Photo Of The Day: New York, Via Hoboken

by Jake Thiewes on

Where did you go for your Labor Day weekend travels? I ended up in New York City, after a particularly early morning jaunt to Morristown, Union City and Hoboken in New Jersey — all in the name of an old BMW. Three of us crashed at my old college roommate’s place on Saturday night. Waking up to the sprawl of Hoboken and the Manhattan skyline, seen from his Union City apartment’s balcony, was a really neat view.

We’d love to feature your photos and videos on Gadling, so please add them to our Flickr Pool (with Creative Commons licensing!), tag @GadlingTravel on Instagram or email us at OfTheDay@gadling.go-vip.net.

Remembering The ‘World’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park’

by Libby Zay on

Amusement park safety has been a hot topic this summer. After a deadly fall from a Six Flags roller coaster in July, even minor injuries have been making headlines. But are amusement parks really as dangerous as they used to be? A new documentary sheds light on what Mashable is calling “The World’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park,” a New Jersey waterpark called Action Park that closed in 1996. Inside this lawless park, which seemed to be staffed mostly by intoxicated teenagers, were nonsensical attractions like:

  • The “Cannonball Loop” slide, which had a complete loop at the end.
  • A winding cement track called the “Alpine Slide” that children barreled down on carts while people tried to spit on them from a chairlift that ran above it.
  • A rope swing called “Tarzan swing” where men regularly exposed themselves to onlookers.

Seriously, is this place for real? We went to Twitter to do some investigating, and found many people recalling-and even lamenting-their injuries at the park:

%Slideshow-76622%

Ouch, sounds painful. Although these people walked away with minor injuries, at least seven people died at Action Park during its existence. Watch the first half of the documentary above, and the second half after the jump.
The Most Insane Amusement Park Ever – Part 2 of 2 by insane-amusement-park

Got A Complaint About An Airline? Buy a Promoted Tweet.

by Anna Brones on

Social media, in particular Twitter, has completely changed how airlines do customer service. Whereas once you would have to type an official complaint letter and send it to corporate headquarters, or give call the customer service hotline, nowadays you can simply post your feelings to the wide world of the internet, in the hopes that the company will pay attention. But while applications like Twitter may have been effective early on when fewer people were using them, today the platforms are saturated, and to be heard, you have to make some noise. Which is exactly what British Airways passenger Hasan Syed did.

In response to his father’s lost luggage, Syed (who uses the Twitter handle @HSVN) did more than just tweet his frustration, he purchased a promoted tweet in the New York and UK markets on Monday night, hoping that it would catch the attention of the airline. The tweet was simple, yet inflammatory: “Don’t fly @BritishAirways. Their customer service is horrendous.”What followed was an explanation of the lack of customer service in regards to his father’s lost luggage, as well as complaining about the lack in response time. Because of the promoted status, in the first six hours, the tweet itself got 25,000 impressions, but that of course excludes the coverage that the story got thanks to the news and blog world. As of this writing, British Airways has yet to respond to the tweet.

But while some may commend Syed for being an empowered citizen, it does beg some questions: In the day and age of social media, do we expect too quick of a turnaround for customer service? While big airlines certainly have many people employed around the clock to deal with customer service complaints, how efficiently can they really do so? Are we empowered travelers who can expect better customer service, or are we just making more noise?

Even if British Airways does end up responding, what change, if any, will it make internally for the company? There are likely just as many people with good customer service experiences with a certain airline as with a bad one, and although one negative complaint can be the “tweet heard round the world” it may not make any difference.

Ultimately, the only way to get better customer service is to demand it, and social media is yet another channel that allows us to do so. Will Syed’s promoted tweet work? That remains to be seen.

Russia Is Afraid Its Citizens Will Never Be Allowed To Come Home, Issues Travel Warning

by Anna Brones on

Travel warnings are issued for a variety of reasons, be it social and political unrest, the threat of terrorism or even health. But Russia has now found a new reason to warn people against travel: the fear of their citizens not being allowed to return home.

As reported by the New York Times, the Russian Foreign Ministry bulletin state: “Warning for Russian citizens traveling internationally … Recently, detentions of Russian citizens in various countries, at the request of American law enforcement, have become more frequent — with the goal of extradition and legal prosecution in the United States.”There’s no denying that extradition issues between Russia and the United States have heightened with the Edward Snowden case, but is the threat of detention and inability to return home really a fear for all Russian citizens? Probably not, but the Russian government does feel that its citizens get treated unfairly. From the Foreign Ministry: “Experience shows that the judicial proceedings against those who were in fact kidnapped and taken to the U.S. are of a biased character, based on shaky evidence, and clearly tilted toward conviction.”

The number of Russian tourists traveling around the world is increasing, up almost 25 percent from numbers in 2012. Only time will tell whether such government warnings will have an affect.

Take As Many Selfies As You Want At This Instagram-Friendly Hotel

by Anna Brones on

In the last year, travel and Instagram have grown to go hand in hand. Seriously, how many photos did you post during your last trip?

Banking on our selfie and hashtagging obsessions, the new boutique 1888 Hotel in Sydney, Australia has made Instagram a key part of its visitors’ experience. The lobby features a digital mural of Instagram shots, the front desk has a map of top picture taking spots that you should be sure to put on your to-do list, it offers a free night’s stay to anyone with more than 10,000 Instagram followers and there’s a specific booth for taking selfies when you check in, ensuring that you can make your friends jealous immediately.

The photo-friendly theme makes sense; 1888 is not only a reference to the year that the building was constructed, but also when Kodak launched the first box and roll camera, the kind of thing you didn’t need a vintage filter for.

But if you go, make sure you know how to take good pictures: each month the guest that snaps the best Instagram photo will get a free night’s stay.