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Related: Read previous posts filed under “Trip Notes”

-First off, hats off to all of the Montrealers who helped contribute over 70 comments with great tips for my recent trip to Montreal.  Hope I don’t offend too many of you with my trip notes!

-My brother Dovid’s wedding was incredible. All of the guys who came to dance from the local yeshiva really made the place lively and last into the wee hours of the night. Choni Milecki played music at his best. I only hope that my duet with Dovid singing Matisyahu’s One Day doesn’t make it onto Youtube…or you’ll see what too much 18 year old Glenlivet and Johnnie Walker Blue Label will do to people.  Speaking of “One Day”, NBC just used it a few minutes ago as the background music to their Olympics coverage!

-The best tip I got was the comment left by zalman. Yes it really does work to anywhere in the world.  It saved us $$$ and is possibly the craziest thing I’ve ever seen!

-For reason I can’t explain it just seemed colder in Montreal than the reported temperature.  Maybe it’s the constant windiness or something else but it was just bone-chillingly cold.  Definitely should have brought a down coat instead the wool one.

-I have never seen cars caked in salt like in Montreal.  It looked like all the cars on the street had rolled in salt pits or something…it snows in Cleveland a lot but the cars don’t look like they did there, what gives?

-In the city of Montreal most of the signs are in French with no English translation. There are numerous small suburbs though where Arret becomes Stop as the signs magically change from French to English. Does eac suburb get to decide whether to be Francophone or Anglophone or does it have to just do with the makeup of the local population?

-Tip: With the numerous different cities around Boulevard Decarie when using a GPS to find an address just select “Search all cities” in Quebec to find the address. If you type in Montreal it won’t find a match. In general in Canada it’s fun to use the 6 digit Zip Codes in the GPS. When you do that you won’t even have to enter a city or street name for it to find your destination!

-Even with my Starwood AMEX charging over 2% to use the card in Canada it’s still worth using it. $1 Canadian cost me about 97.5 cents which was better than what change places were offering. Plus I still get Starpoints and have buyer protections (chargeback, stolen/broken goods, warranty coverage, etc.) that you won’t have if you pay cash. Even the parking meters take AMEX so I never had to carry any Canadian cash. Some stores don’t take AMEX so I fell back on my Continental Presidential Plus card which gave a similar rate.

-Don’t waste any money to see the city from the tower in Olympic Stadium.  Instead take a look at the city unfold from on top of Mont Royal at night or drive around the bridges to the Montreal Casino at night where you can see the lights of the city and the brightly lit casino shine beautifully over the water.

-We went to check out the snow tubing ($8) on Mont Royal but the tubing hill looked somewhat small and we really didn’t have the proper winter attire so we went ice skating instead ($8 for skate rental).

-We stayed at Priority Club’s Candlewood Suites downtown.  Frankly I don’t like anything about them.  I negotiated rates with them for our group of about 15 rooms for $59/night for a studio and $99/night for a two-bedroom suite with a full kitchen and living/dining room.  Apparently I did too good of a job negotiating as the sales manager sheepishly called back and said that the manager had rejected the rates and that they were raising them by $30 per night.  In the end we settled on free valet parking (normally $12/day) and extra tables in the rooms so that our group could have joint Shabbos services and meals.

What I didn’t realize was that Candlewood does not give any housekeeping, the rooms were in desperate need of renovation, and they give you one lousy bottle of foul-smelling shampoo and make you grovel for more.  No conditioner, moisturizer, etc.  The free internet was ridiculously slow one day and didn’t work at all for the rest of the time.  The room keys would randomly stop working and there is no staff to bring anything up to the room,  you have to go down to the front desk to fix any problems.

The only thing going for the hotel was the location.  I walked the half mile to the picturesque Old Montreal and Old Port of Montreal on Shabbos a couple times.  The only issue was that the Candlewood rooms were on the 11th-14th floors so it was a hike getting back up. Old Montreal has a very European feel with its narrow cobblestone streets and small shops.  Definitely worth a walk around if you can brave the cold.  The hotel was just a 10-15 minute drive from the kosher restaurants on Decarie and 20 minutes from YUL airport.

-The Hyatt Montreal is in need of a renovation as well…the guestrooms looked dated and a suite is just an extra connecting room instead of a real suite upgrade.  Many employees had poor English skills as well.

-Flying out of YUL is frankly a pain.  It’s a nice hike to get from the car rental return to the US check-in and there are no shuttles. Most of the airline agents are outsourced and don’t know all of the correct rules.  The Canadian Air Transport Security agents were downright hostile to us. Whether this was because we weren’t Francophone’s or because we’re Americans is beyond me. They forced us to check all of our wheeled carry-ons due to being oversize, but in the subsequent customs line I saw numerous Canadians with identical bags. The official size limit for carry-ons allowed into the security line is a joke, I could barely fit my laptop bag into the sizer. When an agent questioned my TSA approved laptop bag (the kind where you don’t need to removed the laptop from the case) he told me that “I don’t give a damn if it’s TSA approved, remove it right now or leave it behind.”

-Driving in Montreal is like another planet from Toronto. Whereas Toronto drivers were the most courteous that I’ve ever seen in a big city (Yes most of them really do stop and let you in when you turn on your turn-signal) Montrealers are definitely not.  Also Toronto is a much cleaner city than Montreal.  In spite or perhaps because of that Montreal is far less sterile and “normal” than Toronto, which makes it quite interesting to visit.

-Some of the stuff I saw in grocery stores that are kosher parve in Canada that aren’t in the US:
Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix.
Cereal: Cap’n Crunch, French Toast Crunch, Quaker Corn Squares, Quaker Maple Brown Sugar Oatmeal Squares, All Bran High Fiber Honey Nut Medley.
Chips: Lay’s Old Fashioned BBQ, Ruffles All Dressed.
I also picked up a number VH chinese sauces that were actually on a big sale at Metro this week.
So what did I miss?

Kosher eateries:

Cheskie’s Bakery: Yes, this place mentioned in dozens of comments does live up to the hype on many of the cheese items.
The vast majority of kosher establishments in Montreal are on Decarie, but this is located in the old neighborhood which seemed like it was in between downtown and Decarie. It’s worth the short hike out here from either location.
The cheese muffins had an indescribably great flavor. The flaky cheese danish with confectioners sugar and large cheese florets were equally great. You really can’t go wrong with any of the other cheese baked goods. The cheesecakes were very good, but nothing extraordinary. The chocolate and cinnamon rogelach were fine, but again nothing great. The Chocolate babka was very good, but their cheese goods are what you can’t miss.

Milk & Honey: I went across the street from Cheskie’s as some commenters had recommended but they had no cheesecake and the rest of the cafeteria style items didn’t look all that great.

Pizza Pita: Very cool pizza shop with an impressively diverse menu.
Everyone went crazy over the Pizza wraps ($2.75). They are egg rolls served with duck sauce and loaded with caramelized onions, tomato sauce, and cheese. The frozen Alaska’s (yogurt blended with fruit, $4) and razzles (ice cream blended with toppings, $4) were big hits as well. The felafel plate ($9) was quite good. The Pizza was fine, nothing exceptional.
As for the Poutine ($4.50)…Maybe it’s an acquired taste. I enjoyed trying the spicy fries loaded with cheese and gravy but one person in our party named it butane after what it did to everyone’s stomachs. Definitely worth a bite but I can’t imagine eating much more than that.
Their hours are incredible, until 11pm nightly and until 4am Saturday night! Plus there’s a drive-through!

