Tag: discerning travel

When fact & fiction collide: La Source, Grenada

The serenity of the yoga pavilion at La Source, Grenada

In the mid-1990’s Herman Wouk wrote a novel (which subsequently became a Jimmy Buffet musical) called Don’t Stop the Carnival about a displaced advertising exec who finds himself on a Caribbean Island managing a beachfront hotel.  If you ever thought that you’d just like to escape the northern climes to move permanently to the tropics, and perhaps manage a little hotel, you need to read this novel first as a bit of a cautionary tale – or so said one of the managers of the spa-hotel La Source who recommended the book  to us when we spent an eventful week on the idyllic island of Grenada.

A few years ago, we decided that we wanted to experience a spa vacation of sorts.  We had never been to the Caribbean island of Grenada, and it looked like a place we might really enjoy.  So, on closer inspection, we noticed that the hotel La Source billed itself as a place where those spa-like activities were all part of the package.  The place looked like exactly the sort of place a discerning traveler might spend a relaxing week being pampered in gloriously tropical surroundings.  So, with the full knowledge that the property was just re-opening a month before our arrival after having been closed for a couple of years (it was hard-hit by hurricane Ivan), we set out for a week of relaxation and spa treatments.

When we arrived, everything looked wonderful – the newly planted vegetation in the central courtyard was just starting to take root, and our beachfront room with its mahogany four-poster bed and high-pitched ceiling was lovely.

Our accommodation at La Source from the beach

We did note, however, that the building directly behind ours was not quite renovated.  The pool looked inviting and the beach dazzling.  The resort’s two boats (one to take us water-skiing or biscuiting, and one to take us on dives) were moored in the cove.  But where were the people?  Well, they were there – all 50 or so of them, but the place seemed deserted.  Being lovers of seclusion, we thought that was just fine.

The first evening there we happened to meet a member of the management team over drinks in the bar.  This was just as we were listening to other guests regale us with their stories of what had occurred the week prior to our arrival.  Their two-week sojourn had begun with a week where the pool was empty as a result of lack of water on the premises and – you guessed it – no water for several days in the rooms.  We were appalled!  During the week that we were there, we had only one day when there was no hot water, but at least there was water.  This all sparked off the conversation with the manager who told us that running a high-end spa in the Caribbean, especially one that had been devastated by a hurricane, was not for the faint of heart.

There had been personnel issues, construction woes, water difficulties, materials deficiencies – just the sort of story that Wouk’s book detailed.  But that had been fiction.

Patty with the aquatics director facing her fear!

We had been well aware that the place had just reopened.  We went with our eyes wide open, which is more than can be said for some of the people we met that week.  However, most seemed to take it all in stride.  We found the people who worked at the property all polite and personable in a reticent kind of way.  It’s part of the culture, and as slightly reserved Canadians, we understood this kind of cultural approach.  We enjoyed the lack of people and wondered what it would be like with 200 – the capacity – rather than the 50 or so who were there the week we were.

Art looks out over St. George's from the fort.

We both wonder now if Patty would have been as inclined to go in a biscuit with Stanley, the head of water sports (since she has a fear of the water) if there had been more people around.  And we wonder if Art would have been inclined to make his way to the spa for his daily treatments wearing a spa robe, as everyone did.  Neither activity is within our individual personalities – but La Source just seemed to bring it out in us!

The view from the Ocean Grill in Grenada

We happened to be in Grenada again last winter during a day trip when we were cruising the Caribbean.  We got off the ship and hired a taxi to take us back to La Source.  When we arrived we found an amenable front-office staff person who gladly took us onto the property (after assuring herself that we were presentable and would not accost the guests) so that we could see the finished renovations.  What had been newly planted gardens were now lush and full, and there was a new boutique in the spot where an empty building had stood.  It still seemed to us that there were few people around, although she assured us that the resort was full.  Ahhh, we thought.  It would still be a great place to take a spa vacation week.  We then headed back into St. George’s for a beer at our favorite water-front bar, The Ocean Grill.

After our week in Grenada the first time, we did read Don’t Stop the Carnival and it was as if we were on holiday again.  Bottom line: if you’re planning a winter escape this year and are looking for a great beach read, this is it.  Bon voyage!

The Ocean Grill -- the perfect place for a cold beer!

Why you need a travel agent…really

While fellow travelers worried about how (or when) they'd get home, we lunched in St. Mark's square.

