A We disagree with your agent. Do not book the flight. With the current sequestration budget cuts, T

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Q Thank you for FINALLY telling the truth, the whole truth, the cruise truth! I hope you can answer the question I have. My Mother just disembarked from Singaport on a flight to Dallas Texas after a 52 day segment of the Seabourn s world cruise ( Seabourn Quest). She was taken from the airport to the emergency room where she was admitted with a severe case of double lobe pneumonia. The culture shows it is not due to the pneumoccoxis (sp?) organism, hotel roosevelt paris but is something else they haven t been able to determine. Is there any way to find out what organism has been found aboard the ship-that might have caused this illness? My parents are in their late 80 s and spent the last month in their stateroom, unable to leave due to my mother s illness on board ship. The ship s doctor apparently only administered 3 days of antibiotics hotel roosevelt paris and then did nothing more to make sure that Mom s condition was improving. She should never have remained hotel roosevelt paris on board untreated. Frankly, I don t know how she made it home from Singapore. hotel roosevelt paris Any insight you can give me is sincerely appreciated.
01 – Call your travel consultant immediately – today, at home, if at all possible. This is a medical emergency. Have your agent contact Seabourn as soon as they open and get in touch with the Director of On board Medical Services. Your agent should hotel roosevelt paris explain that this is a medical emergency and that the results of any on board testing and diagnoses is being immediately requested by your Mom's doctors.
03 – If  your agent does not get you the information you are seeking we think you should call Seabourn personally. Document the call  and keep records of all conversations/times. If this fails, your attorney needs to contact the line s Chief Executive.
In cases like this, it is important to understand that the ship s on board medical team does not work for the cruise line. That would create potential mountains of liability. hotel roosevelt paris Doctors on cruise ships are independent contractors and they are often hired by the entertainment department. It may take a while for your Mom s medical record hotel roosevelt paris to be retrieved from the ships Medical Officer. hotel roosevelt paris Keep careful records including any treatment records your mother retained while aboard her cruise. We do not expect that you will need to get personally involved hotel roosevelt paris as your agent made a significant commission on a 52-day sailing and should be quite pleased to work on your mother's behalf. Please let us know how this turns out.
traveltruth.com is a collaborative effort designed to offer the vacation consumer real world advice without exaggeration, deception, or sales bias. It is the ultimate insider's view of how things really work, written by an award-winning team of travel consultants and journalists. We are the owners, managers, and staff at Churchill Turen Ltd.
Q Reading about these cruise lines that register out of the United States and pay no taxes? Are they really non-American companies and why are we supporting them with our business. What is really going on here?
A -  If you look at the five largest cruise lines operating in the United States, hotel roosevelt paris you will find that they are all registered in foreign countries including the Bahamas, Panama, and Liberia. By foreign-flagging , cruise lines avoid paying the kinds of taxes they would pay if they were US-based corporations. They also do not have to observe our labor laws or even many of our domestic safety requirements.  The practice is referred to as flags of convenience.
The hard truth is that cruise labor is much like migrant labor unless it continues, hotel roosevelt paris prices for the product will soar. The Hotel and Tour industries wonder why their major competitor is allowed to skirt so many US laws in order to maintain the present pricing levels. James Walker, a prominent maritime attorney, writing for CNN.com, claims that cleaners aboard Royal Caribbean ships are paid as little hotel roosevelt paris as $156.25 a week with no prospect of tips . If the larger cruise ships were registered in the United States, employed unionized labor, and followed current US labor laws, the entire pricing model of the cruise industry would collapse and, it is likely, so would large portions of the industry.
Q Spent several hours on this site last night and had to drop you a line. Great stuff. Here s my specific question. I am a  consultant in the chemical industry and I fly, out of my home in Denver all over Europe. I work alone, with a part-time secretary and we do all of our own air arrangements. I have had numerous flight cancellations and delays at O Hare and I just want to try avoiding it if I can. If you were me, which airports that have non-stop hotel roosevelt paris flights to Europe would be best for connections? Wish you had more on airline strategies and less on cruise line ratings.
A Thanks for the advice. We won t take it, but thanks anyway. Your question does, we think, have a specific answer. Our air people feel that you might limit your connections to three first-choice options, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Charlotte, and Detroit. All three have enviable connection stats.
