Trouble on the Tundra

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Or why I will never use a travel agent again.

I’m in Alaska right now, writing this from the comfort of a “junior suite” cabin on Radiance of the Seas. Outside my window, ten stories below me, is the Pacific Ocean, stretching as far as the eye can see. I’m sitting in a comfy chair with my feet on an ottoman and my little old PowerBook on my lap. Van Morrison is playing from my iPod through my iFusion’s speakers. Mike is reading on the sofa. Life is good.

Finally.

The past six days have been a mixture of hell, heaven, and earth, with more hell than anything else. Don’t believe me? Here’s an outline of what we’ve been through.

Day 1: Sunday

  • Our flight out of Phoenix was delayed 2-1/2 hours. That wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the fact that it was a 6:30 AM flight and we’d woke up at 3:30 AM to catch it. We could have slept in.
  • When our flight finally arrived in Seattle, we were told that we have to switch planes. (Our flight was supposed to be direct, with just that one stop.) They’d sent another plane to Anchorage on time and we missed it. At first, it was unclear whether they could put us on another flight. They finally handed over boarding passes for a flight to Anchorage, just as they’re making their final boarding call. Mike and I couldn’t sit together on the overbooked flight. At least I got a window seat.
  • Although we arrived in Anchorage, our three checked pieces of luggage did not. (We would not see our luggage (or the clean clothes and toiletries they contained) until the next day.)

I realize that I cannot blame my travel agent for Alaska Air’s shortcomings. But I will think twice before flying on Alaska Air again.

Day 2: Monday

In AnchorageWe spent the day with Francis and Barbara, our friends in Anchorage. We were staying at their house. After picking up our luggage at the airport and showering, we had a very pleasant day that included a trip to Whittier and some time spent in and around Anchorage.

No travel agent or airline involved; no problems. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Day 3: Tuesday

  • Alaska RailroadOn arrival at the Alaska Railroad terminal, we were unable to get a boarding pass with seat assignments for the train. Turns out, the train car we were supposed to ride in was overbooked. They put us and two other couples on an empty train car, warning us that we may have to move when they pick up passengers at Talkeetna. It was actually quite pleasant having this whole dome car to ourselves, although we didn’t get regular service from the staff because they expected that car to be empty.
  • Although we paid for an upgraded seat on the train with the understanding that we’d get service similar to an airline’s First Class service, we’re still required to pay for drinks and the food-like substances they served downstairs for breakfast and lunch. Nothing is cheap; nothing is good.
  • On arrival in Talkeetna, there were seven more passengers than seats in the car. The staff told us we may have to move. We (and the couple immediately behind us) refused. They relocated all 7 of the extra passengers to another car on the train.
  • On arrival at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, we were told that our room had two beds rather than the king sized bed we requested. The travel agent had not passed on any room preference. We were given a key to our room and told that if a room with a King bed became available, they’d let us know. We should call them at 7 PM. I told them that I seriously doubted whether they’d move us. (Of course, they didn’t.)
  • We wound our way through the maze of two-story motel-like structures on the Princess property and found our room. It was a tiny, cramped, poorly-ventilated room that reminded me of a Motel 6 room I stayed at once while driving cross-country. The two full-sized beds (not even queens!) were crammed in so tightly that it was impossible to walk around one of them and the table and chairs included in the room were right up against the side of the other one. The television got about a dozen channels and four of them were more static than picture.

Please note the description on our travel agent-provided Itinerary:

The Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, situated high above the Nenana River, is the premium riverside accommodation in the area. Enjoy a soak in the outdoor hot tubs. There is a restaurant and lounge in the hotel and many others close by.

The Denali Princess is on a bluff overlooking the river, but very few of its rooms have any kind of view whatsoever. Ours looked out over what appeared to be a pumping station. There was a wooden porch that ran the length of the building, and when we opened our curtains, anyone walking by could look right in at us, so the curtains stayed closed. There was also a gravel walkway and we could hear people crunching by on the gravel in the mornings and evenings. The place was absolutely packed with Princess Cruise passengers, most of whom where pushing 70. The hot tubs — there were 3 of them — were overflowing (literally) with overweight midwesterners. The only redeeming feature of the hotel was the King Salmon restaurant, which served decent meals at an expectedly high price. Our first night waitress was very nice — the first person we’d met in three days who actually seemed to care about service. But how they could call the place a “wilderness lodge” is beyond me. It’s false advertising, plain and simple.

