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Tags: Airline News / Britain Travel / Ryanair / British Airways / Airlines / LCCs / → All Tags

Ryanair Taunts British Airways: 'We're (About To Be) #1!'

It's no secret that Ryanair has translated their "Customers Suck" philosophy into one quarter of breakout profits after another.

It's also no secret that we kind of loathe them and everything they stand for (excepting low airfare), which makes this particular story, about how the low cost carrier is poised to pass British Airways as the largest airline in the UK, as predictable as it is aggravating. Try to contain your shock when we tell you that they're being obnoxiously smug about the whole thing:

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Tags: Travel Contests / Britain Travel / Travel Websites / → All Tags

Brits Can Win Their Dream Break With 20 Words Or Less

We like winning stuff, so we pricked up our ears when we heard that UK-based travel booking site superbreak is running the Build Your Dream Break contest. You could win the chance to create your own short vacation—up to the value of £1,000 ($1,600), anyway.

The contest closes on October 31 and involves describing what your dream break would be like in 20 words or less. It might sound simple, but we think that it'd take us a few more sentences than that to explain our dreams. Although if you check the terms and conditions it sounds like the winner will be drawn at random, so perhaps the quality of your 20 words isn't all that important.

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Tags: Theme Parks / Amusement Parks / Britain Travel / → All Tags

Have A Roller Coaster Phobia? Try Some Free Hypnotherapy

Hitting the newest rides at an amusement park can sometimes be the whole point of a trip. But if you or one of your traveling companions is just too scared to get on, that can be a total bummer, not to mention time-waster.

In England, the Chessington World of Adventures theme park in Surrey, southwest of London, has got this problem figured right out. Starting from October 9, they'll be providing special hypnotherapy sessions for parents who are too frightened to hop on a ride with their children. The hypnotherapist in charge hopes these anxious theme-park-goers will learn to "sit back and enjoy it," rather than stay on the ground holding the bags.

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Tags: Tennis Travel / Wimbledon-Tour-Guide / Britain Travel / Sports Travel / → All Tags

No More Waiting For the Wonder of Wimbledon

In case you didn't notice, the annual tennis extravaganza that is Wimbledon started on Monday, but don't fret as the best is still to come. This year's championships culminate on July 5, so there's still almost two full weeks of Wimbledon action to entertain us.

If you're lucky enough to be in London and are keen to head along to eat strawberries and cream (and watch a match or two), the good news is it is never too late. Wimbledon always keeps some tickets to sell on the morning of the match—at least 500 tickets for the three main courts await the firstcomers at the turnstiles each day, apart from the final days.

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Tags: Sharks / Britain Travel / Aquariums / → All Tags

British Sharks Forced To Take Lessons In Mealtime Etiquette

We're sorry, sharks. It turns out we've been misunderstanding you all this time. You don't want to attack us – you just want a big hug.

At least that's the theory the keepers at British aquarium Sea Life are working on at the moment. They believe that sharks can be trained to feed one by one when the keeper tells them, and even to roll over and have their belly tickled. With a Pavlov's-dog-style repetitive training system, they say the smarter sharks will get the idea within three months.

There are quite a few advantages of such a system, not least that the keepers are less likely to be gobbled up by the sharks they're meant to be taking care of. Experts also say that it should improve "shark welfare" and make them happier in captivity.

And it could even make feeding time a whole lot cuter for us aquarium visitors. They plan to try banging a gong as a sign for the sharks to queue up for dinner time. We'd pay a bit extra to bang the gong ourselves.

Related Stories:
· Sea Life [Official Site]
· Sharks To Be Trained Like Dolphins at Sea Life [news.com.au]
· Shark Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Wang-Qian]

Tags: First Class Travel / Virgin / Train Travel / Britain Travel / → All Tags

Virgin's Pendolinos Understand First Class Train Travel

We're pretty familiar with flying through the air on Virgin, but less schooled in Virgin Trains, their network you can use to scoot around the United Kingdom in style.

Being underneath the wings of Richard Branson, you can expect these sleek trains to include some very sexy first class carriages; it's as sexy as a train can be, that is. The first class carriage pictured above is actually on a Virgin Pendolino train; a special high-speed train out of Italy that "leans" on corners, enabling it to go faster than regular trains, but on the same tracks. Presumably it doesn't lean so much that the china or napkins go sliding off your first class tray table, or that wouldn’t be so impressive at all.

Apparently there are 52 Pendolino trains being operated by Virgin across Britain, and at 125 miles an hour, they sound like a very comfortable and accessibly alternative to airplanes. That is until you check the prices—a London to Liverpool first class ticket on a Virgin Pendolino could set you back £185 ($280) just one way. But it looks so nice...

Related Stories:
· Virgin Trains [Official Site]
· Keeping the Railways on Track [Jaunted]

[Photo: Train Chartering]

Tags: Festival Travel / Britain Travel / Hawaii Travel / → All Tags

Where to Sword Dance and Get Lei'd for May Day

May Day, it's May Day! Well at least tomorrow is, which means that you might get caught up in some curious activities if you're traveling through Britain, where May Day can mean anything from a rip-roaring spring celebration to a workers' festival. In the English town of Hastings, for example, they've got the Jack-in-the-Green fest with freaky green costumes and plenty of traditional Morris dancing—a traditional rhythmic step dance which occasionally features swords.

