Legion of Angels News Archive

LAKE HARMONY, Pa. – A new indoor water park is scheduled to open in Pennsylvania on Oct. 31 at the Split Rock Resort & Golf Club.

The new $19 million park, called H20ooohh Indoor Family Waterpark, includes hot tubs, three large slides, a wave pool, a three-story tree house with squirting water toys and dumping buckets, and a FlowRider called the Komodo Dragon, which simulates waves suitable for surfing. The park also includes a play area for toddlers, a food court and tiki bar.

The park offers day passes, $40 for general admission and $35 for children 42 inches and under (children 2 and under are free). If you arrive after 4 p.m., prices are $8 cheaper. Guests must bring their own towels. Lockers may be rented for $5.

The resort also offers a variety of packages that include accommodations and waterpark admission. Midweek stays start at $100.50 per person, per night with a two-night minimum; weekends start at $133 per person, per night, with a two-night minimum.

A grand opening Splash & Stay special, for Oct. 31-Nov. 2, begins at $191 a night, double occupancy, plus $53 per child ages 5-15, including admission to the waterpark, a free game of bowling and a tour of Split Rock’s Nightmare Inn.

The park will be closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Weather permitting, the Split Rock golf course is expected to remain open until Thanksgiving. Indoor recreation at the resort includes bowling, billiards, basketball, a movie theater, spa and fitness center. The resort is also hosting the Great Brews of America Classic Beer Festival, Nov. 22-23.

Details at http://www.splitrockresort.com.

Source — Yahoo!

DALLAS – Airline customers are cashing in more frequent-flier awards this year, looking to avoid higher fares and believing that miles are worth less than in the past.

With so many new ways to earn miles — on everything from car rentals to groceries — savvy travelers fear it’ll soon become harder to go where they want, when they want, for free.

“The glamour of the frequent-flier award has faded,” says Jay Sorensen, who ran the loyalty program at Midwest Airlines and is now an airline consultant. “People are realizing that using miles to go to Hawaii is a difficult objective.”

The economy and high fares may also be pushing people to spend their miles.

Randy Petersen, who tracks frequent-flier programs as publisher of InsideFlyer magazine, says recent fare hikes are leading many passengers to burn up miles on humdrum trips instead of vacations to Hawaii or Europe.

“They’re going to Boise, Decatur and Bakersfield,” Petersen said. “They’re spending miles on family emergencies or visiting grandma.”

Airlines have been raising mileage requirements and imposing fees to use them in, but plenty of people are still cashing them in.

Continental Airlines reports that through July, customers had cashed in 1.34 million awards this year, up 21 percent from the same period last year.

At Continental, the only major U.S. airline to disclose monthly redemption figures, officials credit changes in their Web site that let customers see available seats on partner airlines, which they can book with miles from Continental’s OnePass loyalty program.

American Airlines has the oldest and largest loyalty program in the industry, AAdvantage, with 60 million members who racked up 200 billion miles last year.

Use of awards on American was flat from 2006 to 2007 but is up 10 to 15 percent this year through August, said Rob Friedman, American’s president of marketing for AAdvantage.

Like Continental, American credited Web site advances that let customers see at a glance when they can travel a particular route and how many miles it will cost.

“They can look at the calendar and make trade-offs,” Friedman said. “They can be flexible and shop around for flights (that require fewer miles), or they may need to redeem more miles for travel on a specific date.”

For example, last week American’s Web site showed available seats from Dallas to Honolulu on most days around Thanksgiving for 35,000 miles. But if you wanted to travel on a Saturday, it would require 90,000 miles.

That indicates American is more confident of selling out those Saturday flights. Airlines want to fill their planes with paying customers, but they must balance that against the clamoring of frequent fliers who want to redeem their miles for free trips.

About 6 to 8 percent of all passengers fly on award tickets, according to airline documents.

Most U.S. carriers have raised mileage standards and shortened expiration periods in their loyalty programs.

Delta now offers members a guaranteed ability to redeem miles for a free trip but at the cost of many more miles. This month, American began charging $50 — plus 15,000 miles — to upgrade from economy coach on a flight within the United States.

“Those decisions are never easy or popular, but in light of fuel costs, they were necessary,” American’s Friedman said of the new fee.

Those fees and tighter expiration rules might themselves be driving the increase in redemptions.

Shaun Black, a software consultant in Atlanta, burned all his Delta miles on a trip he and his wife will take to Greece next spring. He booked the seats just before Delta began imposing a fuel surcharge on reward tickets in August.

