Friday the 13th: a lucky day for booking a hotel reservation

by Alison Brick on

Superstitious or not, if you’re thinking about booking a hotel, you might want to wait until Friday the 13th to book.

(Is that like intentionally waiting for a black cat to cross your path?)

What can we say? That’s the day that Hotels.com is discounting a lot of its properties by 50% in a Friday the 13th Sale.

Pick from about 200 properties, including locations in Mexico, Argentina, and the Caribbean. The Hard Rock Hotel in Chicago is going for $89/night (instead of $199), and so is the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco (instead of $170).

The sale is valid when you book a reservation on Friday, November 13th, and complete your stay by November 27th.

Photo of the Day (11.8.09)

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Anyone looking for a taste Caribbean colonial charm should head for Puerto Rico’s Old San Juan. It’s an area with loads of atmosphere – brightly colored pastel mansions, cobblestone streets, and a surprising street art scene. I particularly liked the bold colors and gritty charm of this photo in Old San Juan by Flickr user robertrexdotcom. It reminded me of my visit last year, wandering the quiet streets.

Want your pics considered for Gadling’s Photo of the Day? Submit your best ones here.

A review of Cheapflights.com’s “Travelnomics: Calling on Cuba” guide

by Brenda Yun on

Change is upon Cuba, and American travelers are especially eager to capitalize on the end of the travel embargo. In anticipation of the easing of travel restrictions to Cuba, Cheapflights.com recently put together “Travelnomics: Calling on Cuba,” a helpful PDF guide on traveling to Cuba. The guide provides travelers with a glimpse of life and travel in Cuba, travel accounts from writers familiar with the country, and a list of airlines that are or will fly to Cuba.

Having traveled to Cuba myself, I think this handy guide is an accurate reflection of what it’s like to travel there. It provides interested travelers with a good overview of the country’s sights, sounds, and smells, which helped remind me of what made Cuba such a unique place — lost in time and unbelievably beautiful. Keith Jenkins of Velvet Escape and Cuba travel expert Christopher Baker further describe the country’s real richness and warmth.

I did, however, find the “Cuba — Fact or Fiction” section only marginally useful for travelers, as food, accommodations, and money were not properly addressed and present significant challenges for American travelers in particular. There are two kinds of “restaurants”, “hotels”, and currencies in Cuba, and the guide doesn’t make this distinction. Travelnomics guides “are written to help the traveler find deals in a down economy and reassure travelers that travel is easy and affordable,” but traveling in Cuba is not cheap (even penny-pinching budget travelers will find themselves spending about $50 a day) and the guide does not sufficiently “break down the barriers to Cuba travel” as it states in the guide’s subheading.

Right now, not anyone can just hop on a plane to Cuba. The list of airlines flying to Cuba seems a little too anticipatory and not cautionary enough.

For a more comprehensive guide to travel to Cuba, you might want to read my “Cuba Libre: Travel observations and tips.”

The Galavanting Girls help the children of Roatan

by Katie Hammel on

Travel writer, founder of The Galavanting Girls, and creator of the Travel Blog Exchange conference, Kim Mance will soon be setting off on a cruise to visit, among other places, the island of Roatan in Honduras. Rather than spend her time in port sunning on the beautiful West Bay or browsing the new shops at the Port of Roatan, Kim and her crew decided to do something a little more constructive with their time.

While their Princess Cruises ship is in port on November 11, Kim and the other Galavanting Girls will head to Elfrida Brooks School in the area’s capital city of Coxen Hole. Honduras is the second-poorest Caribbean nation (behind only Haiti) and the school, which educates 180 children, is desperately in need of funding.

The Galavanting Girls will be spending the day at the school and dropping off supplies they’ve rounded up. They’re also taking online donations, as little as $5 per person, through the Roatan Children’s Fund on the secure First Giving website. The Girls have already raised $550 for the project, more than double the goal. They’ll be videotaping their visit to the school and will post the footage on their website after November 11.

The Spice Isle: What the Grenada guidebooks might not tell you

by Alison Brick on

Grenada is so off the radar for a lot of Americans that it leaves a lot to be learned about the country. (For one, how it’s pronounced. Answer: “Gren-ay-da.”)

But here are some of the more practical tidbits that I learned while in the island country that might also serve you well on your visit:

Keep your swimsuits to the beach. An indecent exposure law forbids it elsewhere. Cover up, even if it’s just a little bit.

Don’t wear camouflage. It’s illegal to wear it in any color or format.

Ask before taking that photo of someone. It’s good tact in any situation (although goodbye to spontaneity), but I especially felt the need to in Grenada. In fact, a few people called me on it when I didn’t. My instinct was to snap photos left and right at the market, but I intentionally stopped to talk about and buy produce first.

US money. Yes, you can use it and businesses accept it.

Go SCUBA diving. Grenada has the most wreck dives (sunken boats) in the Caribbean.

%Gallery-77695%Drive on the left. (Also means walking on the left-hand side). But first, you have to get a local driving permit from the traffic department at the Central Police Station on the Carenage. Present your driver’s license and pay a fee of EC$30.

No need to rush the spice-buying. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to buy spice and all of the variations of spice products — for cheap, too. Consider buying it from the shopkeeper that you’ve just enjoyed a great conversation with.

Say yes to insect repellent. Mosquito bites ended up being the majority of my souvenirs.

Keep some cash on hand for your departure tax. The airport doesn’t accept credit cards for the payment. You can use either American or Eastern Caribbean cash. Adults: EC$50 (US$20). Children ages 2-12: EC$25 (US$10).

Stick to one elevation at a time. Grenada is blessed with wonders from the depths of the ocean to the heights of a 2,000-foot-high mountain. But it’s such a distance that you’ll want to avoid going SCUBA diving and seeing Grand Etang in the same day — you’re sure to get decompression sickness (the bends).

Wait to buy chocolate until later. No doubt you’ll want to bring chocolate home (Grenada Chocolate Company makes an especially good kind — plus it’s organic and made small-batch). But if you’re like me you don’t have a refrigerator in your hotel room, the chocolate is sure to melt, so pick it up at the end.

Hydrate. It’s easy to forget that you need to drink more than usual because of the weather — even when you don’t feel thirsty.

Do as the locals do. Go to the beach on Sunday for an authentic Grenadian experience — you’ll find local families lounging on the beach, and kids starting up soccer games.

Keep an ear to the local slang. For one, “bon je” (jai/jay) is used as an exclamation of awe. That said, understanding the local patois can be as difficult as learning any new language.

Alison Brick traveled through Grenada on a trip sponsored by the Grenada Board of Tourism. That said, she could write about anything that struck her fancy. (And it just so happens that these are the things that struck her fancy.) You can read more from her The Spice Isle: Grenada series here.