Adventure City Tours Travel Blog

Back in February I wrote about Travelling With Children - Try a Rental Townhouse.

I recently returned from a vacation where I used one of these rental townhouses and I had a few updates I wanted to pass along based on some of the things that I learned.

1. You will likely have to go to the rental office to pick up the keys, pass codes, etc.  This can very likely be a good drive away from the actual house so plan your time accordingly.  It probably would not hurt to use something like Google Maps to help plan on directions.
2. Sometimes when you are checking out they may not actually have someone coming into the rental until much after your departure.  As such, don’t be afraid to ask for a late departure.  On my last stay they let me stay till 5pm without any additional charges. 
3. Even though the web sites states that you are a certain distance from an attraction, don’t assume that is the case.  Check it out with a mapping software such as Google Maps.
4. Many of the rental companies also offer discounts on local restaurants and attractions.  It never hurts to ask.

In any case, I still am a huge fan of vacation rental homes and would definitely recommend it to anyone travelling with children.

I was looking through the travel section of FatWallet and came across what I think is the biggest list I have ever seen of car rental discount codes.  From this list they seem to have just about every combination you can think of.  If you can’t find the code then chances are you don’t need to go there. 

If you are looking for a cheap place to fly from where you live, I recommend that you check out the Travelocity Dream Map.  From this site you can choose the city you live in ad find some of the cheapest flights available from that location.    You can even narrow down your search to North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe , Caribbean, Asia & the South Pacific.  After choosing a destination from the map you are presented with various flight options.  If that site does not work for you then Yahoo Travel has a similar service.

So you have saved up all of these airline or hotel frequent flyer points, but the place you want to go to is not serviced by the hotel or airline that you currently use.  What do you do.

One easy way is to try to see if you can get the points converted to an airline or hotel that does service this area.  The next question is how to optimize your point transfer.  The first thing I would recommend doing is to check out WebFlyer’s Mileage Converter.  From this page you can pick the points program you want to switch from and the one you want to switch to and from that you are presented with a number of options that help you to best maximize your point transfer.

Without a doubt you will not be as well off as if you were to use the points you currently have.  However if you are in a bind, this is likely one of the best ways you can go to maximize your transfer.

Do you have any other ideas on how to optimize point transfer?  If so, let me know.

How many have times have you taken a flight only to get on the flight wishing you had chosen a different seat?  Have you checked in with the airline kiosk wondering which seat you should choose?  Well worry no longer.  Thanks to the SeatGuru.com you have the ability to choose the airline you are planning to fly, the aircraft type (i.e. Airbus 319) and then you are presented with a chart outlining the best and worst seats as well as which ones have power, video and audio.  It even gives you an idea on what you should expect with respect to food.

Definitely worth checking out before your next flight.

After travelling for a few months, I quickly realized one of my most important shaving bag items was earpugs. I can not tell you how many times they have saved me. I will never forget the stay I had in New York City where they were doing rennovations late into the night. Then there was the other time where the air conditioning unit sounded like a 747 airplane. Oh and don’t forget about that guy who was snoring so loud I could hear it thorugh the walls.

For each of these cases I simply pulled out my earplugs and had a great night sleep.

Now just a few recommendations.

1. Don’t go cheap on earplugs: Get some really good ones that are comfortable and check the number of decibels that are blocked
2. Careful of the wake up call: I have never had a problem hearing the wakeup call with earpugs, but it is something to consider when using them.

It’s a small thing, but I guarantee some day you will be be so happy you have them.

The next time you book a hotel. Consider this. Most hotels will offer corporate discounts on the regular room rate. On a recent hotel stay in New York state, I was booked into a hotel at one of the big name hotels. When I arrived at the hotel, I asked if they had a corporate rate for company X, which was a company very close to the hotel. Luckily for me (or should I say my company) there was a discount and rather than paying $179 US for the room, the rate dropped down to $109. Now every hotel / company is going to have different discounts. But what the heck, if you are staying anyway, may as well try to get a discount.

I was visiting the Red Flag Deals travel section and noticed a post which listed a number of really good discount codes for car rentals at AVIS.

A couple of exampes include:

Save $30 on SUV Weekly Rentals + Free Ski Rack + Unlimited Mileage
Coupon Number MUFA186
Expiration date: 4/30/07

$20 Off Weekly Rental plus an Upgrade
Coupon Number MUCA077
Expiration date: 2/28/2007

I have not tried these yet, but they seem like great deals. I would recommend giving them a try.

Looking for some new things for your next trip? Well Paypal is offering a $15.00 rebate with $30.00 on your next Paypal purchase. Some great ideas include luggage from sits like eBags and Macro Luggage or camera and photo equipment from stores like B&H Photo Video, Cyber-Japan and The Camera Box. This promotion ends on March 31, 2007, and your rebate will be deposited into your PayPal account by May 28, 2007.

If you are like me, you are often travelling with small children for vacations. Up until recently, I have tried to get hotels with separate bedrooms so that my wife and I can have a little peace and quiet while the kids sleep. As you can imagine, having one big hotel room does not work very well when you are trying to watch a movie after the kids go to sleep.Of course the main problem with a hotel with a separate bedroom is the price.

So that is why I thought I would try renting a house. In my case a townhouse in a gated community. Initially I was a little skeptical since it was so much less than a hotel. The one I chose (in Kissimee, Florid) had a community pool, a hot tub in the backyard and 3 bedrooms. All for about $700 for a week. If I were to try to rent a hotel for the week it would have been well over $1000.

In any case, I love this option and would recommend this to anyone.