“We weren’t even looking to take a trip,” Black said. “It was more out of spite — I wasn’t going to pay that fee.”

Black said he worries that Delta will soon double the miles needed for free trips because so many people now earn miles by using credit cards, renting cars — everything but flying.

Only half of miles earned by American’s frequent fliers come from flying, with half coming from using a special Citigroup credit card or making purchases from the airline’s 1,000 retail partners.

And that is precisely the problem with these programs, said Tom Farmer, who runs a small marketing company in Seattle — too many miles chasing too few seats. A longtime elite-level flyer, he’s had enough.

“There is a crisis in faith with miles — they’re constantly being devalued,” he said. “A lot of people, me included, have decided the game has peaked and they’re getting out.”

Farmer said he spent 450,000 Northwest Airlines miles to book business-class seats for a family vacation next summer to Australia and Tahiti and has only 2,000 miles left. Lately, he’s taken several trips on JetBlue, but doesn’t plan to redeem the miles before they expire — the “game” isn’t worth it anymore, he said.

Airlines are looking for ways to make loyalty programs more appealing. American and Southwest recently announced they would set up separate check-in lanes at some airports to help program members pass through security faster.

“It’s giving our customers greater utility, especially business travelers,” said Ryan Green, director of customer loyalty at Southwest. “Our surveys show that frequent-flier programs rank highly with business travelers.”

And the programs often serve the purpose for which airlines created them — to keep their best customers from bolting to another carrier.

Mark Pankow, a sales executive from Wisconsin, used American Airlines miles to get eight business-class seats to Germany last Christmas, six tickets to Orlando in August, and recently booked two trips to Costa Rica.

Other major airlines offer schedules that meet Pankow’s needs, but he values his executive platinum status with American.

“It would take a life-changing event for me to switch to United,” he said. “I’d have to fly coach for a year just to get back to elite status.”

Source — Yahoo!

BANGPLEE, Thailand – As my 30th birthday approached, my fear of becoming a middle-aged woman plagued with mystery ailments, huffing and puffing up flights of stairs, finally started to outweigh my exercise phobia.

So I decided to get in shape while learning Thailand’s notorious national sport, Muay Thai, known in English as kickboxing. This was no small commitment: I attended a Muay Thai camp near Bangkok for 10 days, training for five hours a day.

Muay Thai is performed with boxing gloves in Western-style boxing rings, but uses knees, elbows and legs, in addition to fists, as weapons. It is considered the most violent of all martial arts because of the damage an elbow can inflict on an opponent.

I chose my training camp by scouring the Internet and reading online reviews. The two gyms that got the highest ratings from kickboxers around the world were Fairtex, located in the Bangkok suburb of Bangplee, and another gym on the dazzling Thai island Phuket. Both offer one-on-one Muay Thai training.

The Phuket gym looked fun and hip, and, according to some online reviewers, caters to women, but the Web site’s advice for students interested in picking up “Thai bargirls” turned me off. So I chose Fairtex.

Fairtex opened its doors to Westerners five years ago and now boasts two gyms in California, one in San Francisco and one in Silicon Valley, in addition to other locations in Thailand and Japan. Foreign students who come to Fairtex temporarily adopt the lifestyle of professional Thai fighters, who live, eat, sleep and train at camp.

A cacophony of grunts, whacks and thumps greeted me when I arrived. Students glistening with sweat duked it out with trainers in four outdoor boxing rings. Turned out I was in for a lot of sweating myself.

My training began at 6:30 a.m. the next morning when I dragged myself out of bed for a half-hour of cardiovascular exercise in the air-conditioned gym.

Before leaving my room, I donned my shiny red kickboxing shorts and flexed my muscles in front of the mirror. But my fantasies of becoming a female Rocky faded fast when I got to the gym and couldn’t figure out how to use the treadmill. I frantically poked at the mystery buttons and knobs, trying to will the machine into action. Finally another student came over and turned it on for me.

As I jogged, I imagined everyone staring at my jiggling thighs and listening to my haggard breathing, thinking, “What is she doing here?”

When I finished, I couldn’t figure out how to slow the treadmill down. I finally had to throw myself off with a clumsy jump.

I headed out to the boxing rings and sat awkwardly waiting for someone to explain what I was supposed to do next. Finally, a barely pubescent-looking Thai kid came over and started wrapping my hands in the flashy pink hand-wraps I had picked out at the onsite shop the previous day.

That kid was my trainer for the next 10 days, Sarun Inta.