It was something about a volcano.  And volcanic ash.  And closed airspace.  And we found ourselves marooned in Venice (our article in the magazine Our Canada).

The vacation started in Monte Carlo where we boarded the Regent Seven Seas Mariner for eleven days on the Mediterranean.  It took us on a return trip to Tuscany and Rome.  It introduced us to Sicily and Mount Etna.  It gave us a breathtaking introduction to Albania and Montenegro (more about that one in a later post).  That was about the point where fellow cruisers began to get nervous about the news.  Had we heard?  Airspace was closed.  Well, we thought, nothing is going to ruin the last few days of our cruise vacation.  And it did not.  There’s an old saying that worrying about tomorrow is like throwing a black cloud over today – or something like that.  In any case, we weren’t going to let something that might or might not happen rob us of today’s enjoyment.  However, we are also realists.  As discerning travelers, we simply emailed our trusty travel agent, put her on alert, and left it up to her to deal with the fall-out – so to speak.  Which she did.

Art enjoying the canals of Venice while marooned.

When we arrived in Venice and were cut loose from the cruise ship, we knew that our flight had been cancelled already.  Not to be deterred (and God forbid, not to be left responsible for cruisers), the ship provided us with transportation to the airport.  Maybe they know something we don’t, we thought.  We had booked our air as part of the cruise package – but of course, had done it through our travel agency, Maritime Travel.  We decided to humor the cruise line (all the while knowing that our travel agent had already booked us a room at the Molino Stucky Hilton in Venice), and went along with their charade.  When we arrived at Marco Polo International Airport, we were unceremoniously dumped on the pavement with our bags and told that the airport had been closed.  We were to await another bus to take us to Padua, but in the meantime we would have to wait in the parking lot with our luggage since the bus was needed for another run.  Huh?

As we waited, we took note of the desperate water taxi drivers who had no business since no one was coming in.  Then we told the tour guide who had come onto the bus to ask us to get off and wait that as grateful as we were for this possible adventure, we would be returning to Venice.  ‘You’re leaving?’ said one incredulous fellow passenger.  Why not?  We were, after all, the masters of our own domain.  We had a travel agent in our corner and she did not let us down.

Patty enjoying the extended holiday in Venice.

So, while the other passengers nervously waited, we took advantage of the empty water taxi and went back into Venice.  After we figured out that our travel agent had rebooked us on a flight several days later (eventually that had to be altered as well, but we didn’t have to do it), we ‘did’ Venice.

Several days later, we decided to move to a hotel closer to the airport and found scores of former cruise ship passengers who had been grinding their teeth and spinning their wheels for several days – going back and forth to the airport to see if there was any progress.  We enjoyed that hotel, even taking the local bus back into the city for an adventure.  Then, the day before our now twice-rescheduled flight was to leave we walked over to the airport and got our boarding passes.  We then took our memories of an extra week in Venice home with us while others took home their frustration and longed to have the week behind them.

Boarding passes at last!

That’s only one story about the value of a travel agent.  Of course there are times when we go ahead and book airline tickets online when we’re just planning a weekend in New York or Toronto.  But anything more than that, and as far as we’re concerned, you need a real person – a real live travel agent with whom you have developed a relationship – in your corner.  You need a travel agent that has a call service for those emergencies in the off hours.

Our current travel agent, Angela, inherited us when Patty’s travel agent of almost 25 years was elevated to an executive suite position in the company and asked us if he could get someone else to do the day-to-day things we needed.  He would be a back-up just in case.  We have never really needed him since Angela is more than competent – and what’s more important, we have come to trust her.

When we did a web search for information on the value of travel agents, most of what we could find was advertising from individual travel agencies.  This is not one of those.  As far as we are concerned, you can take your online travel aggregators like Expedia or Travelocity, but for our hard-earned money that we spend freely on travel experiences, we rely on a real person who knows our needs.  When we book a big trip, we do the research and often even tell her what flights we want etc.  But she will do the comparison shopping for us for cruises and packages if we choose one.  The agency also provides excellent insurance and will even put in the claim for us.  When we had our trip ‘interrupted’ by the volcanic eruption, our extra week of vacation was covered and Angela did the leg work for us.

I have never met Angela.  The office she manages isn’t even in our city!  But she’s the one Alan, our previous agent recommended, and we trusted him completely when it came to travel ‘stuff.’  Angela is that wonderful woman on the other end of the email or the telephone.  And that works just fine for us.

