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Museums
Tax Museum in Rotterdam
February 13, 2007 at 3:44 PM | 0 Comments
What better way to celebrate tax season than book a trip to the Netherlands? We're not even talking about having a little fun in Amsterdam so you can forget all your woes. Celebrate the ancient act of taxing at the Tax & Customs Museum in Rotterdam, whose pretty exterior belies the ugly reason for its existence. Admission, ironically enough, is free.
Information within includes the predictable history lessons, plus an interactive "smugglers' experience" room. Visitors are herded into a dark room that's meant to simulate the inside of a shipping container, and bullied through some simulated suspense. Exhibits are mostly in Dutch, but you'll get the idea.
[Photo: Imbi]
Related Stories:
· Dutch Tax & Customs Museum [Official Site]
Super Bowl XLI
Super Bowl XLI PriceWatch: Don't Trust the LCCs
January 23, 2007 at 12:40 PM | 0 Comments
If you're a Bears fan heading down to the Miami area for the Super Bowl, don't expect too much in the way of discounts from your favorite LCC. Round trip flights on Spirit airlines are already gouged to $853 for a non-stop. The official dates of Super Bowl weekend are February 1-5, when many hotels have a minimum stay.
One-stop flights are currently pricing out at $634 on JetBlue, and in the $500 area on American (into Miami). As for lodging in Miami, HotelChatter's got you covered for options including the $90 Miami Sun Hotel. The official Super Bowl visitors' site is here, but it charges a mysterious $45 non-refundable processing fee for room reservations.
On the up side, if you're looking for a car at MIA, you can still get passable rates for the weekend. Prices are slightly higher at your alternate airport, FLL.
[Photo: Ddrucki]
Related Stories:
· Super Bowl XLI Hotels [HotelChatter]
TSA
Pay to Keep Your Shoes on in Orlando
January 18, 2007 at 10:50 AM | 0 Comments
Via a tip on FlyerTalk, we know that Orlando International Airport already owns and is testing out a new, expensive shoe-scanning technology in its security lines. The machines cost $200,000 and are, according to Orlando's local FOX station, already slated for use at other airports including JFK. The scanners will save you the hassle of removing your shoes at the airport, but get this: you're gonna have to pay for the privilege.
For a background check and $100 a year (at MCO, at least), travelers can keep their shoes on and have the machines take a molecular peek at their footwear. It's unclear what other advantages the scheme provides--it's not equivalent to the registered traveler program--or if, once the technology is in use at several airports, one low fee will cover you at all of them. As FlyerTalk poster xyzzy puts it, "I won't pay a penny to be treated as everyone should be treated. This is blackmail pure and simple."
[Photo: dorsia]
Related Stories:
· At MCO, Pay to keep your shoes on thru Security? [FlyerTalk]
· Shoe Scanner [my FOX Orlando]
Hawaii
Yes, Hawaii Can Actually Get Even More Expensive
January 5, 2007 at 12:48 PM | 0 Comments
Alex Salkever is the editor of Hawaii travel blog Hawaiirama.com and a general travel maven on all things Hawaii.
With $9 watered-down Mai Tais, hotel charges for junk greeting gimmicks like cheap leis, and a nasty 7.25% hotel accommodations tax, Hawaii is hardly a cheap. Throw in a $350 for a decent hotel room and you have Manhattan in the Pacific. So, pray tell, could Hawaii possibly become even more expensive?
Yes, and you can thank the state and local governments for that. Effective January 1, 2007, Hawaii's state gas tax goes back up by 11 cents per gallon, reversing a previous reduction put in place to take strain off drivers paying record highs at the pump. Me, I love high gas taxes, They encourage less driving which is fine. But if you're on vacation, you don't have much choice, particularly in Hawaii where you need a rental car for every destination save Waikiki.
Even more damaging will be the .5% in the General Excise Tax, which is essentially the Hawaii state sales tax. That means you can expect your $10,000 Hawaii vacation to cost $50 more than it would have before. So there you go. It IS possible for Hawaii to get more expensive.
[Photo: fonzfoto]
Car Rentals
Avis Bringing High-Speed to the Highway
January 4, 2007 at 1:05 PM | 0 Comments
Jaunted may be banned from Hertz, but we're free to drive with Avis, and could soon be blogging straight from the road, not that we'd recommend it. Avis will soon offer integrated WiFi access in its vehicles. Just what we all need, another added fee on our rentals.
The service, provided by Autonet Mobile, offers up a gadget you plug into the car's power supply--it then turns the car into a WiFi hotspot. Not only does this open up the possibility for all sorts of fun accidents, but it could provide serious business travelers with some peace of mind. If all else fails and those who need it can't find a hotel with WiFi, they can always sit in their car...in a scary parking lot...typing away...waiting to get carjacked.
The hookup will cost $10.95 extra per day. Interested customers will also have to sign over their soul to Avis and agree to not sue them into oblivion for related accidents.
[Photo: Mike Knell]
Related Stories:
· Wi-Fi Is Hitting the Road in Cars From Avis, but Technical and Legal Bumps Lie Ahead [NYT]
· Autonet Mobile To Launch WiFi Hotspot For The Car [SlipperyBrick]
