Travel Tip of the Week #2

Changes You Need to Know...

There are a few things that every traveler needs to know to make sure their trip/vacation is as stress free as possible. One of the more important regulations effects what you can and cannot pack in the way of liquids. Since I have had a few clients ask me about the details of this regulation, I thought I would paste the exact wording from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) website.

3-1-1 for carry-ons = 3.4 ounce bottle or less (by volume) ; 1 quart-sized, clear, plastic, zip-top bag; 1 bag per passenger placed in screening bin. One-quart bag per person limits the total liquid volume each traveler can bring. 3.4 oz. container size is a security measure.

Consolidate bottles into one bag and X-ray separately to speed screening.

Be prepared. Each time TSA searches a carry-on it slows down the line. Practicing 3-1-1 will ensure a faster and easier checkpoint experience.

3-1-1 is for short trips. If in doubt, put your liquids in checked luggage.

Declare larger liquids. Medications, baby formula and food, and breast milk are allowed in reasonable quantities exceeding three ounces and are not required to be in the zip-top bag. Declare these items for inspection at the checkpoint.

Also be aware that soon you will be required to have the name on your airline tickets show any middle initial or middle name that may also appear on your Federally approved identification.

The forms of identification that are now considered acceptable for travel in and out of the U.S. are (as of June 2009):

• U.S. passport
• U.S. passport card
• DHS "Trusted Traveler" cards (NEXUS, SENTRI, FAST)
• U.S. Military ID (active duty or retired military and their dependents)
• Permanent Resident Card
• Border Crossing Card
• DHS-designated enhanced driver's license
• Drivers Licenses or other state photo identity cards issued by Department of Motor Vehicles (or equivalent) that meets REAL ID benchmarks (All states are currently in compliance)
• A Native American Tribal Photo ID
• An airline or airport-issued ID (if issued under a TSA-approved security plan)
• A foreign government-issued passport
• Canadian provincial driver's license or Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) card
• Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC)

Non-US/Canadian citizens are not required to carry their passports if they have documents issued by the U.S. government such as Permanent Resident Cards. Those who do not should be carrying their passports while visiting the U.S.

If you have specific questions about any of the above or travel requirements in general, you can send me an e-mail or leave a comment/question on this post.

Monthly Quiz Offering

Do you like trivia? Are you good at finding info on the internet? If you answered yes...then you now have a chance at winning a $25 Visa Gift Card or a $25 Target Gift Card simply by answering a quiz question correctly and then being drawn at random from all of the correct entries. Here is all you have to do to be eligible besides answer the question correctly; become a follower of this blog. That is it. After you become a follower...just send your answer to my e-mail address, bryan@operationdestination.com and, if your answer was correct, you will be entered in the drawing.

The drawing will be held on July 21st. Here is this month's quiz question:

Name the movie that this quote is from: “She’s a pistol Cal, hope you can handle her.”

Again...just become a follower and send your answer to the e-mail address above. Good luck!

Travel Tip of the Week

Disney Dining Options Explained

Dining at Walt Disney World is really broken down into 2 categories; Table Service (TS) and Counter Service (CS).
There are CS venues in every park and resort. Your Disney resort will have a very nice CS area where you can get breakfast, lunch, dinner and a variety of snacks. CS meals are also not to be confused with fast food. You will have a variety of eating choices at your resort from pancakes and omelets in the morning to chicken, pizza, fish etc in the evenings. The CS venues are the most budget friendly places to eat at inside of Walt Disney World and will run anywhere from $10 to $15 per person for all 3 meals. Those prices are consistent to what you will see at the different CS restaurants inside the 4 parks as well. In each park, there will be a place to get a cold sandwich, chicken, hamburger, pizza, fish etc. Plenty of CS choices.

Epcot has the best CS choices out of all the 4 parks. They have a place called Sunshine Seasons which will have everything from grilled chicken or salmon to Asian stir fry and is all made there fresh everyday and is our favorite lunch spot. Then for dinner, you can walk around the World Showcase and eat a CS meal in Mexico and have some authentic Mexican food, have fish and chips in England, enjoy some Chinese food in China etc.

But if you prefer to have a couple nicer meals while you are there, we need to look into finding you a TS restaurant to try. TS venues will most likely require what Disney calls an Advance Dining Reservation or ADR as they are called. Resort guests have the ability to make their ADR’s 90 days in advance of their trip. The most popular venues like Cinderella’s Round Table and Chef Mickey fill up quickly and are usually full at the 90 day mark. You can figure that a TS meal for 4 will cost close to $100 plus tip. Some will be a little more than that depending on if you get dessert etc.