Chez Benny: Overpriced fast food.
The General Tao plate ($18) had lots of food, but was only mediocre. The Shnitzel plate ($14) was better. Most of the menu is only in French.

Mount Royal Bagels: Incredible wood-oven bagels baked fresh right in front of you.
We got Sesame/Onion, whole wheat, Cinnamon (offered without raisins as we ordered or with raisins), Chocolate chip, and Plain. They were unique, delicious, hot, and crunchy. Their sun-dried tomato, and chive cream cheese was great as well.
A dozen bagels are just $6-$7.
And their Cinnamon Danish was one of the best I’ve ever had-it was divine!!!
Plus all their signs are in English

Ernie and Ellie’s: Oh where to start…
We made reservations for 15 people on Saturday night. We probably should have been prepared by the fact that it took 30 minutes for them to take our orders. The menu pricing seemed bizarre. Chinese meals were about $20 but the all-you-can-eat Chinese tasting menu was just $25. In theory we were told the tasting menu worked like this: Pick a soup, as many appetizers as you want, and 3 main dishes. After that you were free to order more dishes. Again that’s all in theory.
Maybe it’s because we were 15 people, maybe it’s because there was just 1 waitress, although the place was practically empty besides for us.
8:55pm: Arrived.
9:30pm: Took orders.
9:55pm: Appetizers brought out.
10:40pm: Entrees brought out, almost none of them are what people ordered. Nobody got more than 1 out of the 3 meals they ordered, and they made 5 of every meal that they did bring out. By the time we got the wrong meals and wanted to order more food with the “all you can eat” menu (or just the correct meals) or even dessert we were told that the kitchen was closed. So much for all you can eat.
The food that was brought out was excellent for the most part. The won-ton soup, peanut butter dumplings, chicken toast, General Tao Chicken, Orange Beef, and Salt & Pepper Chicken (They ran out of beef halfway through the meals) were all delicious. The service was 100% incompetent though. A 15% gratuity was added automatically onto the bill.
Oh and also lesson learned by some in the group-don’t order Sushi on a Saturday night!

Yakimono Sushi Bar: Incredible sushi and well priced as well.
I’m really not such a big sushi fan and would never touch raw fish with a 10 foot pole. We went here as an afterthought but it was well worth it.
Yakimono is clean and sleek looking restaurant. I got a fried sushi roll (10 pieces for $11) with salmon, mango, and avocado with fried tempura which was amazing. They serve their Sushi with a number of sauces (The sweet sauce was awesome!). The nice portion of fries ($4) were well-spiced and very good.
The only disappointment was the Hot Apple Crumble with Ice Cream ($8) that was overdone and consisted mostly of just dry crumble.

Morty’s Steakhouse: Very good steaks but overpriced.
Morty’s is a very good steakhouse. The hot french bread they serve when you are seated is delicious dipped into the aromatic and very flavorful balsamic vinegar.
I got the small Filet Mignon (8oz. for $39, the large is 12 oz. for $56) done medium which was just perfect and succulent. They even let me switch the vegetable to get 2 potatoes with the steak, Yukon Gold Garlic Mashed Potatoes, and absolutely incredible steak fries. Another diner had theirs done medium well which came out with a strong charred taste. Larger steaks (16 oz.) were about $60.
They even have a 70 ounce rib steak for $99 that if one diner is able to finish they don’t have to pay for it!
The hot chocolate cake with ice cream was OK, nothing compared to the sublime La Marais version of the dessert.

Click on the pictures to enlarge and to view the full non-cutoff picture:

The all you can eat menu at Ernie and Ellie’s

Chinatown

Fries at Yakimono

Fried Sushi Roll at Yakimono

Fake Crab Sushi Roll at Yakimono

Driving up Mont Royal

Babka, Elephant ear, and Rugelach at Cheskie’s

Don’t miss the Cheese Florets, Cheese Muffin, and Flaky Cheese Confectioners Sugar Danish at Cheskie’s

Cheesecakes at Cheskie’s

Agree? Disagree? Sound off in the comments!

Post stickied: I’ll be north of the border through Tuesday, updates may be sporadic until then. Please scroll down for new posts.

I tried a reader suggestion post back in November when I went to Toronto for my brother-in-law’s wedding and got 67 incredibly helpful and detailed responses. I even took it upon myself to try out as many of the food suggestions as humanly possible, who else would try out so many food/bakery joints on a short trip?

Anyway I’m off to Montreal tomorrow for the weekend for my brother’s wedding (seriously Dovid, Montreal in February??? Surely we could’ve arranged something with the Grand Hyatt Kauai…) and am looking for your suggestions once again. Whether it’s an activity or an eatery let’s hear all about it!

Update: 01/03: Picked up 2 $350 china cabinets for $150 each and 4 $80 dressers for $40 each…I’m pleased to report that price adjustments on preemptively purchased sale items work just as well at Ikea’s one day sale as it did at Walmart for Black Friday…

Happy new year to all!

-We flew from Hawaii to NYC last Thursday, flew home to Cleveland late Sunday, and moved to a great new apartment in Cleveland over the past few days. I was even able to pay the mover in miles (Thanks for the help Yossi Shmueli!)

-I can’t even remember the last shabbos that we spent at home and didn’t want to break that streak yet, so we drove into Pittsburgh for the weekend before we fly off to Kansas City for the next week. While in Pittsburgh we’ll try to pick up some of Ikea’s great one-day specials today and tomorrow ($99 cabinet down from $249 and some $39 dressers down from $80).

-It’s always sad on January 1st to see all your elite mileage qualification numbers go back down to 0.  At least I’ll always have Lifetime Platinum on AA to fall back on.

-I’m terrible at writing trip reports up after the trip is over…but one of these days I’ll type up some more installments from my Israel and Hawaii trips.

-Here’s my ridiculously long flight history map from the past 4 months. Most of it was in first class with miles or free upgrades to business class on Airtran which made it totally bearable.  And no, even though I’ve only been home for a few days over the past couple months our apartment does not look like anything like the one in “Up In the Air.”

You too can travel the world for free! Head over to the Dansdeals Forums and start strategizing now! Or just open up your own Starwood AMEX to start earning to the most valuable and flexible travel currency around!

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Shaloha Folks!
Hawaii Trip Notes: Part 1, Oahu.

-There are 4 main Islands in the state of Hawaii: Kauai, Maui, Oahu, and the Big Island of Hawaii.  Oahu is by far the most populated with the capital of Honolulu and touristy.  If you are going to Hawaii you need a minimum of 5 days on any Island, but a week is ideal.  In order of importance my opinion would be Kauai, Maui, the Big Island, and finally Oahu.

-We just finished an amazing week on Kauai.  Kauai is just incredible, my favorite Hawaiian island. It’s hard not to gush about it. The air is deliciously fresh with greenery abound. It’s just a stunningly beautiful island without any of the touristy kitsch that permeates Oahu and to a lesser degree Maui. From the depths of Waimea Canyon to the sheer and awe-inspiring cliffs of Na Pali it’s hard to not lose your breath…

-We stocked up on some of our kosher favorites in Whole Foods in Oahu before flying to Kauai. Got some ZenSoy Chocolate/Vanilla pudding ($3.99 vs. $2.99 in Cleveland), Corn and bean salsa ($3.69 vs. $2.99 in Cleveland), Whale Tales corn chips (never seen these in Cleveland), and Fat free soy milk ($5.69 vs. $3.29 in Cleveland)

-Groceries and gas are generally insanely expensive in Hawaii.  Except at Costco.  I confirmed on a number of items that Costco’s prices here are the same as on the mainland.  Even on frozen and refrigerated items like frozen salmon and Tropicana Orange Juice that can be double the price at other stores.

