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E L L I O T T ' S TRAVEL NOTES
Travel news, opinion and analysis

Underwritten By Cheapflights.com — Compare sales, specials and cheap flights to any destination.

August 26, 2004

New Hawaii Cruise Isn't Ship-Shape
Passengers on Hawaii's newest cruise ship are complaining of bad service and dirty conditions on board the Pride of Aloha. The cruise line offered small cash refunds and discounts on future cruises. KITV 4 News spoke with several passengers by telephone Wednesday, who say the cruise is suffering from unsanitary conditions and bad service, because it has a huge staff shortage. "This is our 25th wedding anniversary. This is a trip of a lifetime and there is something wrong," passenger Robin Huibregtse said. Huibregtse and her husband Dean came to Hawaii from Idaho and paid $3,400 for a weeklong cruise, but when they arrived in their stateroom Sunday, they immediately saw it had not been properly cleaned. KITV | Posted 6:30 a.m.
• NCL Offers Discounts, Refunds as Apology (Biz Journal)
• The Problem? It's the Americans (Free Press)

The idea of an American-flagged carrier is good. NCL's execution, however, doesn't appear to be.

Heathrow Turned into Makeshift Camp
 It was precisely the squalor British Airways has been striving to avoid. Heathrow airport was scattered yesterday with makeshift beds, discarded blankets and overtired passengers as a chronic staff shortage caused the cancellation of dozens of flights. A party of 75 elderly German choristers slept on the terminal floor. Around Burger King in terminal one, a party of students had set up camp. A handful of harrassed staff struggled to placate irate travellers by doling out stacks of vouchers for light refreshments. The Guardian| Posted 6:35 a.m.

Northwest Down On Ticket Flap
 The airline industry has yet to back Northwest Airlines' attempt to add new fees to tickets, jeopardizing the carriers' effort to cut $70 million a year in costs and causing shares to slump. Northwest late Tuesday announced that it would charge an additional $7.50 on every roundtrip ticket booked through a global distribution center, or GDS -- a strike against Sabre and other companies that provide the databases travel agents use to book tickets. TheStreet.com | Posted 6:45 a.m.

Many US Airways Customers Burn Miles - Some passengers yesterday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport said they were trying to use up their US Airways frequent-flier miles as the Arlington carrier struggles to stay out of another bankruptcy. Others shrugged off the possibility of a shutdown. Washington Times | Posted 7 a.m.

Alitalia Faces Collapse - Italy's state airline could collapse within 20 days unless its unions approve a restructuring plan that allows Alitalia to tap into an emergency government loan of $488 million, the company's chairman said in news reports Tuesday. The comment sent Alitalia shares tumbling nearly 5 percent at the Milan stock market. AP | Posted 7:05 a.m.

Hidden Car Rental Fees Sneak Up On You - My jaw dropped when the car rental attendant told me that my final rental bill was almost $100 over the estimated rental cost. We had rented one of those giant SUVs for a weeklong family vacation in Phoenix. (I won’t even begin to talk about how much gas we had to feed that beast of a car over the week.) About | Posted 7:10 a.m.

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• Off the Record ... to the many travel agents who are fighting Northwest's absurd decision to being charging a fee for booking tickets, I offer my support today. You know that if this fee were in any way justifiable, I wouldn't be saying this. But it isn't. The stated reasons for adding the charges don't make any sense. Maybe that's why none of Northwest's competitors have matched - yet. Posted 7:15 a.m. | Send us your comments.

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