A Brush with Obama ... sort of

HONOLULU, Hawaii - Headed back from dinner Thursday night at a tourist-packed but fun place on Waikiki Beach called Duke's - tiki torches, palm trees and all that - and came up to the third floor of the Waikiki Marriott. There was a terrific Hawaiian band playing, with a slide guitar player around 40, a woman in her 30's (I'm guessing) playing a terrific ukelele, a middle-aged man with a fine baritone playing bass and a woman who turned out to be 81 sitting and playing electric guitar.

Turns out they're the Keawe Ohana and Friends family (ohana means family in Hawaiian) and it's about their last gig in these parts before they jet to Washington for the inauguration of Honolulu's own Barack Obama.

"We're pretty excited," said manager Eric Keawe.

I guess they would be. They're an outstanding band that plays mostly Hawaiian-language tunes but will sprinkle a bit of Don Ho into their act on occasion. Very nice, very fun. At the end of the show, Eric invited me up to the front of the stage to hold hands with some aging American tourists for the final song. A tad embarrassing, but what the heck.

Just a few minutes earlier, I had stopped at one of the numerous t-shirt shops on Kalakaua Avenue - the main strip along Waikiki Beach - and bought a t-shirt that reads, "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness - President Obama 2009." Accompanying the words is a silhouette of the president-elect (not president yet, folks) bodysurfing at nearby Sandy Beach. Pretty cool.

BREEZY WEATHER -WORSE THAN I THOUGHT

No complaints from the Canadian visitors, but the folks out here are a little frosty from some severe winds that are blowing through Hawaii the last couple days. The leader of the Keawe Ohana and Family band was jokingly (I think) asking for hot chocolate at the end of their outdoor show on the third floor of the Marriott. The usually quiet Waikiki Beach is blowing up big, choppy waves as we speak, or as I write, and they've already cancelled classes on the island of Maui due to the heavy winds expected to blow over the isle today.

Actually, now that I've gone outside and read the morning papers, it turns out almost the entire state has shut down due to 60 mph winds. Most government offices have been closed, and it's probably wreaking havoc at the airports. Not good for the golfers at the nearby Sony Open, the second PGA Tour event of the season. It'll be like Scotland, but with palm trees and hibiscus flowers. Neither Mike Weir or Stephen Ames is at the tourney. Chad Campbell of the U.S. was here but stupidly forgot to register on Friday before leaving Texas for Hawaii. He got to the tourney, only to find out he hadn't actually signed up, so he had to go home. Dumb with a capital D.

UNITED VERSUS AIR CANADA

Took an Air Canada flight to SF to get here, then hopped on a United flight to Honolulu. After flying AC almost exclusively and getting used to the personal TV's with dozens of movies and such, it was a shock to look up in the aisle of the United plane and see a giant television/movie screen. Complain all you like about AC, and I sometimes do, but you gotta love the entertainment options.

On top of that, the seats on this flight were particularly close together. Scrunch city, and I'm only 5-9 on a good day.

They charge about the same for a meal as Air Canada but had only turkey wraps on this flight. On the other hand, the blankets and pillows were free and the staff was pretty friendly. On their Hawaii flights they even do a contest to guess the exact time the plane will be halfway between the mainland U.S. and Honolulu. They give you the time you took off, the airspeed in nautical miles, the distance in nautical miles and the headwinds, and you get to try to figure it out to win a bottle of wine or some macadamia nuts. I didn't try any heavy duty calculations, in my defence, and I missed by about 10 minutes.

MMM...MMM...GOOD

Off to breakfast. Gonna look for some Spam Musubi at some point, but not until after a cup of coffee and something a little more familiar. For those unaccustomed to Hawaiian cuisine, one of the most popular items all over the islands is a slice of fried Spam (they got used to it during World War II and still love it) on top of sushi rice, wrapped in a small sliver of seaweed. It's got a bit of a soy (shoyu they call it here) sauce glaze and it's not entirely inedible. Or so I recall. But I'll let ya know later; maybe next week.

 

MORE AIRLINE OPTIONS?

Reuters reports that RyanAir, the low-cost provider of air travel in Europe, has held talks with the folks in Buffalo about shuffling passengers off to Dublin, Ireland through upstate New York.