Side story here. The next evening, while coming back from dinner at the Denali Grand’s restaurant in a shuttle bus, another Princess guest on the shuttle claimed that he liked his room at the Princess. He added: “But you need Fort Knox in your back pocket to eat at the restaurant there.” Obviously, this is the kind of person Princess is serving: people on package tours, who are more concerned with price than quality.

You can bet I’ll never stay on another Princess property or take a Princess cruise.

Day 4: Wednesday

In Denali NPWe spent the day taking the shuttle bus deep into Denali National Park and doing some hiking around the park. It was a pleasant day out. More in another blog entry.

Day 5: Thursday

Following the instructions provided by the Princess people, we tagged our luggage for the return trip to Anchorage on the train and left the three bags in front of our room. Everyone else seemed to be doing the same thing. But when we arrived at Anchorage at 8:30 PM, only two of our bags were at baggage claim. One of our bags had been lost.

The head of baggage claim for the Alaska Railroad and Mike each spoke to people at the Denali Princess. They all said that it was not their problem. They even tried to insinuate that they’d never handled any of our bags because they didn’t have a record of the tags on them. They couldn’t satisfactorily explain how two bags they’d obviously handled had shown up in Anchorage. Thank heaven Mike took care of this. I would have completely wigged out. But he kept working on them about it, even going so far as to take a cab to a hotel where it might have been delivered with other Princess guest luggage.

Of course, the bag was mine. It contained, among other things, my eyeglasses and spare contact lenses; all cables and chargers for my cameras, cell phone, and computer; the manual for my new camera; and a few pieces of clothing I rather liked. We’d moved all our dirty clothes to Mike’s bag. We still had the big bag we’d packed with the cruise clothes, which we’d hoped to check at the train station but wound up lugging around with us.

We checked into a suites hotel near the train station and I did the laundry while Mike tried desperately to track down my bag. Of course, the hotel didn’t have quarters, which I needed for the coin-op washer and dryer, so I had to walk to the Hilton a block away in my pajama pants to get change. (Thank heaven for today’s fashions — no one seemed to notice my attire.) That’s also where I managed to spend $9.50 for two small cups of ice cream. (Got another two quarters in change, at least.)

By midnight, the laundry was done and Mike was back with $100 in cash from Princess to start replacing items. But my bag remained MIA. Or should I say MBP (mishandled by Princess)?

Day 6: Friday

We headed over to the train station where we got the final knife in the back by our travel agent: our reservations for the train were for August 6 (8/6/07) rather than June 8 (6/8/07). (And no, we didn’t use a European travel agent.) The train was completely full and there were no seats available for us.

At this point, I broke down. I’d simply reached my limit. Alaska obviously hated us and was doing everything it could to make us hate it. Or, more likely, our travel agent was completely inept and this was just more proof.

Train to SewardThe folks at the Alaska Railroad took pity on us. They already knew about our missing bag. So they gave us a boarding pass that put us in one of the domed cars and told us to take any seat up top. Other people would have to take turns going up there, but we could stay up there for the entire trip. That was nice — our seats at the front of the car looked up the length of the train to the domed car a few cars up — but the seats weren’t very comfortable. It was a reasonable tradeoff, however, and I thank Alaska Railroad for offering it to us and, thus, saving the day.

At noon, in Seward, Mike started calling Princess again. Good news: They’d found my bag at their Denali property. It had never left the place. Now the challenge was to get the bag to Seward — about 300 miles away by car — before our ship departed at 9 PM.

We boarded the ship at 4 PM. Everything there was as we expected — at least the travel agent hadn’t screwed that up.

And when we returned from dinner at 10:30 PM, my missing bag was in the cabin, waiting to be unpacked.

Why I Blame the Travel Agent

Although I can’t blame the travel agent for the Alaska Air problems, I can blame her for reservation problems and booking us in a hotel that obviously wasn’t up to our standards. We communicated, from the start, that we wanted a “deluxe” vacation and she should have been clued in by the amount of money that we were willing to spend that cost wasn’t a major concern.

