Category Archives: Vacation

Sep 02

Living Up to Its Name

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This guest blog was authored by former Peppercommer, Isaac Farbowitz, who now makes a living selling medical supplies.

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Friday guest post All too often, brands fail to live up to their names and promises as loyal RepMan readers know.  However, this past weekend I had an amazing experience where a brand lived up to every bit of its name and I wanted to share it as an example of a company “getting it right.” 

When it became clear on Thursday of last week that Irene was going to poke her ugly head into the Tri-State area over the weekend, my wife and I decided to pack up our six kids and head west to the Great Wolf Lodge in the Poconos.  We weren’t taking any chances with falling trees, flooded streets and heavy rain, not to mention six kids with no TV, computer or Wii! 

The weather wasn’t that bad in the Poconos through Sunday around noon and we assumed we escaped the worst of it.  But around noon, the winds really kicked up and within minutes the power was out in the hotel.  And with no power comes a closed water park, no arcades and not much to do in a hotel for kids- at least not in any hotel not named Great Wolf Lodge! 

Within minutes of the power going out, there were announcements that there was a power outage and that the hotel was working with the power company to restore it and get an estimated time it would be back.  They then announced that there were backup generators for the lobby and hallways and that there would be a movie for kids showing in the lobby ASAP. 

While the movie was playing, they handed out bottled water, chips, cookies and many snacks to all the kids and literally had every staff member handing out beer, wine and soda to all the adults.  Once the movie was over, they put on Wii dancing and had hundreds of people dancing with staff members in the lobby.  (The picture in this blog is a photo I took of the dancing- four of the kids are mine).  The site of adults and kids dancing in a lobby during a hurricane was surreal but no one was complaining about the lack of power or the weather. 

After dancing, the hotel announced that power should be restored in the next two hours and they had a whole dinner buffet set up (free of charge) for all guests including hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, salads and drinks for all to enjoy.  Once dinner ended, another movie was put on for kids and shortly thereafter the power was restored. 

Great Wolf Lodge clearly had a plan in place to deal with a potential power outage and they executed it to perfection!  Not one guest was complaining and many were seen thanking the hotel staff for doing their best to make it the best day possible given the conditions.  Every staff member had a smile on their face as they fielded questions and they did everything they could to make it a GREAT day for guests in spite of the hand they were dealt. 

And the kicker to show just how well Great Wolf Lodge handled the storm- when we were checking out we were talking to a staff member who asked our kids “what was the best part of the trip” and the kids response: “movies and dancing in the lobby when there was no power.”  Great Wolf lived up to its name in a great way!  

Jul 20

From ambassador to vigilante

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When United and Continental merged, the move was accompanied by the usual marketing hoopla.  AaaaaaaaaaaaE-mails promising 'increased efficiency,' 'greater service,' and 'expanded routes' were routinely pushed to this long-time Continental customer.

But, almost immediately, I noticed a slow, but steady, deterioration. First, my long-time Gold Elite status simply disappeared with no explanation whatsoever. Then, my regular routes began experiencing far more delays than before.

But, the real clincher occurred over the past few days as I attempted to fly home from Portland, Maine, to Newark.

My original flight was scheduled to depart at 1pm on Monday. At about 6pm Sunday evening, though, I received a trip alert e-mail notifying me the flight had been canceled. No explanation was provided. A second e-mail followed shortly thereafter. It provided a URL and 888 number for me to call "…with any questions." I had a question all right, "How the hell was I supposed to get home?"

We dutifully called the number provided and, after the usual 15-minute wait and countless bilingual prompts, we reached a live person. She told us she'd book us on the next available flight from Portland to Newark. The scheduled departure time was now 7pm on Monday night. Oh, she said our original flight had been canceled because of weather. Yeah, sure.

Once I arrived at Portland airport on Monday afternoon, the Continental trip alerts began pouring into my blackberry. They said the originating flight was late departing Newark, but would only be delayed by five minutes. No, make that 35 minutes. No, wait, make it a full hour. Oh never mind, the plane just arrived. We were told by a gate agent to board immediately so as not to lose our departure slot. Yes ma'am. Will do, ma'am.

The pilot apologized for the delay, but promised the flight would be '….a very short 59 minutes.' About 90 minutes later, the pilot sighed and said, 'Ah, ladies and gentlemen, you may have noticed we've been circling for the past half hour.' Damn straight I'd noticed. I was tired and hungry and wanted to get home pronto. The pilot explained that '…weather at Newark had deteriorated and that we had about 20 more minutes of fuel.' Now, that was comforting to hear. What would happen when the fuel ran out? Would be asked to flap our wings?

