Apr
27

Bratislava To Vienna By Water Along the Danube

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An unplanned component of our trip arrived by virtue of a stroll along the banks of the Danuj (Danube River) yesterday afternoon. As we watched the activity with river cruisers, tourist sight-seeing boats and others on Easter Monday, we noticed a fast Twin City Liner catamaran pull into one of the landings by the river’s edge.

Twin Cities Liner on Danube River

Twin Cities Liner on Danube River

We noted down the name of the service operating the boat on the Danube, and checked up on its activities online.

It turns out that the Twin City Liner runs regular commuter and tourist services along the River
Danube between the two capital cities.

Vienna and Bratislava are the two nearest capital cities in Europe, being only some 60 km apart and both built across the Danube River, so opportunities do arise for services such as this one which is able to make 6 international trips between European capitals in a single day.

The Twin City Liner service runs along the Danube from 3 to 5 times per day (season dependent), and takes between 75 and 90 minutes for the journey (depending on the direction of travel).

We thought that this would be a great opportunity to see more of the countryside in both Slovakia and Austria, as well as to experience travel along the Danube.

The cost for the Twin City Liner was somewhat lower than on a river cruiser, with our single leg from Bratislava directly into Schwedenplatz in Vienna costing only 19 euros each.

Unfortunately, the weather has closed in somewhat overnight, and the views from our catamaran are not as bright as they could otherwise be.

There are about 30 other travelers on our service, although we suspect that the later services may well carry more people. Ours is the first up river service of the day, having already delivered from Vienna those tourists who have planned for a day in Bratislava.

We have been astonished by the size of this river, and particularly at the speed of the water that is flowing down towards the sea. I’ve estimated a speed of some 8 knots in some sections, when gauged by the wake generated by the stationary channel markers.

The Twin City Liner travels along the River Danube at a speed of some 50 km/h.

The vital statistics of the boat are as follows: engines – 2 each with 1000 hp capacity, driving water jets. The catamaran itself has a length of 34 metres, a breadth of 8.5 metres, and a draft of just 1 metre. The maximum speed capacity of the boat is said to be 75 km/h.

As we are traveling up the Danube river, we are noticing a number of little huts (raised off the ground) with wood burning stoves and heaters and the bare necessities for riverside life. We can’t tell whether these are available for rental or are simply weekenders for Viennese families, but they certainly would offer a unique “out of town” experience.

This is a great opportunity to travel in a different way, and to enjoy the vista and sense of traveling along the Danube – an iconic European river.

Categories : Destinations, Sea, Vacations
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Mar
27

On The Way At Last!

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Qantas A380 Jet

Qantas A380 Jet Taking Off

We’re now at the Admirals Club Lounge at LAX. Our A380 departure was delayed nearly 1 hour due to late receipt of security clearance for loading.

Not much time was picked up on the flight. We travelled in exit row seats in coach class, but this was certainly not as ideal as premium economy in these aircraft.

The seats are narrow and not overly comfortable, with little room for accessing video controls, etc.

Another issue with these exit row seats is that the arm rests are fixed (and very narrow). With another passenger beside us, it was extremely difficult to avoid getting elbows, etc in the way of my neighbour.

We both noted upon arrival in LA that the process of customs and baggage services is still somewhat chaotic, and that they really don’t have a workable system for processing the large numbers of passengers that occur when an aircraft like an A380 arrives with a full load into LAX.

The number of officers who were tasked with speeding progress through customs and passport clearance were certainly sufficient to handle the passenger numbers, however there was a high level of confusion about how many people should be in each of the queues. We found ourselves being transferred into three different queues before we were able to present ourselves to a customs official.

Once there, the welcome was extremely efficient and friendly however.

Customs and baggage clearance took about 60 minutes after the arrival of the aircraft, but there was a significant further delay involved in re checking our luggage for the next sector.

One message to be gained from this is that you should allow a bare minimum of at least 2 hours transit time at LAX, since you need to check any luggage through customs and quarantine here prior to re-checking it for a domestic or other international service, and then take yourself back through security.

We had hoped to attempt to wait-list onto an earlier flight for our sector to Miami, but it turns out that a fire at MIA has severely impacted American Airline’s flight refuelling capacities, and as a result many flights in and out of Miami International airport.

