Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Notes

With a tip of the cap to SI Peter King, here are my enjoyable/aggravating travel notes during this busy summer travel season.

Most of my travel recently has been short trips to destinations not far away. This means I have been able to travel light and carry my bags on instead of checking. This is a big plus for any traveler, especially with most airlines now charging for checked bags and no one likes to wait at the other end for luggage when your vacation is so close.

The annoying part of everyone bringing carry ons onto the plane these days is the lack of room in the overhead compartments. These storage areas were not meant to hold a bag with a weeks worth of clothes. Some of the carry on bags the airlines are letting on look like you could travel for 6 months in them. With out a doubt the jackass that has this huge carry on bag is the last guy on the plane and can’t find an overhead compartment to store his enormous bag. This brings in 3 flight attendants who have to move everyone’s back around to accommodate the ugly flyer.

As an aside, this is similar to my thoughts on busy movie theatres. I got there early to get a good seat. Since you got here during the previews, you have no right to ask me to move down so you can fit your Goober eating ass in a great seat location.

So airlines, if you could deliver luggage to the right destination, get it off the plane in a efficient amount of time, travelers might not have to bring giant carry on bags on the plane and you could collect more checked bag fees.

On most of my flights, I like to be entertained by the in flight system. I read men’s magazines online now, so buying the newest GQ or Esquire before getting on the plane really isn’t that useful for me anymore. I will bring a book and my ipod, but the lure of watching a movie or TV show on the plane is just too great. This is especially true now that planes have personal TV’s and have them turned on from the second you sit down to the moment you de-plane. This gives you maximum viewing time and no need to interact with the smelly guy next to you (or am I the smelly guy, ahhh).

The one issue I do have with this is the passenger announcements that interrupt your viewing. Once the flight attendants start talking your screen shuts off while they babble on about flight safety (I know how to do up a seat-belt, thanks) or to let me know they are bringing the beverage cart around. Once you think they are done and you can get back to movie watching, wrong – they now do them in French as well. If you are on a short flight to say Montreal, you only have an hour and 10 minutes and you need all the viewing possible. Airlines – fix it so your passenger announcements don’t interrupt my on-board entertainment.

Enjoyable / Aggrevating Travel Note of the Week

With a tip of the cap to Peter King over at Sports Illustrated, I have a quick story about how frustrating air travel can be.

Last Friday, I flew to Montreal, going through check in and security was not an issue in Toronto. Even though I forgot my passport, and panicked momentarily until recalling that you don't need your passport to fly within Canada.

The aggravation came on the way home. Upon going through security in Montreal, the metal detector went off even though I had emptied my pockets, removed my belt and my watch is plastic! So, now I had the choice to stand in the full body giant x-ray machine or get patted down. The story of Indian actor Shar Rukh Khan signing print outs of his naked outline went through my head. So I elected for the pat down. After, security was confident I wasn't carrying concealed weapons, I was told that my carry on bag needed to be searched. Thank goodness they found the hand cream that I stole from the hotel and forgot to put in a plastic bag and my hair gel that was 100ml too big so it was confiscated (not in Toronto, just in Montreal).

When I finally got on the plane for the hour flight, I turned on the TV but no movies are only an hour in length so I got through 50 minutes of Sherlock Holmes - does anyone know how it ends? Does he solve the crime?

Hotel H-E-L-L

As mentioned yesterday, I'll be travelling to the Big Apple this weekend which will probably lead to a enjoyable/aggrevating travel note, but just incase it doesn't, this qualifies...

After reading this you probably won't stay at that airport hotel again.

Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note

Now I understand what Peter King means when he writes his enjoyable/aggravating travel note of the week.

It is not like a travel all that often, and when I do, it is normally with someone else that I know or the plane has entertainment...well not yesterday.

The first thing is the no entertainment on the plane. If JetBlue can put TVs in every headrest, why can't the bigger carriers? If you aren't going to give me my own personal TV, then at least have a screen for everyone to enjoy the pre-packaged entertainment. I understand it is a shorter flight (2 hours), but that still gives me plenty of time to watch a couple of Seinfeld episodes.

My seat mates on these flights were both rather normal, one put in ear plugs as soon as he sat down which indicated to me he didn't wish to converse. Halfway through the flight though he begins to talk to me, but I am still not sure he heard my answers. The other was returning from Costa Rica and was catching the same connection. He had some good tales about his time in Costa Rica, but was a tad grumpy, since on his previous flight he was seated next to a teenager who coughed for 4 straight hours. The parents didn't once acknowledge their child to ensure he wasn't going to die and no one offered him drinks, cough drops or even gum. Then on our flight, we were lucky enough to be seated 3 rows infront of the screaming baby. Joy!

If I had to say something was enjoyable about my travel yesterday, it was that my luggage was the first piece to come out onto the conveyor belt. One and done!