The pilot came back on the P.A. a few minutes later to tell us we were being diverted in order to re-fuel. Nice. So, now, instead of being home at, say, 3pm Monday afternoon I was, instead, parked on the always scenic Albany, NY, tarmac at 10 pm.

We eventually arrived home at midnight, some nine full hours later than originally planned.

As I deplaned, I noticed the countless placards and banners boasting about the United/Continental merger. They all said the same thing: 'It's not who's merging that's exciting, but what's about to emerge.' Ha! I can tell you what's emerged: a third rate airline that can't get its act together.

Sadly, Continental is just the latest in a long line of brands that promise one sort of experience but deliver a totally different one. As a result, I've gone from being a brand ambassador to a vigilante.

So, caveat Continental. I'll be gunning for you, or United, or whatever it is you're now calling that steaming mess of a merged airline. Keep messing with me and I'll keep spreading news about your delays, disingenuous explanations and diverted flights.

Epilogue: when we met our driver at Newark Airport, he asked what had happened. I told him Newark Airport had been closed because of severe weather and we'd been diverted to Albany. 'Severe weather?' he asked incredulously. 'It hasn't rained a drop here all day long.'"

Aug 05

The St. Petersburg, Russia, Holiday Inn is no vacation

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There's poor customer service, there's NJ transit and then there's the St. Petersburg, Russia,
3-1214_holiday-inn-logo
Holiday-inn-moskovskie Holiday Inn. The last is in a class of its own and could easily lay claim to a global 'worst in class' top spot.
  
I had the serious misfortune to begin my two-week Russian climbing adventure at the Holiday Inn in St. Petersburg.
  
Upon waking the second morning, I sauntered into the bathroom and flipped on the shower faucet. That's when I spied a Holiday Inn sign on the wall that read 'Please use orange floor mat when bathing.' So, I did. Big, big mistake. Bigger, in fact, than the 18,800 ft high Mt. Elbrus I was planning  to climb.

I put one toe on the orange mat and, swoosh, I was sent flying head over heels. My head cracked (and broke) the toilet seat. Simultaneously, my  left hip slammed full force into the side of the porcelain tub. The pain was exquisite.
  
I sucked it up, downed some Aleve and continued on the trip. Each day, the pain would move from one part of my back to another. A doctor traveling with our climbing team thought I'd suffered a pinched nerve. Being the take no prisoners type of blogger that I am, I shook it off and began training with the rest of the team.
  
We flew to the Baksun Valley, hiked on the spectacular, lower level hills, attended rescue and survival courses (it's so uplifting to hear crevasse horror stories) and took in the local sights.

Now, fast forward to summit day. We began at 2am. By 11:30 am, we'd made it to the 'saddle,' a spot just below the peak. My back was screaming 'Nyet!' But, I plowed ahead anyway before the searing pain made me turn back a mere 800 feet from my goal. All because of an orange Holiday Inn bath mat.
  
My assistant, Dandy Stevenson, will be sending copies of this blog to the CEO of Holiday Inn and the general manager of the totally irresponsible St. Petersburg unit. Oh, by the way, six other members of my climbing team also fell on those same malevolent mats.

If
Holiday Inn has any sort of image and reputation left over from its heyday in
the mid 1960s, I'd like this blog to be my way of placing a virtual orange mat
in front of their brand. I hope they slip on it and  suffer the same
degree of pain and disappointment as me.

Holiday Inn's tagline is: 'Stay you'. They define the brand promise in the following ways: 'Stay yourself,' 'Stay picky,' 'Stay indulgent' 'Stay Impressed' and ''Stay Invigorated.' I suggest a slight variation on the 'Stay' campaign: 'Stay someplace else!"

Jul 28

You don’t know how lucky you are, boy, back in the U.S.S.R.

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Phoenix and its 116 degree heat and Manhattan with its hazy, hot and humid spell of six million
St-petersburg-russia straight, 90 degree days have nothing on St. Petersburg, Russia.

