CD Traveller » Daily Telegraph

The Arcadia and US Immigration Officers

Editor — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 05:34:11 +0000

Arcadia in the Caribbean

A harrowing story in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph considered the plight of 2,000 passengers held in Los Angeles for security checking. How much is true and how much embroidered is hard to tell. It could be all true in which case immigration officials would seem to have a lot to answer for.
According to the newspaper, passengers on the Arcadia – nearly all British since she sailed from Southampton – made their 10th US port landing at Los Angeles. Having gone through the normal immigration procedures at their first US port of call, few anticipated long delays although Los Angeles might have been the first port of call after the Caribbean ports so a full inspection should have been expected. Some passengers commented (probably impolitely and nothing seems to rankle an official more which ever country they are in) on the 90 minute delay and it appears that is when the officials decided to give every passenger a thorough check including fingerprinting and retina scans. Some seven hours later the passengers had cleared this checking. The delay, which must have been completely unexpected because the Arcadia was forced to stay in Los Angeles an extra day, also caused a port visit in Honduras to be cancelled.
Were US Immigrations people officious? That is the suggestion from some passengers who have now returned to the UK. Yes a computer broke down which probably lengthened the wait but not to justify seven hours. That the port authority wasn’t expecting long delays seems apparent by the fact that only eight officers were available to vet everyone. So why did it happen?
US immigration officials don’t have wonderful reputations for bonhomie, friendliness and a welcoming, courteous spirit. Over the years that I have travelled to the US I have had lengthy delays but then I have got through the system in five or so minutes in some places. I have had welcoming helpful, officials and some difficult ones who, at the time, seemed to have only one thought in life; – to make mine a misery. But then I have had similar treatment in Canada, Thailand and Australia as well.
But any incident like this annoys people. Within three hours of this article appearing on the Telegraph’s website, 188 people had commented, mostly it seems, along the lines of all US Immigration officials are arrogant and disagreeable and they would never darken America’s doors again. Nine hours later the number had topped 250 still along the same lines.
Whether the account above is true or not, it is perception that sways people. The US has had a hard time allaying the years old perception of their officials. This isn’t going to help it one bit.

image courtesy of P&O

Trains versus Planes

adrian — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 09:00:15 +0000

Some days ago I wrote that I couldn’t remember the last time we had such a good weather forecast for an Easter holiday. It has turned out that this has been the warmest Easter since 1949. So many of us have been out and about making the most of it. Car mostly, but for longer journeys the train has been the answer. The number of people heading out of Paddington on Thursday night to the west country or out of Kings Cross or Euston to the north gave witness to that but was this the best way to go?
Last week Oliver Smith in the Daily Telegraph ran a story about how the fares on half of our most popular routes were cheaper by air than they were by train. It pointed out that this was despite massive increases in APD and fuel increases to boot. On April 8th they rang around to check fares for travel three days later and then two and a half months later on June 27th. They used the National Rail website for train fares and Skyscanner for air. The differences were surprising. Compare two routes, London to Glasgow and Bristol to Glasgow. For the fare in three days’ time to Glasgow by rail was £82 by plane from London and £100 from Bristol. The train equivalents were £114.70 and £146.40. For travel on 27th June the air fare from London was £30 and from Bristol, £57. But by train, the price was £66 from London and £98.50 from Bristol. I would have expected that the train fare would have been cheaper some 10 weeks away but on these routes, air still won. Why? After all, we as the state subsidise the railways and don’t subsidise air travel (except on certain “social routes” such as in the highlands of Scotland and the air route from North to South Wales.)
Usually, in studies like this, fares for travel the day after or close to that are always pricier and the further away you can book the cheaper they become. But to find a disparity like this makes a number of questions come to mind which neither the spokespeople from Passenger Focus nor Which? Travel addressed. If rail is more expensive should we hand the running of the railways to Michael O’Leary who runs Ryanair or Carolyn McCall who runs easyJet in order to cut prices or at least remove the £3.7 billion subsidy we give just to Network rail? Should major stations be expanded into huge retail centres so that retail sales can subsidise the cost of the stations and the rail infrastructure? Is competition an issue? Getting to Glasgow from London means using Virgin Trains or a slower East Coast train service via Edinburgh. From Bristol, its Cross Country and Virgin. But from Bristol the only direct air service is easyJet. From London you have BA, easyjet and bmi. So it appears competition, at least on the Bristol route, is not an issue? easyJet still offers a better price despite having a monopoly service.
The question remains. Why, given its subsidy, is rail often more expensive than air when we want to travel?