-Also before we left Oahu I picked up some of the great Aloha Hawaiian Kippot from Chabad of Honolulu. If you’ve never seen them they have double sided aloha prints in a myriad of unique designs and colors. They are great to wear around (you’ll get tons of compliments!) or to bring back instead of some tacky wooden gift. They’re $8 and help support the great work of Chabad of Honolulu.

-On our way to Honolulu we flew on Continental which allowed 70 pound bags, but from Honolulu to Kauai on Hawaiian we were only allowed 50 pound bags…which is where Skycaps come in handy

-A convertible is definitely the way to go in Kauai!

-Tabi’s are awesome! I’d never heard of them before reading about them in the Hawaiin guidebooks.  They are a Polynesian hybrid of a beach shoe/boot with felt bottoms that grip onto slippery rocks.  They are perfect for hiking on slippery trails or for the beach.  Walmart in Hawaii sells them for $15-$20.

-This past week we stayed at the Grand Hyatt Kauai down in dry and sunny Poipu. How awesome is Kauai? You have to go through a “tree tunnel” just to get down to Poipu! Anyway the hotel is absolutely incredible. When you walk in the lobby there is an open wall where you can see straight to the Ocean.  There are dozens of pools, hot tubs, and lagoons that never seem to end. Exotic landscaping, talking parrots, and tons of free entertainment. You could literally spend a week here without leaving the hotel and never be bored for a minute…but that would be a crying shame.

-The Grand Hyatt put us in a ground floor suite when we arrived.  It was nice but I didn’t care for it.  There was no balcony, no ocean view, and no cell phone reception.  They let me take a look at a few other suites and I settled on a 1,400 square foot beauty with a separate living room, dining room, bedroom with walk-in closet, a bathroom with a jacuzzi and separate shower room, a 40 foot ocean-view balcony, 3 LCD TV’s, 4 phones…Total cost: $0.

-At 4am on Tuesday morning the Hotel fire alarm system malfunctioned.  It told everyone to evacuate the building.  After we left we were told it was a mistake, but they couldn’t get the alarm turned off for half an hour.  In the morning they sent out an apology letter offering everyone a $50 resort credit.  I don’t think so! I negotiated a more fair response with a manager over the phone, 18,000 Hyatt points (enough points for a free night at any Hyatt) and a $100 resort credit…which bought a nice pair of Naot’s for my wife!

-Wi-fi for 2 computers for the week came out to $200…waived of course for Hyatt elite members.

-The resort fee ($18/day) was waived as it was an award stay. Parking was free.

-The hotel offers a daily Scuba lesson in their expansive saltwater lagoon for free!

-They have these great sized Heinz ketchup packets at the self-service bar by the pool.  You know those regular Heinz packets that you need to open 7 of to cover your burger? Well 1 of these babies and your burger is covered!  Why haven’t I seen these anywhere else???

-We brought some self-heating La Briute meals with us (Cheese Ravioli and Meatballs and Spaghetti). These flavors are actually pretty good, and it’s great to have a nice piping hot meal in middle of a long hike!

-We were able to freeze the food that we needed for Maui upon arrival and get an extra fridge in the room for our food for the week in the hotel.

-Times Supermarket carries a complete line of Jelly Belly products and confections, including some super fresh candy corn! Yum!

-On Wednesday night we went to the “Tiki-Torch” menorah lighting at Chabad of Kauai which was nice. Rabbi Goldman brought down Zvi Bielski, the son of “Defiance” World War 2 hero Zus Bielski. At Chabad I ate the only Latke that I would have all Chanukah long!

-It hit me when we brought in Shabbos at the Hyatt that we were among the last Jews in the world to bring in Shabbos. With Kauai being the westernmost part of populated Hawaii and with sunset at 6pm local time/4am GMT and us being located further west than the local jewish community I think it’s entirely plausible that we were the absolute last people in the world to bring in Shabbos…kind’ve cool!

Some of the activities I’ve done on Kauai on this and past trips (5/5 = must do , 0/5= don’t bother):

-A Helicopter tour of Kauai with Blue Hawaiian (Kauai Revealed, Pg. 134), as recommended by the Kauai Revealed book. This trip is AWESOME!!! They have first class helicopters with comfy seats, 2 way noise canceling headphones, and huge windows for incredible views. The biggest problem with Kauai is that so much of it is inaccessible. With a helicopter tour you can go right up to sights that seem impossible…into the canyon, over Na Pali, and it ends of with Mt. Waialeale, one of the wettest spots on earth with some 500 inches of annual rainfall and dozens of waterfalls gushing down: 5/5

-Kayaked to Fern Grotto and Secret Falls (Kauai Revealed, Pg. 163). Both sites are very impressive! It is a little tricky to dock at Fern Grotto and to actually find the beautiful Secret Falls with its swimmable pool…but well worth it. We started from Hawaiian Village where it’s just a short 5-10 minute kayak to either site. We ran out of time and couldn’t find Secret Falls before they closed, but they let us come back a couple days later and try again for free-and we made it! Bring Off or you will get eaten alive. : 4.5/5

-Polihale Beach (Kauai Revealed, Pg. 88). 13 miles of uninterrupted and deserted beaches in the remote westernmost part of the United States. It’s mostly unswimmable in the winter due to waves up to 25 feet tell. However standing in Queen’s Pond where the massive waves are taken down by the reef just feet in front of you makes for a surreal experience. Watching the sunset over the “forbidden island” of Niihau at Polihale is breathtaking: 4.5/5

-Snorkeling at Poipu Beach (Kauai Revealed, Pg. 112). I snorkeled right on top of a green sea turtle that was bigger than me! Monk seals often park themselves at this beach which is just a few minutes from the Hyatt. 4.5/5

-12 Mile Hike in Waimea Canyon Nualolo/Awaawapuhi loop (Kauai Revealed, Pg. 144). I’m not sure what I was thinking here. This hike included half a mile of altitude change, some very scary cliffs (don’t make a false step or it’s miles till the next one!) and was way too strenuous for my taste. The views of Na Pali were shockingly beautiful (which is why I did the hike in the first place) but I was nice and sore for 2 days after this hike.  If you do this hike don’t forget lots of water-I went through 4 liters myself easily: 2/5

-4WD Miloli Ridge Road (Kauai Revealed, Pg. 196) Stunning view of Na Pali without the 12 mile hike. 4WD car is required though…4/5

-Liko Kauai Cruise of Na Pali. (Kauai Revealed, Pg. 168) These are supposed to be great in the calm summer seas…don’t bother in the winter. It was so nauseating that half the boat was throwing up. There are better ways to see Na Pali than this. 0/5.

If nothing else, just drive around Kauai, there is beauty everywhere. The drive up to the quaint North Shore with its 1 lane bridges and into Waimea Canyon is just awesome.

We’re off to Maui now…catch ‘ya later! Oh, and thanks for all of the comments on the last trip notes posting!

Click on the thumbnails below to view the entire photo and to enlarge!

