Kuala Lumpur began life in 1857. It was then that a member of Selangor's royal family, Raja Abdullah, decided to open up an area in the Klang Valley for tin prospectors.
The amazing pyramids in Egypt are considered as the largest and most fascinating structures ever constructed. Most of these pyramids were actually built in the Middle and Old periods of Kingdoms in Egypt.
Holiday planning to be more meaningful when done with our loved. Regardless of a family, or friends. If before, you do not have the opportunity to spend time relaxing with them, then this holiday activities to bridge the gap left behind a long friendship
All travelers must have a contingency plan ready in case of a medical emergency while traveling abroad. Illnesses and injuries can occur without warning. Therefore, you must be ever ready to deal with it when and if it happens.
Hotels, especially of the four and five star category are normally extremely safe; providing you with a safe in the room and at the reception area, security guards hiding around the place, and cameras that can be as much your friend as your enemy .
(Tribune Media Services) -- It's never going to happen to you, right?
You're never going to be that hapless parent in the ER someplace far from home with a badly sunburned child (as happened to me in Hawaii), or one who has hit her head falling off a bike, broken his wrist on the playground or swallowed Dramamine from the glove compartment (yes that was me too) or worse.
A lot worse. Every day this summer, 17 children will die from unintentional, but mostly preventable, accidents reports Safe Kids Worldwide, www.safekids.org, a not-for-profit organization charged with reducing childhood injury. Forty-one percent of accidental deaths for children occur during the summer months. Kids will be rushed to emergency rooms nearly 3 million times this summer from car crashes, bike accidents, falls, drowning, ATV accidents and more. Experts believe many accidents happen on vacation.
"Parents may be distracted by the fun of a trip and have a tendency to not be as vigilant," says Dr. Denise Dowd, associate professor of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, and a spokesman for the Academy of Pediatrics. (Visit the American Academy of Pediatrics Website at www.aap.org for summer safety tips.)
Whether on vacation with the kids or enjoying the summer at home, you can't let down your guard -- even for a moment, says Alan Korn, director of Public Policy and General Counsel for Safe Kids Worldwide.
All of us shuddered at the news that 4-year-old Madeleine McCann went missing from a Portuguese resort condo in May. Her parents, both physicians, were eating dinner 50 yards away, returning to check on Madeleine and her younger siblings often. The hunt for Madeleine continues.
But even that benign visit to grandma's can prove dangerous if the house hasn't been child proofed, says Dowd. "Bring your own portable crib rather than using one at a hotel or a relative's house that is who-knows-how-many years old," Korn adds, along with your own crib sheets. Those that are too large can be a hazard to a baby.
Get your baby's safety seat checked before you leave to make sure it's installed correctly. According to Korn, four out of five seats the Safe Kids' inspectors check at safety events around the country are not installed correctly. Even worse, children 4 to 8 (40 to 80 pounds) are not sitting in booster seats, though they can reduce the risk of injury by 59 percent. (For more on car safety and information on where you can get your safety seat inspected, visit www.usa.safekids.org or The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration www.nhtsa.dot.gov/)
Even if the kids whine, insist they wear appropriate safety gear -- life jackets on boats, and helmets when doing wheeled sports. The one time 12-year-old Tommy Michalson skateboarded without a helmet -- "on a wide smooth sidewalk," while his family was vacationing from Kansas in Colorado last summer he fell and suffered a head injury so severe he died 13 hours later. The anniversary of his death is this month.
"Our message and hope is that parents make sure that helmets are worn EVERY time their child participates in a wheeled sport, even if it is just on the driveway or a sidewalk," Cheryl Michalson, Tommy's mom, said at a Washington, D.C., safety event recently.
"Most people don't realize that injury -- not cancer, nor any other illness -- is the number one killer of children in this country," says Safe Kids' Alan Korn. Significantly more of these injuries happen in summer than any other time of the year, he explains, because kids -- and their parents -- are outside doing activities that while fun, can present risks, whether at a skateboard park, a hiking trail, a pool or a beach.
Be especially careful near water. Drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related death to children ages 1 to 14, according to Safe Kids. Sixty-four percent of all children's drowning deaths occur during the summer. And it's not just babies who get into trouble. Insist older kids and teens swim with a buddy. "Drowning can happen so quickly," says Dr. Dowd.
Even 17 years later, Stew and Kim Leonard can't believe how quickly. One minute 21-month-old Stewie Leonard was helping his dad put up balloons for his sister's birthday party at a rented vacation house in the Caribbean; the next minute he was gone. Leonard thought his son had wandered into the kitchen where his wife was; she thought the toddler was with her husband.
