A 67-year-old American woman traveling in Australia last year has sued Qantas, because she says a screaming baby on board one of their flights made her deaf. Now before shake your head, what she describes in her suit is pretty horrific: “The boy allegedly leaned back over his armrest toward [her] and let out a scream so severe that blood erupted from her ears, leaving her ‘stone cold deaf’.” On the other hand, Qantas maintains that it has no way of predicting when a child might scream, since children naturally do that sort of thing. [More]
vacations
Video: Stepping In Tarballs A Beach Vacation Lowpoint For Little Girl
By 6.28.10
This video shows a lgirl stepping into a tarball on a Destin, FL and screaming for her mother to get it off. The politicians and billboards are telling people to never mind the oil spill, come down to the shore, the water’s fine. Some of them are, but this beach is not, not today. [More]
Hagrid-Sized Humans Can't Ride New Harry Potter Attraction
By 6.28.10
If you visit the Harry Potter theme park this summer and happen to see a relatively large person poking himself with his brand new wand and muttering reduccio!, don’t be confused. He was probably just told he can’t ride the Forbidden Journey dark ride at the park. [More]
Cruise Line Employee Used Reservation List To Determine When To Rob Vacationers
By 6.14.10
I guess you could try to prepare your robbery schedule based on Foursquare and Twitter updates, but a former Royal Caribbean Cruise Line employee found a much easier way: she accessed the cruise line’s reservations list, wrote down the addresses of passengers and the dates they’d be on the cruise, and handed the list off to her husband. She’s being charged with 24 counts of burglary, while her husband will be charged soon. [More]
In The Military? Museum Admission Is Free This Summer
By 5.25.10
Starting Memorial Day, May 31, and lasting until Labor Day, September 6, more than 600 museums around the country are waiving admission fees for active members of the military and members of their immediate family. The Blue Star Museum program is a joint effort that’s being launched by the National Endowment for the Arts and a nonprofit group called Blue Star Families. The NEA has a map showing which museums are participating around the country. [More]
Watch Out For These Travel Scams
By 5.17.10
Kiplinger has posted six travel scams you should be aware of, including “Be your own travel agent!” and “Join our travel club!” The key thing to remember is to stay away from unfamiliar travel agencies or websites, or at least do some research and try to find evidence that they’re legit before handing over your money. You should also make sure that any travel insurance you buy comes from a licensed insurer. [More]
Are Pay-Per-View Hotel Movies Pointless In 2010?
By 5.12.10
LodgeNet provides pay-per-view movie services to hotels, and the company’s latest financial filing shows nearly a 10% drop in revenue in the first quarter of 2010 compared to the same period a year ago. (And that’s after a 19% drop in revenue from 2008 to 2009.) Travelers seem to be wising up to the high prices of hotel pay-per-view and are resorting to other ways to stay entertained. Now if only our laptops and smartphones could contain a mini-bar compartment. [More]
America's First Legal Male Prostitute Quits After Three Months
By 3.29.10
Markus, the first legal male prostitute in the U.S., hung his shingle at the Shady Lady Ranch in Nevada in January. Since then he’s had “fewer than 10 paying customers” according to the Associated Press (which seems to imply there were some free samples maybe?), so he’s quitting and going back into porn. In other words, there’s a new opening at Shady Lady, gentlemen. Wait, that totally didn’t sound right. [More]
CDC And Celebrity Cruises Can't Figure Out Why Passengers Keep Getting Sick
By 3.16.10
Remember the diarrhea nightmare vessel that sickened 450 passengers a few weeks back? Once it got back home, Celebrity Cruises delayed the next trip by a day so that it could perform a “full cleaning.” It didn’t help much, though: CNN says that about 10% of passengers on the next sailing got sick, and about 19% of passengers on the current sailing are now sick. [More]
Update: Armed Guards Fail To Squash US Air 1922 Passenger Revolt
By 3.16.10
Armed guards tried to quell an uprising yesterday among the passengers of US Airways flight 1922, who have been stuck in Costa Rica since their flight got canceled Saturday afternoon. The guards failed. [More]
Update: Greetings From USAIR Flight 1922, Stuck For 24 Hours In Costa Rica
By 3.15.10
Paradise is great, but not if you’re trapped in it. Dan and his fellow passengers on US Airways flight 1922 were supposed to leave Costa Rica yesterday at 2:55pm. So far, with their broken plane awaiting a part, that hasn’t happened. Let’s check in on the front lines… [More]
Access America's "Comprehensive Trip Protector" Insurance Isn't Comprehensive, So Enjoy Your Overnight Layover
By 2.26.10
Mark Smith just got suckered into buying travel insurance that turned out to be worthless to him. There was a huge hole in the middle of the coverage, which meant he and his two kids were stuck overnight in Denver on his own dime. Luckily the policy only cost $40, but that’s $40 that now belongs to Access America in exchange for providing a useless service. [More]
Caribbean Cruise Ship Turns Into Diarrhea Nightmare Vessel
By 2.23.10
When gastrointestinal illness hits a cruise ship, there’s nowhere to run or hide, as nearly 450 passengers and crewmembers aboard the Celebrity Cruises ship Mercury have discovered. Celebrity Cruises says they they’re still investigating what caused the outbreak, but the symptoms include “upset stomach, vomiting and diarrhea,” according to their spokeswoman. [More]
Septuagenarian Couple Scammed Inns And Hotels For Four Years
By 2.8.10
The next time you stay at a bed and breakfast and you see a kindly old couple lingering in the common room after breakfast, be suspicious! The Wolffs have been scamming inns, hotels, rented homes, and bed & breakfasts since 2005, reports the Boston Globe. They offer to pay via check, and until recently–when they stayed in one place so long that they were still around when the check bounced–nobody ever thought they might be pulling a fast one. They’re due in court this month for defrauding several inns over the past summer. [More]
Sheraton Package Deal Costs Less A La Carte
By 1.15.10
The travel review site Oyster Blog breaks down a Sheraton Nassau vacation deal that actually costs more than it would if you purchased the flight and hotel stay separately. [More]
NYC Cabbie Returns $21,000 Left Behind In Cab
By 1.14.10
An Italian grandmother was visiting family in New York and forgot her handbag in the backseat of Mukul Asadujjaman’s cab. Inside the purse was about $21,000 in cash, as well as jewelry and passports. Asadujjaman found an address in the bag and tracked down her family in Long Island, about 50 miles outside of the city, to return it. [More]
Coming To Nevada Brothels In 2010: Male Prostitutes
By 12.14.09
If you’ve always skipped the brothels while in Nevada because they didn’t offer the kind of companionship you’re looking for, Merry Christmas! On Friday, the Nevada Board of Health changed its health code so that male sex workers can be tested regularly for STDs, which means starting next year men can sell sexual favors alongside the women working at the Shady Lady Ranch. [More]
