See the world’s largest cruise ship (again)

by David Breisch on

Man, it seems like just a couple years ago that Royal Caribbean took home the “world’s largest cruise ship” award (oh, wait, it was.) Well, they’re at it again, with construction of the new Oasis-class of cruise ships. Ships, in case you didn’t know, are measured by their gross tonnage. Back in 2006, Royal Caribbean held the aforementioned title with the Freedom of the Seas, which weighed in at 160,000 gross tons. And actually, I went on a cruise in (if I recall correctly) 2001 on a Royal Caribbean ship called Voyager of the Seas, which at the time was billed as the “world’s largest cruise ship.”

Well, kids, they’re at it again, only this time the ship – the Oasis of the Seas – weighs in at 222,900 tons. That’s a horrifying 39% bigger than the Freedom, in case you didn’t feel like doing the math yourself. (Well, horrifying depending on your point of view, I suppose.) Now, Royal Caribbean has a lot of practice with this whole “biggest ship” thing, and as is typical with a new launch, they’re debuting a number of “firsts at sea” on-board amenities. There’s Central Park, a six-deck-tall open-air atrium. The Boardwalk features a full-sized carousel. The Sports Deck has pools, basketball and volleyball courts, a rock climbing wall and a mini-golf course. And, oh yeah, there’s apparently a zip-line ride over the Boardwalk.

Now, I’m not as opposed to cruises as other Gadling bloggers, but this is a pretty ridiculous ship.

Product review – Belkin FlyThru TSA checkpoint friendly laptop bag

by Scott Carmichael on

In this product review, I’m going to give you a brief look at the newest checkpoint friendly laptop bag from Belkin.

The new regulations from the TSA permit you to keep your laptop inside its carrying case if the bag meets certain rules.

Essentially, the TSA X-ray operator has to be able to see through the laptop, with nothing obstructing it.

The Belkin FlyThru checkpoint bag accomplishes this by placing the laptop in its own compartment, like any other bag, but adds the option to unzip that compartment from the rest of the bag and fold it flat.

Unlike any other checkpoint friendly laptop bag I have seen so far, the FlyThru even has a large clear window showing the laptop, which should make the screening process even easier for the TSA agent, as they’ll instantly be able to see that you are using an approved bag.

The FlyThru bag has 3 sections; one for the laptop, one on the front, and one main section for your paperwork and other larger items that also hides a small internal zippered pocket. The pocket on the front is expandable, making it perfect for stuffing full of any last minute things you decide to carry on your flight.

The FlyThru bag is designed for laptops up to 15.4″. The FlyThru pocket itself is very cleverly marked, with a zipper pull that attaches to the bag using a velcro strip. When you arrive at the checkpoint, you simply unzip the laptop portion, and fold the bag flat. It’s a simple design, but one that should help get you through the security screening nice and quickly.

The Belkin FlyThru checkpoint friendly laptop bag costs $59.99, making it one of the cheapest in its class. The bag feels very well made and is surprisingly light; just a little under 2lbs including the strap.

The Belkin FlyThru checkpoint friendly bag will be available later today directly from Belkin.com and many other (online) retailers.

Big in Japan: Can’t get skinny? Eat a banana!

by Matthew Firestone on

You can never be too skinny or too rich, at least according to the old expression…

Of course, in a country where size S is the veritable norm, and hyper fashion demands perfection in every curve, the pressure to stay thin and beautiful can quickly consume every waking moment of your day-to-day life.

As you might imagine, Japan practically invented the fad diet, which means that every month or so, some new food item is reported by so-called experts to be the miracle cure for obesity.

While there really is no substitute for a healthy diet and exercise, Japanese women, and increasingly men, have chowed down on a pretty lengthy list of fad foods: boiled eggs, apples, chili peppers, soybeans, black tea fungus, cocoa, carrots, yam paste, beer yeast, and even baby formula!

So, what is the current fad food that has recently risen in price by 20% as a result of supply shortages? Bananas!

Yup, bananas, those elongated yellow pods that are high in fiber, packed with vitamins and minerals, and largely comprised of H2O.

So, how does the Morningu Banana Daietto (???????????????????????????????????????, Morning Banana Diet) work? Keep on reading to find out!

The Morning Banana Diet is attributed to a woman by the name of Sumiko Watanabe, a pharmacist in Osaka, who designed this diet specifically to help out her tubby hubby.

Here is how it works:

In the morning, you can eat as many bananas as you want, alongside room temperature water. This is the key as breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and a few bananas in the belly certainly helps in getting your digestion going.

For lunch and dinner, you can pretty much eat anything you want, along with a small afternoon snack, but you have to avoid desserts, stop eating by 8pm, and go to bed before midnight.

