There are hundreds of travel-related events and shows that take place during a given year, but we’ve simplified some of the best-known and most-popular travel trips so you can plan ahead. Each month we’ll highlight the top travel trips taking place in the following 30 days – stop by any of these events and you just might run into a Gadling blogger on your journey…
Carnival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — Rio’s party of the year takes place Feb. 12 -16, 2010. Take part in the parades, the dancing, and the revelry that happens once a year (but provides enough memories to last a lifetime). Don’t forget to snap some photos if you go and upload them in our photo pool for possible consideration as a Photo of the Day.
Winter Olympics, Vancouver, Canada — We’ve been waiting with bated breath as the torch makes its way around the world and we’re finally nearing the opening ceremonies. The 2010 Winter Olympics starts Feb. 12 and goes through the end of the month.
LA Times Travel & Adventure Show, Los Angeles, California — Travel experts, writers, agents take over the Los Angeles Convention Center Feb. 13-14. Keynote speakers include Rick Steves and Arthur Frommer, and over 500 exhibitors will be on site to talk travel with conference-goers.
New York Times Travel Show,New York, New York — Not to be outdone by the West Coast contingent, The New York Times Travel Show takes place Feb. 26-28 at the Javits Convention Center. This year’s travel tracks include information on Africa, cruising and the Caribbean.
Back in September, Tom wrote about the first “cougar cruise”. For those out of the loop – Tom describes a cougar as “an older women who happens to enjoy the … ummmm … “company” of younger men.”
The cruise was on board the Carnival Elation and obviously the story made quite a bit of news. So much news in fact, that Carnival has now told the organizers behind the cruise that they are no longer welcome on their ships.
Someone from Carnival issued the following statement: “This theme group was not sponsored nor organised by Carnival but rather by a travel agent and the cruise line will not be allowing any future groups to be booked and marketed under this theme.”
I find this statement to be pretty dangerous – what grounds does the cruise line have to ban this “theme”. What is next? A ban on gay single groups? Older men and women? I’m not entirely sure why older women seeking a “cub” (the name given to the younger men) would force the cruise line to tell them to go elsewhere. The cruise was described as a huge success, so I can only assume Carnival either hates its guests having a good time, or they are making so much money, that they feel they can decide what kind of guests are welcome on their ships.
Still, the organizers has no problems finding other cruise lines who had no problem with the concept, and the second and third cruises have already been scheduled (on Royal Caribbean and NCL).
In many countries around the world, tipping isn’t practiced to the extent it is in the US. Here, anything less than 15% for a restaurant server is considered an insult. We tip hotel housekeepers, valets, even the people who make our coffee. We’re used to the system of tipping to supplement a worker’s wages, but in other countries, the average tip is much lower.
American cruise lines are having some trouble reconciling the American way of tipping with attitudes and customs around gratuities in other countries. It seems that Carnival‘s Australian branch, P&O Cruises Australia, had received complaints from passengers in response to the automatic tipping policy the cruise line previously had in place, so they’ve announced that they will be removing the automatic gratuity charge added to all accounts.
Other US-based cruise lines that operate in certain countries may follow suit in reevaluating their policies to accommodate foreign customs in tipping. Royal Caribbean, which does not currently add the automatic charge, said it is working on changes to its own policy because the British who cruise on its line out of Southampton don’t tip.
Daily life is a struggle in Myanmar. For the average local, working days are filled with long hours of backbreaking manual labor, meager pay and no weekends or vacation time. Considering this exhausting schedule, festivals and holidays are special times – a chance to kick back, relax and let loose. In Myanmar’s Shan State, one of the most important of these festivities is the annual Taunggyi Balloon Festival.
Over the course of this annual eight-day event, teams compete to design and launch the most impressive hot air balloons: some shaped like giant birds, zebras and cows; others filled with a potent mix of fireworks; still others elegantly lit by flickering candles. Each balloon’s launch is symbolic of Buddhist hopes for the purging of human sin, gently gliding off and disappearing into the heavens. More than 200 such entries are launched each festival season, continually rising throughout the day and night.