The round trip from Anchorage to Denali on the upgraded rail car and two nights at the Denali Princess had cost us a whopping $1500. For three days and two nights that included only transportation and lodging! We’d expected first class train service and we got fancy coach. We’d expected luxury accommodations and got Motel 6 quality. We feel ripped off. And the travel agent is responsible for selling us this bill of good.

People use travel agents to make things easier for them. We used a travel agent because we simply didn’t have time to do the research we needed to arrange our trip. We figured that a travel agent would know the options — or be able to get information about the options — because that’s what she does for a living. It’s her job.

But we were wrong. She obviously doesn’t know how to do her job responsibly or reliably.

If people less capable of dealing with problems while traveling had booked a trip like ours and it had as many screw-ups as we suffered through, those people would have been completely lost. As it was, I was at the end of my rope. On Friday, when it didn’t seem as if we’d get to Seward on the train, I was ready to go home. Go home! In the middle of my vacation!

What kind of a vacation is that?

Things are Good Now

Hubbard Glacier from our CabinBut things are good now. We’re sailing down the coast of Alaska. Today, we got a pretty close look at a glacier, dodging small icebergs along the way. The captain even turned the ship to put the glacier on our side, so we could watch it from our balcony for a short while. I got lots of photos with my new camera, then spent some time reading through its book, learning more about how it works.

I’ll write more about the highlights of the trip when I find time. Now its time to dress for dinner. It’s formal night and we still need to hit the martini bar.

Let’s hope I don’t have anything more to whine and complain about.

Where Am I?

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Just a quick note.

I’m in Alaska these days, on vacation. Although I was hoping to blog the highlights of this trip, so far, I’ve been to busy enjoying it to write.

I’ve been trying to use my Treo to post photos to my TumbleLog. It hasn’t been working. Is it possible that my phone’s e-mail feature works better off-the-grid at our vacation place than in the beautiful city of Anchorage? I do recommend checking in there, just in case I do get it working.

We’ll be boarding the train for a ride up to Denali today. We’ll be there two nights, then return to Anchorage and board another train to Seward. Then we’ll hop on Radiance of the Seas for a cruise down to Vancouver.

The most outrageous thing here: strolling the streets of Anchorage, wandering into shops, with the sun shining at us at 9:50 PM. And seeing families with small kids hanging out in local parks at 10:30 PM, still in full sun.

More when I have time and can connect.

[composed in Anchorage, AK with ecto]

Taking care of business…

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…by helicopter.

A bunch of things are going on in my life right now and I chose yesterday to take care of related errands.

Some Facts about Aircraft Inspections

First, my helicopter is coming up on 500 hours of flight time. It’s about 2-1/2 years old and I fly about 200 hours a year, so this makes sense — I took delivery in January 2005.

Aircraft — all aircraft — are required to have certain periodic inspections to keep them airworthy in the eyes of the FAA. One inspection is called an “annual” because, as you might imagine, it’s done annually. Then there are others, depending on the type of aircraft and the amount of time on it.

Because I’m a commercial operator, I’m also required to get inspections every 100 hours. (Yes, they’re called “hundred hours.”) A hundred hour inspection is very much like an annual on my helicopter — the main difference is the signoff.

Of course, having a calendar-based inspection (annual) and a time-based inspection (hundred hour) could make things sticky at year-end. You seen, the goal of any operator with an eye on the bottom line is to maximize hours flow between each inspection. So say that my annual is due each January, by the end of the month. And say that I had a hundred hour done in June. Now say that between June and January, I only flew 80 hours. I’d still have to get an annual inspection — which is very much like a hundred hour inspection — in January, even if I still had 20 hours before the next hundred hour. I’d do the annual in January, and since that counts as a hundred hour, the clock would be reset. But I’d also miss out on 20 hours of flying between inspections.

So I’ve pretty much decided that until I fly considerably more than 200 hours a year, I’ll get annual inspections instead of hundred hours. It’ll cost me $100 to $200 more, but I won’t have to worry about calendar-based inspections quite as much.

