Snow and ice strand travelers in their Smoky Mountain cabins

by Kraig Becker on

Dozens of travelers to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee were left stranded in their rental cabins earlier this week thanks to snow and ice covered roads. Most had a minimal supply of food and were unsure when they could resupply thanks to the treacherous conditions.

Winter storms dumped several inches of snow on the region, but it was the ice that posed the real danger. The narrow and winding mountain roads became impassable thanks to a thick coat of ice which caused many vehicles to slide off the pavement and become stuck in ditches. Without ice chains on their tires, most vehicles were useless on the slick surface, which meant that visitors to the Majestic Mountain Lodges near Gatlinburg were forced to stay in their cabins and wait for assistance.

Some couldn’t wait however. Running low on food, many of people set out on foot for the nearby town, pulling sleds behind them as they went. Once they made the walk into Gatlinburg, they would purchase their needed supplies and then hike back up the mountain to their cabin. That round-trip trek would take several hours to complete.

Slowly the conditions have begun to improve over the past few days, but even salt trucks and plows have had problems getting up the steep mountain roads. For now, most of the visitors have had to stay in their cabins and wait for the ice to clear.

Would this kind of ice storm be a fun winter adventure or leave you with severe cabin fever? It seems that if you were well stocked on food and supplies, it would be fine just relaxing by the fire. But if you were running low on those things, it wouldn’t be much fun at all. I’d hate to be the guy that drew the short straw to make the beer run.


Booking a cruise? Test your cruise travel agent first

by Chris Owen on

Some travel agents are not going to like this idea at all. Those would be the ones that are just in it for the commission. Others, the ones you want, the good ones, won’t have a problem with this and will pass the test with flying colors.

“Finding a good travel agent who will work with you to select the best cruise possible is sometimes as difficult as finding a good doctor, dentist or other service professional.” says cruise travel expert Linda Garrison from About.com.

A big advantage you have with travel agents is that you can test them. Other than seeing diplomas hanging on the wall or Googling a prospective doctor or dentist online, you really can’t test them much before using them.

The test: Fake-book a sample cruise. Pick an easy one using the following variables:

  • 4 to 6 nights
  • Carnival cruise
  • 2 guests, both under 55, residents of New York, not in the military
  • You want to sail sometime during the month of August 2011
  • Least expensive mid-ship Balcony cabin.

Try that online at the Carnival website then at Expedia.com and send it via email to your cruise travel agent or potential agent if you don’t have one. You’ll have to go all the way through the process online, stopping short of providing a credit card, to get the final price. Your good travel agent will take some time to get back to you but it should be reasonable.

Take notes

  • How long did it take to complete the process with the cruise line, Expedia.com and your travel agent?
  • Which source offered you the most options?
  • Which source had the best price?
  • Which source offered a human being that could look beyond the numbers and facts like humans do, offering me the best alternatives?

OK, so the last one was a slightly loaded question but the point is well taken: A good travel agent will be the one that takes a personal interest in you, your plans and can look beyond just the numbers, fees and facts with a focus on not just price but the experience itself.

Save time, skip the test, contact a Travel Agent.

Flickr photo by nicasaurusrex

Cruise industry sails into social waters

by Chris Owen on

Not all that long ago major cruise lines, like many other industries, did not have much time for social media. They gave Facebook, Twitter, bloggers and other social platforms half a look then settled back into their comfy traditional marketing chairs, content with business as usual.

They didn’t get it.

Lately though, the tide has turned and cruise lines are getting on board for what looks to be a wild ride.

Today we see major campaigns aimed at engaging us in a conversation. This is the stuff that brought terror into the hearts of cruise line executives not all that long ago. They did not understand what to do with social media.

Today we see lines like Carnival Cruise Lines diving in head first on several fronts. That’s important because Carnival Corp, parent of Carnival Cruise Lines (@CarnivalCruise) and many others including Princess Cruises (@PrincessCruises) and Holland America Line (@HalCruises) often sets the pace other lines will follow in all sorts of stuff.