Each morning after cardio, I met Inta in the ring where he showed me Muay Thai moves, mostly by pantomiming, as his English was limited. Then he held up pads and told me to kick, punch, and jab with knees and elbows until my arms felt like rubber and my kicks came out sloppy and in slow motion.

After training in the ring for five rounds of four minutes each, Inta sent me staggering over to the punching bags to practice my technique. I finished each session with 100 sit-ups.

And then I repeated the whole process in the afternoon.

My entire body, from head to toe, hurt for the first few days. My knees and shins were covered in blue and green bruises.

In between training sessions, I could do little more than sleep and eat. I was too exhausted to even string together complete sentences. This was my journal entry on day two:

“Everything bruised. Hurts. Red curry for dinner. Pain. Must sleep now.”

Fairtex is not the kind of place where a trainer will sit you down with a steaming mug of herbal tea and talk to you about your fitness goals. But if you smile nicely, you might get someone to punch you in the stomach while you do sit-ups, which a trainer did for me on my fourth day. Apparently, the punching helps abdominal muscles toughen up to prevent injury from the impact of punches and kicks.

Women were once barred from entering Thai boxing rings, as they were seen to bring bad luck to the competitors. But that tradition has changed. Four out of the 25 foreigners training at Fairtex were women.

Claire Louise Douglas, 25, traveled from Scotland to train at Fairtex. She said she started taking Thai boxing classes in Glasgow four years ago to build her self-esteem after ending a bad relationship.

“I remember always standing at the back of the class because I was slightly overweight and had no confidence, but after about four months I ended up at the front of the class,” said Douglas.

Douglas, now a university student, manages to squeeze three two-hour training sessions a week into her schedule at home.

When Douglas first started taking Muay Thai classes, there were only a handful of women frequenting her gym.

“Now there are women’s clubs and women’s classes. It’s almost like the suffrage of Muay Thai,” said Douglas.

According to Fairtex’s general manager, Tien Ho Ngo, Fairtex was the first Muay Thai gym in Thailand to accept women as students.

It’s common for fighters to take the name of their gym as a surname, and Ngo said that a 12-year-old girl named Cherry Fairtex was the best of the young Thai students training there — male or female.

On my second day at Fairtex, after I threw a particularly clumsy kick, my trainer pointed to Cherry as she hurled swift and graceful kicks in the next ring over, and said: “Try to do it like that.”

My trainer loved to tease me. Sometimes he would tell me to punch, but then pull the pads back so that I would stumble off balance. Then he’d kick me softly on my side and laugh.

But on my third day, I knocked him down. By then, he’d taught me how to block, so when he pulled his pads away this time, I rebalanced and threw up my knee to block his kick. He lost his balance and fell to the ground, then rolled around clutching his foot and laughing.

After that, I felt tougher. I kicked and punched harder than before.

I wasn’t the only one at Fairtex hoping to get fit.

“I’m here because I looked down at my feet and couldn’t see them and realized that I needed to get in shape,” said 27-year-old Neil Kelsall, from England. After two weeks of training, he said his stamina had increased dramatically, but he still couldn’t see his feet.

Fellow student Gary O’Brien, 28, a Muay Thai instructor and amateur fighter in Scotland (and Douglas’ boyfriend), explained: “A stint like this won’t work to lose weight and keep it off. You need a permanent lifestyle change.”

He recommended using visual signs such as measurements and how clothes fit as the best indicators for improvements in fitness, rather than weight.

On my first day home in New York, instead of falling into my usual pattern of laziness, I woke up at 6 a.m. and went running in Central Park. I still panted after the first 10 minutes of my run, but I pushed myself past the burning sensation in my calves and the tightness in my lungs, and, for the first time I could remember, enjoyed exercising.

Perhaps Muay Thai camp was the first step in my permanent lifestyle change.

___

FAIRTEX MUAY THAI CAMP: http://www.fairtex.com/. Two kickboxing camps in Thailand, three in Japan, two sites in California (San Francisco and Mountain View). Rates at Bangplee:$32 for shared accommodation, $76 for private air-conditioned room. Prices include training and two meals a day. Rates at San Francisco gym: $120 an hour; $1,500 a week for intensive training; drop-in rate of $45 a day or $25 group class. (Lodging separate; hotels nearby.)

Source — Yahoo!

SAN FRANCISCO – Some 7.5 million people ride San Francisco’s cable cars each year. Many of them board at Powell and Market streets, the famous turnaround site at the end of the line. Here tourists can snap pictures of workers manually swiveling the cars around to begin the route again.

