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A Pleasant Travel Experience

• My wife and I recently (May, 2004) returned from a visit to Australia. Since my wife had never been to Tasmania (Australia's smallest state), we took a week off from visiting relatives and friends in Sydney to tour Tassie, as Australians affectionately call the state. On arriving in Hobart, the capital, by plane from Sydney, we rented a car and drove to a B&B called "Undine," the home of Cyril and Jenny Clark, about 10 minutes' easy drive from the center of downtown Hobart. Cyril and Jenny are a lovely couple and they have perfected the B&B experience. The accommodations are very comfortable; the breakfasts are outstanding; each bedroom is supplied with port and chocolates; and tea, coffee and biscuits (cookies) or scones are supplied in the guests' sitting room each night for that late night "cuppa" before retiring. A heated indoor swimming pool and hot tub further contribute to the luxurious facilities.Tasmania has some of the most magnificent scenery in Australia, and I can strongly recommend that anyone contemplating a visit to Australia include Tasmania on their itinerary. If you enjoy the B&B experience, you can find Jenny and Cyril's establishment on the Internet at http://members.ozemail.com.au/~undine (Email: undine@ozemail.com.au).

Peter Ronai

Another Pleasant Travel Experience

• In June, 2003, my wife and I returned from visiting our daughter in the Bay Area. During our visit, we motored down the coast to San Simeon to visit the Hearst "Castle," the estate of the late publishing magnate, William Randolph Hearst. The experience was reminiscent of visits we have made to the estates of some of the nobility in France, except that it was more opulent than most of the French estates we have seen (with the notable exception of Versailles). If you have never visited the Hearst "Castle," I can recommend it. (You can make reservations for tours of the estate on the Web at www.hearstcastle.org).

• However, my main point in this posting is to recommend the hotel where we stayed while in San Simeon. San Simeon village is about 6 hours south of San Francisco, so you'll probably want to stay at least one night. We stayed at the Best Western Cavalier Oceanfront Resort. The rooms are superb, the view of the ocean is wonderful, and the motel has a heated pool, spa and fitness center. The room rates are very reasonable (particularly with AAA or AARP discount). The only slightly negative aspect is the lack of included breakfast, though the resort has an OK restaurant, which serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. The contrast with our experience at Oxford Suites in Spokane, below, was telling. (You can read about the resort and make reservations at www.cavalierresort.com).

Peter Ronai

A Different Travel Experience: Oxford Suites, Downtown Spokane

• In May, 2003 my wife and I attended a wedding in Spokane. We stayed at the downtown Oxford Suites hotel, in a lovely room overlooking the river and the downtown skyline. The room was very comfortable, but our experience convinced us never to stay in an Oxford Suites hotel again. Right outside our door was an ice machine. I've stayed at hotels before with an ice machine near my room, and it has never been a problem. In this case, however, it was a BIG problem, because every 10-15 minutes loud tumbling ice noises penetrated the wall of our room as if the ice machine were in the room with us. Most hotels and motels have cinder block walls, but I suspect the walls of the Oxford Suites were made of just drywall sheets. Even the coughing of the guy in the next room came through loud and clear. After our first night, we complained to the front desk about the ice machine, requesting that they either unplug the machine, or give us another room. They were quite unresponsive. We had to get the security guard at 1:30 AM to manhandle the machine away from the wall and unplug it, before we could get some sleep.

• Conclusion: If you are planning to stay at an Oxford Suites hotel, take your ear-plugs!

Peter Ronai

Problems getting around Central London

My wife and I visited the United Kingdom in March, 2003 and would like to pass on information about problems we experienced getting around Central London.

• There is a new "Congestion Charge" of $8 per day for all private vehicles entering Central London. This is designed to alleviate Central London's severe traffic congestion. As intended, this has resulted in a redistribution of commuter load onto public transport. Buses and trains are overcrowded.

• Unfortunately, the Central Line, that portion of the London Undergound (subway) system serving most of Central London, was still shut down during our visit as a result of a derailment in January, 2003.

• The combined effect of the "Congestion Charge" and the Central Line closure was misery for those like us with destinations in central London. Buses were often full and unable to stop to load passengers, or if they did stop, could load only as many passengers as got off. On one occasion we had four buses go by without stopping because they were full. We finished up catching a bus that went only part of the way, and walking the rest.

• Anti-war demonstrations further complicated movement around Central London. On 3/22/03 there was an anti-war demonstration by 200,000 (police estimate) to 500,000 (demonstrators' estimate) people. All bus traffic into Central London was suspended, so that we were left with no way to get into, or move around within, Central London other than on foot. It took us an hour and a half to walk from our hotel to the British Museum. We were able to get a bus only part of the way back to the hotel in the evening, as a demonstration in Oxford Circus caused the police to block the roads around Oxford Circus to all vehicular and foot traffic. It took us two hours to get from the British Museum back to our hotel.

• If you have plans to visit London, I strongly advise checking London Transport's web site for the Underground (the "Tube") at http://tube.tfl.gov.uk when you make your plans.The Tube is the only way to get around London, and any line closures could have disastrous effects on your mobility, as we discovered. Of course, if you make your plans a long way ahead, checking the Tube web site may not help predict problems at the time of your visit. Our visit to London was a last minute trip, to take advantage of one of those great Internet deals for last minute travelers, and we goofed by not checking for problems with the Tube before committing ourselves.

Peter Ronai

Problems getting from London Heathrow Airport to the hotel and back

• There are two main private companies offering direct service by bus or van from London's Heathrow Airport to various London hotels. The larger of these is Hotelink. We had arranged from the USA to use Hotelink for transfer to our hotel. On arriving at the Hotelink desk in the Heathrow terminal, we checked in and were told our bus would arrive in 5-10 minutes. We stood waiting with our luggage on the crowded concourse for an hour before the bus finally arrived. As if that weren't enough, the bus then took us to the wrong hotel! (There are several London hotels in the "Thistle" chain, all differentiated by unique names, such as the Thistle Hyde Park, the Thistle Kensington Gardens, etc.) We finished up at a different Thistle hotel than the one we had specified to Hotelink. We had to give the Hotelink driver the street address of the correct Thistle hotel before we finally got to the right destination.)

• When the time came to return to Heathrow at the end of our stay in London, I took pains to reconfirm in advance with the Hotelink office, giving them the hotel's street address. They gave me a pick-up time of 8:30 am. Sure enough, at 8:30 am an (unmarked) van pulled up at the hotel and the driver called out to us, "Airport?" We gave him our name and he responded, "Yes, yes," so we climbed aboard and the van took off. About 15 minutes into the trip I told the driver that we were leaving from Terminal 3. A puzzled look came over him, and he responded, "There's no Terminal 3 at Gatwick Airport." It turns out that this van was from the other transfer company, and it was supposed to pick up a couple from our hotel for Gatwick, not Heathrow! The driver had to turn around and take us back to our hotel to pick up the couple he was supposed to take to Gatwick. This was in stop-and-go, bumper-to-bumper traffic, so it took another 15 minutes to get back to the hotel. We were very fortunate that the Hotelink bus was a half hour late, so we got back to our hotel just in time to catch it to Heathrow. Whew!

• The moral of these stories is clearly that one must be as specific as possible when dealing with these transfer companies, and then check, check, check!

Peter Ronai