Best Leisure Time Blog

posted by Adam Johns on Jan 30

DUBAI on a budget sounds like an oxymoron. The most ostentatious of the seven city states of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai is where travelers go to find a self-proclaimed seven-star hotel, indoor skiing and artificial islands springing up from the seas in the shape of palm trees. A stay at that “seven-star” hotel, the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab, starts at more than $2,000 a night.

Yet now a number of budget hotel chains are moving into this playground for the rich. Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the serial entrepreneur who founded the budget airline easyJet, was in Dubai two weeks ago to break ground on the first of six easyHotels to be built in the emirate.

The hotels, based on the easyHotel model introduced in Europe in 2005, will have rooms a little bigger than those in existing easyHotels — but still small, around 160 square feet, with just the basics, including a bed, a shower, a flat-screen television and an Internet connection. Prices won’t be announced until the opening, but are expected to be around 250 to 300 dirhams, or about $67 to $80 a night at 3.75 dirhams to the dollar.

InterContinental Hotels plans to open its first Holiday Inn Express in Dubai this summer; with 244 rooms, the hotel will be significantly larger than its counterparts in the United States.

Ibis, an economy brand of Accor, the giant French hotel company, which already has one hotel in Dubai, plans to expand with a 480-room hotel there in December and a 365-room hotel in 2008. The existing Ibis World Trade Center Dubai, linked to the International Exhibition Center and Convention Center of Dubai, has rooms from around 70 euros, $95 a night at $1.35 to the euro. And Whitbread’s budget brand, Premier Travel Inn, Britain’s biggest hotel chain, is building a 300-room hotel at the Dubai Investments Park. Room rates are expected to be in the 400-dirham range.

The extreme emphasis on luxury in Dubai over the last decade is precisely why the market for budget travel is wide open. While most hotel guests continue to stay at high-end places, statistics show a growing demand for lower-priced accommodations.

The number of guests who stayed in five-star luxury hotels in Dubai increased just 10 percent, to nearly 2 million, in 2005 from the previous year, according to the latest statistics available online from the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing. By contrast, the number staying in one-star, limited-service hotels jumped 32 percent in that same time, to about 600,000.

It’s not only hotels that have taken notice of the budget traveler. Anticipating a shift toward more economical vehicles in the next few years, Hertz is adding small cars like the Honda Jazz hatchback and Toyota Yaris to its Dubai fleet — cars that rent for about $55 a day, compared with $110 for a mid-size vehicle or $220 for an S.U.V.

“The place has gotten very expensive,” said Bob Farrow, general manager of Hertz Car Rental in Dubai. “Everybody would love to drive a big car on vacation, but they want to pay for a small one.”

Five years ago, small cars made up just 10 percent of the fleet at his outlet, but in the next year or so, Hertz plans to increase that to about 25 percent.

While more travel companies are catering to budget travelers in Dubai, for now it can still be difficult to find the cheaper alternatives. A call asking about budget options a couple of weeks ago left a spokeswoman flummoxed at the New York office promoting Dubai tourism.

“We really focus on the high end,” she said. “Truly, it’s a luxury market.”

The head office in Dubai wasn’t much more help. Asked by e-mail about typical rates and recommendations for travelers on tight budgets, Mohamed Abdul Mannan, a spokesman for the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, replied with just one line — a Web address for an online article about the recent easyHotels announcement of plans to build there.

The spectacle of modern Dubai is a product of many years of intensive development. Once a fishing and pearl-diving village, it grew into a modest commercial city in the 19th century and wasn’t transformed into a metropolis until the last couple of decades. Even as Dubai’s reputation as a luxury travel destination took off, savvy travelers continued to score deals — although less remarkable ones as time went on — even without the new influx of budget chains.

“My wallet has seen the changes,” said Jesse Long, 34, a photographer in Brooklyn who has been traveling to Dubai on business for the last five years. Hotels where he used to stay for $30 or $40 a night are now charging four times more, he said, “and they haven’t really improved anything.”

To get the best deal, Mr. Long stays in the central Bur Dubai district, where modestly priced accommodations can still be found, particularly along Khalid Bin Waleed Road. Last month, he stayed at the Hotel Ascot in that area for about $130 a night and dined at nearby Indian restaurants for less than $5 a meal.