Having had the pleasure of touring the historic Czarist city the past few days, I can report on the following:

The Russians don't do air conditioning. Period. And, that's not a good thing. I thought London struggled with excessively high heat, but the Brits could learn a trick or two from the plucky Russians. Most merely shrug their shoulders, sigh and deal with it. As Pauline, our tour guide put it: “Your Mr. Albert Gore was sure right about his world warming theory, da?”

To begin with, there's St. Petersburg's overall miasma: daytime temperatures soar well in excess of 100 degrees (F). But, unlike Phoenix and it’s much heralded and over-hyped 'dry heat,' the humidity here is Vietnamese jungle-like in its intensity (courtesy of its proximity to the Baltic Sea).

Stir in absolutely no carbon dioxide emission standards whatsoever, never-ending road construction work which sears the air with a heady aroma of burning tar and a sun that, due to our extreme Northern exposure, doesn't set until 11pm and one gets hot, hot, hot to paraphrase another pop song.

But St. Petersburg's special charm is its cigarette-addicted populace. When it came to conquering the Russian population, Napoleon and Hitler should have studied Phillip Morris instead of Carl von Clausewitz. Nearly every uber attractive, scantily-clad Russian lass can be seen strolling the Neskiye Prospekt with a cigarette dangling from her lips. And, the men puff away just as enthusiastically. So, if you're an investor, hang onto your tobacco stocks- Phillip Morris is making a killing here, literally.

On the plus side, St. Petersburg has beautifully restored 17th and 18th century Russian Orthodox churches on virtually every street corner. They also have a subway system that is clean and cool. (Yes, I said, cool. I was actually thinking of bedding down in one for the night.) There are also lots of historic sites for the hyperactive tourist. (But, one morning of inhaling noxious fumes and sweating through my clothes many times over was enough to put a damper on any extended tours for this blogger.)
 
Another plus is the World War II memorabilia. The Russians proudly display many of the weapons used to fight back the Nazi siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg's name during the Communist regime). And, there's even a brief tour of the Astoria Hotel (not to be confused with NYC's Waldorf-Astoria) where Hitler had already made plans to host a gala celebration of the fall of Leningrad. (As our guide, Pauline, beamed, “So, he did not have the chance for that, no? So, instead, Stalin came here and he give big, big celebration.”)

I found it curious that there were no statues or murals of Stalin to be found, but Lenin is everywhere. I guess those 30 million mass murders tended to dampen the Russians' pride in Uncle Joe.

Anyway, my climbing team leaves St. Petersburg this morning for a day-long flight South to Mineral Vody in the Caucasus Mountains, where we begin our assault on 18,840 foot Mt Elbrus. With cell service being as scarce as tobacco and nicotine are plentiful, this blogger doubts he'll be able to file an update until we reach Moscow midweek of next week. Here's hoping in advance that Moscow copes with the heat a little bit better than its neighbor to the North.

St. Petersburg was nice to visit, but here's one comrade who wouldn't want to live there. Dasvedanya, Amerikanskis.

May 18

“Hey, honey, forget that weekend in Cape Cod. Let’s take the kids to Alabama!”

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I can’t imagine a better tourist destination right now than the pristine beaches of Alabama.
Oil-spill-beach420-420x0 Sure, downtown Baghdad has some great restaurants. And, there’s always the possibility of catching a glimpse of Osama bin Laden in Karachi, Pakistan, but why hassle with foreign intrigue when the Gulf Coast beckons? 

That’s why I’m supporting the Alabama Tourism Department’s brand new, $1.5MM marketing campaign to assure tourists the state’s beaches are clean and open.

I can just imagine the campaign slogans:

-    ‘That’s not oil, silly. Someone just spilled her bottle of sunscreen in the water’
-    ‘Just because our fish are floating face down doesn’t mean they aren’t happy’
-    ‘Alabama’s oil slick waters: the perfect antidote for your arthritic joints’

And, just imagine the added drama of, say, zig-zagging your jet ski in between large oil patches! I could even see ESPN2 covering it as a new type of extreme sport. “Ed, our next contestant is Bunny from La Grange, Illinois. She’ll be attempting to beat Sam from Bowling Green’s time of 2:23 to, and from, what’s left of that oil rig out there on the horizon. And, keep in mind, there must be thousands of dead fish and birds littering her way. This will be a real test indeed. And, the beach crowd is just loving it. Those who haven’t been overcome by the putrid smells are standing and chanting, ‘Bunny! Bunny! Bunny!’”

As for the overall campaign’s theme song? What else but Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water.’

