Arthur Frommer's Blog, page 33

Low-Cost Iceland Express May No Longer Be Flying Between New York and Iceland

Iceland Express ( www.icelandexpress.com ), that upstart airline offering a cheap means of reaching several European destinations from New York via Reykjavik, has apparently ceased flying between New York and Reykjavik. I use the word "apparently" because no formal announcement has been made by the airline, and its website appears unchanged. But people at the Iceland Tourist Office in New York have confirmed the news, and when you attempt to make a booking for a New York to Reykjavik flight during the spring months when the airline would normally resume flying between New York and Reykjavik, you are told that there are no flights scheduled for the dates you desire. And since no such dates at all are available on the website, the decision to cease serving that route seems utterly clear.
 
So henceforth, one will need to fly the long-established Icelandair ( www.icelandair.com ) between New York and Reykjavik, but for a higher price than Iceland Express used to charge. But how does one then fly cheaply from Reykjavik to any of several European cities? That's becoming increasingly possible, as a result of the announcement this month that low-cost EasyJet Airlines will begin flying three times a week between London's Luton Airport and Iceland, starting March 27, and a new Iceland-based airline called WOW Airlines (I'm serious) will start flying three times a week between London's Stansted Airport and Iceland starting June 1. EasyJet will charge a highly-attractive £32.99 one-way, and from £58.81 round-trip. WOW will charge (it says) £53 each way, perhaps to be reduced for round-trip purchase.
 
So presumably, you will still be able to save money on a trans-Atlantic journey by flying Icelandair to Reykjavik, and then switching (after a possible stay in Iceland) to either EasyJet or WOW for the remainder of the crossing. This will become clear once Icelandair firmly announces its spring and summer rates out of New York. Currently, one pays $565 (that's dollars, not pounds) to Icelandair for the round-trip (including all taxes and fees) in springtime between New York and Reykjavik, Iceland.
 
And what about Iceland Express? Because a company called Astraeus Airlines (which used to "operate" Iceland Express) has apparently gone bankrupt, according to several reports, the future of Iceland Express is unsettled, although several Iceland business people are attempting to revive it (and they may succeed). But meantime, sharp-eyed, ultra-cost-conscious travelers will want to do the arithmetic, adding the cost of an EasyJet or WOW airlines flight to that of Icelandair, and then seeing whether the resulting figure is below the cost of a standard airline between New York and Europe. Because of the low-cost nature of nearly all EasyJet flights, this may well be the case. Stay tuned.

American Airlines' Decision to File for Bankruptcy Will Have No Impact on Its Flight Schedules or Your Reservations

As was widely expected, American Airlines has filed in bankruptcy. The announcement was made this morning. But as was also widely expected, the filing was under Chapter XI of the bankruptcy laws, and will thus result in the reorganization of American Airlines and not its liquidation. Affected will be AA's obligations under its labor and other contracts, and also affected will be its shareholders and bondholders.

But no one with a current or future reservation for an American Airlines flight will be affected in the slightest -- and that's important for all passengers and would-be passengers to understand. Every major "legacy" airline of America has now filed in bankruptcy, and nearly all of them filed for reorganization under Chapter XI, maintaining and continuing their flights without let-up. So we can now proceed with our lives, and go on to other matters in the world of travel.

The Bottom Has Fallen Out of Many Vacation Offers on Departures Between Now and Christmas

Thanksgiving is now behind us, December 1 looms ahead, and the twenty-some-odd days between December 1 and just before Christmas is the slowest period in all of travel. Except in New York City, whose remarkable stores attract tons of tourists for Christmas shopping, virtually every other destination in America and Europe is largely devoid of tourists during that three-week period. If you can possibly arrange a vacation in the immediate weeks to come, you will enjoy some of the best travel conditions -- lightly-booked planes, uncrowded hotels and restaurants, lightly-booked sightseeing attractions -- of the year.
 
Nothing could better illustrate this than the current price of a $686 round-trip airfare between New York and Singapore (including all government fees and taxes, and fuel surcharge) currently offered by Delta Airlines (see www.airfarewatchdog.com ). And in the cruise market, even sharper discounts are currently available on standard sailings of the Caribbean. Go to the website of any cruise discounter (like www.vacationstogo.com ) and you'll currently find a 7-night cruise of the Caribbean leaving round-trip from New Orleans in the early-December period (on the Carnival Conquest ), on which inside cabins are being offered for $219 per person -- a discount of 87%! That particular offer (it's for $30 a day!), good for the departure of December 4, is surely a world's record. And almost as good is the price for the departure of the same ship in the very next week (December 11) for only $309 -- a discount of 81% (about $44 a day).
 
So if you have a week's vacation lying around, now is the time to travel.

African Safari Costs Continue to Rise, But South African Airways Offers Lower Prices

An African safari is one of the great experiences in travel, an almost-mystical time when you see the world as it was before human beings were on it. In Kenya and Tanzania, among other African nations, you drive through an expanse of totally-undeveloped land, without roads or power lines, without buildings (except for scattered overnight lodges), and with only wildlife to keep you company. In Kenya and Tanzania, in particular, you are virtually guaranteed of seeing thousands of animals in a single "games drive" -- multitudes of wildebeest and giraffes, monkeys and elephants, lions and cheetahs. You actually drive up to within ten yards of a pride of lions.
 