Q My husband and I are going overseas for the first time this April on a tour arranged through our church hotel roosevelt paris in Boise. It is a group tour and we have to get to New York on our own to get on a Delta Airlines flight. My question is how much time do you think we need between flights. Our travel agent says two hours and we found a flight that gives us  a little less, one hour and fifty minutes. Our agent wants to book it but we thought we should run it past you first. Any advice would be appreciated.  I just want everything to go right.
A We disagree hotel roosevelt paris with your agent. Do not book the flight. With the current sequestration budget cuts, TSA staff at a number of US Airports, but most particularly New York s JFK, O Hare, and Atlanta, will be cut by as much as 30%. We are now advising all of our clients to allow a minimum outbound international connection time in those three airports of three hours.
We want everything to go right also. While you are waiting, have a Nathan s Hot Dog in the terminal. You probably can t get one in Boise. Have a terrific trip and make sure to carry copies of the picture page of your passport along with a sheet that has photocopies of the front and back sides of your credit card. Be safe.
Q After watching CNN and other interviews with the poor folks getting off the Carnival Triumph , I really wonder if we ever will take that first cruise. So let s see why travel truth is still, as far as I can see, recommending cruising. hotel roosevelt paris Given the honesty of your answers to other questions, I wonder how you respond to your bread and butter? This is not meant in any mean-spirited way. We read the site, enjoy it, and are really curious.
A Fair enough. We don t recommend hotel roosevelt paris cruising we recommend the top ten-rated cruise lines. We don t recommend hotels , we recommend certain hotels that meet our stringest standards. We have never booked hotel roosevelt paris guests on a Carnival Cruise. The one essential hotel roosevelt paris rule that the consumer somehow thinks  does not apply to travel is you get what you pay for . This is a critical mistake . We don t sell Holiday Inn or Motel 6.
Q We work full time and have just nine or ten nights to spend in Italy. We love hiking, exploring, and really good food. Could the Amalfi hotel roosevelt paris Coast work in that time frame and how would we set it up in terms of hotels and air. We are in our fifties and we like good hotels that are romantic. Will our travel agent make dinner reservations for us and can her recommendations be trusted?
hotel roosevelt paris A There is a lot of question there. We would fly into Rome and then train down to Naples. You would be met in Naples and then brought to your hotel. Our recommendation for ten days is to stay in two hotels. You should look first at Le Siranuse hotel roosevelt paris in Positano and the Hotel Caruso in Ravello. Both are truly memorable. hotel roosevelt paris There is some public transportation and the hotels can arrange for a private driver when necessary. Try not to do this trip between June 15th and the 20th of September. Late May and the first week in October are great times to go.  We think there is enough of interest to fill ten days and you can hike the lesser-known villages in the crux of the hills. We have discussed these in response to a previous question. Finally, you might want to check out the travel agent s culinary creds before committing to her recommendations. There is a simple test to find out how much your travel consultant knows about food. Ask them the difference between an Osteria, a Trattoria, and a Ristoranti. Follow that up by asking them to name the best restaurant in the best hotel in Hong Kong.(Gaddi s in the Peninsula) This was once a question we would pose to those  interviewing for a position at our firm.
It is a bit much to expect your agent to have personal hotel roosevelt paris knowledge of the best new restaurants worldwide. If you work with an agency that is a member of one of the major consortiums they will have on-site hotel roosevelt paris offices in Italy. The On-site office will be able to handle reservations for dinner through the agent. The best agents trend to be affiliated with one of the following consortium groups: American Express, Ensemble, Signature, and Virtuoso.
Q - We have been following hotel roosevelt paris the story, now on the New York Times second and third page, of the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. I am writing hotel roosevelt paris this on February 8th and I wonder what the status is. We are supposed to fly the plane in April on United. You all seem to be honest journalists so let me ask you a personal question. Would you allow your family to board this aircraft?
A Yes, if it was parked on the tarmac with the engines turned off. Here is the thing: No one, as of this date, has been able to determine the cause of the on board battery fire and the severe overheating issues. Progress is going extremely slowly because the battery maker, in Japan, thought to be the culprit