By the time they found him in the pool a few minutes later -- a balloon floating nearby -- it was too late. At least half a dozen adults were around the pool at the time but no one noticed. Nearly nine in 10 drowning-related deaths occur while a child is being supervised "Just talking about it I feel a lump in my stomach," Leonard, the scion of a prominent Connecticut family, says. "Your eyes have to be glued on your child."
To promote water safety, The Leonards established the Stew Leonard III Water Safety Foundation and, with the help of their four daughters, have written "Swimming Lessons with Stewie the Duck," and "Stewie the Duck Learns to Swim"(available with a CD for $4.95 from www.stewleonards.com. All proceeds go to the foundation; a Spanish edition will be out this summer.)
Worldwide Safe Kids suggests parents download a Water Watcher Card from www.usa.safekids.org: While you've got the card, you are responsible for watching the kids in the water. You're not to talk on the phone, read, or grab a beer until you've handed over the card to another adult, says Korn, noting that drowning doesn't happen like in the movies. "Nobody screams or thrashes. A child goes under and that's it."
"We want kids to have fun," he says, "But on vacation, you've got to keep being a parent." E-mail to a friend
(For more Taking the Kids, visit www.takingthekids.com, where Eileen Ogintz welcomes your questions and comments.)
Copyright 2007 EILEEN OGINTZ, DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Tribune Media Services
(Tribune Media Services) -- It's been two years since Niel Bratteli bought a roundtrip plane ticket from Dallas to Boston for his son. The airline, ATA, stopped flying from Boston to Dallas and his online travel agency, Travelocity, promised Bratteli a refund. But countless calls and e-mails later, there's no sign of the money. What's wrong?
Q: I don't know if this is a lost cause, because it happened more than two years ago. But I thought I'd ask. We booked a roundtrip ticket for our son to fly from Dallas to Boston through Travelocity on ATA Airlines in July 2005.
His outbound flight was in September and his return would have been in December. But that fall, ATA discontinued its Boston-Dallas route and canceled the return ticket.
After many e-mails and hours on the phone, Travelocity told us that it was up to the airline to process the refund, but that the money would be refunded to Travelocity, which would then credit us.
We have since received many promises that the refund was on the way, both by phone and e-mail. But we still don't have the refund. We inquired about it again last week, to which we received a form letter saying our "issue detailed requires further research by our Consumer Relations Department."
Travelocity asked for a copy of the actual billing statement from my card issuer along with my son's trip ID or ticket numbers. "Once received, we will be able to investigate and will contact you directly," they assured us.
Our e-mail included all past messages from them, which had the original confirmation and price of the ticket ($276). What should we do?
-- Niel Bratteli, Paris, Texas
A: I think you've already done enough. It's time for ATA and Travelocity to return your money. Now.
Under ATA's rules, also known as its contract of carriage, you're entitled to an immediate refund of the unused fare. (You can find the relevant portions in rules 135 and 260). There is no mention of a two-year waiting period, as far as I can tell.
Travelocity didn't live up to its promises, either. Its much-publicized "Travelocity Guarantee" leaves you with the impression that this should have been handled much differently. "If we learn of an issue from any of our partners or customers that might make your trip less enjoyable -- like hotel construction, a hurricane, or an airport closure -- we'll contact you before your trip and help make other arrangements," it says.
As I review the account of your son's flight, it seems you weren't contacted, you weren't offered an alternate flight, and Travelocity simply kept your money. That's disappointing.
I think you could have gotten a better answer from Travelocity, if not ATA. I list customer service contacts on my Web site to whom you could have appealed your case. Working the phones on a refund request doesn't make much sense. Everything needs to be in writing.
Of course, that's no guarantee that you won't get caught in a form-letter loop. When I contacted Travelocity on your behalf, it also asked me for your reservation number, even though I had already included it in your file. I guess they wanted to be sure.
After I re-sent your son's reservation information, a Travelocity representative contacted you and apologized for the delay, adding, "This is not our usual customer service."
I think that goes without saying. A check for $119, which covers the return portion of your son's flight, is in the mail.
Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. E-mail him at celliott@ngs.org.
Copyright 2007 CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT, DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
(Tribune Media Services) -- Sandra Ferguson makes a reservation at a San Jose, California, hotel through ParkSleepFly.com. But when she tries to check in, the hotel has never heard of her. Does ParkSleepFly.com owe her a refund for the $180 she has to spend for long-term parking?
Q: I recently reserved a hotel room through ParkSleepFly.com, which offers hotel and parking packages near airports. Or so I thought. When I tried to check in at the Ramada Limited in Santa Clara, California, I discovered they had no reservation in my name.
I left my car at the long-term parking lot at the San Jose airport and phoned Ramada to see if I could get this sorted out, but they had no record of my reservation and couldn't help me.