Surrounding this magnificent hot-air balloon spectacle is a chaotic and festive carnival sideshow: drunken men shout at giant gambling wheels, open cooking fires sizzle with pots of Mohinga soup and pig entrails and children scream with joy on huge Ferris Wheels (powered solely by jumping men). It’s as if the Fourth of July, Las Vegas and a giant refugee camp had suddenly collided in one huge, heaving, wonderful mass of humanity and celebration.
During my visit to Myanmar this past month, I had a chance to visit the Taunggyi Balloon Festival and get first-hand taste of this awesome event. Wondering what happened? Keep reading below for more…
%Gallery-78671% Getting There Upon arriving in Myanmar, I immediately began planning my visit to Taunggyi. This was easier said than done: the event is among the most popular in all of Myanmar and hotels in Taunggyi are fully booked for weeks in advance. Even finding a bus to Taunggyi during festival time presents a problem: as many are jammed with eager locals.
As an alternative, I arranged to begin my Taunggyi visit from the nearby Shan State town of Kalaw. The town has its own smaller balloon festivities and is about a 3 hour taxi ride from Taunggyi. Many visitors also consider Nyaungshwe, the main city on Inle Lake, which has plentiful lodging options. Both cities make convenient bases to begin your exploration of the festival. A taxi to/from the event costs around $40-50.
The Balloons Though Taunggyi is most famous for the nighttime balloons, the daytime balloons are equally impressive. Unlike the evening launches, which explode with colorful fireworks, the daytime launches show off Myanmar craftsmanship, with each colorful entry shaped like a different animal. On the large festival launching grounds, amorphous piles of fabric slowly rise into fantasy creatures of heat and shape: curious pigeons and lazy cows emerge and drift away, carried at the whim of the warm winter breeze. Some entries are not so lucky: an errant gust of wind or careless touch of the torch and the fragile creations are consumed by flame.
Soon the sun began to slip behind the nearby hills, bringing with it a growing anticipation for the evening’s main event: the fire balloons. Before launch each entry is brought to a judging station to be weighed. A typical balloon contains about 75 pounds of explosives, bringing with it the potential for both delight and catastrophe. Several days before my visit an errant balloon exploded too low to the ground, showering spectators with a bath of molten paper that injured 200. My guesthouse owner advised to bring a hat to protect my hair from catching fire.
Suddenly the evening’s first fire balloon began to rise from among carpet of tiny humans, a glowing, undulating mushroom of explosives silhouetted against the blackened sky. The crowd let out an excited gasp. The balloon inflated towards its maximum size, anxiously tugging at its tethering below. The handlers nervously gazed up at months of work and preparation, and released their offering to its fate. The balloon’s rise was unspectacular at first: lazily floating along, unsure of its purpose. Then suddenly, as if triggered by some celestial epiphany, the balloon’s base exploded in a massive powderkeg of light and sound and color and activity.
Nothing prepared me for that first explosion, bigger than any Fourth of July shell I had seen back home. It blanketed the sky and sent me running for cover, awed and delighted by what I had seen. Over the course of the next several hours another 6-8 balloons were slowly launched, but nothing compared to that first explosion. I spent the night lost beneath the festival’s many carnival tents, playing and drinking and celebrating with the locals until dawn. Then it was time to head home. All too soon, the vivid dream I had witnessed at Taunggyi was gone: floating off into my memory like the fragile fire balloons, slowly disappearing in the sky.
Curious to read more about visiting Myanmar? Read the initial post on my recent trip HERE.
Gadling writer Jeremy Kressmann is spending the next few months in Southeast Asia. You can read other posts on his adventures “South by Southeast” HERE.
Last week, I took a 3 day cruise “to nowhere” on board the newest member of the Carnival Cruise Lines fleet. The Carnival Dream is the first in their “dream class” line of ships. The ship itself is massive – 130,000 tons, space for just under 3500 passengers, spread out over 11 decks. Embarkation
Unfortunately we’ll start with the worst part of this trip – getting on board the Dream was nothing short of a disaster. Carnival chose the Manhattan cruise terminal as its departure point, and it is obvious that this port is not equipped for ships this size.