Birmingham Cruise Show

Editor — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 20:42:58 +0000

Yesterday I went to the Daily Telegraph sponsored Cruise show at the NEC in Birmingham. So did thousands of you. And even more. At times you couldn’t see the carpet for people. The same, I am told, happened on Saturday. Try buying a cup of tea? Long queues were at those places as well as the stands.
So the organisers should have been pretty happy with the turnout. The exhibitors seemed to have been. At least in one sense. They were rushed off their feet and had little time to sit down. Brochures were being collected by the armload but were visitors just collectors or were they buying? Had they just come to enter the free competitions because just about every stand was offering a prize draw for a cruise?
Some admitted to me that they had come to enter the competitions. After all a cruise for two was worth a bit of money. But the cruise lines were also booking holidays. One sales rep claimed to have booked 3 cruises in the first half- hour. Seasoned cruise holidaymakers were arguing the merits of small ships over big; intimacy over a wider range of activities and a new port every day over having a day in between ports to relax. The people who couldn’t relax were the staff on the stands. It looked as though Oceania Cruises, Celebrity, Silversea and World of Cruising gave up on keeping their literature racks full. As soon as brochures were out, stretched arms removed them. At the P & O booth, punters queued to get on the stand!
Congratulations to those of you who won free tickets to Cruise. I didn’t meet any of the winners but I did catch up with some of our readers who had travelled quite a way to get there including a couple from Liverpool who had been both to this and the London show earlier in the year. If here was any sign of a recession in the holiday business it didn’t seem to be happening in the cruise part. Or at least at this Cruise show.

Win 5 pairs of Tickets to CRUISE Birmingham

Editor — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 05:09:39 +0000

5 lucky couples (or families since under 16’s are free) can win tickets to Cruise being held at Birmingham’s NEC on the weekend of the 16th/17th of October. The Daily Telegraph presented show features 37 exhibitors which, between them, cover most of the cruises that are available. Whether you have never been before or are a seasoned traveller, CRUISE will have something for everyone.

To win a pair of these tickets just email sue@escapeevents.co.uk with your name, address and e-mail address (so she can let you know you’ve won!) with the all-important CD-Traveller mentioned in the subject line. So that there will be time to get the tickets to you, the closing date is Monday 11th of October at midday so you haven’t a lot of time.

But if you aren’t successful, every CD-Traveller reader who wants to go can get in for just £4 (instead of £10) by booking in advance. I should also say that there will be a £1.50 charge for posting the tickets back to you. All you have to do is click here, go to their website, www.cruisingshow.co.uk or ring 0871 620 4024 and quote “CD-Traveller.” This discount is only available if you book in advance. Sorry, on the door, you’ll have to pay £10 like everyone else.

When you arrive, apart from the exhibitors, there will be talks and question and answer sessions on both days. Whether you are interested in the Med, Alaska, South America (including the Galapagos islands), Arabia, China, river cruises down the Rhine you’ll find it at CRUISE. If you’re a first timer or thinking of taking the family there will be guidance to help you decide what will suit. Make a day of it. The doors open at 10am each day.
See you there.

The British Airways Strike

Editor — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:13:31 +0000

UPDATE: 18th March. BA has announced that there will be extra flights as more volunteers have come forward than they expected so do check on the link below to see if things have altered since the original flightplan was drawn up.

BA has announced the standby measures it has put in place to get passengers away during the 3 day strike planned from March20th-22nd. You can see the details and how you might be affected at http://www.britishairways.com/travel/strike-ballot/public/en_gb?refevent=HOME_URGENT_CENTRE.
Only about 850 flights out of the 1,950 scheduled to fly will be cancelled. From Gatwick all long haul and about half of the short haul flights will fly. From Heathrow about 60% of long haul will fly but only about 30% of short haul. All affected passengers will be contacted by BA
Flights to South Africa appear to be badly hit with no flights to Johannesburg and the flights to Capetown have been cut from 2 to 1. No flight cancellations to Sydney or Melbourne are listed but 3 a day to New York’s JFK Airport are. All San Francisco flights are cancelled except BA 287 on Monday 22nd of March. . Orlando flights survive as do those to Boston.BA11 is the only flight to Singapore that is cancelled as is the daily flight to Tokyo, BA5. Bangkok flights still are scheduled.
Where there is a cancellation BA will try and rebook passengers onto the oneWorld codeshare partners like American Airlines and Cathay Pacific.
Domestically, 5 flights a day between Manchester and London are affected and the last flight from Edinburgh to London will be at 14.25 and from Glasgow at 13.55. London City flights will be unaffected.
This strike may still not go ahead as there is increasing political pressure for the two sides to get together. One source suggested that Unite, the union of the cabin crew, were anxious to return to negotiate but BA were being tough believing they had political and public opinion on their side.
Meanwhile the cartoonists are having fun. Yesterday in the Daily Telegraph, Matt had a passenger being served a meal on a BA flight and asking the cabin crew, “Is this lunch or an escalation of your industrial action?” Peter Brookes in The Times today uses no words only pictures showing a cabin crew member demonstrating the safety rules and ending up sticking two fingers in the air at passengers! Dave Brown in The Independent has a plane supposedly in BA livery but looking to me more like a Virgin Atlantic one with a cherubic Gordon Brown holding the BA logo on which is printed “Sod the Unions” and underneath is written “Spirit of Confrontation.” On Saturday in The Guardian, Martin Rowson had a crashed BA plane with Willie Walsh, Chief Executive, and a cabin crew fighting as their parachutes failed to open and they both hit the ground.
We’ll add updates to the strike story as and when we hear news

The National Trust is now national trust

Editor — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:35:49 +0000

See the subtle difference?