According to Mrs. Watanabe, her husband quickly lost 37 pounds, which prompted her to release the diet on mixi, the Japanese equivalent of Facebook or MySpace. The Osaka pharmacist has also published her Morning Banana Diet in Japanese, Korean and Chinese, and has thus far sold close to a million copies.

Of course, while Mrs. Watanabe is lugging her suitcases full of yen to the bank, food distributors are quickly realizing that their supply of bananas can’t meet demand, especially following a recent TV appearance by the Watanabes.

According to Takeshi Ozaki, a spokesperson of Life Corporation, which runs more than 200 supermarkets throughout Japan: “Bananas suddenly flew off the shelves, there was a 70%-80% increase in weekly sales compared to the same period last year.”

However, before you rush out and buy a few crates of Chiquita bananas, keep in mind that not everyone is convinced.

According to Professor Masahiko Okada of Niigata University School of Medicine: “The human body has three essential nutrients – carbohydrates, fat and protein. The golden rule is to balance these three nutrients and a daily calorie intake. Once you understand that, you don’t have to be swayed by the fad diet any more.”

Again, the secret to good health really is a balanced diet and regular exercise, though a few bananas in the morning might not be a bad idea!

** Front-page image taken by Eriko Sugita at Reuters. All other images courtesy of the WikiCommons Media Project **

Galley Gossip: Groped on the airplane, what to do?

by Heather Poole on

Groped on the airplane, it happens. A lot. Has it happened to you?

A few years ago I found myself standing in the business class galley with a few of my colleagues, when a very large man who worked for a very large company walked into the galley with an empty glass. Now this very large man, the one with the very large job title, had a seat in first class, which should have been my first warning sign. Passengers in first class do not wander back to business class. As I filled his glass with whiskey, I felt a little pinch on my you know what. I jumped, eyes wide, looked at him, looked at the crew, looked back at him, and did not say a word. No one said a word. And then he did it again.

I had forgotten all about that incident until I read a hilarious article (or maybe a not so hilarious article, depending on who you are and how you feel about these kinds of things) about a writer named Jeremy Langmead and his recent experience on a Virgin redeye flight to New York. The story, Get a Grip of Yourself, Madam, Not me, was posted on the Guardian.co.uk website. As the title suggests, Jeremy got manhandled on the airplane by his seatmate, Louise. We’ll get to that later, because what happened next is just as interesting.

Now I had just about finished writing this post (or was it that post?) when comments from another post I had recently written, Middle Seat Etiquette, came pouring in. And wouldn’t you know it, a Gadling reader named Ben had a very similar experience with his seatmate. Only this wasn’t just a young drunk woman named Louise, this was a middle-aged woman with a son the same age as Ben!

Here’s Ben’s horrible (double whammy) experience of being groped in a middle seat…

This could have happened in any seat, but it so happened to occur one of the few times I found myself in a middle seat. I usually have enough notice before a flight date that I can scrounge up a window or aisle, but this time I just found out a few hours before, so I had to take a middle seat. I was between a middle-aged gentleman at the window, and a similarly aged woman in the aisle. The man stayed quiet for most of the flight, but the woman and I got to chatting. She had a son about my age who had recently dropped out of college and was moving back home. She was concerned about is future, and was asking me about my plans and interests. It turned out we shared many similar tastes and hobbies. All seemed like a normal congenial talk until about 90 min. into the IAD-SFO flight. Her right hand had found its way onto my left thigh. We had never bothered to put down the arm rest between us.

I twitched my leg and her hand quickly moved back to her lap. I chose to ignore her action, hoping it was a simple slip, and wanting to continue the nice company. We continued to talk, but about 15 minutes later her hand had now found its way higher up on my thigh, and she was gently rubbing up and down. At this point I had to put a end to it. I very firmly told her to stop, and I took her hand and removed it from my leg. The armrest went down, and I quickly retreated to my iPod and book. We departed the plane four+ hours later without another word being spoken. I still wonder what she was thinking (perhaps I know too well), but of all things that has crossed the line in passenger etiquette, this one has remained one of the most memorable. I suppose such an event could have taken place in any seat, but something about the confining nature of the middle seat made it all the more acute.

And so I added Ben’s story into this post, and just when I thought I was done, another passenger with a similar story shared her experience about being groped on the airplane, only this time it was a woman being groped by a man. Here’s what happened to Brenda…

It happened to me on a flight from Auckland, New Zealand to LAX! I was in the upper cabin of the 747, and sitting next to me was a man involved in the New Zealand government. The cabin had been darkened and almost everyone was sleeping. I was asleep and suddenly found his hand on my thigh, slowly moving – I was shocked! I looked over my seat towards the galley and the flight attendant saw me looking towards her and silently mouthing the words “Help me” She came right over and cleared her throat very loudly ( the dude was pretending to be asleep, but he really wasn’t) He didn’t even look embarrassed at being busted. Don’t get me wrong, I love kiwis, but not that much!