That proved to be a costly mistake. I paid $180 for parking, and ParkSleepFly charged a $13 deposit and $5 transaction fee for a hotel I never got to stay in.
I called ParkSleepFly.com to find out what happened, and a representative refunded $18 and promised to contact Ramada for me. That was more than two months ago. I think ParkSleepFly.com owes me the difference between the potential cost of the motel and the cost of parking. Don't you?
-- Sandra Ferguson, Santa Cruz, California
A: Maybe. If ParkSleepFly.com sent your reservation to Ramada and received a confirmation from the hotel, then it would have done all it could. But if it never reserved your room, then yes, a simple refund of your reservation fee wouldn't cut it.
This is one of the most common -- and easily preventable -- hotel snafus. With all due respect to ParkSleepFly.com and other online travel agencies, your hotel confirmation isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Reservations get lost between a Web site and a hotel, for a variety of reasons.
Phoning the Ramada Limited a day before your arrival would have given ParkSleepFly.com a chance to fix this before you had to pay a $180 bill. But it also makes sense to double-check everything before you leave. I mean, you call your airline to confirm your flight. Why not dial the hotel, just to be safe?
Once you arrived at the hotel and learned you had no reservation, you might have considered hanging out for a while and politely asking for a manager. I realize you were about to catch a flight, and were probably worried about finding a Plan B for parking, but if you had a printout of your confirmation from ParkSleepFly.com, and could have spoken with a supervisor, it's possible that this could have been straightened out quickly.
I contacted ParkSleepFly.com on your behalf to find out what went wrong. You received a personal apology from the company's president, Tom Lombardi, who admitted that the ParkSleepFly.com "dropped the ball" on your reservation. "We have no explanation as to why the reservation did not make it to the Ramada," he said. "All the other ones since we have been working with them were received and honored."
ParkSleepFly.com offered to pay for your next stay at the Ramada in Santa Clara, or any other hotel it features at the San Jose airport.
Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. E-mail him at celliott@ngs.org.
Copyright 2007 CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT, DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Meanwhile, the weak economy has forced Americans to cut back on costs. Many are opting for "staycations" by choosing not to travel when they have time off.
But experts say there are still plenty of travel deals for those who want or need to get somewhere. "Everyone's saying the fares are going up, but there are still many, many, many cheap tickets," says George Hobica, creator of the travel Web site airfarewatchdog.com.
We asked Hobica and Candy Harrington, editor of Emerging Horizons, a magazine on accessible travel, for some tips on how to find them. The bottom line: You can get a cheap fare, but you're going to need to be very flexible.
Tuesday and Wednesday are the slowest flying days of the week for business travel so demand is low, and so are the fares.
"The Monday and Friday flights are more expensive as many business travelers depart on Monday morning and return Friday afternoon," says Harrington. "The best deals are usually found on mid-week mid-day departures. Just ask yourself what flight would be the most unattractive to a business traveler and pick that one."
Travelers who are serious about seeking cheap fares should travel only during the slowest time of year, says Hobica. That rules out holidays, as well as spring, summer and winter.
What's left? Fall. Hobica recommends traveling anytime between Labor Day and Thanksgiving for the best deals.
If you must travel during the summer, seek out destinations that are popular during the winter, says Hobica. Northerners should consider summering in Florida to take advantage of discount flights. But if Orlando in August fails to impress, budget-conscious jetsetters might prefer a Colorado ski town in the off-season.
Harrington suggests being completely flexible about the destination, based on the fare. "Check out the airline Web sites, and see what destinations they have on sale, then build your vacation around that destination," she says.
Airfares change three times a day as airlines periodically lower prices to fill up flights, and the early bird gets the worm, according to Hobica. "Early morning is the time to buy." he says, recommending that flyers check fares every five hours to try and snag a deal.
On the weekend, the best time to check is early Saturday morning and again at 5 p.m., when the industry is most aggressively trying to fill seats, he says.
Travel sites are brimming with vacation packages offering cut-rate hotel stays and car rentals. But if you're the type to skip over these packages without a glance, then maybe you should give them a closer look, says Hobica.
The packages are sometimes cheaper than the airfare alone, he says, especially for last-minute sales, where the airline is just trying to fill seats. "They're super bargains," he says. "Even if you don't need the rental car, you could just not pick it up, because the airfare is so cheap."
In the drive to reduce costs, airlines will be bidding bon voyage to many of their discount flights, analysts say. Hobica believes cheap airfares will become increasingly hard to find, so enjoy them while you still can.
"It's getting worse, as all these airlines are cutting back on all these routes," he says. "The airlines are finally getting price religion."
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