But the popularity of a true African safari has been somewhat hurt in recent years by the occasional disorder in Kenya (the chief location for launching a trip) and more important, by the remorseless rise in the cost of getting there. Once you add up fees, taxes and fuel surcharges, even a short, air-and-land package (roundtrip air to Nairobi and four days in the games parks) mounts up to more than $3,000 per person (although the trip remains a once-in-a-lifetime value).
 
To gain a semblance of a safari activity, combined with the cultural and political experience of an important African country, but at a far more affordable price ($2,499 per person, including airfare from New York or Washington, D.C.), Lion World Travel's (tel. 800/387-2706; www.lionworldtravel.com ) new "South Africa on Sale" package provides the means. Lion World is a long-established Canadian firm headquartered in Toronto, but its clientele is heavily American, and its departures on this particular trip are from the United States (see above).
 
"South Africa on Sale" is a fully escorted trip that includes not simply your airfare but also all government taxes and fees and all airline surcharges. It places you, first, for four nights in a centrally located, first-class hotel of Cape Town, and takes you on considerable sightseeing of that glamorous resort city and the nature reserves, wine cultivating areas, and farmlands around it.
 
It then flies you to Johannesburg and immediately transfers you to the famed (and malaria-free) Pilanesberg National Park, where you stay in the Bakubung Bush Lodge for two nights, from which you are conducted on games drives that afford you the opportunity to see virtually every animal species of South Africa: lion, black and white rhino, elephant, buffalo and leopard. While I called this one-day of game viewing a "semblance" of a safari, it is an affordable introduction to the larger activity.
 
In the course of the trip, you receive six breakfasts and three dinners, as well as numerous additional sightseeing expeditions that I haven't the space to describe. And you pay $2,499 per person on all departures in January, February, March and May of 2012. Until you reach the point where you're willing to pay considerably more for an actual safari (though condensed into four days) in Kenya or Tanzania, "South Africa on Sale" provides an exciting opportunity to enjoy a different sort of holiday.

Travelers Cheer: Maho Bay Camps Announces a One-Year Extension of its Lease Until July 2013

A large audience of guests who have enjoyed moderately priced Caribbean vacations in the tented bungalows of Maho Bay Camps, overlooking the sea and an excellent beach of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, have been sad for some time now over the projected closing of that unique ecological resort. The 35-year-lease of Maho Bay Camps has been scheduled to expire at the end of the upcoming winter season, in late spring of 2012. The land on which Maho Bay Camps is situated is being offered for sale, by its real-estate-speculating owners, at $23 million (which Maho Bay Camps itself can't raise).

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Photo Caption: Boats anchored in Maho Bay. Alexandra Puritz/Frommers.com Community
 But apparently, no one else has bid the asking price in this time of depressed real estate values. And last Friday, Maho announced (in an e-mail to former guests) that it has now been given a one-year extension of its lease, until July of 2013. This means that Maho Bay Camps will remain in existence for the two winter seasons to come, that of 2011-12 and 2012-13 (and for the summer seasons in between). A fascinating, inexpensive vacation among unpretentious, intellectually curious, people will remain available for nearly two more years.
 
Although Maho Bay will accept reservations for only the year to come, that limitation is for administrative purposes, and it's now clear -- as I've been assured by a staff member to whom I placed a call -- that Maho Bay will soon be accepting reservations for January, February, March and April of 2013. Hallelujah!

Travel News Roundup: Getting High, Amtrak WiFi, Carnival Tip Bump, and More

Though I think we've covered most of the significant recent travel developments in this blog, there still remain a handful of other news events that might lightly affect your next vacation or trip.

For some travelers, the decision by The Netherlands to bar foreign tourists from the famous coffee shops of that nation (where marijuana is openly sold), will be of some importance. The ban takes effect in a large part (the southern tier) of Holland on January 1, 2012, and will then be extended to the entire country in 2013

Amtrak has recently equipped 70% of its rail services with wi-fi, and will reach a figure of 75% by the end of the year, when trains in California receive those facilities. This should serve to remind us of the importance of Amtrak to our lives

Carnival Cruises has just increased its mandatory tipping requirement from a former $10 per person per day, to $11.50. This is still insufficient to reward the hard-working cabin and dining room attendants of that line, and the amount should be supplemented by us, in my firm view, when we take a cruise

The last trans-Atlantic sailing of the year by the elegant Queen Mary 2 will leave Southampton, England, for New York on December 12. Since that isn't a popular time for ocean cruising, the ship is now selling balcony cabins -- that's balcony cabins -- for that crossing for as little as $699 per person. Though you'll also have to buy a one-way trans-Atlantic flight to reach London (Southampton) for the cruise, the resulting cost is still one of the great travel bargains

Another great travel bargain for the coming weeks? It's the air-and-land package for $845 sold by China Spree ( www.chinaspree.com ) for a six-night stay in both Beijing and Shanghai during the month of February, 2012. That includes round-trip trans-Pacific airfare from San Francisco, first class hotels in both cities, transportation between the two of them, breakfast daily, four lunches, and escorted transfers and sightseeing. China remains a spectacular value
 

Spirit Airlines Has Added a $34 Charge for Booking its Round-Trip Flights On the Internet

Last year, when Spirit Airlines announced it would charge $20 to $40 for carry-on parcels and bags stuffed into overhead racks, people like me concluded that it would be hard put to impose additional fees on its long-suffering passengers. Already, Spirit Airlines imposes the most numerous extra fees of any airline, sometimes making a joke of its claim to be a budget-priced, cut-rate airline.
 