A consequence of this is that all flights are full, and wait-listing isn’t a real option. Had we known this, we would probably have ticketed all the way to Miami from check-in at Melbourne airport, but of course hindsight is always a wonderful thing!

We have about a 5 hour transit at LAX, although with the time to go through formalities, this has reduced to a little over 3 hours in the Admirals Club Lounge.

Even here, things aren’t going completely to plan. The complimentary wireless internet service is currently down, and in this lounge food and drinks must all be paid for.

At last we now have seat allocation for the LAX-MIA flight. Row 41 seats E and G. We have to hope that we’re not boxed in.

Categories : Air, Destinations, Security
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Mar
27

Over The Pacific Ocean

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Qantas A380 aircraft

Qantas A380 aircraft taking off

Well, our trip is at last underway, and we’re witing this entry from Kendall, Miami.

The first sector of the flight, from Melbourne Australia to Los Angeles USA took us on one of the Qantas A380 aircraft that have been introduced into the airline industry in order to move more people more efficiently, and from the airline’s perspective also more cheaply.

The A380 is an impressive piece of machinery from almost any perspective. It is not only very large, both inside and out, but is very much quieter that many of its predecessors in the long haul business.

It seems that the aircraft suffers a lot less from the regular flight turbulence effects that can make many long haul flights a little “interesting”, but maybe we were simply lucky enough to miss out on many of those areas of turbulence that are so common on trans Pacific flights.

 

Categories : Air, Vacations
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Jan
03

Fantastic New Online Travel Itinerary Tool

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This is just a short message to alert you to a fantastic tool that we have discovered to assist you with your travel planning.

The TripIt home page

TripIt travel planning tool

TripIt (http://www.tripit.com) is a travel planning and support tool that offers great services and support for the traveler.

The founders of TripIt are frustrated travelers who have worked in both travel and technology for a long time.

They know firsthand (as we do) that using the Internet to make travel plans and organizing the details can be both difficult and time consuming – particularly when plans change at short notice.

The problem is getting worse as more people choose to make their own travel plans and as online travel options continue to proliferate.

With today’s myriad of travel sites, even the most experienced traveler has their hands full managing all the details of a typical trip.

Booking airline tickets, hotels, rental cars and restaurants leaves you with lots of separate pieces of paper. Throw in maps, directions, things to do, and weather and the chaos multiplies.

TripIt turns chaos into order by making it easy for anyone to:

  • Organize trip details into one master online itinerary — even if arrangements are booked at multiple travel sites
  • Automatically include maps, directions and weather in their master itinerary
  • Have the option to book restaurants, theatre tickets, activities and more right from within the online itinerary
  • Safely access travel plans online, share them, check-in for flights, or print an itinerary

Any traveler can create a free account with TripIt from the home page. Once the account has been set up, all that is needed to begin to create your itinerary is to simply forward travel confirmation emails to TripIt from the email address you used to set up your account.

We’ve begun to use this ourselves, and are blown away with how quickly and accurately the TripIt application is able to process our bookings and combine them into a fully detailed itinerary, but also to include travel directions, maps and weather detail for our destinations.

Categories : Business, Destinations, Technology
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Apr
25

All Insurance Is Not The Same

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News feeds at the moment seem to be offering mixed messages about how insurers and airlines have been dealing with passengers claims as a result of recent travel disruptions.

It appears that many UK based passengers have reported problems in terms of claims for the additional costs incurred as a result of staying much longer on the continent than was originally planned.

EU air transport regulations do provide an obligation on airlines to provide a level of support for travelers as a result of delays in return travel. However, these obligations appear to be a little vague, and are based on “reasonable” expenses.

What is “reasonable” to an airline confronted with massive losses due to the recent volcanic ash events in Europe may not seem so reasonable to a stranded passenger.

Another issue that has become quite significant is that of relying upon limited forms of insurance. Many travelers make use of the travel insurance offered as part of the package for those with premium credit cards. Whilst this coverage certainly does offer a level of protection, you should still look at the fine print attached to this cover to ensure that it will meet your needs.

An example of this is that one well known credit card provider has a travel insurance policy that allows for “Travel Inconvenience Cover”, defined as cover for:  delayed flight departure, flight cancellation, denied flight boarding, missed flight connection. Unfortunately the limit for this coverage can be less than $US200.

Many travelers consider themselves to be covered if they purchase coverage that is offered at the time of purchase of a flight ticket.