Waimea Canyon

Na Pali, from a helicopter

Sunset at Kekaha Beach

Na Pali, from a helicopter

Hanalei Lookout

Mt. Waialeale, from a helicopter

Grand Hyatt Suite Living Room

Grand Hyatt Suite Dining Room

Grand Hyatt Suite Bathroom

Grand Hyatt Suite Balcony View

Pools At Grand Hyatt Kauai

Menorah on balcony

Grand Hyatt Suite Balcony View

Na Pali, from Waimea Canyon loop hike.

Na Pali, from Waimea Canyon loop hike.

Waimea Canyon loop hike.

Na Pali, from Waimea Canyon loop hike.

Menorah Lighting at Chabad of Kauai

Grand Hyatt Kauai Restaurant

Grand Hyatt Kauai

Pools At Grand Hyatt Kauai

Message left at Polihale

Sunset at Polihale

Sunset at Polihale

Grand Hyatt Suite Balcony View

Wild Peacock

Secret Falls Kayak/Hike

Secret Falls (Partial view)

Monk Seal Tanning At Poipu Beach

Sunset at Polihale

Sunset at Polihale

-Taking a 2 week trip to Hawaii as a religious Jew sure is far from easy. My dear wife spent a good couple days making all of the food for the trip in advance. We then froze the food to get it to be rock hard.

-I did my share as well as well-arranging every trip detail and constantly being on the lookout for Continental First class and BusinessFirst seats to Hawaii (Only fair after my wife slaved over a stove for that long!). It paid off-each of our flights were confirmed in First or BusinessFirst. I locked in the 75K mileage rate before it went up to 80K in October. I love that Continental now gives free date and routing changes on award tickets! It makes planning mileage tickets so much easier!

-Forum member agug was extremely kind and hooked me up with a free room at the Sheraton at the Cleveland airport (Starwood Category 2).  With the mercury clocking in at 10 degrees on Thursday night we were able to leave the food in a suitcase in the car without worry. By staying at the airport we were able to roll out of bed at 5am and get right onto the 6am flight.

-Continental’s BusinessFirst on the Houston-Honolulu leg was great.  It’s not lie-flat (although it will be within a couple years), but it’s probably as good as it gets for flights to Hawaii.  A nice luxuriously wide seat, with plenty of legroom, a footrest, and a personal LCD.  We got a kosher lunch and pre-arrival snack.  Neither were great, although the chocolate mousse dessert was quite good-it was so rich I was able to make it last for hours!  The flight attendants were excellent, some of the best I’ve ever had!

-Anyone even thinking about going to Hawaii must read the “Revealed” series of guidebooks. These are guidebooks like you’ve never seen before.  They are funny, easy to read, detailed, full of great tips, and unbiased straight-talk reviews.  It would be criminal to visit any Hawaiian Island without the appropriate book!  I only wish the author would create more books like this for other places!

-We’re staying at the absolutely gorgeous Westin Moana Surfrider in Honolulu for 2 nights.  One night was with my Platinum free weekend night, the other with a Starwood category 5 free night redemption. They TOTALLY hooked us up! A 17th floor corner suite complete with 2 large oceanfront balconies, a massive living room that has a dining room table, an empty fridge and pantry, a murphy bed in the wall, a couch, chairs for 7, a flat-screen, and a work desk.  The bathroom is all marble and the toilet, um, I’ll let you see it for yourself but I haven’t seen one of those since I was in Japan!  The hotel also sent up a fantastic fruit tray and 4 bottles of water.

-Parking at the hotel is a confiscatory $33/day.  I found $15 parking across the street.  No-brainer there.

-The food arrived in Honolulu frozen solid.  We took out the food we needed until Sunday and sent the rest of the suitcase of food to the hotel freezer.

-While the hotel is great and I’d highly recommend it, it’s far from ideal for sabbath observing Jews. The stairs have sensors that turn on the lights when you enter the stairwell which meant we’d be spending Shabbos in the room.  Mind you, this room was not a bad room to be stuck in!  The air conditioning unit turns off when you open the balcony, but I got an engineer to override that “feature” (he said the sensors for the stairs were not able to be turned off).  The toilet had to unplugged-good thing we noticed it before shabbos or it would’ve been quite unpleasant!

-The Whole Foods in Honolulu has tons of great kosher food, but prices are 10%-50% higher than on the mainland.  Regular grocery store prices can be 25%-80% higher than the mainland, but buying things on sale with a Safeway discount card helps.  Costco’s prices on the other hand are pretty much in line with the mainland and is a great place to stock up.

-My opinion is that Oahu is too overcrowded and touristy.  While there are nice places and fun things to do on the island, the other islands just offer so much more that there is no compelling reason to spend more than a couple days in Oahu.  There’s relatively little of the awesome greenery, hiking, active volcanoes, and serene waterfalls that the other islands offer.

Previously on Oahu I’ve done the following activities (5/5 = must do , 0/5= don’t bother):

-Jet-skied insane waves near the Banzai Pipeline (Now this was exhilarating!): 4/5

-Kayaked to a “sunken island” (So cool to be able to walk in the ocean after kayaking for an hour): 3.5/5

-Walking down the Waikiki Boardwalk, checking out the stores and people (and a lot of them sure are interesting): 3.5/5

-Snorkeled Hanauma Bay (More exciting snorkeling is free on other islands): 3.5/5

-Watch surfers battle 15 foot waves at Banzai (Worth a stop during the winter if you’re at the north shore): 3/5

-Driven the H3 (Some of the best scenery on Oahu): 3/5

-Hiked to Manoa Falls (Pretty falls, nicer ones on other islands that are easier to get to): 2.5/5

-Climbed Diamond Head mountain (Nice view, but not any nicer than a Ocean view room balcony!: 2/5

-Visited Pearl Harbor (I’m pretty sure I was the only non-Japanese person there…weird): 2/5

-Visited the Dole Plantation (Cute store, with great kosher Hawaiian microwavable kettle corn, but not much else worth spending the money on).: 1/5

-Anyway now we’re off to my personal favorite, the Island of Kauai!

The flight attendant even offered to take our pic!

Kosher Lunch (appetizer and dessert)

Kosher Lunch (entrée)

Kosher snack

Partial view of living room

Partial view of bathroom

Toilet controls…

Living room balcony

Hotel fruit tray

Getting ready for Shabbos

View from the balcony

View from the balcony, from left, Sheraton Waikiki (Starwood Cat. 5), Royal Hawaiian (Starwood Cat. 6), and Outrigger Waikiki.

-Agree/Disagree with any of my opinions? Let’s hear it in the comments!

I’m posting from my favorite Presidents Club, the behemoth in Houston’s Terminal E.  3 floors of privacy and showers with clothes pressing closets!  Although the Cleveland club this morning did have a better selection of kosher cereal and fruit (I picked up a nice stash of my new favorite honey nut chex).

The total miles required for Cleveland-Houston-Oahu (Stopover-2 nights)-Kauai (Stopover- 7 nights)-Maui (Stopover-4 nights)-Oahu-Newark (Stopover-2 nights)-Cleveland in international BusinessFirst Class was 85,000 miles.

It’s hard to explain the appeal of Hawaii to someone that’s never seen it, but I fell in love with it back in 2006 during a mistake fare when I went for $85 for airfare with lodging.  It just feels like paradise!  Like a place you always dreamed of but never knew existed…I’ve been back every year since then!

Honolulu and Oahu can be skipped entirely without missing much, but the other islands are just incredible.  Unfortunately arriving some 4 hours before shabbos means a weekend stay in Oahu.