According to the Daily Telegraph, the National Trust has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds rebranding itself by dropping the word “The” in front of its name. It is also switching to lower case letters and, according to the article, “jazzing up its brand with bright colours.” The oak leaf symbol will be bigger and instead of just the green, other colours will be introduced.

The purpose is to make (the) national trust more friendly and inclusive. The new approach is not yet on their website so I can’t show you what it looks like. They say that the new logo and colours will be introduced gradually which presumably means when existing stock runs out they will alter and thus not throw any stock away.

But, if the Telegraph is right, they have still spent hundreds of thousands on this.

Is it right that a charity, and a very successful charity at that, should spend this sort if money? With 3.8 million members it is one of the biggest so why spend about the equivalent of 2600 annual memberships on what their marketing director calls “a fresh coat of paint” because research showed they look a bit old fashioned. But surely being old fashioned is what they are about? Presenting and preserving our past.

In their annual report they claim to make “every penny count.

Will members agree?

Tipping: The How and Why

adrian — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 10:53:53 +0000

Should you tip? When do you tip? Is it extortion under another name? Guide books offer tedious pages about it.
I offer no solution to help you at all. Sometimes I have tipped, sometimes I have refused and had the odd surly look. Sometimes I have insulted people by leaving a solitary penny because I was so annoyed and I thought that would annoy them as well.

Now in restaurants, some add an automatic 10-15% to the bill which you have to remove if you don’t like it. And some still leave space for you to add a tip just as all credit card machines leave space on the display for you to add it before you put your pin in it. On cruises it is often included in the bill at a set rate (sometimes objectionably high rate) and you are stuck with it.

Is it getting out of hand? Why should you feel guilty if you don’t tip?

I offer you a thought on it from Nigel Richardson who wrote this a little while ago in the Daily Telegraph.

For myself, I am sufficiently of a mind to tip when I like, refuse when I will and tip stingily when I want to make a point. After all no-one tips me when I offer advice or provide a service so why should I do likewise when people are being paid? I am paid to do a job; just as they are. And I know the arguments that service jobs are underpaid and use tips to get a living wage. But that doesn’t make it right

Durdle Door is in the Middle East

adrian — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 10:30:07 +0000

Images are used to sell all sorts of things. Celebrities are used to promote items that you seriously wonder if they have ever tried. You can see a castle promoting California but at least that castle (the Hearst old home) is genuinely to be found there.
Not so with the case of Durdle Door. You may have thought that it was in Lulworth in Dorset. But, according to the Daily Telegraph, a certain Cove Rotana Resort in Ras al Khaimah has used a picture of it to extol the tourism virtues of its location. Now Ras al Khaimaj is one of the seven emirates that makes up the UAE. Next year the America’s Cup is being held there. It has long sandy beaches so why pick Durdle Door which has shingle? It obviously doesn’t have a stunning sight so it has transplanted it;- at least by photograph.

In the 1920’s and 1930’s posters of one setting, I have a flapper sitting on the beach smiling under a parasol, were used for more than one destination. Mine advertises both Ireland and Cape Cod in the US so what the Cove Rotana Resort has done is not new. But mine is a generic drawing not a photograph.
Or has some sharp local flogged Durdle Door to the resort and the new buyers haven’t had chance to move it yet. Look how many time Tower Bridge and the Eiffel Tower has been sold to unsuspecting tourists. Is this the latest version?

Mobile Phones at 26,000 Feet

adrian — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:06:00 +0000

Well I suppose it had to come.
After saying it would happen in 2006 and frequently in 2008, Ryanair introduced to passengers the chance to use their mobile phones on some flights yesterday.
So if you feel like paying between £2 and £3 a call you can indulge yourself by saying unecessary things like “I’ll be landing in ten minutes” and “Can you put the kettle on in about half an hour” and other earth shattering items like that as you sit hunched up in the garishly blue and canary yellow decor of their planes.
Air France and bmi have trialled it, Emirates allows it and, in the ever increasing search for revenue, other airlines will probably jump on the bandwagon.
I said in this newsletter a good while ago that I would be the person who would book with an airline that promised not to introduce mobile phone usage. Now I am concerned that, in a few years time,there may not be an airline that will do that. Am I a fossil rooted in a bygone age?
Yes probably but it doesn’t mean to say I like it and although I go to Dublin regularly,(at the moment it is only on Dublin based planes) other airlines will see me rather than Ryanair but how long will my wallet hold out? That’s what Michael O’Leary, the Chief Exec of Ryanair relies on. He is quoted in Friday’s Daily Telegraph as saying that passengers shouldn’t object because they don’t fly with Ryanair for peace. (Too right you don’t. From the moment you enter their cabins the hard sell jingle begins.) Again to quote the Telegrpah, “Anyone who likes to sleep, we will wake them up and sell them a sandwich or coffee.” So far his cabin crew have been politer than him because they haven’t tried that with me.
Maybe that will be the limit?
Or not, depending on my wallet!