Most recently, Gadling told you about Carnival sailing to Times Square for New Years Eve where the line will drop a ton of confetti on the crowd at midnight. Carnival will cross the line into social engagement in a big way that night. Much of that confetti will come from visitors to New York’s Times Square who stopped by the line’s “wishing wall”. There, they will hand-write their hopes and dreams for 2011 on red, white and blue slips of paper to be included in the drop on to party-goers at Midnight. It doesn’t get a whole lot more engaging than that.

But that event is just the most recent social effort by Carnival. The line’s senior cruise director John Heald has a popular long-running blog, the company’s twitter handle (@CCLSupport) answers questions issues swiftly and the line’s website promotes more interactivity than ever before.

Carnival gets it.

They are not the only ones either. Princess Cruises has thoughtfully entered the social arena with their Twitter #FollowMeAtSea trips where travel bloggers and writers were invited along for an actual cruise to write and blog about. They shared their experiences with loyal followers on Twitter and Facebook, bringing them along for the ride. I was on the last one, a 12-day cruise tour through Alaska in June.

On that Twitter press trip, Princess defined just how globally penetrating active social engagement can be for cruise lines.

Along for the ride were a wide, diverse variety of bloggers and photographers from around the planet including Emmy award-winning JD Andrews (@earthXplorer), funny-man Rick Griffin (@MidLifeRoadTrip), Canadian adventure-couple Debra Corbeil and Dave Bouskill (@theplanetd) and Gadling’s Catherine Bodry. Homespun mid-westerner Beth Blair (@BethBlair) was there alongside Germany’s Emlyn Boecher from international travel icon @Traveldudes and Liz Wright (@Travelogged) along with luxury travel expert Carrie Finley-Bajak (@Cruisebuzz) to round out the group.

Communicating with followers from all corners of the world, Princess began a conversation that continues today and has expanded to include more than simply promoting the line’s products, raising awareness on global topics like environmental concerns down to micro-interests like dog sled racing.

Princess gets it. Industry-wide, it’s an evolving effort as cruise lines work on opening and maintaining an ongoing conversation with us.

Royal Caribbean tried and failed on Twitter by posting last-minute discount pricing without the engagement factor. The whole idea of using social media outlets as just another place to paste advertising has not been well-received by a public looking for transparency and engagement. Still, Royal Caribbean is evolving too with old-school efforts like giving away a free cruise to the audience on Oprah’s My Favorite Things while working a very active Facebook page and a popular Presidents Blog where President and CEO Adam Goldstein posts regularly.

In the lead for executive participation though is Norwegian Cruise lines with Executive Vice-President Andy Stuart (@NCLAndy) the first and only cruise line executive on Twitter. The line successfully integrated the launch of new mega-ship Norwegian Epic in a very social way by inviting along an A-list of cruise and travel bloggers like Vegas red-carpet brother team Bill Cody (@VegasBill) and Chris Rauschnot (@24K) along with TV’s Stewart Chiron (@CruiseGuy) and Radio’s Doug Parker and Matt Bassford (@CruiseRadio). Like Royal Caribbean, Norwegian has not turned its back on traditional media either though as President and CEO Kevin Sheehan takes to the airwaves this week on an episode of CBS’s reality show Undercover Boss.

Look for more social efforts by cruise lines in the near future too as more lines “get it”, realize the benefits of engaging existing and would-be passengers and move forward into social arenas. It should be a wild ride.

Flickr photo by Port of San Diego

Inflight masturbation arrest blamed on “spilled hot sauce”

by Scott Carmichael on

A 50 year old Floridian has been arrested after he exposed himself on a flight from Salt Lake City to Lewiston, ID. The man reportedly started masturbating next to a 17 year old girl on the plane, who then moved seats to get away from the pervert.

Upon arrival at the airport, the girl told her father, who contacted the Transportation Security Administration. When TSA officials contacted the local police department, the man was placed under arrest on suspicion of “misdemeanor indecent exposure”.

According to police, the man claims he spilled Tabasco sauce on his crotch, causing him to expose himself and rub violently to reduce the burning and itching.

Of course, anyone that has actually seen a bottle of Tabasco knows that the hot stuff comes out one drip at a time, so spilling enough to set your genitals on fire is a really lousy excuse. He’ll get to use his Tabasco excuse in front of a judge soon, who’ll have to decide whether this really is a case of inflight masturbation or something innocent.