Again, such policies have very limited coverage for flight disruption, since they are limited to a specific pricepoint and are primarily aimed to protect the purchaser against losses relating to the specific air travel components of the trip.

Travelers wishing to cross the English Channel did have a number of transport options available, including Eurostar, other train services and ferries. Unfortunately the options were not as great for those passengers wishing to travel to or from the Americas, Asia, Australia and other locations outside Europe.

The basic message here is that travel insurance is a matter that travelers should carefully consider the terms and conditions that are offered, and not simply jump in unprepared.

John Kumm, Author,

Discover more informative information relating to travel at http://onlinetravelconsultant.com

Categories : Air, Business, Odd Spots, Vacations
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Apr
03

Passengers Entering The US Likely To Be Profiled

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It has been reported that the United States Department of Homeland Security is introducing a program that will begin profiling incoming passengers as a new initiative for air travel security.

The new measures to are planned for introduction in April 2010, and will replace the program of screening of all passengers from a number of Muslim countries that was introduced as a result of the “Christmas Day Bomber” event in Detroit.

These new security measures will apply to US citizens as well, and will apply a level of screening that will depend on how closely their personal characteristics of travelers matches intelligence information.

The Washington Post reported that these changes come after a three-month review of security protocols.

These changes should see a significant reduction in the number of passengers who are taken aside for additional screening, whilst concentrating on individuals that seem to match particular intelligence profiles.

Characteristics such as nationality, partial names, recently visited countries and the age of the traveler  will be taken into account.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano  is reported as saying: ”These new measures utilize real-time, threat-based intelligence along with multiple, random layers of security, both seen and unseen, to more effectively mitigate evolving terrorist threats” .

Categories : Air, Security
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Mar
20

Our New Book: “Get Packing – The Ultimate Travel Guide”

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Categories : Odd Spots
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Aug
25

Laptop computer battery confusion

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In the midst of a major recall of many Dell and Apple laptop computers following issues with overheating batteries causing fires in computers, a number of airlines are currently banning passengers from carrying on-board laptop computers with batteries fitted.

They claim that they are worried that should passengers plug the computer into an on-board power source, then a fire may break out whilst in flight.

It seems that the issue may be limited to only Dell and Apple computers, but you should check with your airline to ensure that you don’t get caught out at the check-in gate should you need to send the battery with your checked luggage.

Submitted by John Kumm www.onlinetravelconsultant.com

Categories : Air, Business, Technology
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Aug
14

Will Security Restrictions Last?

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This is a difficult issue to address now, but you should be prepared for the likelihood that many of the security guidelines that have recently been introduced will be maintained for at least some time into the future.

It is unlikely that some of the additional security requirements will ease until a heightening of security technologies is able to overcome the risks, and this will not happen overnight.

Many are already predicting that the security measures already in place in UK airports are likely to be increasingly seen in other airports around the world. Perhaps we can all look forward to having nothing to read but the airline magazine, and nothing to listen to but the in-flight entertainment offered by our chosen airline!

Posted by John Kumm, www.onlinetravelconsultant.com

Categories : Security
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Aug
14

What do recent security changes mean for you?

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The issue of packing for either holiday or business travel must now be re-considered, since previous recommendations have specifically warned against including personal valuable items and liquids in your hold luggage. However, since you may no longer be able to carry these on board, then there may be no other alternative.

Issues to think about should include: more secure luggage, locks on zips, fasteners, etc, an external belt around the whole case.

In addition, all liquid or gel items should ideally be placed inside a sealable plastic bag to prevent leakage.

If you still feel comfortable about travelling by air, then we believe that you should continue to use this travel option. This helps to avoid any measure of success of the terrorism campaign, which of course is to cause disruption of travel plans at a very busy time of the year.

In terms of timing issues relating to your departure from airports affected by the new security guidelines, we cannot emphasise enough the need to allow significant extra time to go through check-in and security procedures. It is likely that carriers will need to schedule their departures as close as possible to the original time, and this could well result in passengers missing their flight if still caught in queues. You should maintain contact with the airport authorities and airline to ensure that you have allowed enough time.

Be prepared for lengthy delays and a higher than usual level of stress and anxiety amongst fellow passengers, airline and security personnel during this difficult time.

Posted by John Kumm, www.onlinetravelconsultant.com

Categories : Air, Security, Vacations
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