Obviously, with all this groping going on, I had to scrap the original groped post and completely start over. I mean who cares if Louise does not know how to behave on an airplane when there are several passengers behaving badly, very very badly, onboard the airplanes. Originally I had accused Jeremy of not reading the warning signs when Louise, his seatmate, proclaimed they’d be spending the night together, as she sat down beside him, and then proceeded to down not one, but two glasses of champagne. But then look what happened Ben and Brenda. There were no warning signs.

Sorry, Jeremy.

In the first post I had written something about Louise probably being, deep down inside, a really nice girl. That is when she’s not getting drunk on the airplane and throwing herself at strange men. And then I went on to question why the alarm in Jeremy’s head did not go off. I followed that question by posing another question, do men even have the internal alarm signal? That perv alert that so many of my women friends and I have, the one that tells you to move seats NOW? As in GO GO GO! But then I read what happened to Ben and Brenda. There were no perv alerts! Just pervs.

Again, sorry, Jeremy.

Poor Jeremy got poked, and prodded, and had a thigh squeezed, as well as a rib knocked, and eventually began to wonder if he should switch seats. (Gee I wonder?) This was the point in the story where I began to laugh out loud. Again, I’m sorry Jeremy, but I had to laugh! Not because of all that occurred, because it shouldn’t have occurred in the first place, but because it occurred before the plane even took off! Unfortunately Jeremy felt a little odd complaining about Louise to the flight attendants. I’ll let Jeremy explain…

Despite it being 2008, and the genders edging towards equality, it still somehow feels wrong if a man can’t put up with a bit of uninvited, sexually predacious behaviour without seeking help from a not overly butch flight attendant. Fortunately, after one more thwarted attempt to arouse my interest, Louise fell asleep.

Okay, Jeremy, let me give you, and others, a word of advice. It doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman, no one should ever have to go through what you went through with Louise on that flight to New York. I know some of you will find this hard to believe, but the flight attendants are there for you. They are there to help you. Not judge you. And they want to help you, particularly when there’s a groper onboard. Trust me, we live for this kind of thing. No one, not a passenger, nor a flight attendant, should put up with being manhandled on a flight. Unless, of course, you like that kind of thing. Hey, you never know! I’ve seen some crazy things on the airplane.

If you find yourself on the airplane with an unwanted hand on your thigh….

1. Immediately excuse yourself from the situation. Just get up and go. You don’t have to say a word to the groper, no matter how nice they were before they started groping. If you’re the kind of person who needs an excuse, just say you’re going to the lavatory, or that your headset doesn’t work, or that you’re thirsty and you need to get a drink, and then get up and start walking.

2. Look for an open seat. Did you find one? Take it! What are you waiting for? Who cares if it’s a middle seat. Unless, of course, getting groped is better than sitting in that middle seat. I know, it’s a close one.

3. Tell a flight attendant. Tell the flight attendant what exactly is going on. Do not be afraid. This is an airplane, not a bar or a hotel, but a place where people and children travel together in a safe and not so comfortable environment. The flight attendant will gladly help you handle the situation, and make sure this situation does not happen again on a future flight.

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Photos courtesy of: (passenger) Davitydave, (empty seat) Simonk

Ryanair to offer $15 flights over the Atlantic

by Grant Martin on

Everyone’s favorite low-cost carrier, Ryanair, just put a price on the transatlantic tickets that they’ll soon be offering: a whopping 8£.

“Eight quid,” you say, “how can they afford that?!?!” Well, the same way that they offer 1£ flights throughout Europe — by making you pay departure and airport taxes and by making you pay dearly for additional fees like bags, meals and drinks.

Don’t expect to get 8£ flights on weekends in the summer either, you can wager that high-season fares are going to be significantly more than the “off-season” prices. So in total you’ll be paying around $300 in fees plus the $15 ticket and whatever other fees you accrue on the trip. Still it’s not a bad deal, I guess.

As to whether the transatlantic product will ever even get off the ground (get it?) I’m still dubious. CEO Michael O’Leary’s proposition to charge extra for a first class cabin to recoup for losses from coach is purely hinged on his ability to sell seats up front. And from what I hear, most business travelers won’t touch Ryanair with a ten foot pole.

O’Leary plans to make his plans for the airline more clear in a press conference at some point today. In the best of cases, however, you won’t be flying on a RyanAtlantic flight until late 2009 or early 2010. Time to start saving!