It would be a great alternative to Pearson for some folks, especially those who live down Hamilton or St. Catharines way.

Reuters reports that the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority is "aiming to attract low fare airlines to the Buffalo Niagara International Airport."

There's also talk that the drop in oil prices could see the resurrection of Zoom Airlines flights from Toronto to Europe.

Bring it on; the added competition could only be good news for southern Ontario travellers.

COMPETITION FOR CALIFORNIA?

Folks down in Virginia have a burgeoning wine biz, and the city of Richmond will host a Virginia Wine Expo from Feb. 27 to March 1. More than 45 Virginia wineries will have tastings and comparisons, and there also will be wine seminars and celebrity chef demonstrations. go to virginiawineexpo.com for more information.

BLOSSOMS BY THE BILLIONS

Driving south after the march Break? The National Cherry Blossom Festival will be held in Washington, D.C. from March 28-April 12, with more than 3,000 cherry trees in (they hope) full bloom.

I NOW PRONOUNCE THEE...

The Big Apple is hoping to take a big bite out of the Las Vegas honeymoon biz. New York just recently opened a "Manhattan Marriage Bureau" near New York city hall in lower Manhattan, at 141 Worth St. They spent more than $12 million U.S. to gussy the place up.

It's hard to say whether it'll work. A wedding ceremony followed by a ride on a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park sounds more fun than watching a fake volcano blow up in Las Vegas every hour. But the weather's a lot better in Nevada, and it's certainly a cheaper destination. The golf's a little better in Vegas, too.

ROSES ARE RED ...

Okay, guys, it's about a month until Valentine's Day. That would be Feb. 14 for those of you keeping score at home.

With the big day in mind, travel folks are swelling with pride over their bountiful deals.

Here are a few of them:

Fairmont Hotels has a series of "doghouse" packages aimed at getting you out of the doghouse and into a nice set of matching bathrobes. Included are deals at signature Fairmont properties in Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia. Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City has a deal featuring a romantic, chateau-style room, daily buffet breakfast for two and a special in-room delivery, with rates starting at $328 a night. Fairmont Chateau Laurier's package for Ottawa is called the "puppy love" package and features a bouquet of red roses, an aphrodisiac chocolate and breakfast delivered to your room, with rates starting at $395 a night. Most deals begin Feb. 15.

If you're interested in the northeast U.S., check out the Jared Coffin House (not a particularly romantic name) in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where you can wander cobblestone streets and have a drink by the fireplace. Chocolate-covered cranberries are dispensed upon arrival and there's a gourment Sunday breakfast for two, with rates starting at just $124 U.S. for Saturday night. Hotel officials recommend a stop at Ladybird Lingerie for the top of the line intimate wear.

One step down the line, if you will, is the Marmara Manhattan's getaway package, which gives you a one-bedroom suite in New York for two nights with a dozen roses, rose petals on the bed, a bottle of champagne, chocolate-covered Turkish Delight candies and a Kama Sutra kit "for couples to indulge their sensuous side."  The deal is $699 U.S. for the two nights for a suites hotel on the Upper East Side of Manhattan complete with a kitchen.

Willing to travel a little further? The Viceroy in Santa Monica, California has a weekend package that includes accomodation in an Ocean View Room, dinner for two at the restaurant Whist, a bottle of wine, local strawberries, organic bath amenities and poolside pedicures. You also get an organic breakfast and bike rentals (presumably organic) to tour the Santa Monica Farmer's Market. It'll cost you $800 including tax and gratituities but that's 35 per cent off and isn't your sweetheart worth it?

Le Meridien Bora Bora also has a romance package, but if taking your honey to the South Pacific isn't enough to get things going you're probably beyond hope.

GOURMET MONTREAL

The second annual Happening Gourmand restaurant week is underway in Montreal and runs through Jan. 31. Eight restaurants in Old Montreal are offering three-course, prix-fixe menus at either $17, $22 or $27. Go to happeninggourmand.com for menus.

OBAMARAMA

The Los Angeles Times reports that heading to Washington D.C. for next Tuesday's inauguration of Barack Obama isn't as problematic as some have suggested. A website called CrashtheInauguration.com can hook you up with locals, maps and travel info for the big bash.