Zipping further north to Edinburgh, May Day gets a slightly more political bent with the Edinburgh Peoples Festival—Che Guevara's daughter Aleida was meant to be the guest of honor, but pulled out to be replaced by a Cuban parliamentary deputy. The main May Day event here, however, takes place on Saturday with a march leading to a rally outside the Scottish parliament.

Back in the States (sort of), Hawaii's May Day has been totally mixed into the more locally-flavored celebration of Lei Day. If you luck out and happen to be in Honolulu on Lei Day, you can enter the lei contest or boogie down to some traditional Hawaiian music.

With so many different approaches to celebrating May Day, we're starting to think that the name is the only thing they have in common, but we really don't mind so long as there's a celebration and lots of crazy bacchanal dancing involved.

Related Stories:
· Jack-in the Green Festival [Official Site]
· Edinburgh Peoples Festival [Official Site]
· Honolulu Lei Day Celebration [Official Site]

[Photo: Bushtick]

Tags: London Gatwick / London Stansted / Airports / Britain Travel / → All Tags

British Airports For Sale; We Hope We Don't Lose Out Too

BAA Airports--the Spanish-consortium-owned group of seven of the largest airports in Britain--are getting in deeper trouble by the day. Last time we checked in they were being forced to sell off Gatwick Airport but now the Competition Commission has said they've got to get rid of three airports.

Going from the theory that one company owning seven major airports in a relatively small country might be anti-competitive (fair call), BAA has been told they not only have to sell Gatwick, but LCC-haven Stansted Airport plus either Glasgow or Edinburgh airports.

The worst part is that although this saga's been going on for a few years, crunch time for selling the airports means they'll get maybe only half of what the airports would've been worth pre-recession. That's not good for business. And we're figuring that what's not good for the airport business also ain't much good for passengers.

Related Stories:
· BAA Ordered to Sell Off Gatwick and Stansted [Guardian]
· Who Wants To Buy An Airport? [Jaunted]

[Photo: Aleksi Aaltonen]

Tags: Britain Travel / Buses / England / → All Tags

Over 60? Travel Across England For Nothing

Older travelers in England have been pleased to learn that from April 1, they'll be able to travel on local bus services for free. The free travel applies during off peak hours, all weekend and for two full weeks over Christmas, and a survey's already suggested bus use among pensioners will increase by at least a quarter as a result.

Hilary Bradt, the founder of Bradt Travel Guides, the publishers of books usually related to exotic destinations like Madagascar or Kyrgyzstan, is one of the Brits who's very pleased about the new scheme. To celebrate, she's planning an April trip from Land's End to Lowestoft--which means from England's most westerly point to the most easterly--using only the free bus services.

She thinks traveling across England for free like this will take about a week, covering about 370 miles. Sure, it's slow, but it's also free. And in Britain you can pay a lot of money for a slow, late transport service.

Related Stories:
· Pensioners Given Free Bus Travel [BBC]
· England Travel [Jaunted]

[Photo: lemoncat1]

Tags: Zorbing / Britain Travel / Active Travel / → All Tags

Active Travel: Aqua Zorbing

We love the outdoors and that makes it easy to love zorbing. And while the standard issue experience of rolling down a hill at 30 miles per hour in a massive plastic sphere is pretty extreme, the folks at Sphere Mania have taken the sport to a whole new level.

The UK zorbing company offers the traditional harness sphereing, where two people are strapped into the ball before being rolled down a hill, as well as a more unique way to zorb: Aqua sphereing. The wet and wild roll puts up to three people in a water-filled zorb where they'll slide and splash as the ball travels down the hill.

Related Stories:
· Zorbing coverage [Jaunted]
· Sphere Mania [Official Site]

Tags: Baggage / Luggage / Britain Travel / London Heathrow / London Travel / → All Tags

Where Abandoned Suitcases Go To Die

Pack carefully when you're flying in and out of the UK: the latest stats report that 30 million bags a year go missing, which means yours has plenty of opportunities to end up lost. Apparently 85% of these bags do reach their owners within 48 hours, but the law states that if the bag and owner don't catch up within 3 months, the bag can be handed over to an auction house.

For some reason, it works like this: shoes, appliances and valuables are removed from the cases and sold separately; the rest of the contents--dirty underwear included--are sealed into the case and the cases are auctioned off "lucky dip" style. If you've been parted with your luggage (which is most likely to happen at Heathrow), you might want to try the Greasbys or Wellers auction houses to get it back--or to pick up an interesting replacement.

Related Stories:
· Lost Luggage Auctions [UK Times]
· Heathrow's In Chaos [Jaunted]

[Photo: Silvferduk]

Tags: Casinos / Britain Travel / → All Tags

Gambling Gets Big in Landlocked Britain

Great Britain just got its biggest casino with the opening last week of Isle Casino Coventry. It's the first overseas casino for the Isle of Capri Casinos gang who are gambling on Brits being big gamblers. A cascading indoor waterfall, 30 slot machines, a 12-table poker room, and 50 roulette stations fill the 100,000 square feet of the new casino.

Coventry, England's ninth largest city and nearly a hundred miles northwest of London, was until now famous for being further from the coast than any other British city. Whether its fortunes will go up or not with the new Isle casino might just be a matter of chance.

Related Stories:
· Isle Casino at Coventry Opens [CNN]
· Casinos coverage [Jaunted]
· Coventry hotels [HotelChatter]

[Photo: lopolis]