The late P.T. Barnum was credited with saying, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” But, I have to believe even the most intellectually challenged vacationer in America will be hard pressed to visit Alabama’s beaches in the next few weeks or so. That is, unless BP pulls a real marketing coup and offers to underwrite everyone’s vacation costs. “Hey, Honey, guess what? Those nice people at BP say they’ll pay us three dollars for every one we spend on vacation in Alabama. So what if we develop black lung disease? Think of what this will do for our retirement account.”

Aug 18

Honey, let’s scratch the Rancho Bernardo Inn off next Summer’s vacation list

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There's clever marketing in a downtime and then there's pure desperation. The San Diego-based Rancho Bernardo Inn's recent pricing strategy would fit neatly into the latter category.

That's because the allegedly upscale resort is now offering a $19 per night 'survivor' package aimed at victims of the current recession.

August 18 - tents According to Reuters, down-on-their-luck consumers can still enjoy the resort's amenities as long at they bring along their own tent, flashlight, sleeping bags, toilet paper and insect repellent. For the $19, vacationers get to set up camp at one of the resort's lovely pools and enjoy all the usual frills sans the warmth and comfort of an actual room. One would also assume room (or tent) service wouldn't be included.

This is a terrible idea for any number of reasons. First, and most importantly, it undermines whatever image and reputation the Rancho Bernardo Inn has built up until now. Second, the $19 per night offer will attract, shall we say, a slightly less exclusive clientele. Third, the latter will scare off middle and upper-scale patrons who have either patronized the inn in the past or might consider doing so in the future. Like Mercedes, Cadillac and other luxury brands that have eroded their up-market brand image by slashing prices, the Rancho Bernardo will pay a heavy price down the road.

Moving forward, the Rancho Bernardo Inn will be forever known as 'tent city,’ the 'homeless hotel' or some other horrific moniker.

The four-star inn's assistant general manager calls it '…clever marketing in a downtime.' I call it brand suicide.

*Thanks to Greg Schmalz for the idea for this post.

Apr 28

I’m leaving my heart in San Francisco

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If there’s one city that consistently lives up to its image and reputation, it’s San Francisco. Sanfrancisco_2

Beyond the obvious things like the Golden Gate Bridge, the trolleys, the hills, and the cool, crisp temperatures, there’s the city’s sheer beauty. Its physical presence overwhelms me in a way that New York, Chicago, London and others never have (that is, when the fog isn’t obscuring the bay and surrounding hills).

There’s also a hint of mystery about the city. I can see why Hitchcock chose this location for so many films. San Francisco also has a whimsical way about it, what with the world’s most crooked street, Alcatraz Island and Haight-Asbury.

I’ve visited bigger, louder and more boisterous cities, but none that has the hold on me like San Francisco.

It’s nice to see that city planners are carefully controlling its growth and modernization. Because, I plan on visiting the city by the bay time and again and continue to leave my heart here in the process.

Mar 24

A break from reality

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Palm Beach is a real trip. Having just spent five days there, I can confirm it lives up to its image andPalmbeach_2
reputation as a place of opulence, decadence and indulgence.

Palm Beachers seem to fall into one of two categories: the younger, Eurocentric jet set crowd and the older, monied bluebloods. Both adhere to the same general dress code, though. A gold-buttoned blue blazer, pink Oxford shirt, khakis and Gucci loafers (sans socks) for the gents and a lame pant suit, Gucci sandals and a jewelry store’s worth of diamonds and pearls for madame. 

Smoking is very big here, as are cigarette holders. PB’ers are ostentatious and like to tool around in either their Bentley convertibles or some sort of classic Jaguar roadster from the 1950s.

Part of the fun of visiting Palm Beach is the people watching and conversation eavesdropping. The latter was particularly productive and seemed to indicate that most of the world’s ills aren’t resonating here. There was no talk of Iraq, Hillary or the Recession, for instance. Instead, chitchat centered on a new Bulgari show at Saks, an Easter Saturday polo match in Wellington and complaints about the poor service at the Ritz.

These are the beautiful people who work hard to float serenely through life, worrying only about the latest party or fashion show. It must be nice, but it must also get tedious at times.

Still, a refuge is a refuge. So, if you’re looking for a few days away from Eliot Spitzer, failing financial institutions and worries about the future, check out Palm Beach. The uber rich may not welcome you with open arms, but they’ll allow you to observe them in their natural habitat. And, that my friends, is a real trip.