I arrived at the terminal at 1pm, and was not at my stateroom until 3:55. Keep in mind, that time includes me being lucky enough to be allowed to use the “VIP” security line, which shaved about an hour off my wait. I spoke to one couple that had been waiting in various lines since 11am, and did not board until 4:50pm. The procedure involved waiting for security, waiting for the ticketing desk, then waiting for your boarding group to be called, then waiting in line for actually getting on board, then waiting about 30 minutes on the ship for an elevator. Because this was just a 3 day cruise, no luggage service was offered, and dragging your bags up 9 flights of stairs was not an option for everyone.
Carnival apologized for the delays, and a New York port worker told me that they had never dealt with anything this large. The ship is in fact so big, that the covered gangways could not reach her, forcing everyone up a slippery temporary walkway.
This embarkation is not a huge deal for Carnival – the normal home for the Dream will be down in Florida, where they are much better equipped at dealing with large ships. Carnival apologized several times for the boarding hassles, and they were clearly pretty annoyed by it as well.
On board – the stateroom
I was assigned a balcony stateroom and was quite happy with its layout. The room features 3 large closets, a desk with power outlets, two beds that form a queen bed, a sofa and a surprisingly large bathroom. The bathroom in my room was larger than other cruise ship rooms I’ve sailed on. The bathroom comes with a dish filled with various sample sized amenities, including 4 packets of Pepcid – a warning of things to come in the food department?
The room itself is nice and bright – lighting comes from the desk lights, overhead fluorescent lights and 2 lamps on bedside tables. At night, the cabin steward makes the towel animals Carnival is famous for.
In front of the bed (on the wall) is a flat panel TV. Sadly, the TV service on the ship was quite limited – 28 channels, 12 of which were Carnival promotional channels for the various (paid) attractions on the vessel. The local news channels were Denver affiliates of ABC and NBC (no idea why they picked Denver) and the TBS station was an odd mix of Spanish and English content. In total, there were only 3 or 4 “normal” channels in the lineup. In addition to this, Carnival have also blocked the video inputs on the TV, which means your iPod won’t work on the TV in your room.
Despite the nice room, things did get spoiled by really bad noise isolation. Not only could I hear people in the room next to me, I could actually hear every word they said, without needing to put my ear on the wall. The hallway noise isolation is also very bad – and I woke up in the middle of the night several times thanks to loud drunk passengers.
On board – attractions
The Carnival Dream is the first ship in the world to offer a full water park. On the top deck is where you’ll find two water slides, as well as various other water related fun. One deck above the water park is the Serenity “adults only” area. This is where you’ll find somewhere to get away from screaming kids and relax in one of the hot tubs, or on a hammock.
There are three pools on the ship, and none of them are indoors. With the lousy weather, all these pools were drained. In addition to the pools, the ship also has two other hot tubs that extend over the edge of the ship – these were a huge hit, and despite the rain and wind, many passengers took advantage of a dip in the warm water.
Non-aquatic entertainment comes from a big variety of attractions. Towards the rear of the ship is the three level Encore theater. This is also one of the 5 muster stations where passengers are briefed on safety aboard the ship. Unlike other vessels, passengers were not required to wear their life jacket to the briefing.
Deck five is the heart of the entertainment district. It is where you’ll find the casino, shops, sports bar, ice cream bar, sushi counter, comedy club and piano/jazz/karaoke bar. Starting at the Casino, you can make your way from attraction to attraction, while getting your cup refilled at each of the bars. The margarita bar was a very welcome attraction.
Deck 10 is home to the main pool, and the Carnival outdoor theater. On a massive screen, you can watch blockbuster movies (we were treated to Mall Cop and Star Trek). Sadly, the weather was so miserable that it wasn’t much fun to be outside for more than 10 minutes at a time.
In the evening, the screen and outdoor area are home to a fantastic laser show. The show combines lasers with a video presentation, music and smoke to create a really cool effect. The effect itself is quite like what you’d expect from most discos in Europe, but it is still nifty to experience on a cruise ship.