Plus your cell phone works just like from home, and you don’t need to change money or clear customs!

Expect full trip notes with this trip and I’ll keep on posting the deals as well as time permits!

Related: “On A Mileage Run”

Quick thoughts from the trip…

-Total time from take off until landing: 50 hours (16 hours flying, 34 hours in LA) It’s actually kind’ve fun running around town on a quick mini-trip.

-Actual miles flown were 5,216, redeemable miles earned were 8,100, and elite miles earned were 10,500.

-Our Continental elite status is now safe through 02/28/11. Sure I have 2 million miler lifetime platinum status on AA, but they are the only ones to still charge their elites for upgrades…

-Airport Clubs visited: 4. (Continental in Newark and Houston, United in Orange County, USAirways in Pittsburgh)
There’s really nothing quite like taking a nice hot shower in Newark after an overnight transcontinental flight, it’s amazingly refreshing! Don’t forget to ask them for any amenities that you need (Toothpaste, toothbrush, comb, deodorant, etc.)

-Rental cars from Orange County are cheap-just $18/day!

-Thanks G-d the I-405 now has carpool lanes running all the way from Orange County airport to LA…even on Sunday the traffic for the regular lanes was insane!

-LA restaurants hit up: La Gondola (Avacado Eggrolls with cilantro sauce, “Chai” Steak with caramelized onion sauce, molten chocolate/cinnamon cake with ice cream), Milk & Honey (Eggplant Parmesan), and Jeff’s (Steak sandwich and homemade onion rings). And no trip to LA is complete without some cake donuts from Elite Cafe and crumb cheese danishes and caramel cake from Schwartz bakery! Calories don’t count when you travel, right?

-The Grove and its equally nice new sister property in Glendale, The Americana at Brand, have launched a loyalty program. Details were scarce, but apparently you will earn Hilton points among other benefits like free valet parking, based on purchases from stores in those “lifestyle malls.” It’s nice to see malls joining in on loyalty rewards…if only they were partnered with an airline or hotel program whose points were actually worth something!

-”Up In The Air” is being advertised on every other block in LA and has quite the buzz. People who want to know more can read Randy Peterson’s nice review of it from a frequent flyer’s perspective.

Sure George Clooney’s character has top-tier super-secret AA status and is always in first class. But what’s with his weak hotel and car rental status’? Hertz giving him Chryslers? Regular small hotel rooms from Hilton? The man needs to get Avis Chairman’s status and Starwood Platinum or Hyatt Diamond status pronto. If I can get those so can he! Hertz and Hilton overpaid for their product placements here.

-Thanks to Ryan and Anit for the digs in LA for the night!

Posting from the United Red Carpet Club in Orange County, CA…

So my wife and I took off this morning on a last-minute ticket for a mileage run!  Continental had a fare from Pittsburgh to Orange County, CA for just $150 round-trip and we went with it!  Now a traditional mileage run is when you make tons of stops and gain elite status and miles without even leaving the airport.

The only true mileage run that I’ve ever done was a 14 flight marathon in 36 hours back in 2006 during an insane AA promo.

We’re doing a more modified version, staying overnight in LA and making one stop in Houston on the way to Orange County and a stop in Newark on the return.  Total elite miles for the trip will be 10,500 and redeemable miles are 8,300.  Plus we’ll both extend our lowly Silver elite status on Continental through 02/28/11.

Now before you say that I’m insane and that Silver doesn’t get you anywhere near what Gold or Platinum elite status does, it still gets you:

-Bonus miles on every flight

-500 mile minimum flight segment earning

-Reduced award fees

-Priority phone number

-Priority check-in, security, and boarding lines.

-Priority baggage handling.

-Priority standby and reward waitlisting.

- 2 free bags for everyone traveling with you

-Free first class upgrades (after Golds and Plats)

-Much better award ticket availability for saver award tickets and last seat availability for standard award tickets.

Plus besides for the elite benefits the redeemable miles earned from the trip are worth the cost of the trip, so it made sense in my book!

Ever did a mileage run?  Considering one before the 12/31 deadline? Hit the comments!

-Before I start rambling, I have to give credit to the Torontonian Dansdeals readers for their 67 (!) responses to my query about what to do in Toronto. Very impressive!

-I was in Toronto for my brother-in-law’s wedding and got 2 room suites at the Crowne Plaza Toronto Airport for hotel rooms for the entire party flying into Toronto. The web rate for each suite was about $300/night with tax. I was able to book 9 suites for a total of 26 nights for just $780 total with all taxes! They were all booked via Pointbreaks. You can read about booking PointBreaks hotels for $30/night in the 3rd installment of my Israel trip notes. Not surprisingly when I went back to the site the next day the hotel had been pulled from the pointbreaks list…boy they must have been peeved when they saw that many suites booked up for $30/night!

-Some of the hotel rooms were renovated and some were not.  The renovated rooms were very nice with 2 LCD’s and plenty of sitting and working room, see the end of this post for some pics!

-Clearing the Canadian Customs line upon arrival into the Toronto airport was a mess with 30 lines of people all 25 people deep…not fun.  Especially not fun when you get stuck just behind a family that doesn’t speak any English.  You clear US customs when you depart the Toronto airport and it was much more efficient with a single line of people.  Clearly the Americans have studied queueing theory. US: 1, Canada: 0.

-Apparently there’s a new heavy-handed eco-law requiring all retailers to charge a nickel for each bag that you need. It’s incredibly annoying, especially when you already pay for the items by credit card, and then the store remembers that they need to collect the nickel but it needs to be in cash, which means I need to break a US bill to receive Canadian change back…US: 2, Canada: 0.

-In that post with 67 comments of what to do in Toronto there must’ve been 66 of food stuff and 1 activity. And there was no way that I was going to part with $30-$40 to go up the CN tower.
As I’m a hopeless foodie the comments suited me just fine.   Here are some of my thoughts on the Toronto kosher food scene.

-The food at the BAYT for the wedding was indeed quite nice.  The attitude of the staff on the other hand left much to be desired.  They were too quick to take food away, would typically ignore any requests made at the table, and actually physically stopped me from taking a chocolate lemon tart from the dessert cart “too early” and made me put it back on the tray after I had taken it! Shockingly bad service!

Other kosher eatery notes:

-A few commenters mentioned the Sushi “Pizza” at D-lite’s which sure enough turned out to be a crowd pleaser.  Their french onion soup is served in a bread bowl and the soup itself loaded with onions, croutons, and cheese was delicious.  The bread bowl itself was actually still partially frozen though and was disappointing.

-What’s the difference between a kosher Prime Rib steak sandwich ($16.95) and a kosher Philly Steak Sandwich ($14.95)? Absolutely nothing at Miami Grill except the Prime Rib sandwich comes with fries! I got a kick out of that after my sister-in-law and I wound up with the exact same sandwich…it was however a very good steak sandwich!

-The kosher Second Cup location on Clark is not all cholov yisroel but was very proud of having the only cholov yisroel “icepresso” machine in the world (or so they claimed). Little good it did for me as the machine was awaiting repairs when I came to try it out.