[Photo from Flickr/nromagna]

Gadling’s 2011 New Year’s travel resolutions

by Laurel Miller on

It’s that time of year again. A time when we all make certain promises to ourselves, in an attempt to make our lives more organized, our bodies stronger or leaner. We vow to spend more time with loved ones, give back to others, or ditch that cubicle job. And some of us…well, we just want to keep on traveling, any way we can manage to finagle it.

In the spirit of New Year’s, I asked my fellow Gadling contributors about their travel resolutions for the coming year, and came up with some of my own. Our goals are all over the map (no pun intended), but a common theme emerged. Despite our love of exotic adventures, most of us want to spend more time exploring in our own backyard (that would be the United States). That, and invent musical underwear.

Leigh Caldwell

  • Go on my first cruise.
  • Spend a weekend somewhere without Internet access, and, if I survive that…
  • Celebrate the Fourth of July with my family in Banner Elk, North Carolina, home of the quintessential small-town Independence Day. There’s a three-legged race, a rubber ducky race down a mountain stream, and a parade filled with crepe paper, balloons, and every kid and dog in town.

McLean Robbins

  • Quit my “day job” so I can do this full-time.

[Photo credit: Flickr user nlmAdestiny]Laurel Miller

  • Get back in shape after a two-year battle with Oroya Fever (contracted in Ecuador), and climb a volcano in Bolivia.
  • Finally start exploring my adopted state of Washington, especially the Olympic Peninsula.
  • Visit India for the first time; see if it’s possible to subsist on street food without getting dysentery.
  • Learn to wear DEET at all times when traveling in countries that harbor nearly-impossible-to-diagnose diseases like Oroya Fever.

Sean MacLachlan

  • Get back to Ethiopia.
  • Explore Green Spain (the north part of the country).
  • Show my son a non-Western culture.
  • Invent an underwear stereo that plays cheap jazz music when subjected to a TSA patdown.


Mike Barish

  • Drive cross country.
  • See the Grand Canyon (finally).
  • Finally learn how not to overpack.
  • And, for the fifth year in a row, I resolve to learn how to play the keytar (2011 has got to be the year!).

Darren Murph

  • Bound and determined to visit my 50th state, Alaska.
  • Dead-set on relocating a childhood friend of mine back to North Carolina, and then taking him on a road trip of some sort.

Meg Nesterov

  • Visit more places where I know people.
  • Be in more travel pictures and get my husband out from behind the
  • camera occasionally.
  • Take at least one guidebook-free and paperless trip. Okay, maybe one map.
  • Take better notes. I might think I’ll always remember the name of that fun-looking restaurant or weird sign I want to translate, but it’s easy to forget when you’re taking in so many new things.
  • See more of Turkey while I still live here. I spend so much time traveling to nearby countries, I have to be sure to see the landscape of Cappadocia and eat the food in Gaziantep before I go back to the U.S..

Grant Martin, Editor-in-Chief

  • Travel a bit less and work a bit more [Sure, Grant!].

Annie Scott Riley

  • Travel less alone, and more with my husband.

Alex Robertson Textor

  • More open-jaw travel, flying into one destination and traveling by land to another before returning home. It’s my favorite way to see a new or familiar territory–gradually and without any backtracking. I need to do it more often.
  • More thematic consistency in my travels. Instead of scrambling to meet whatever assignment comes my way, I want my travels in the next year to be focused on a region or two, and on a number of overarching questions or issues. I’m still collecting ideas: Remote European mountain villages? Neglected second-tier cities? The Caucasus?
  • Northern Cyprus. Have been wanting to visit since I was a kid. 2011’s the year.

David Farley

  • To take back the name “Globetrotters” from the Harlem basketball team.
  • To introduce eggnog and lutefisk to southeast Asia.
  • To eat fewer vegetables.

[Photo credits: volcano, Laurel Miller; Grand Canyon, Flickr user Joe Y Jiang; Cappadocia, Flickr user Curious Expeditions; lutefisk, Flickr user Divine Harvester]