For discounted hotel accommodations, he recommends www.wired-destinations.com.

It’s also possible to find a bargain by consulting the tourism desk at the airport, but to avoid any confusion later, be sure to get the terms in writing, including the rate and any incentives, like free breakfast.

Ramadan, the ninth month of the Muslim lunar calendar, when people of Muslim faith fast from dawn to dusk, can be a good time to find bargains since hotels tend to be less crowded and may be more willing to negotiate on price. (This year, the start of Ramadan, which varies slightly by region, begins around Sept. 12.)

While working hours are slightly altered and many restaurants are closed much of the day, there is an air of festivity after dark, said Daniela Bonanno, a sales manager at Absolute Travel in New York who has visited Dubai during Ramadan. “After sunset, everyone celebrates because that’s when they can eat,” Ms. Bonanno said.

Shops and malls stay open longer, and hotels and restaurants offer special Iftar buffets to break the fast.

If you’re on a budget, you might want to avoid traveling during the wildly popular Dubai Shopping Festival, which typically runs from late December through January, when you’ll face high rates as you compete for rooms with crowds of well-heeled travelers.

posted by Adam Johns on Jan 25

‘Future Begins,’ starring Christian Bale, expected to be first in new trilogy.

The fourth movie in the ”Terminator” franchise will reach North American theaters on May 22, 2009, coinciding with the U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend, distributor Warner Bros. said.

Christian Bale will star as rebel leader John Connor in “Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins,” which is scheduled to begin production in the spring in New Mexico.

“Charlie’s Angels” filmmaker McG will direct the movie, which is expected to be the first in a new “Terminator” trilogy.

The series, which originated in 1984 and made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star, centered on a robot from the future where machines wage war against humanity, whose goal was to kill Sarah Connor, the mother of the future leader of the human resistance. As the movies progressed, the son, played by Edward Furlong in 1991’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and Nick Stahl in 2003’s “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,” took a more prominent role.

Sony Pictures will handle international distribution. Warner Bros. and Sony had a similar arrangement for “Terminator 3,” which grossed $433 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.

Source: Reuters

posted by Adam Johns on Jan 19

The dollar used to be the universal tourist currency, accepted almost anywhere, from the streets of Hanoi to the plains of Africa. But the continued slide of the dollar against other currencies has led the greenback to be shunned in unexpected places, creating new problems for American travelers and pushing prices higher.

The Taj Mahal has stopped accepting dollars for the entrance fee, under a new edict from the Indian Ministry of Culture that also affects other national tourist sites like the 13th-century minaret known as the Qutb Minar and Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi. As a result, for entrance to the Taj Mahal, Americans must now pay 750 rupees, about $19, at the rate of 29.74 rupees to the dollar, compared with $15 previously.

Some tour operators say they have encountered newfound resistance to dollars in parts of Vietnam and Peru, especially in villages that are off the beaten path.

”It used to be a $100 bill was universal everywhere, from Moscow to Mozambique,” said Peter Rudy, the North America director for KE Adventure Travel, a Denver-based outfit that books adventure trips throughout the world. ”It’s not now.”

Even in New York, some shops are encouraging payment in foreign currency. A recent article in The Villager, a Manhattan neighborhood newspaper, noted that East Village Wines, a liquor store at 138 First Avenue, accepts payments in euros as well as dollars.

Over the last year through mid-January, the dollar has depreciated about 9 percent against the euro, 10 percent against the rupee and 12 percent against the Chilean peso, said Jay Bryson, global economist at Wachovia.

In the past, savvy travelers could hedge against the weakened dollar by buying a prepackaged tour. Tour operators set prices as much as 18 months in advance, so they can be printed in brochures and other marketing materials. Those travelers were essentially getting a built-in discount during the last couple of years as the dollar fell against other currencies. But not this year.

Some American tour operators are now tacking on so-called currency surcharges, in much the same way that airlines have bumped up fuel surcharges in the face of rising oil costs. Others are raising package prices to help make up the difference.

Last month, Group Voyagers, the parent company of Globus, Cosmos, Monograms and Avalon Waterways, added a currency surcharge of about 5 percent to many of its European tours. For example, Globus’s $1,699 Taste of Italy package starting on May 3 now includes a surcharge of $110 a person. Over all, travelers can expect to pay $20 to $190 extra a person for the European tours.