This doesn’t mean I can skip other time-based inspections. My oil changes are still due at 50 hours (or three months, whichever comes first. 50 hours usually comes first, but I don’t wait that long. When the oil starts getting really black, I have it changed — usually at about 35-40 hours. I want my engine to last until overhaul and I do what I can to take good care of it.

This time around, I have some additional maintenance to get done for 500 hours of flight time. I can’t remember all of it, but I think my magnetos need some maintenance and I’m pretty sure the gearboxes need to be drained and refilled. The mechanic knows all this and will take care of it for me as part of the job.

Other Helicopter Stuff

I had two other little things to take care of for my helicopter.

A while back, my primary aviation radio decided that it was going to stop working reliably. I went to Flight Trails, an avionics shop at Falcon Field in Mesa, AZ. After a bunch of testing, they determined that it really was broken and set about repairing it. They loaned me a nearly identical radio to fill the hole in my panel where the bad radio usually sat.

Time passed. Lots of time. Four months. And the other day, Tim from Flight Trails called to tell me they’d found the problem and fixed it. I needed to fly down there so he could swap out the radio and test the repaired one.

The other little thing had to do with the reopening of the helipad on the roof of the Terminal 3 parking structure. Landing at this pad to pick up and discharge passengers would be a great convenience for my passengers. Normally, I land at the Cutter ramp on the south side of the airport and my passengers have to take a free shuttle bus to get to or from the terminal. This would save them a bus ride. And it would save me a few bucks, since Cutter sometimes charges a landing fee and a ramp fee when I come in.

A landing pad on top of a building isn’t the easiest place to land — especially when you have to cross an active runway at a Class Bravo airport to get to it. So I wanted to try flying in with someone else who had done it before I went in with passengers. That was on my to do list, too.

Finally, a Real Vacation

I’m also going on vacation. It’s a two-week trip to Alaska that Mike planned out for us. We leave very early tomorrow (Sunday) and return on June 17. I’m excited about the trip, mostly because I’m eager to visit a new place. And since I’m hoping to get a job in Alaska next summer, this will be a good opportunity to see what it’s like.

Of course, with vacation comes the doling out of responsibilities at home. Two weeks ago, we were in California for a week on a business/pleasure trip and, before we left, we had the task of distributing the members of our menagerie to caretakers. Alex the Bird (a parrot) to Sharon and Lee, Jack the Dog to Ed and Judy, Jake and Cherokee (horses) to Polly’s horse boarding business.

This time we got lucky. Mike’s brother, Paul, was thinking of a vacation away from New York. He volunteered to house-and-animal sit for us in return for airfare. What a deal!

The big job for this trip will be packing. Fifteen days and fourteen nights is a long time to be away from home. And Alaska isn’t the kind of place you can get away with a few pairs of shorts, some t-shirts, and a bathing suit. We have to pack and the clothes we pack will be bulky. With only one shot at a laundromat five days into the trip, we’ll need at least two big suitcases.

A Camera Worthy of Alaska’s Scenery

We also need our “equipment.” Cameras, video camera, laptop, GPS — all kinds of electronic gadgetry that we can’t seem to live without. The good part of this is that about half the time, we’ll be staying on a cruise ship, so lugging it all around won’t be a huge hardship.

And in thinking about where we were going, I realized that our little point-and-shoot digital cameras just weren’t going to cut it. I’ve been seriously into photography at least twice in my life, with considerable investments in quality camera equipment. But it was all film cameras. I packed them into their camera bag at the back of the closet at least three years ago. Now, with their zoom lenses and high-quality optics, they were looking better than our point-and-shoots for capturing the kind of scenery I expected to see in Alaska.

The trouble was, I didn’t feel like dealing with film. Who really does these days?

Wouldn’t it be nice, I mused, to buy a digital SLR that would work with the three auto-focus Nikon lenses I already had? Mike and I began researching. And Mike discovered the Nikon D80. He checked it out in person at Tempe Camera, which is near where he works in the Phoenix area, and came back with a thumbs up. The camera’s only problem: the price. It cost more than my two camera bodies combined — and they’re Nikons, too.

