Travelers' Intercom

December 2011 issue

Sumengen Hotel, Istanbul

In Istanbul, I highly recommend the Sumengen Hotel (Mimar Mehmet Aga Caddesi Amiral Tafdil Sokak 21, Istanbul, Turkey; phone 0212 517 6869).

For six nights, Dec. 20-26, 2010, our twin room cost €90 (near $129) per night and we were very pleased. (In 2012 it’s €105 per night for a twin room.)

The rooms were spacious, the breakfast was plentiful and the location excellent, just a few blocks from the Sultanahmet Mosque. Tea and cake were served in the lobby in the afternoons.

The highest accolade goes for the service, especially to staff members Okan and...

CONTINUE READING »
July 2009 issue

Felt welcome in Scotland

Three friends and I took a thoroughly enjoyable brief trip to Scotland, Jan. 14-19, 2009. Our purpose was twofold: visit St. Andrews University in St. Andrews and spend two days in Edinburgh (where a delightful taxi driver referred to two of us as “Edinburgh virgins”).

The weather was cold, wet and windy, but the Scots were unfailingly friendly and helpful and the sights, beautiful. Even in just-under gale-force winds, Edinburgh Castle was a highlight to us though not to our umbrellas. The two of us who visited Holyrood Palace early on Sunday morning had the rooms to ourselves. Who...

CONTINUE READING »
December 2008 issue

Frequent-flyer seats sparse

We redeemed 120,000 Chase Flexible Rewards points for 100,000 frequent-flyer miles on United Airlines recently. Since 100,000 miles per year was the limit for any one frequent-flyer number, we put 50,000 on my wife’s number and 50,000 on mine.

I was a bit concerned about executing this conversion process online, but it went very smoothly and the miles showed up on our frequent-flyer accounts less than 48 hours later. I was much less concerned about using the 50,000 miles each for round-trip flights between Chicago and Munich, since we would be making our reservations nearly a year...

CONTINUE READING »
June 2011 issue

Seeing Panama

My husband, Bill, and I took a great tour to Panama, “A Continent Divided, Oceans United,” with Overseas Adventure Travel (Cambridge, MA; 800/493-6824), April 18-May 1, 2010. A good value — the 11-day trip cost $3,495 including air from San Francisco, and a pretrip cost $595.

We saw a great deal of the country, from the skyscrapers of Panama City to the village of the Embera Indians. On a beautiful catamaran with 12 cabins, we took a three-day cruise through the canal that included overnight stops at Portobelo, Gatun Lake and Toboga Island.

On the three-day pretrip, we...

CONTINUE READING »
February 2009 issue

Whirling Dervishes

In Konya, Turkey, we visited the Mevlana Mausoleum, where Mevlana Rumi, the founder of the Whirling Dervishes, has his tomb. The Dervishes practice Sufism, a mystical form of Islam founded in the 13th century. The building, which is also a museum, contains many artistic and religious treasures and is very popular with the Turkish people.

One evening we attended a performance by the Dervishes. The 50-minute presentation upended our preconceived ideas about this group. They whirled at a steady and stately pace accompanied by haunting flute music. They seemed to float around and...

CONTINUE READING »
January 2010 issue

Refunding made disadvantageous

After booking, on Air Berlin’s website (www.airberlin.com) on Feb. 9, 2009, a round-trip flight between New York and Düsseldorf in May, I unhappily discovered that reserving two economy seats would cost an additional €60, or $86, round trip. Nevertheless, on Feb. 20 I phoned Air Berlin’s US office (866/266-5588) and paid this amount to ensure that my wife and I would have adjacent aisle and window seats.

With a scheduled departure time of approximately 6 p.m., the outbound overnight flight (AB 3551) from JFK Airport on May 26 was nearly full. The seats we reserved (as well as the...

CONTINUE READING »
October 2009 issue

Guide, room in Budapest

My family and I have used the driver/guide services of Sándor Nagy (ALEX Travel Agency, Tordai út 30. Budapest, 1221 Hungary; phone +361 226 2370, cell +36 203 569 753 or e-mail alexbt@inext.hu) on our trips to Hungary since 1999. His knowledge of Hungary is quite extensive. A gracious gentleman with excellent English-speaking and driving skills, he is extremely responsive via e-mail and very flexible.

We had our most recent tour with him in September ’08. Starting in Budapest, we had a day trip to the Danube Bend and another to Puszta. Each full-day tour for six people cost $250...

CONTINUE READING »
March 2009 issue

Assumed cabin was booked

In January ’08 I reserved a cruise to Norway for May 31-June 11, 2008, with Taitbout Voyages. I sent them a check for €1,180 (about $1,636) for the basic price and added €346 ($480) for a single cabin.

I asked Taitbout in several letters at what time I would have to meet the group on May 31 to take the bus from Paris to the cruise ship in Amsterdam and at what location. Taitbout Voyages never answered my letters or e-mails. The telephone number on their brochure was not reachable from the US; it was a number that could be used only inside France.

Taitbout did not return my...

CONTINUE READING »