JONAS JOY

The folks at Atlantis, Paradise Island resort in the Bahamas are presenting a Jonas Brothers "Burning Up" Atlantis package for three exclusive concerts this spring. The three day/two night packages includes accomodations, round-trip ground transfers on island and tickets for the concerts, with rates starting at $639 U.S. per person or $199 per child (ages 11 and under) for the March 14 and April 19 shows, and $589 per person and $199 per child for the May 9 concert. Call 1-800-Atlantis or book at atlantis.com.

OVER-RATED

Author and frequent traveller Leon Logothetis has put the cat among the guinea fowl with a

listing of his five most over-rated places in the world (well, the Middle East and Europe in this case).

Some of them seem quite understandable; others a bit puzzling. But that's the nature of travel. Nobody's

right and nobody's wrong. There's just millions of shades of grey.

It's like doing a backpacking trip in Europe. You'll meet someone who says "You gotta go to

Amsterdam. It's so cool. We sat outside for dinner and I had this amazing meal and stayed in

this incredible hostel." But then you go and it's raining and the hostel's full and you

can't find the restaurant and you eat in a dive and sleep in a dump and come away thinking,

"That place sucks."

Anyway, with that in mind, here's the over-rated list from Mr. Logothetis, as printed recently in the Los 

Angeles Times
 
1. Athens
2. Dubai
3. Moscow
4. Prague
5. Paris
 
Whoa? Paris. All I can think is the guy simply has too high expectations. But again, that's

what travel's all about.

He certainly has a point about taxi drivers in Athens. Dubai makes a certain amount of sense

given how  much it's changed. Prague was great when I was there six years ago but who knows

what it's like these days. Moscow was interesting when I was there for the vote on the 2008

Summer Olympics but I have no desire to go back to a place where you can't trust public

officials. Besides, a future visit would almost certainly fall short of the star treatment the media got

at the Olympic session, where colleague Dave Perkins and I sat at the Bolshoi ballet and

watched Russian leader Vladimir Putin stride past us, just a few feet away.

But it got me thinking (always dangerous) about my own overrated places. I'm going again

soon and hope it's better, but the last time I was in London (the big one, not our London) it was about 35

degrees and simply stinky. London's not built for the heat and I couldn't wait to get out of there but I

understand it's a lot more comfortable these days so I'm looking forward to it.

Florence is beautiful, but in the summer you might as well forget about it; you can hardly

move and you spend the whole day feeling like you're on a Tokyo subway; all squished and

elbowed and sweaty and icky. No, thanks.
 
On a more local scale, you wonder about what's overrated in Toronto. Personally, I don't get

the Eaton Centre. It's fine, but it's a shopping mall. No better or worse than any others

except for the airy upper floors. And Yorkville is WAY overrated; two blocks of overpriced,

undervalued shops. The only good part is the small park with the giant rock that the city

built at enormous expense a few years back. West Queen West and even Bayview Avenue in

Leaside kick Yorkville's butt.
 
But that's just me. What do you think? What's overrated in southern Ontario and in the travel

world in general? I'd love to know your thoughts, so drop me a line at jbyers@thestar.ca

 
 

WOOF WOOF

As author Dave Barry might say, "you couldn't make this stuff up."

It seems the good folks at Loews Hotels are capitalizing (sorry about that) on U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's coming inauguration in Washington, D.C. and his stated promise to provide his family with a dog. They're offering a, wait for it, special "indoguration" deal with the "Presidential Pooch" package.

The package includes a one-night stay at Loews Hotels 17 properties for guests and their pets, a special "Stars and Stripes" room service meal for pups and a (this is hard to believe) "patriotic-themed bandana" for dogs to wear when they're back at home, apparently so they can brag to the other dogs on the street.

The package offers rooms at 10 per cent off the usual, best available rate. Prices start at $139 U.S. and the deal is valid between Jan. 20 and April 29.

Oh, the Loews press release even included the recipe for the "Stars and Stripes" meal for the presidential pooches. Included is ground turkey, an egg, olive oil and then the red, white and blue combo of sundried tomato fettucini, star-shaped pasta and blue-corn kernels.