So we put off the purchase decision until Thursday evening, when it was too late to even consider mail order. And that’s when we realized that Nikon dealers didn’t normally stock this camera. I gave MIke a list of authorized dealers and asked him to track one down. I’d pay for it.

A Final Test of the Treo

If you read this blog regularly, you may recall my recent purchase of a Palm Treo to replace my 3-1/2 year old cell phone. I bought it primarily to so I could get Internet access on our off-the-grid camping shed at Howard Mesa.

But by Thursday evening, I hadn’t tested it up there yet. And if I planned to return it to exchange it for something else, I’d have to do so by June 17; the same day we were coming back from Alaska. That means I’d have to bring all the boxes and related junk with me in case I decided to return it. That just didn’t make sense.

What did make sense was going up to Howard Mesa and testing it before the trip so I could make my decision before we left.

My Friday

So that brings us to Friday morning and my list of chores for the day:

  1. Test the Treo with my PowerBook at Howard Mesa. I’d obviously have to fly up; it’s a 2-1/2 hour drive each way and I simply didn’t have 5+ hours to waste before my trip.
  2. Stop by Universal Helicopters in Scottsdale for a quick flight with a CFI for landing at Sky Harbor’s Terminal 3 helispot.
  3. Stop by Flight Trails at Falcon Field to have my radio swapped out, tested, and paid for.
  4. Bring the helicopter in to Silver State Helicopters at Williams-Gateway airport for its 500-hour/Annual inspection.
  5. Buy the Alaska-worthy camera.

And did I mention that Mike had to pick up his brother at the airport?

My iTunes Plus Shopping Spree

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I pick up a bunch of albums full of classics my parents used to listen to.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s; my parents grew up in the 40s and 50s. When I was a kid — before I learned to tune in a radio by myself, that is — I was kind of stuck listening to the kind of music my parents liked. I’m talking about Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, and other “vocalists.”

Although I didn’t really like the music, I didn’t hate it, either. And nowadays, hearing those old songs brings back memories from my childhood. I can still remember trimming the Christmas tree in the living room of our New Jersey home, listening to “It Was a Very Good Year” from an LP on the console stereo by the stairs.

I’ve been collecting some of those old songs for a while, as well as songs from way before that time — big band songs that really made you want to swing. But I never really got into collecting this music as much as I wanted to complete my classic rock collection with my favorite songs from the 70s and 80s.

Sometime within the past year or so, I stopped buying music online. I was simply fed up with the limitations put on the DRM-protected music available on the iTunes music store. I wasn’t interested in breaking the law and downloading music from illegal sites. I wanted to buy it. But I couldn’t see buying an entire CD at a store for $15 or more (plus tax or shipping or both). So I pretty much stopped buying music, except, of course for new releases by my favorite artists: Steely Dan, Eric Clapton, etc.

Frank Sinatra Album CoverEnter iTunes Plus. I wrote about it on Wednesday, explaining how you could use it to update your iTunes Store purchases of EMI-published music to remove the DRM and improve sound quality. One of the things I didn’t mention in that article is that I bought a DRM-free album, Classic Sinatra – His Greatest Performances, 1953-1960. I don’t know about you, but I think 20 songs for $12.99 and immediate gratification without DRM restrictions is a pretty good deal.

So good a deal, in fact, that I stopped by on Thursday and picked up two other albums: Dino – The Essential Dean Martin and The Very Best of Nat King Cole.

I’m buying this music for a few reasons reasons. First of all, I like it and I want to add it to my collection. Second, I think it’s a great deal. And third, I want to do my part to support legal online sales of DRM-free music.

Let’s face it: I’m not a music pirate and most people who rip CDs and buy music for their iPod aren’t either. The music industry is not going to go broke by removing protection from the music. I believe more people will buy it with the restrictions removed. I believe that this could be the answer to turn around the music industry, to get more people buying music again.

But then again, I might be extremely naive about this whole thing and one of the few fools buying iTunes Plus music.

What do you think? Use the comments link or form to share your thoughts with other site visitors.

How to Handle Reciprocal Link Requests

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Why you shouldn’t always say yes.

This morning, I got a feedback message from the owner of another Web site:

My name is [omitted] and I have recently visited your site and wondered
whether you might be interested in exchanging a reciprocal link with our site.