Nearly 60 percent of members of the United States Tour Operators Association serving Europe and Britain said their prices would increase up to 15 percent because of the weak dollar, a December survey showed.

And it’s not just Europe. KE Adventure Travel raised prices for a handful of clients who booked winter tours to Patagonia, Bolivia and Nepal — partly because ground agents were demanding more money to make up for the decline of the dollar. Some agents are even requesting payment in euros instead of dollars.

”It’s a monstrous change in the business and it’s affecting every one of us,” Mr. Rudy said, adding that KE Adventures never before raised prices in midstream for its clients in its 25 years of operation.

Despite the currency surcharges, prepackaged tours can still offer some savings. The roughly 5 percent surcharge imposed by Globus is less than the 10 percent devaluation of the dollar against the euro since it priced its vacations in June. To help ease the blow, Globus is offering a limited-time $200 discount on air-inclusive Europe vacations booked by Feb. 29.

And other tour operators are simply absorbing the loss. After Globus announced its currency surcharge, a flurry of tour operators including Brendan Worldwide Vacations, Insight Vacations and Collette Vacations sent out news releases emphasizing that they did not plan to levy currency surcharges. These tour operators use a hedging strategy that mitigates the effects of currency exchange fluctuations.

Recognizing the challenge American tourists are up against, some hotels with a large American clientele have also begun to guarantee some rates in dollars. The high-end Hotel Carl Gustaf in St. Bart’s, for example, is guaranteeing winter rates for travel through April 19 in dollars. While the listed rates begin at 1,100 euros, or $1,672 at $1.52 to the euro, the hotel is offering rates beginning at $1,300 a room a night with a three-night minimum to travelers who ask for the United States-dollar rate. One place to find hotels that are offering similar deals, said Stacy Small, owner of Elite Travel International, is the Web site of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, www.slh.com. The collection of upscale hotels ”has a number of properties that consistently promote U.S. fixed-dollar rates,” she said.

For example, the Capital hotel in London is offering a three-night package in an Executive Double room with airport transfers and access to a health club for $1,399, not including tax. A three-night stay in that category of room would normally cost £855 or about $1,700, at $1.99 to the pound, without the transfers or club pass. The St. James Paris is offering a City Escapes package through April that includes breakfast for $470 a room, not including tax. Rates normally start at 380 euros, about $577.

To get the most bang for your buck, consider destinations where the dollar hasn’t declined. The dollar is flat against the Mexican peso compared with where it was a year ago, said Mr. Bryson of Wachovia, and is up about 2 percent compared with a year ago against the Argentine peso. And countries like Panama and Ecuador use American dollars as their official currency.

posted by Adam Johns on Jan 16

For her mother’s 89th birthday, Lynda Balkam of Coronado, Calif., came up with what seemed like the perfect unexpected gift: a three-day Mexican cruise in May, with her family on the ship. But when Ms. Balkam made the reservations, she was the one who got a surprise.

Because of stricter national security rules going into effect in January, all 17 of the relatives going on the cruise — even though they are American citizens — will have to produce passports, not just birth certificates and driver’s licenses, to get back into the United States on their return. Getting the passports for the eight adults and five children who don’t already have them will involve not only an unexpected chore, but unanticipated fees totaling $1,186.

“It’s just another expense we weren’t planning on at all,” said Ms. Balkam who, like many Americans, has become accustomed to crossing borders to nearby countries without a passport. The family is still going on the cruise, but she and her husband plan to help pay the extra costs.

For years, an American adult needed only a valid driver’s license and birth certificate to go back and forth between the States and Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, Panama and most Caribbean islands. Children needed just birth certificates. But as of Jan. 8, passports will be required for almost everyone entering the United States through airports and seaports, no matter where they are coming from. The same requirement will go into effect for land crossings from Canada or Mexico on Jan. 1, 2008.

The change could catch a lot of vacationers off guard. The Department of Homeland Security says airplane and cruise passengers who do not have passports will have to go through a secondary screening to verify their citizenship, an extra step that will inevitably cause delays.