Pro-Travel Tips, although they seem to be an agency themselves, have a list of 101 reasons why you need a travel agent.  In our view, discerning travelers recognize several of their reasons as the priority ones…

  • To save time.
  • To have a consumer advocate in your corner.
  • To have a source of updated information (such as those emails we get from Angela when a flight schedule has changed.  And this includes those smaller connecting flights like the three we’ll take next month in Hawaii.  And to make sure you still have assigned seats on an plane when they’ve made an aircraft change – happened yesterday!)
  • To provide you with details of the credentials and immunizations you’ll need.  If we need a visa, she’ll tell us.
  • To provide us with top-notch travel insurance.
  • To provide details of unexpected expenses while traveling.
  • To provide someone to complain to when a service provided is problematic.
  • To give you that peace of mind when you leave the country.  If something goes wrong, we have one telephone call to make.

Cheers to travel agents who do their job well!

*Note: No one paid us to endorse this or any travel agency.  It’s our personal experience and opinion.

Christmas shopping in Nice: It’s better on the Riviera!

Nice dressed for the festive season

Travel memoirist Bill Bryson once wrote: “We used to build civilizations.  Now we build shopping malls.”  And for many of us who celebrate the festive season by exchanging gifts, the shopping mall becomes a second home at this time of year.

But for us discerning travelers who would rather save our money for an Executive-first class ticket than buy one another something that will end up at the Salvation Army thrift shop in six months, we take a slightly different approach.  The fact that we rarely spend Christmas at home (as discussed earlier in reference to a Christmas cruise!) does give us a bit of a distraction.

Leaving the house in the good hands of our house-sitter, we take very little in the way of gifts with us: we’ll do our shopping when we are on the ground in the south of France, and that shopping will be minimal.  It’s the experience of shopping in Nice that we really like!

Nice is the closest thing to a ‘city’ that is within a reasonable taxi drive of where our son works in Monaco.  About 30 minutes by cab from Monte Carlo, Nice has a population of fewer than 400,000 making it large enough to have shops, services and hotels in abundance, and small enough to be happily walkable.  Add on to that its charming old quarter (Vieux Nice), its Christmas market and its fabulous festive decorations, and you end up with an experience that puts you in the Christmas spirit like nothing else can.

Le Palais de la mediteranee: Our home base in Nice

When we arrive in Nice, we’ll check into the hotel Palais de la mediteranée on the Promenade des Anglais that stretches about six kilometers along the beachfront.  Then we’ll spend a day wandering the shopping streets and lunching at a pizzeria near the market.  We’ll watch the Nice residents stroll on the boardwalk (it’s actually paved) and we’ll visit the local Galleries Lafayette, the famed department store.  It’s not quite like its Parisian sibling, but it has three floors of ‘stuff’ that isn’t readily available in North America.

Then we’ll do some strolling of our own and watch the local residents pick up their Christmas trees from the lot on the waterfront, and wander among the snow-covered trees all around the place.  Does it snow in the south of France at Christmas, you ask incredulously?  No, it actually doesn’t.  The snow is fake; those of us who reside in more northern climes always find it hilarious how snow seems to be worshipped as the very essence of Christmas.  It’s clear no one along the French Riviera has ever had to spend a morning shoveling to get a car out of the garage.

After we pick up one present for each other and a few for the son, we’ll leave Nice behind us to head to Monte Carlo and a ballet premiere.  When we get back, no doubt we’ll have more stories to tell!

Christmas tree lot along the Promenade des anglais
Art surrounded by "snow" covered evergreens in Nice.

Comfortable air travel: Not an oxymoron

Noise-cancelling earphones = Increased air travel comfort

Oh how flying has changed from the days of the smiling Pan Am stewardesses [sic] who served real food on real china even to economy passengers who could actually shift their legs in comfort.  At least, that’s how it looks when we watch the new piece of television nostalgia that is this season’s Pan Am.  But it’s the 21st century, and much has changed.  That said, as we put the finishing touches on arrangements for our winter holiday to Hawaii (that’s after we return from our Christmas in the south of France – more about that to  come), it occurs to us that we’ve learned a thing or two about discernment in air travel these days.

We’ve been thinking about all the things that we’ve learned to maximize our comfort when traveling by air so that the journey is part of the experience rather than being that-which-must-be-endured to get to the good stuff.  It’s also worth considering whether add-ons offered by the airlines are worth it for you and might actually contribute to a near-luxurious experience.

