the state of comfort travel in 2014

The idea of this comfort travel at less blog, is not only a how-to from my personal experience, but I'm featuring what's new that my readers can use for their benefit.

First of all, watch your back when you take a Carnival affiliate company cruise—they own most of the major cruise lines and use the same passenger contract that signs away the right to sue of unwitting cruisers.  According to Ashly Fantz http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/14/travel/questions-cruise-passengers/index.html  when you get sick or anything else happens when you cruise it's not so easy to sue, says this CNN travel reporter, also, a one person undertaking cost $$$, and the CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin advises it's best to get on with life.  The more bad cruise news happened just the other day, another outbreak of severe illness of a cruise line http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/25/travel/cruise-ship-illness/index.html .

Do ask yourself why Congress is so uninterested in protecting the rights of US cruise passengers, yet doesn't hesitate to cite airlines and cause potential bankruptcies on the consumer behalf.

As for what's available in technology this year— I'm offering what my readers can derive at old standy Internet sites like Airbnb https://www.airbnb.com/s  that can set filters to show private rooms and houses.  For those of you that still want a hotel there are Internet sites to book re offer a refund if you discover that a comparable hotel nearby is available for less http://www.triprebel.com/ .  There's another hotel booking site on the Internet with a twist of sorts http://www.tripbam.com/ which guarantees help to locate a hotel where you want and says it does alert you if the price drops so you can rebook.  Though it seems to me it may be too late when you get an alert if you are too late to cancel and rebook.

Ho hum, perhaps the above will bring some $$ savings, but I'm partial to my old standby of "do it yourself" investigation.  You can
rely on what I recommended in my previous blog, re what I did to find comfort hotels at less $$ when I prepared for my 2013 24 day travel adventure.  And I did pass along the results, all excellent with a proven value that compared better against local comparables, and contented my comfort zone.  Also, I gave my readers the truth about my ill fated roundtrip transatlantic disaster on the Cunard. 

Keep in mind that I advise all my readers who want to cruise, not to do it because of that pesky signing away your rights when you purchase the tickets.  Though I'm not aware of any cruise travel agency, or CLIA (the travel agency cruiseline Association that promotes the cruises lines), will even admit that what is in the passenger contract is necessary to alert clients about "before they purchase."

Don't expect accuracy with some travel help offered by the venerable New York Times "Travel" section—in a recent roundup of 2014 travel offerings the mention of a Google app at "Fieldstripper.com" brought up an app featuring a field manual for guns, not an alert that you have on your Iphone or Android phone re attractions plus historical sites as you are traveling.  I did my usual careful research and found out that Google's apps are for the most part no longer free and cost $$.  Another peeve against major newspapers with travel sections, like "The New York Times" that feature articles by travel writers who anoint certain individuals as master detectives, for instance, of "hole in the wall" restaurants—that too, is less than accurate. My accurate research did find a wikipedia listing for a food critic that no longer works for "The Village Voice."

Yet you can trust this blog for researched and accurate reports that are not sponsored, which in this day and age is a rarity.  I encourage you to contact me to suggest future blogs that will be a benefit to all the readers of this comforttravel at less $$ blog.