If interested, please respond with a reciprocal link to my website.
======= ======== ======== ======================
Here is our website information:
————————————
Home page URL: http://[omitted[
Website Title: [omitted] Directory
Description: A Wholesalers and Dropshippers directory for traders, ebayers and new businesses.
E-mail Address: [omitted]
Category: (wholesale, wholesalers, dropship, dropshippers, suppliers, trade, Business, Business Services)
Keywords: wholesale, wholesalers, dropship, dropshippers, suppliers, trade, wholesaler, wholesales, directory, list, goods, products, uk, usa, Wholesale Products, wholesale directory, jewelry, clothing, product, gift, t shirt, bead furniture, dvd, watches, apparel leather, food, shopping, USA, America, American, Canada

My, that’s quite an informative request for a reciprocal link. I wonder whether he expected me to set up a Web page for him on my site.

I deleted the request without even replying. Why? Let me tell you.

Reciprocal Link, Defined

To make sure we’re all on the same page (no pun intended), let me start by explaining what a reciprocal link is.

A reciprocal link is an arrangement where one Web site owner includes a link to another Web site owner’s site, with the understanding that that other Web site owner will include a link to his site. A links to B and B links back to A.

In general, it seems like a good deal. After all, you’re getting exposure for your site on another site, right? And all it’s costing is the time and effort and page real estate to add the other link — in other words, hardly anything at all.

But Is It a Good Match?

Consider the request I got this morning. The site owner operates a site that’s a directory of wholesalers and dropshippers. Okay. So what does that have to do with my site?

The answer is nothing. There’s no relationship between what I write about here and the information that’s available on his site.

As a result, only a small percentage of my site’s visitors would be remotely interested in the information on his site. And a small percentage of his site’s visitors would be remotely interested in the information on my site.

What’s the Real Cost?

So you might be wondering, what’s the harm of including a link to an unrelated site on your site? After all, it doesn’t really cost anything.

Well, here’s the way I see it. If you included a link to every single site that asked you for a link, you’d soon have a huge link list with little or no value to your site visitors. You’re using up page real estate to clutter up your site with pretty much useless information.

And on the other side of the reciprocating agreement are sites that are doing pretty much the same thing: building long lists of links to unrelated sites, just so they can get your link to theirs. Is anyone really going to find your link — provided they even bother to look — in that long list?

Is it worth degrading your site to get those links? I don’t think so.

And Are These Requests Real?

That brings up the question of whether the requests you receive are real. In other words, did the site owner who contacted you really visit your site and think it would make a good candidate for a reciprocal link?

In this day and age, spam is all too common. It’s possible that your e-mail address got into the hands of someone who is sending the same exact message to thousands of other Web site owners or bloggers.

The message I received is certainly generic enough to go out to anyone. But in my case, I didn’t get it directly by e-mail. Instead, I got it through the use of my Feedback form, which requires either a really smart spambot or a person to create and send the message. So there’s a good chance that this site owner actually did visit my site.

If so, however, what gave him the idea that I’d link to a dropshipper directory?

When to Say Yes

Of course, some reciprocal link requests will be beneficial for both you and the other site owner. But how can you tell? Here are some things to consider:

  • Is it a good match? As I mentioned before, there should be some relationship between the two sites. Would a link to the other site benefit your site’s visitors? If so, it’s worth considering.
  • What is the other site like? Is it a quality site, one you want to send you site’s visitors to? I’ve ignored many link requests to sites that just weren’t up to my standards due to content quality, design, or excessive advertising.
  • How many links are on the other site? Are they links to related sites? Remember, if the other site has hundreds of links to other sites, it’s not likely that anyone looking at the list will find yours.

Of course, once you decide to enter into a reciprocal link agreement with another site, you’ll need to keep tabs on the other site. Has your link to the other site been created as promised? Is it still there, week after week, month after month? This will increase your site management workload a bit. But if the reciprocal link is one worth having, it’s worth the extra effort to keep track of.

Conclusion

If you get a request from another Web site or blog owner for a reciprocal link, don’t just say yes. Do your homework to make sure you really want that link on your site.

A free link isn’t always free.