Whatever happened to a simple can of Alpo?

TUMBLING TOURISM DOWN UNDER

Despite the lovely footage of Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in the movie "Australia," (or perhaps because of the wooden dialogue, I don't know), tourism in Australia is expected to drop four per cent this year, according to Agence France Presse.

The Australian government invested about $40 million Canadian on a campaign using the movie, which has been a huge bust in most parts of the world. I didn't mind it, but to have a tough guy like Jackman go through all sorts of tribulations and mutter nothing stronger than "Oh, crikey" made me cringe.

There was no figure offered on Canadians, but the AFP report suggested U.S. visitors would fall 8.5 per cent this year.

Nobody's called me, but if the Aussies need someone to come down and extol their virtues to the world, I'm available. I've been to Sydney, the Great Barrier Reef (a little disappointing, at least where we went) and Melbourne and drove along the Ocean Road, where visiting the Twelve Apostles almost made we weep. But I haven't checked out Ayers Rock or Perth or the lovely wineries in the Barossa Valley or Darwin or anywhere up that way, where much of the movie was shot and which appears spectacularly beautiful.

SNOWBIRD STOP

Got an email the other day from Stephen Roach, who's a sales coordinator at the Fairfield Inn and Suites - College Inn in Georgetown, Kentucky; just north of Lexington. Seems he was taken aback, in a nice way, with the number of folks from Toronto taking up space in his hotel on Saturday night, January 3.

"Once my curiosity was sufficiently aroused I asked a traveler why they stopped here," Roach wrote. "The response I received was simple enough, 'Because Georgetown is the halfway point to Florida.'"

Putting aside the point that it depends on WHERE you're going in Florida, it was a point that Roach found pretty interesting.

"This ... is a gold mine for us," he wrote. "Kentucky is like an oasis on an otherwise desolate journey and the Blue Grass region, especially, has a lot to offer travellers. With bourbon and race horses being the primary exports of the region, not to mention Toyota hybrids, it is no wonder why so many Canadians come through the area and, further more, it is no mystery how we feel about them."

No offence to Roach, as I like bourbon more than rye myself and find Kentucky a pretty state, but Torontonians don't stop there because of the whiskey or the race horses or the cars that are built in the region, but because of his first point - it's about halfway to the parts of Florida most of us drive to. We don't care if it's Kentucky or Tennessee or Georgia or what it's called, we just want a clean place to sleep that's close to the highway and offers a free breakfast so we don't have to eat at Waffle House.

Still, at least Roach was nice enough to notice we're not Americans and took the time to write a letter. So, next time you're on I-75, pull in and mention my name. You might get a free bowl of cereal in the morning.

MEA CULPA

Bone-headed move on my part; I wrote last week that I didn't think there were flights from Toronto to Kingston, Ontario. I thought I had checked but if I did it was a pretty lousy job, as there are Air Canada connections to Kingston from Pearson. My apologies for the sloppy work, and thanks for the folks who pointed it out.

TTC BLUES PART II

Okay, for several days last week the token-dispensing machines at the Lawrence subway station's northern entrance were busted. Both of them. That was a hassle but not the end of the world. Then, today, a traveller weary of trudging through the snow arrived to find the token machines working but both turnstiles inoperative, at least for tokens. Metropass holders were on luck but not the rest of us. One machine had an out of order sign on it and the other was jammed by someone's token. I could hear someone complaining to a TTC official but they weren't getting anywhere, so we all climbed the stairs and went south to the main station.

A woman there was complaining to the person staffing the booth, explaining that old folks having trouble with walking in the snow were being severely inconvenienced by having to walk two blocks south. But the worker was yelling at the woman and not doing anything, as far as I could tell, to help the situation.

Then we get on the train and it sits. And sits. And sits. It turns out there was a disabled train at Summerhill, so it took about 25 minutes just to get to St. Clair. The person on the intercom came on and said, "We apologize and we HOPE to have service restored as soon as possible."

WHO WRITES THESE ANNOUNCEMENTS? What do you mean you HOPE to have service back as soon as possible? OF COURSE YOU DO. The proper comment is that you WILL have service bacj as soon as possible. Or you could say you HOPE to have service back in a certain period of time. But the announcement as stated made no sense.