And there are some real concerns about how well equipped the government is to handle the likely crush of passport applications. “If there were to be a rush on passports for people taking a cruise trip in the first quarter of next year, we’re not sure they could keep up with demand,” said Rick Webster, vice president of government affairs at the Travel Industry Association, one of several trade associations pushing to delay the deadline.

The State Department estimates that 73 percent of Americans now lack passports. The fee to acquire one is $97 for adults and $82 for children under 16. Demand for passports could increase to 16 million in the 2007 fiscal year, beginning today, from about 12.3 million in the year that ended Sept. 30. To help handle the work, the government has hired about 250 new employees and added some new locations where people can file applications, bringing the total to more than 8,000. (Commonly, these passport acceptance locations are post offices, county clerk offices and libraries.) But the few federal centers where the applications go next — for the actual processing — have already been struggling just to keep up with a steady increase over the last few years.

Though the State Department says that applicants ordinarily receive passports within six weeks of applying, it can take longer. René Mack, 47, of Wyckoff, N.J., applied for a passport for his year-old son, Aidan, at a special open house at the Fairlawn, N.J., post office in June. Though he was told the passport would be processed in six to eight weeks, he didn’t receive it until 12 weeks later.

“I can only imagine what will happen to people waiting for passports over the holidays in December, when the mail is traditionally at its heaviest volume,” said Mr. Mack, who was aware of the coming changes in the rules because he handles public relations for travel and tourism clients in Canada and the Bahamas.

There are shortcuts — for a price. Someone in urgent need of a passport can pay an extra $60 for expedited service, which typically cuts wait time to two weeks. A traveler leaving in less than two weeks can make an appointment to go in person, with proof of travel plans in hand, to one of 14 passport agencies located in major cities, including New York, Boston and Los Angeles, by calling (877) 487-2778. There are also private rush services that specialize in speeding customers through the bureaucracy. For varying fees, these companies can often get passports approved in as little as 24 hours. (A list of expediting services is at www.napvs.org.) But in recent years, some passport agencies have been reducing the number of daily submissions such rush companies are allowed. The New York regional passport agency used to allow them to submit applications in unlimited numbers; in February it limited each company to 20 or fewer a day.

WHAT we have here is a situation of clearly increasing demand over the last couple of years,” said Rob Smith, director of the National Association of Passport and Visa Services, a trade group for the expediting companies. “That demand is likely to be heightened by the sea and air requirements coming up this January, followed by the land requirements a year later.”

The travel industry, fearing confusion and passport delays, has been pushing for an extension for the new rules. For now, cruise companies and travel agencies are urging travelers not to wait to get their passports. Ada Brown, owner of Seaside Travel in Long Beach, Calif., points out that even on cruises to Hawaii or Alaska passengers may need passports, because many of those ships make foreign stopovers. “The Alaska cruises from Seattle all touch base in Vancouver, and that’s a foreign port,” she said.

With tourism dollars at stake, some Caribbean resorts are offering to foot some of the bill for customers who need passports. Ladera Resort in St. Lucia is offering to reimburse any guest staying there next year for the $97 new-passport fee when the guest presents the new passport and a receipt. In Aruba, the Westin and Renaissance resorts are both offering food and beverage credits of $50 to $75 to guests whose first international destination in 2007 is Aruba. SuperClubs will apply the costs of new or renewed passports to a 2007 four-night stay at one of its 10 Caribbean resorts if booked by Nov. 20.

Travelers can avoid the need for a passport altogether, of course, by seeking out island getaways that don’t require them — in the United States Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico or Hawaii.

“For us, it has already been a reassuring selling point for destination wedding groups,” said Richard Doumeng, managing director at Bolongo Bay Beach Resort in St. Thomas. Brides, he said, “don’t have to worry if their sorority sisters can attend depending on whether or not they have a passport.”

Information is taken from: NY Times 

posted by Adam Johns on Jan 10

Billionaire Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling would feel “exploited” if a fan’s unofficial encyclopedic companion to the boy wizard series was published, she said in court papers made public on Thursday.

Steve Vander Ark has written “The Harry Potter Lexicon” — a 400-page reference book based on his popular fan Web site (www.hp-lexicon.org). Rowling and Warner Bros. are suing RDR Books, which planned to publish the book last November.

“I am very frustrated that a former fan has tried to co-opt my work for financial gain,” Rowling, 42, who wrote the seven hugely successful Harry Potter novels, said in a declaration filed in U.S. District Court this week.