I underestimated its ingenuity.

Last week, Spirit announced it would henceforth charge $34 round-trip for bookings made over the internet. The only way to avoid that charge is to buy your tickets at the airport. In other words, you must travel to an airport and take the chance that you will be able to find seats on a flight. By seeking to avoid that uncertainty by making your reservations in advance, online, you have to pay $34!
 
With all these extra charges and fees, does a Spirit Airlines flight save you money? I'm doubtful it does. And I know of instances in which people have calculated the total cost (including fees and extra charges) of a flight on Spirit Airlines and found that they have paid more than they could have on a competing carrier, including airlines that make no claim about being budget-priced.
 
How much longer will cost-conscious Americans play the Spirit Airlines game? For how long a time will we ignore the fact that Spirit's prices are greatly increased by its unique extra fees and charges? How much longer will we play the fool?

A Public Relations Campaign Would Have You Believe They've Found the Greatest Natural Wonders

You are about to be inundated, in the next several weeks, with the breathless results--disclosed in the media--of a contest to choose the "7 Greatest Natural Wonders of the World." Conceived by a public relations flack who has enticed hundreds of thousands of people around the world to vote for their choices, this is a follow-up to the same gentleman's contest of a couple of years ago to choose the "7 Greatest Sightseeing Attractions of the World."  Various patriotically inclined citizens of small countries are encouraged to vote in the contest which, the last time around, failed to include the Pyramids of Egypt among the chosen sightseeing attractions but did include buildings and monuments of a far lesser significance. What's important about the contest is that the countries in which the winners are located usually enjoy a considerable upward spike in their incoming tourism as a result of their victory.  The initial results, based only on partial vote-counting, have just been announced, and the improbable winners include the Jeju Island of South Korea (covered with black rocks) and the Princesa Underground River of the Philippines (underneath stalactites and stalagmites). Absent from the initial list of tentative winners are the Grand Canyon of the United States, the Dead Sea of Israel, and the Vesuvius Volcano in Italy. What a contest! It's obvious (as if you needed an explanation) that the voting in this competition is not for natural wonders objectively chosen, but for natural wonders attracting hundreds of thousands of votes from local patriots in small nations. I don't plan to follow the eventual final results. 

With $36 a Day for Late November Departures, Cruiselines Point to Hard Times This Season

A few days ago, I wrote about a November 27, seven-night sailing of the Norwegian Gem from New York that NCL is selling for $49.85 per person per day in inside cabins. That per diem rate results from the cruiseline's offer of $349 for that particular sailing (which is actually sold by one of the line's discounters, www.vacationstogo.com ). Within days after the appearance of my blog, Liberty Travel was advertising the same sailing for as little as $319 (or $45.57 per person per day) in its one-page Sunday ad in The New York Times (although, frankly, it's often difficult to obtain the advertised price when you actually call a Liberty office to book). Nevertheless, I had thought that $45.57 a day would be a near-world's record for the sale of cruises -- but I was wrong. Online Vacation Center ( www.onlinevacationcenter.com ) is currently advertising a November 28, five-night sailing of the upscale Celebrity Millennium from Miami for $179 per person in inside cabins, which comes to $35.80 per person per day. Has anyone ever seen a lower price for an ocean cruise?
 
Are cruises the cheapest form of vacationing in travel today? I'd consider China Spree's "Tale of China's Two Great Cities" (six nights in Beijing and Shanghai) for $899 to be a close competitor to those ocean voyages. When you consider that round-trip air transportation between San Francisco and China is included in the $899 price (for departures on January 15, and February 5, 9, 12, 16, 19, 23 and 26), you surely must conclude that this aggressive tour company is charging less than $35.80 per person per day for the actual stays in China (which include breakfast daily, but lunch only on four of the six days). Contact China Spree ( www.chinaspree.com ) and click on "specials."

Mail Your Application Now for Oxford University's Most Compelling Summer Program Courses

Registration is  open for participation in next summer's Oxford Experience, an outstanding learning vacation of one week or more at England's Oxford University. The deadline for applying is May 1, 2012, but past experience shows that the most popular courses are full and closed to additional students by mid-March, which means that persons interested in an Oxford summer should pay attention to curriculum choices now and send in their applications before the end of this year.
 
I've written about the experience on numerous occassions in years past. According to Oxford's U.S. PR head, this summer's fee for a one-week course -- including tuition, accommodations, all meals (except those on excursions) and evening activities -- is £1,135, or approximately $1,819.