-The kosher Sobey’s Supermarket is great-tons of fresh made kosher food and hard to find items-it’s the first time I’ve seen the cholov yisroel Nestle Dibs chocolate covered vanilla flavor! Picked up some stuff that’s only kosher parve in Canada like the original Aunt Jemima’s pancake mix, the all-dressed flavor of Ruffles chips (good recommendation!), and some cereal like French Toast Crunch, and a few flavors of Quaker cereal. I’m sure I missed plenty more though…

-The cholov yisroel location of It’s Not Just Yogurt was fun with lots of flavors and tons of toppings. The Oreo flavor was delicious, the strawberry not so much-it had that fake “Israeli style” strawberry flavoring.

-Chocolate Charm’s cholov yisroel chocolates were excellent, they even give you a cute little guide to remember the flavors of each chocolate. I just wish that they made more flavors! And is it just me, or does their logo and name seem like something that belongs in Hogsmeade?

-One of my favorite places was Omni Java and Jewels which is also all cholov yisroel. It’s a cute place with a jewelry store and restaurant all in one. Their Caramel Cheesecake was absolutely incredible, and the white-chocolate cheesecake was a close second. Also when I asked for a drink recommendation the waitress suggested her personal favorite, an “off-the-menu” cold drink that was some sort of Mocha Frappuchino with Caramel, which was divine!

Bakeries:
So many of the comments mentioned different danishes, so understandably I had to try them all out for my dear readers!

-Richman’s: From the comments, “Richman’s Bakery – double chocolate danish. An absolute must. You really can’t miss it. I have my mother send them to me in Yerushalayim at every opportunity”
With a recommendation like that how could I pass it up? Unfortunately when I went there at 10 in the morning they were already sold out! I settled on a “Chocolate Buffalo.” It was not very good.

-Amazing Donuts: I remember as a kid loving the cake donuts from this place so naturally I had to go back and try one out after a few readers mentioned it. But this place, like many others in Toronto apparently, have gone nut-free which means no cake donuts! What a disappointment! With incredible regular style donuts back home in Cleveland at Unger’s (no regular style donut can touch their cinnamon version!) there didn’t seem to be a need to sample these.

-Grodzinksi: From the comments: “Be sure to go to Grozinsky’s bakery on Bathurst and get a cinnamon danish – they are out of this world!!!”
Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but they were quite good, as was the chocolate danish, but the cheese danish was nothing special. Their cookies are so cute that I couldn’t help but bring back a handful.

-Hermes: From the comments: “Stop at Hermes for their one of a kind chesse danishes!!” They were quite good, but I’m not sure I’d call them one of a kind.

-I never did make it to Mac’s for a slurpee, so did I really miss something there?

-As for the commenter who suggested, “A Farbrengen with Rabbi Wagner at the Yeshiva 3055 Bathurst St.!!!” well I got to attend a sheva brocha at his house, so I think I can count this done as well!

-There were quite a few heated Montreal Vs. Toronto comments, I did find Montreal to be a cooler city to explore, but I was impressed with the extent of the Toronto kosher food scene.

-I still can’t believe the horrible gate area that Continental occupies in Toronto…here’s hoping they move in with their new Star Alliance buddies soon!

Anyway I had to leave Toronto after all that lest I hear one more Canadian accented “Eh”

Cookies from Grodzinksi’s

Clockwise from top left: Chocolate buffalo from Richman’s, Chocolate Danish from Grodzinksi’s, Cinnamon Danish from Grodzinksi’s, Cheese Danish from Hermes, Cheese Danish from Grodzinksi’s.

Chocolate Charm!

Crown Plaza Room Pictures

Related Posts:
4th Anniversary Post Linky
3rd Anniversary Post Linky
2nd Anniversary Post Linky
1st Anniversary Post Linky

It seems hard to believe, but this site is now 5 years old! Seems like just yesterday when I was down in Brazil and decided to stay connected by starting a little blog for friends and family and now some 10,000 people a day come to check it out!

And yes, together with the site’s birthday comes my own…I’ve now been around for quarter of a century!  Best thing about turning 25? Cheaper car rentals!

It’s a been a great year, and a fun challenge to keep the site updated while flying across the world…A month at 4 Hawaiian Islands (I’ve been a hopeless Hawaii addict ever since the $87 inclusive deal of 2006), 2 weeks in Israel, 3 trips to LA, 2 to KC, 6 to NYC, Toronto, a free trip to Vegas at the beautiful Wynn and Encore…wow that’s a lot of miles burned!  I’ve also enjoyed sharing some of my own thoughts on each place via the “Trip Notes” posts.  (I’ll tag the end of this post with “trip notes” so you can click on it and read other trip notes postings.)

People ask me why I like traveling so much…it’s quite simple!  I fly everywhere for free with my miles.  Most of my flights are in First class and trust me, flying in a lie-flat bed to Israel makes you just wish the flight was longer!  When I travel I carry around enough “wallet candy” to make sure that I never have to wait in a line and that I always have access to an airport lounge.  My rental cars are Infiniti’s, Camaro’s and Caddy’s for the price of compact cars.  I get upgraded to fabulous suites that I didn’t pay a cent for.  What could be better?  I hope that by following the site religiously and participating in the dansdeals forums that you too can have as much fun as I have doing this!  It’s really not so hard…just start by churning some credit cards!

Anyway there have been a ton of incredible deals this past year.  My favorites have been the US mint coins (hauling in a quarter million in coins is great exercise!) and all of the Hyatt deals, free top-tier diamond status, a free Hyatt night that came with the diamond status (which also counted towards faster free nights), and then the stay twice at any Hyatt and get 14,000 miles+6,000 points+1 free night in any Hyatt.  Now I just need to figure out what to do with the  350K miles and 22 faster free nights that I got from that promo!

But there were lots of other amazing deals over the past year…let’s hear what your favorite was!

P.S. Stay tuned for the winners of the Dansdeals.com 5th Anniversary promotion…the raffle will take place by 11/30!

So I’m in Toronto (my first time arriving by plane, which makes it my 56th airport that I’ve flown to/from as you can see in our airport competition thread over at the dansdeals forums) until Wednesday.

Any reader tips for what activities are not to be missed or which kosher restaurants/bakeries to hit up?  Which kosher food can be bought here that can’t be had in the states?

Hit the comments and let’s hear about ‘em!

Just grabbing a bite to eat at the Continental President’s Club in LGA (for all its problems it has the best cereal selection of any club I’ve been to) after my 3rd flight leg out of 16 (!) until the end of the year and will be in NYC for the weekend and then in Toronto until Wednesday.  Updates may be sporadic especially while north of the border.

I was the apparently the only elite flyer on the flight who paid for coach as I got the only elite upgrade on the flight and no other elites were on the upgrade standby list and the flight went out with empty first class seats.  Gotta love the transparency that Continental offers via their PDA site! Incidentally (for those of you now checking out my seat assignment on the PDA site) 1B is truly a great first class seat on the 737-500 series. It’s a bulkhead but it has a great cutout for your feet and hand luggage.

Another cool service that I just learned about 3 minutes ago: faxzero.com I’ve always wondered how to print things at the club and this is the answer-fax it for free to the self-service fax machine!

More thoughts/trip notes from 31,000 feet in the sky…thanks for the free wi-fi Airtran and gogo!

-This was my 5th trip to NYC this year of 1 night or less…which is fine because that’s about when my NYC tolerance level runs out.  (My trip back to NYC next week will actually be for a weekend-2 whole nights!)