Some of our favorites TS options are:

Yak & Yeti (Disney’s Animal Kingdom)
The Coral Reef (Epcot)
50’s Prime Time Café (Disney’s Hollywood Studios) *this will be one of the less expensive
Donald’s Safari Breakfast (Disney’s Animal Kingdom) *Character buffet breakfast

Last but not least...Disney will have snack vendors and areas. These are places where you can get the infamous Mickey Ice Cream Bar or the huge Turkey Leg that so many people rave about or just get a bottle of water or soda. You can expect to pay $3.00 for a bottle of water and just figure the same for soda. Our favorite snacks are the Dole Whips in the Magic Kingdom (in Adventureland) and the little French pastry shop in the back of France in Epcot (this is a must do).

This is meant to be a brief intro into the terms used at Disney for dining. Please add comments or suggestions of your own.

Go Where the Locals Go

I know you hear that a lot from travel guides, blogs etc., but if you are one who ends up going to the same restaurants all the time, even on vacation, then this blog is for you.

Part of the whole vacation experience is getting out of the normal routine and away from the troubles back at home. If that is the case, then why would you want to only stick with the same eating places that may make you think about things back at home? I am always shocked to see travelers who will go wait in line to be seated at places like Cracker Barrel or Chili's when they have those same restaurants back at home.

Are you afraid to branch out? There are a lot of resources that you can draw from like your travel agent (me) or sites like www.cityspur.com where you can find great eating choices at your vacation destination that are not chain restaurants.

For example...some of my greatest memories of our travels are some of the "off the beaten path" restaurants that we found simply by talking to store clerks, taxis drivers etc who then recommended some of their favorites in town. Some of those "honey holes" are places like "The Cottage" in La Jolla California. It is such a small quaint eatery and their food was out of this world. Another local favorite in La Jolla was "The Coffee Cup." This again was a small local establishment off of the main drive that runs through La Jolla's tourist area. It was actually a place we would have never found had it not been for a store employee who said..."you have to go to the "Coffee Cup." It is open for breakfast and dinner and can get busy with the locals on the weekend. But this brings up an advantage for you as the tourist. You can visit these local places during the week when the locals are at work and while the other tourists are still lined up to get into the IHOP.

Those are just two ideas to get you to see that the real experience when traveling and the true escape comes when you leave what you know to go try something new and different. Traveling should be a cultural adventure even here in the U.S. You can learn a lot about the different cultures of a State and city when you get out of the tourist filled areas and go sit among the locals and just take it all in.

If you never try to branch out...promise me that you will on your next vacation. I will then promise that it will add so much more enjoyment and great memories to your vacation getaway.

Top 10 Reasons to Use a Travel Agent

It is one of the questions I get asked from time to time, "why should I or would I use a travel agent?" Well...here 10 reasons you might want to consider it:

1. You've Googled "Mexico vacation," and come up with 17.8 million responses. Need a little help editing those choices?

2. Remember when you used that obscure website to book your hotel, and when you got there you spent your beach vacation overlooking a parking lot?

3. How many hours were you on hold with the airline when your flight was canceled because of a snowstorm?

4. Did you really mean to spend your honeymoon at that resort whose one tiny pool was filled all day with 12 screaming children?

5. Who knew that when you booked that "villa" in Tuscany, it would be a small room with a kitchenette and no air conditioning? Funny, it looked much better on your computer screen.

6. No one explained to you that in July, it's winter time in Rio, and so you showed up there with nothing but five Hawaiian shirts and three pairs of swimming trunks.

7. How about the time you really needed a restful vacation, and you ended up in New Orleans during Mardi Gras and someone threw up on your shoes?

8. Yes, I guess that hotel must have used a telephoto lens when they took a picture of those guest rooms that you saw on their website.

9. I suppose contacting the Attorney General to resolve the fact that that Internet site has billed your credit card three times instead of once is the only route to take at this point.

10. It was definitely odd that there were no cab drivers at the airport at 3 o'clock in the morning when you finally landed in Costa Rica, but booking a transfer to your very remote hotel would have been a good thing to remember when you purchased your airline ticket and hotel online.

Always remember...a travel agent's services are free to the consumer unless a specific fee has been agreed to up front for some special services to be rendered.

Adopted from an article written by Ruthanne Terrero. Please visit the following link to read her article in its entirety. Travel Agent Central