But visitors may not realize there are actually three cable lines, each with its own flavor. The scenic Powell-Mason and Powell-Hyde lines both begin at Powell and Market. The third line, which is the least crowded and least known to tourists, runs along hilly California Street and also offers lovely views.

Here are some tips on riding the cable cars and what to look for.

AVOIDING THE CROWDS: The three lines intersect at California and Powell. You can catch any of them there.

If you board at Powell and Market, be prepared to wait 45 minutes to an hour. Visitors like the spot because of the turnaround, and because it’s fun to hang off a pole on the cars’ crowded open platforms.

To avoid the crowds, buy your ticket at the Powell-Market booth, then walk a few blocks up Powell Street to the next stop, where the wait will likely be shorter.

CALIFORNIA LINE: Running 1.2 miles along California Street, from Drumm Street to Van Ness Avenue, the California line runs through the financial district, then to the exclusive Nob Hill neighborhood.

Before boarding, hit the Ferry Building in The Embarcadero on Market Street. Rush hour ferries serve commuters from Marin County and the East Bay. On Tuesdays and Saturdays, locals shop for produce at the Embarcadero Farmer’s Market. At the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant’s tasting room, you can taste wines from around the world, and at the Hog Island Oyster Co., you can sample oysters harvested daily from nearby Tomales Bay.

The California line is known for its steep grade. Looking up from Drumm, you can see the Powell cable line crossing California at the top of Nob Hill, with cars and passengers silhouetted against the sky. As you near the top of the hill, look back and see the architecture of downtown San Francisco, with San Francisco Bay and Bay Bridge as a backdrop.

If you get off at California and Grant, you’re just a few blocks from Portsmouth Square in the heart of Chinatown. Continuing along the California line you’ll see Grace Cathedral and the city’s most posh hotels, like the Ritz-Carlton at Stockton, and the Fairmont and Mark Hopkins hotels across the street from one another at Mason. The Mark Hopkins is known for its sky bar, Top of the Mark, on the 19th floor. Here you’ll see sweeping 360-degree views of San Francisco and the bay. During World War II, soldiers about to be deployed would buy a bottle and leave it for the next soldier to enjoy; wives and sweethearts would gather in a corner of the lounge known as “Weepers’ Corner” to watch the ships sail off under the Golden Gate.

POWELL-MASON LINE: This line passes many city landmarks. Union Square, known for its shopping, is a block from the start of the line. From there, a series of scenic uphill climbs leads to the intersection at California Street, where you can catch any of the three lines.

The Powell-Mason cars then make a left at Powell and Jackson, and a right onto Mason straight down to Fisherman’s Wharf.

From the intersections of Mason-Jackson to Mason-Union, you get an architectural tour of San Francisco’s classic row houses. At Mason and Columbus Avenue, you’re in the heart of North Beach, a historically Italian neighborhood where you’ll find gelato, coffee shops, pizzerias and restaurants. Nearby, Washington Square Park on Columbus and Union is one of the best people-watching spots in the city.

The Powell-Mason Line veers left at Columbus, and right at Taylor to end at Bay Street, Fisherman’s Wharf.

POWELL-HYDE LINE: The Powell-Hyde line offers sweeping vistas of the ocean along Hyde Street. The route starts off identical to the Powell-Mason line, from Market to Jackson streets. At Jackson, they split, with the Powell-Hyde line heading north, then right at Hyde toward Fisherman’s Wharf.

Hyde and Union is the best spot to get a feel for Russian Hill, a quintessential San Francisco neighborhood. Here, row houses and Victorians mix with restaurants, coffee shops, ice cream parlors and corner markets. Interesting eateries include Okoze Sushi, 1207 Union; Zarzuela, 2000 Hyde St. (tapas); Swensen’s Ice Cream Parlor, at Hyde and Union (40-50 different flavors); Searchlight Market at Hyde and Union (fresh produce and sourdough bread); Frascati, 1901 Hyde St. (Mediterranean bistro — try for a window seat to watch the cable cars whiz by).

Also near Hyde and Union is Russian Hill Dog Grooming, where you can look through giant windows to see stylists working on high-end poodle haircuts.

As the Powell-Hyde line heads down to the water, stop at Hyde and Lombard for views of the water, Coit Tower atop Telegraph Hill and the Bay Bridge in the distance. A block down is Lombard Street, known as the “world’s crookedest street.” At the end of the line, you’ll find Fisherman’s Wharf; views of Alcatraz Island and the Golden Gate Bridge; and the Buena Vista Cafe at Hyde and Beach streets, where you can get a great breakfast of hash browns, corned beef and an omelet. Buena Vista’s bartenders make 2,000 Irish coffees a day and they plan to unveil the world’s largest Irish coffee on Nov. 10.