-I’m flying in business class.  Airtran gave myself, my wife, and my mother comp upgrades due to my elite status!  The business class really is quite nice for an LCC.  Lots of legroom, wide leather seats, tons of great free drinks and even non-alcoholic drinks like Fuze, Smartwater, Vitamin water, etc.  And the flight attendant has already refilled my Fresca three times without asking!   There is also a free snack basket that has T.G.I. Friday salt and cracked pepper chips under OK parve supervision that I’ve never seen sold in any stores.

-Avis hooked me up with a nice Caddy for the trip…at $30/day, market rates for gas, and valet return service it’s hard to go wrong! Gotta love Avis Chairman status!

-Clubhouse Cafe on 46th street in the city is simply awesome.  The fries are crisp to perfection.  The Brazilian drinks are great as well.  Their Caipirinha (pronounced Ca’eye-pa-rinya) is great! My recommendation? An off the menu option that’s popular in Brazil, A Caipirinha de Maracujá, or Caipirinha made with passion fruit.  It might be an acquired taste after a year in Brazil, but it tasted great to me. Plus when I go there I get to brush up on my Portuguese with all of the Brazilian employees…

-I used my free Diamond Hyatt Place night in Secaucus, NJ.  Typical great Hyatt Place!  Every room is a mini-suite with a pull-out couch, semi-room divider, 42″ LCD, emtpy fridge, nice work desk, free wi-fi, and a great free breakfast with Tazo teas, Seattle’s best coffee, Quaker oatmeal, cereal boxes, fruit, etc.  It’s not too far away, and there’s some great shopping nearby.  The rumor mill is that there will soon be some more Hyatt Place properties in Manhattan.

-I was able to use the United Red Carpet Club (RCC) in LGA for the first time thanks to Continental’s switch to the Star Alliance. Here’s a quick comparison.

Pros: It’s much newer and way nicer looking than the dreary Continental President’s Club (PC) in LGA (easily the worst looking PC I’ve ever been in, but then again LGA has some of the worst terminals that I’ve ever been in so it still beats that).  There are also self-service cans of soda available, which is better than having to ask for soda from the bartender at the PC

Cons: The RCC charge $$$ for all alcoholic drinks (Free in PC’s).  They do not allow you to take newspapers/magazines from the club like the PC does. Their is no ice water dispenser like that have in PC’s, you must request water from the bar.  There were no kosher snacks besides for apples. (PC’s will often have granola bars, chips, bananas, apples, and cereal boxes.  They even had matzah and other kosher snacks on Passover!)

So the RCC has much better facilities but worse services…tough choice!

Ding…they want me to turn off my computer, the FA just announced to please put our seats up to the upright and most uncomfortable position…how true it that!  I better just publish this before the wi-fi gets turned off…

Hope you enjoyed this mini-trip report!

-

Some thoughts from 31,000 feet in the sky…

-If GoGo’s plan to give away free wi-fi is to entice people to pay for the service in the future I have to say that it’s working at least on me. Flights have never gone by so fast before!

-I’m posting now aboard Airtran from Akron to LaGuardia for the first of 2 NYC trips within the next 2 weeks.
It’s the first time this year that I wasn’t able to land a complimentary elite business class upgrade as the flight was oversold. I had forgotten just how tight the seat pitch is on Airtran’s B717, a miserly 30 inches!

-Both of the following free wi-fi codes still work like a charm on Airtran:
airtrantrygogo
bosbwi

-Some 30% of the passengers on this flight are Orthodox Jews. The Blue Fringe band is sitting just behind me and I’ve seen more than a dozen people that I know from the local Jewish community. I wonder how long it will be before Airtran starts selling kosher meals on this flight

-It’s incredible how Continental has ceded the Cleveland-NYC market to Airtran. Granted that Akron is a less convenient airport for most people, but this round-trip flight cost just $89. The identical flight on Continental within just a 1 night stay was over $800! Seems like it’s worth the extra 15 minute drive.  Mind you that you can always fly back one way  from NYC to Cleveland on Continental for about $60, but that requires hidden-city ticketing which is officially against the terms of most airlines and you wouldn’t be able to check luggage…

-Yes, the Bose QC15’s really are that much better than the previous generation QC2’s at noise cancellation…Wow!

I didn’t think I would really care to stay connected while flying, but it really is quite nice and a great way to pass the time.

I’m posting from 28,000 feet in the air on an Airtran flight (free upgrade on a $29 coach ticket to business class, of course) from Akron, OH to LaGuardia.

I was able to connect to the Go-Go internet on the ground, but it only started working once the flight passed 10,000 feet.

The speeds are slightly slower than the last Airtran flight that I was on, it’s running at about 1 mbps down and 350 kbps up.

At a regular price of $9.95 I’m not sure who would pay for 45 minutes of slowish wi-fi, but as long as GoGo keeps on giving it out for free then I’ll keep on using it!

The following 2 codes worked for free access:

airtrantrygogo

bosbwi

Codes are specific for the airline you are on, as aatrygogo and deltatrygogo did not work on Airtran, but do work on American and Delta respectively.

Anyway I’m off to my newest (twin!) cousin’s bris and to buy an esrog set for the holidays and and then flying right back home to Cleveland tomorrow night!

Related:
Update #1
Update #2

Thanks to Amigo for being the official sponsor of Dansdeals.com updates while I’m in Israel! I’m using their USB Modem now to update the site. The card runs on Orange’s HSDPA network and the speeds (about 2 Mbps download and 300 Kbps upload) are great for a wireless card. It has worked flawlessly everywhere in Israel where I have tried to use it and it is invaluably useful!

I almost exclusively use my miles for Business or First class tickets. A coach ticket from the US to Israel on continental is 45K miles each way, but can be purchased for about $600 each way, which means that you’re only getting a value of 1.33 cents per mile. A BusinessFirst ticket though can cost $2,500 each way giving you a value of 4.17 cents per mile.

But what to do when there are no BusinessFirst seats for the dates they you need? Well I got our seats into BusinessFirst just days before departure…

Continental’s Plan B for a BusinessFirst award works surprisingly well once you find an agent who knows about it. Credit goes to FT for the details.
It works like this: If there is a standard coach award seat you can call up the international reward desk and ask for a BusinessFirst ticket but be seated in coach and placed on a waitlist for a BusinessFirst seat. For EWR-TLV your account will be debited 60,000 miles for each way.
You will either clear the waitlist into BusinessFirst no later than 24 hours before the flight or the waitlist will expire. If at 24 hours before the flight you still don’t have a BusinessFirst seat then at the airport you have to find an International Concierge or other knowlegdable looking agent and tell them that you are a displaced BusinessFirst customer. If they have no idea what you are talking about tell them to look up “gg onestandby” and review lines 85-89 which spell out the details of this reward. (This is reminiscent of “gg checkpoint line 53″ which you have to reference to show agents how to give you a security pass for you and your guests to access post-security Presidents Club’s if you aren’t flying.) If they need to verify that you have a BusinessFirst reward have them call up the reward desk.
Still not able to get a seat in BusinessFirst? Just call up the reward desk after the flight and they’ll give you a refund of the difference between the standard coach award and the standard BusinessFirst award.

At any rate the flight was very nice. When I flew to Israel 2 years ago in BusinessFirst Continental still had the old video system that cycled through a few movies. The new large touch-screen AVOD system allows to choose from hundreds of movies, TV shows, games, and music. You can pause, fast-forward, and rewind as you please.
For dinner the people who ordered kosher meals got:
-An appetizer bowl of nuts, craisins, and sunflower seeds.
-A first course of a roll and a fish salad.
-A choice of your own personal bottle of kosher red wine or Chardonnay (or both!)
-A main course option of fish or chicken with another roll, fruit, and a chocolate fudge cake.
The kosher Breakfast was cheese blintzes, a roll, J&J reduced fat cream cheese, norman fat free fruit yogurt, a fruit bowl, and a cheese plate.