Of course, the ship also offers the standard things you’d expect from any cruise ship – mini golf, a spa and various cozy corners with nice chairs where you can sit back and relax with your beverage of choice.
On board – food and drinks
Food on board the Carnival Dream can be described in three words – hit or miss. My first meal was in the Lido deck buffet. Now, I’ll admit that most people were probably starving from their 4 hour embarkation fiasco, but the wait in line for food was about 35 minutes at each station.
One hidden gem in the buffet is the pasta bar. It is accessible via a narrow staircase to the 11th deck. At the pasta bar, chefs prepare fresh dishes. When you arrive, you fill in a form “designing” your perfect pasta dish, hand it to the cook, and a waiter will deliver it to your table.
The main buffet area is split into 2 zones. At each zone, you’ll find a desert line, a salad bar, a custom line (where you’ll find custom omelette’s in the morning, burritos for lunch, and a Mongolian wok for dinner). Towards the front of the ship are two real gems in the buffet lineup – a deli and a Tandoori/Indian counter.
The deli serves surprisingly good sandwiches, freshly created and grilled to perfection. The Indian counter features fresh Naan bread, Tandoori chicken and various other dishes. At the beginning of the buffet area is the pizza bar and the “grill” (hot dogs and burgers). The pizza bar is one of the 24 hour locations, along with a snack selection at the buffet and a couple of soft serve machines.
Food in the dining room was the real miss part of hit or miss. Service was fairly spotty, and it was quite hard to get a refill of your drink. On the first night, I attended a dinner with my various press colleagues. This was of course the perfect opportunity to be food critics. Sadly, my appetizer was the most pathetic Caesar salad I have ever seen. My table mates were actually laughing at it – it was that bad. It was followed by a really good Chateaubriand. Desert was supposed to be the signature molten chocolate cake – which was actually just a dried out piece of chocolate cake. Oddly enough, the exact same dish served in the buffet was very, very good.
Dinner was sadly spoiled by a fairly poor singing and dancing performance by the dinner staff – in what is supposed to be a classy dining room. They were all doing their very best to entertain us, but their performance just out of place in a formal dining room.
On the final night, I decided to test the room service delivery. I wish I had not. From the moment I placed my order, till actual delivery took an hour and a half, and the food arrived cold. The ship was only on her third voyage, so it is understandable that there are still a couple of issues to be resolved.
Technology on board
The Carnival Dream offers a good amount of technology for its guests. So much in fact, that I’ll devote a second article to the various hi-tech services you can enjoy. The ship has various “fun hubs” where you can access the Internet (for a fee), access the ships social network or read the news. WiFi is available in all rooms and cellphone access is provided.
Final thoughts
The Carnival Dream still had that “new cruise ship smell” – it was nice to be on board a vessel that is still in such great shape. The staff were all smiling and had most of their tasks down to an art. Rooms are nice, there is a decent amount of entertainment and despite the “hit or miss” food, it was not too hard to find something tasty.
But at the end of the day, there just didn’t seem to be too much really special about this new ship. I’ve cruised before, and this felt a lot like any other ship, only larger. The water park was closed due to the bad weather, but it does look like it’ll be a ton of fun when opened. The laser show was mildly entertaining, though the thick fog did make it a bit more fun.
As with most ships, a lot of emphasis is placed on the paid attractions. Shops, photo galleries, the casino and the paid ice cream bar all add to your “ship and sail” credit account. Unless you come prepared, you’ll quickly find yourself bored and in need of some of these paid services. Thankfully, there are plenty of free things to do if you keep a close eye on the schedule in the Carnival Capers, the nightly paper you’ll find in your room.
Despite these very minor issues, I can highly recommend a voyage on this new ship. At her home port, the boarding procedure won’t be an issue, and I suspect Carnival will make some tweaks to the buffet setup and room service to reduce the long wait.
I would like to make a special mention of cruise directors John Heald and Todd Wittmer – these guys do an absolutely amazing job, and they have an awesome entertainment team to work with. Their “good morning” TV show was one of the funniest things I’ve watched in months.
Important disclaimer: Carnival paid for this trip – but the opinions in this review are my own.