TIPS AND TICKETS: Follow the rails on the street to keep track of where the lines twist and turn. To identify the line, look for the name printed on the car exterior. The Powell-Mason and Powell-Hyde lines are least crowded before 10 a.m.; either can be taken downtown from Fisherman’s Wharf.

Locals suggest you ride hanging from the right side when leaving from downtown, and hanging from the left side when leaving from the wharf for the best ocean views. Coming back from the water, both lines pass by the Cable Car Museum (1201 Mason St.), where you can learn about the history of the cable cars and see the underground pulleys that operate them.

Fares are $5 each way. Muni Passports, good for unlimited rides on cable cars, buses and light rail (but not on BART), are $11 for one day; $18 for three days; $24 for seven days. Details at http://www.sfmta.com/passport.

Source — Yahoo!

Look online — there are travel deals everywhere.

CheapTickets.com is offering a $100 discount on packages to several beach destinations like Puerto Rico, Hawaii and California. Orbitz.com is offering 40 percent off international flights to the Caribbean, Italy and Spain. At Expedia.com, there are 50 percent discounts on hotels across the country.

It must be autumn. This time of year is when travel providers are looking to compensate for the decline in travel that inevitably follows summer’s peak. The Travel Industry Association says that 38 percent of trips are taken during the summer; the number drops sharply to 23 percent in fall. The discounts are also used as a way of spurring tourism in destinations where the crowds dissipate after the high season.

Consumers who shop for travel specifically during the off-season can reap the benefits, says Lorraine Sanders, an expert and blogger for the travel Web site Kayak.com.

“When you look at all the possible resources,” she says, “you’ll find savings you didn’t realize were there.”

Sanders recommends that consumers stay abreast of the latest sales by subscribing to weekly newsletters distributed by travel providers, which often list last-minute discounts. Another strategy is to request fare alerts via e-email from an airline that services certain destinations.

The best bets
Useful as these techniques many be, however, they won’t help much for travel to destinations where prices remain high throughout the fall, like New York and Chicago. For the biggest savings, consumers should look to beach spots in the U.S. and the Caribbean, where cooler temperatures mean fewer crowds.

Hotel rates in these regions are expected to drop as much as 40 percent, according to a recent forecast by CheapTickets.com. In Miami, hotel rates will likely shrink by 33 percent to an average daily rate of $110. The Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau also maintains a list of hotel and resort deals, which includes complimentary nights and food and gas credits.

On Mexico’s Riviera Maya, where tourists can lounge on sandy beaches and visit archaeological ruins at an ancient Mayan city nearby, a hotel room will cost an average of $219, a savings of 23 percent over peak-season prices.

“You can get unbelievable bargains in these destinations,” says Heather Leisman, senior director of merchandising for CheapTickets.

The only caveat of visiting destinations on the Gulf Coast or Caribbean this time of year is that they can easily be interrupted by a hurricane. If that risk outweighs the benefit, less-expensive getaways in Europe are a great alternative.

Think outside the continent
The Azores Islands, a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, offer hurricane-wary travelers the chance to enjoy a warm-weather island vacation after summer passes. Paying European prices to golf and sail may not seem like a bargain, but getting to the Azores can be. Regional air carrier Azores Express is offering a fall package that includes round-trip airfare from Boston and six nights of lodging at one of six country inns, starting at $979 per person.

Iceland also isn’t a conventional pick for a fall vacation, but it offers an affordable, off-the-beaten-path experience in Europe. With the krona dropping in value against the euro and discounted airfares from Iceland Air going for as little as $478 from New York, it’s an ideal destination for those who enjoy hiking, kayaking and sport fishing.

If Europe seems a bit too far and the planning too involved, Kathy Krawiec, assistant director of AAA New York, suggests that travelers look into cruises. Not only do cruises offer predictability in pricing, purchasing an all-inclusive package and departing from a nearby port — instead of flying to one — can save consumers hundreds of dollars on top of the seasonal discounts.

The other advantage of cruises is there’s no shortage of options. For a multi-day tour of Canada and New England departing from New York City, Norwegian has cut prices to $249 per person. If warm and sunny is more appealing than cool Northeast weather, Carnival is offering three-day trips from Florida to the Bahamas starting at $199 per person.

With so many options, it might be hard to choose. But Lorraine Sanders of Kayak warns against hesitating. “If you’re not on top of things,” she says, “those fares will be gone quickly.”

Source — MSNBC