“I believe that RDR’s book constitutes a Harry Potter ‘rip off’ of the type I have spent years trying to prevent, and that both I, as the creator of this world, and fans of Harry Potter, would be exploited by its publication,” she said.

The lawsuit filed in October names RDR Books, an independent publisher based in Michigan, and unidentified persons as defendants. It seeks to stop publication and requests damages for copyright and federal trademark infringement and any profits to be gained.

Rowling has said she plans to write her own definitive Harry Potter encyclopedia, which would include material that did not make it into the novels, and donate the proceeds to charity. The novels have sold more than 400 million copies.

“I feel intensely protective, firstly, of the literary world I spent so long creating, and secondly, of the fans who bought my books in such large numbers,” said the British writer ranked by Forbes as the world’s 48th most powerful celebrity.

RDR Books has said Vander Ark, a librarian, had spoken at Harry Potter academic conferences in Britain, Canada and the United States and that a timeline he created was used by Warner Bros. in DVD releases of the Harry Potter films.

The company and Vander Ark have said the book would only promote the sale of Rowling’s work and that Vander Ark’s Web site, used by 25 million visitors, had been called “a great site” by Rowling herself.

Warner Bros is a unit of Time Warner Inc, which owns the copyright and trademark rights to the Harry Potter books.

Source: Reuters

posted by Adam Johns on Jan 5

Lounging on the sun deck of a cruise ship as it navigates the warm waters of the Caribbean or Mediterranean, perhaps with a cooling cocktail in hand, is how many travelers envision spending a cruise. But others seem increasingly drawn to a vacation where the ice isn’t just in their drinks, but in the very waters that surround them.

Among the fastest growing trends in the cruise industry are itineraries that take passengers to the coldest parts of the world — not just Alaska, of course, which has long been a popular cruise destination, but places like the Baltic Sea, the northern reaches of Canada and Greenland, and even Antarctica.

Indeed, more than 35,000 tourists are expected to visit Antarctica this spring and summer, compared with just 6,750 during 1992-93, according to the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat.

Among the cruise lines heading to Antarctica with new itineraries are Crystal Cruises (www.crystalcruises.com), whose Crystal Symphony will offer a Christmas and New Year’s trip around South America, Cape Horn and Antarctica, including a stop in Puerto Montt, Chile, and a cruise around Elephant Island, Antarctica (rates start at $7,995).

Hurtigruten (www.hurtigruten.us) is offering a 17-day round-trip cruise out of Buenos Aires aboard its newest expedition ship, the M.S. Fram. With the help of smaller PolarCirkel boats, the cruise will go farther south on the Antarctic Peninsula — all the way into the rarely visited Marguerite Bay — than it ever has in the past. Departures are next January and February, and rates start at $5,799. (The Fram will also head to Greenland this summer, with eight-day trips that include viewings of Jakobshavn Glacier — ”the world’s most active glacier,” according to the company — and walking tours of several Inuit villages and towns.)

Among the other cold-water options for 2008:

Cruise North Expeditions (www.cruisenorthexpeditions.com), a company based in Kuujjuaq, in northern Quebec, and owned mostly by Inuits, will sail the Arctic in northern Canada this summer, including a trip stopping at Beechey Island to visit the remains — grave sites and all — of the famously ill-fated Northwest Passage expedition led by Sir John Franklin.

Hapag-Lloyd (www.hl-cruises.com) will offer two 14 and 15-day trips to Greenland in July and August aboard its 184-passenger expedition ship, the Hanseatic, above, that include stops at Disko Bay and some Inuit settlements

Princess Cruises (www.princess.com) will have eight ships, more than in any previous year, sailing to Alaska destinations in 2008. With first-time stops in Kodiak, Seward and Valdez, the line will offer 37 new options for shore excursions, including one that will take travelers to the Columbia Glacier in Valdez.

Abercrombie & Kent (www.abercrombiekent.com) is offering a two-week trip in July aboard its 118-passenger ship Clipper Odyssey that sails round trip out of Nome, Alaska and includes stops in Siberian Russia, including the Chukotka area, which is home to reindeer-herding nomadic tribes, and Kamchatka, a peninsula that has 29 active volcanic craters.

Source: NY Times