Anyway, I arrive at Union Station - finally - and go upstairs to wait for the Bay bus to take me to 1 Yonge Street. There's a bus shelter on Bay below Front but the side panels of glass are quite short and don't offer protection from the wind or the snow. I'm huddling along the glass but I'm still getting soaked, and then I look up and find the roof of the attractive but incredibly poorly designed shelter is maybe three feet long and offers ALMOST NO PROTECTION from the elements. This might be a city of Toronto sidewalk design issue, but it's stupid to put up a shelter if you're going to make the damn thing so small.

Could the TTC possibly be any worse? And now they want to dump a few thousand more folks onto the Yonge street line by extending into York Region? Where are those people going to sit or stand, cuz there's for sure no room on the subway in rush hour right now. They'll get crammed in like proverbial sardines, maybe with those types of subway pushers they have in Tokyo to jam everyone into a tiny spot and create zero personal space between you and Garlic Man. They'll arrive at Union Station all hot and sweaty and pissed off. But at least they'll have a nice bus stop awaiting them.

THE RICH GET RICHER

CLEARWATER, FLA - I've been travelling in and around North America for quite a while, and it still kills me how the hotel business works.

I just finished staying at a posh resort (yeah, it's a tough life) in St. Petersburg, where rooms are several hundred dollars a night and then they stick you with a $22 per night "resort fee." As if paying the room rate isn't enough, you have to pay for things you might not even use. And if you want a cup of coffee during the day to wake you up, it's $3 for a simple Starbucks blend in the lobby. Breakfast likely will cost you $15 to $20.

On the other hand, if you stay at one of the cheaper chains - I was at a Fairfield Inn by Marriott last night - you get free breakfast with everything from belgian waffles and fresh bagels to yogurt, boiled eggs, five kinds of cereal, oatmeal, fresh fruit, coffee and tea and three kinds of juice. The high-speed internet is free. And the coffee is free all day in the lobby. And the room? Seventy eight bucks. There's a small pool and a hot tub but no resort fee. You gotta love it.

HOCKEY? WE DON'T WATCH NO STINKING HOCKEY

Hate to tell you folks, but I couldn't find a word about the world junior hockey tournament in the local papers down here. Of course, the Dolphins were in the NFL playoffs on Sunday (well, they were on the field, anyway; we're not sure what Chad Pennington was doing) and the University of Florida is in the NCAA/BCS number one playoff thingy on Thursday against Oklahoma. Plus it's college basketball season.

Still, if anyone in the city of Tampa Bay outside of the Lightning organization has ever heard of John Tavares I'd be shocked.

 

Stupid Travel Tricks

It's a wacky world out there, what with extra fees and nothing but peanuts to give out on some airplanes. But the owners of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal Nevada brothel near Carson City, is doing the honourable thing by reimbursing its fly-in customers for any baggage or extra fees they might incur.

"As long as the airlines keep sticking it to the consumer, we feel obligated to help," Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, told Travel Weekly.

It's that sort of spirt that made American brothels great, isn't it?

I SAID OAKLAND, NOT AUCKLAND

There's a famous story in aviation circles about a guy who departed Los Angeles for what he thought was Oakland, California and wondered why he was still looking at ocean after three hours in the air. Turns out he was winging his way west to Auckland, New Zealand, and for sure someone at the L.A. airport had some 'splaining to do about that one.

The San Francisco Chronicle the other day printed a series of similar incidents where passengers screwed up their tickets (oh, the joys of late-night Internet booking) and found themselves in unexpected places. One chap from Germany thought he was going to Sydney, Australia and ended up in Sidney, Montana. He had to wait three days in Billings, Montana to get a flight out, and their opera house apparently isn't all that hot.

Another traveller, a female sculptor from Argentina, thought she was headed to the Sydney down under but ended up in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Rather than head out, however, she spent a week enjoying the Maritimes, and I say good for her.

Wonder if others have made similar mistakes and ended up in Hamilton, Ontario instead of Hamilton, Bermuda. I don't think commercial airlines fly into Kingston, Ontario or else someone looking for a sun holiday in January in Jamaica surely would've screwed that up.