, Delta just decided to up the ante and take an extra gouge out of frequent flyer’s pockets starting today:

  • For Award Tickets issued 21 days or more before departure date, no fee is applied.
  • For Award Tickets issued 8 to 20 days before departure date, a $75 fee is applied.
  • For Award Tickets issued 4 to 7 days before departure date, a $100 fee is applied.
  • For Award Tickets issued 3 days or less prior to departure date, a $150 fee is applied.
  • The fee is waived for Award Tickets issued from a Platinum Medallion® members’ account

For example, someone needs to fly to Milwaukee this Sunday from Atlanta because his or her mother is sick. Market price? 258$ Book an award ticket on Delta? “Free” plus 150$ in taxes. Net saved, 158$ 108$. You tell me if it was worth saving up that 25,000 miles.

Google Street View captures a proud moment for one Aussie

by Meg Massie on

Since its launch in May of 2007, Google Street View has been a source of controversy. The Google feature offers web surfers 360° street-level views around hundreds of cities worldwide. Some of the photos, taken by a car-mounted video camera, have captured some personal moments, like people entering adult book stores, leaving strip clubs, picking their noses, and entering buildings with questionable methods.

Critics claim that posting photos of these things on the internet is a privacy violation. But Google’s not breaking any laws. All the photos are taken in public places, and the company has even taken steps to decrease its questionable content, from blurring faces to allowing users to flag photos that may be inappropriate.

The latest Street View gem comes from the new Australian Street View. There, cameras caught a young man passed out drunk on his front lawn. The man claims he’d been drinking all weekend after the death of his best mate. While he knows what he did was dumb, he wasn’t pleased when the photo was posted for the whole world to see. Amid the controversy, Google removed the image from its Street View page.

Remember — just because there’s not a crowd around you, that doesn’t mean you have privacy when you’re out in the open. You may laugh now, but just wait until Google’s cameras come to your town…

JetBlue crew has woman arrested over video of fighting passengers

by Jeffrey White on

A Las Vegas woman was hauled off a JetBlue flight in handcuffs last week for shooting video of two other passengers having a loud argument.

Marilyn Parver of Las Vegas says that after settling the altercation, started by a male passenger arguing with the mother of an unruly kid, JetBlue crew members combed the cabin asking for witnesses. When Parver told crew members that she had filmed the fracas, they brought her back to the galley to view the video. They then asked Parver to delete the footage.

She refused.

As she recounts what followed to a Las Vegas area newspaper, the crew accused her of intending to put the film on YouTube. They said she had illegally operated an electronic device during the flight (though the plane was at cruising altitude).

Crew members then said a directive had come from the captain ordering her to delete the film.

Parver, 56, asked to speak to the captain. The crew refused. They said if she didn’t delete the video, federal agents would be waiting for her when the plane landed in Vegas.

They were. Declining to give in, Parver was taken into custody and led off the plane. Somewhere between the plane and the arrivals counter, Parver says, the charges against her had ballooned into taking video footage of the cockpit (because those doors are always open), the galley and other parts of the plane.

The Feds, the TSA and a JetBlue representative looked at the video and decided it was harmless. Still, the JetBlue rep demanded that the video be deleted or Parver would be banned from future JetBlue flights and her name circulated among other airlines as a undesirable passenger.

It all ended pretty badly for Parver. The authorities were about to let her go when she made the mistake of demanding people’s names. A Vegas police officer told her to leave or be arrested. She said, “Arrest me.”

Parver went to jail — though it looks like she wasn’t arrested — before her husband arrived and sprung her.

JetBlue Airlines says it is looking into the incident. Parver has sent angry letters to the airline, the TSA and a host of other agencies.