Here are our four rules for discerning air travel:

Rule #1: Be very judicious about your seat selection. 

Our obsession in this realm began some years ago when we flew to Seattle to meet our son who was doing a summer exchange program with the Pacific Northwest Ballet school.  We decided to meet him, drive down the coast to San Francisco and fly home to the east coast from there.  We had little choice at the point of decision but to book three seats in economy on the “red-eye” after which we fell out of the plane, kissing the ground and vowing that we’d never travel like that again.  So, if you can afford business class on any flight over three hours, just do it (or don’t complain).  If you can’t afford business class (and remember that the airplanes run seat sales on business class during low business travel seasons such as Christmas), the discerning traveler can still be judicious about seat selection.

Find the rest of this at http://www.seatguru.com

The most important thing you need to do is to visit www.seatguru.com.  First, as you are making your booking (even if you are using a travel agent, do this first), look at the aircraft type for the flight you are interested in.  Then go to Seartguru and find the airline and the aircraft. Look at the cabin configuration and their assessment of the seat (for example, if there is no bin space above this seat, it will tell you; if there is a bit of extra leg room, it will tell you; if the seat does not recline because it is in front of an exit row, it will tell you etc.)

If you are flying in economy on an airline that offers premium seats such as those at bulkheads and on exit rows, if your flight is long, you will find that there is great value to spending the extra cash.

Rule #2: Never arrive at an airport without your seat already selected (and preferably at time of booking).

Oh the comfort of the Air Canada Executive-first seats

As we were planning the upcoming Hawaii adventure, we were reminded of a previous trip when we used this inter-island airline.  At that time, there was no advance seat selection at all.  That meant that before boarding was called, people began to line up – a situation that we did not understand.  We were to find out  quickly.  When boarding was finally called, the crush to get onboard was frightening.  No one had a seat and everyone wanted to be first to get a “good” one.  This year, we’re booked on first class seats on Hawaiian Airlines between islands to avoid this particular nightmare.

Rule #3: Never get on an airplane without noise-cancelling earphones.

No exceptions.  Invest in a set of noise-cancelling earphones, attach them to your music source (our choice is an iPhone; our earphone choice is Bose) and you’ll never care again if there is a wailing infant on the plane. Of course you can’t use them during take-off and landing, but they will be a godsend during the flight and they can attach to the plane’s entertainment system if you’d like to watch a movie.

We learned this lesson on a flight from Barcelona to Paris a couple of years ago (Iberian Airlines if you must know).  When we boarded the plane (on which we had been unable to get anything other than two center seats in economy) we found ourselves surrounded by a large group of people from China.  We could only conclude that they had not received the memo about being quiet on airplanes (forgive us for this expectation: we’re Canadians and on Air Canada, things tend to be quiet unless there’s a wailing infant on board; see above).  These people seemed to think that talking across three or four rows was business as usual.  It was the longest two hours of our lives.

Rule #3: Invest in the lounge-access card for your airline of choice.

If you typically fly on one airline much more than another (which you should since there are many perks to being a frequent flyer) and you are not usually paying for business class flights, the investment in the access card will greatly improve your comfort when flying.  This is particularly evident when your flight is delayed.  It is another add-on that is worth the investment.

Rule #4: Never get on an airplane without some food on your person.

…and this holds true even if you’re flying first or business class.  We always take protein bars because they are non-messy, easy to carry and can be carried over from one trip to another if they are not used (until they reach their best-before date of course).  The importance of this habit was brought home to us on a flight from Toronto to Antigua one winter.  The plane was unable to land in Antigua (evidently they didn’t have a guidance system for fog), so we ended up spending the first night of our Antigua vacation in Barbados.  The next morning, we were up very early so that the plane could take us to Antigua as planned.  We arrived early at the airport via airline transport without breakfast (too early at the place we stayed) to find that the only sustenance available was coffee.  We had no idea when our next meal would be so we broke out the protein bars and had a pleasant wait until the plane finally boarded.  The issue of extra food becomes especially important when a flight is delayed on the ground.

Our son flew from JFK to Toronto earlier this year and the flight was delayed two hours on the tarmac!  He had no food, and since the flight was so short, there was not food on board.  He was mighty hungry when he finally arrived at his destination.

So, there are our four rules that we never ignore – and our airplane trips are (almost) fun.