The seats recline at a 170 degree angle which is fine for sleeping. Continental’s new lie-flat BusinessFirst seats are slated to begin being installed in September.

Immigration at TLV was shockingly easy, we weren’t even asked a single question!

I turned down an upgrade at Budget for a Hyundai I3 hatchback in favor of the Mazda 3. I’m not sure how every rental car company is Israel gets away with making Liability insurance mandatory. By having a World Mastercard they let you decline the CDW coverage, but even if your personal car insurance covers liability they still force you to take their own liability coverage at $14/day, which effectively doubled the rate.

Israeli GPS systems are very hard to use on the english settings. There are so many ways to spell a city and street name that it is very hard to find what you need. Zefat, Zfat, Tsfat, Tzfat, Safed…every city and street probably has half a dozen ways to spell it and only one will work in the GPS. Nevertheless once you find the place you want to go they do an amazing job at navigating, probably better then an American GPS.

When I was looking for hotels for a base in the North I was shocked at the pricing. I know it’s high season and all, but the going rate was about $250/night. There are no Hilton or Starwood hotels any more in the North so I found a Holiday Inn in Tiberias which is part of the Priority Club program.
The paid rate was $250/night and it costs 15,000 PC points/night to stay there. Priority Club normally sells its points at 1.15-1.35 cents per point, so buying them directly from Priority Club wouldn’t yield much of savings. AMEX MR points transfer to PC at a 1:1 basis and Diners club points transfer at a 1:1.25 basis but that would still be a lot of points to transfer for a Holiday Inn.

The solution is Priority Club’s new cash and points redemption option. With the option you can redeem 5,000 points + $60 for a hotel room. Unlike with Starwood’s cash and points option though what actually occurs is that the $60 buys you the remaining 10,000 points that you would need for the 15,000 point Holiday Inn award. If you can the room you will therefore get a refund of 15,000 points! In effect you are thus able to purchase PC points at 0.6 cents per point by using the cash and points workaround. 15,000 points at 0.6 cents per point would make the Holiday Inn Tiberias $90/night which I reserved.

When I went back to the Priority Club’s website the next week I saw that the Holiday Inn Tiberias was on a PointBreaks special of just 5,000 points/night. So I canceled my previous reservation and rebooked for 5,000 points, or just $30/night!

The hotel is located about 1 mile south of the downtown midrachov, so it’s in a much quieter area than the former Sheraton Tiberias which was right on the noisy midrachov. Upon check-in I was given the option of staying in the Golan wing or the Kinneret wing. The Golan wing room was tiny with barely enough room the bad and a bathroom. The Kinneret wing room was much nicer and bigger with a nice entry-room, decent sized bathroom, a couch, a desk, and even a balcony! There was a box of delicious (kosher lamehadrin) chocolate chip cookies, 2 small bottles of red wine, and 2 bottles of water waiting in the room for us.

I’m holding a few days after this, but that’s all I have time for now, I’ve still got a lot to talk about like using gizmo5, Amigo’s push to talk service, and a report on the brand new Mamilla Jerusalem hotel.  Feel free to post comments with your own thoughts and anything I can do to make these trip reports most helpful!

I’m posting from a nice comfy couch at the Continental Presidents club in Newark, where it’s T-90 minutes until our flight to Israel.

The main Presidents club in Concourse C here is very nice and roomy, and is 2nd only to the expansive 3 floor lounge in Houston terminal E.

I realized that I may have some issues upon entering the Presidents club when I saw that I had 4 potential ways to enter the club for free: My Amex Plat charge card, my Presidential Plus Mastercard, my lifetime PC membership, and my BusinessFirst boarding passes…

It’s hard to explain the exact appeal of the club to someone who’s never visited one, but it definitely improves the entire travel experience.  This morning I had breakfast (Honey nut chex, bananas, and a granola bar) at the Cleveland lounge and now I’m filling up my water bottles with ice cold water for my flight.  Wi-Fi and Alcoholic drinks are all complementary.

The showers here are nothing spectacular but are very nice to have after a long trip.  The shower attendant will even press your clothes and give you a BusinessFirst amenity kit regardless of whether you are flying or not just for the asking!

For those who were asked from my last trip report, on my Airtran flight Skype and Gizmo5 were not blocked, however after placing a call it was only clear for the first 5 seconds, after that all that was heard was digital musical notes.  Go-Go is definitely using some sort of blocking system so as to not allow VOIP.  In addition the system only works when you get above 10,000 feet, it won’t work at the gate.

Here’s my trip outline:

-Renting a Mazda 3 from Budget for 2 weeks for $240 with a corporate rate.

08/24: Continental 84 EWR-TLV: BusinessFirst class.

08/25-08/28: Holiday Inn Tiberias (Normally $250/night, paid $30 a night-more on that in the next report1)

08/28-08/30: TBD. (Kfar Chabad or Jerusalem)

08/30-09/01: Mamilla Hotel, Jerusalem (Normally $300/night, paid 5,000 SPG/night)

09/01-09/07: King Solomon, Jerusalem

09/07: Delta 153 TLV-ATL: BusinessElite class lie-flat seats on the new 777-LR aircraft.

Yikes-Time to head to the gate for the secondary TLV screening…catch ya from the holy land!

Note: As this site has always been about travel and deals I’m going to try and incorporate both aspects as I post trip reports from the road.  Regular deals will still be posted so if you don’t like the trip reports-just skip ‘em!

I’d like to thank Amigo-US for making possible and being the official sponsor of the updating of Dansdeals.com while I’ll be in Israel!

Right now I’m posting from 30,000 feet in the air aboard Airtran flight #201 from Akron, OH to LaGuardia.

Airtran has GoGo wi-fi on all of their planes and it’s free through 08/31 with code: 159FLT3161

You have to first create an account and then select the $9.95 flight access in order to be able to enter in the code for free access.

Speeds are decent, about 2 Mbps download and 350 Kbps upload.  I can’t say that I would ever spend $10 for internet access on a 1 hour flight, but I’ll sure use it when it’s free!

With my Airtran Elite status my wife Mimi and I both received complementary battlefield upgrades to business class at 20 minutes prior to departure due to some no-shows.  There were half a dozen folks that requested to purchase upgrades after I had requested my elite upgrades, so kudos to the gate agent for not selling them out from under my feet! In the upgrade world a battlefield upgrade is any upgrade that does not clear in advance, and has to be cleared by a gate agent.

XM radio is free on all Airtran flights, but there’s nothing that I really want to listed to at this time of the morning.  It would be nice to have though when flying during a ballgame! There is a nice selection of free premium drinks (non-alcoholic and alcoholic) in business class and there even a few kosher parve snacks like kettle chips and granola bars that are most appreciated.

We leave to Israel on Continental flight 84 next Sunday! It’s been 2 years since I was last there, so I can’t wait!

Know any great activities anywhere in Israel that you’d like to share?  Have something you’d like me to write about from Israel? Post ‘em here in a comment!

Our very own dansdeals.com forum administrator (Eli) and moderator (Levi), went on an incredible trip to Hong Kong, Macau, Beijing, Tokyo, Oahu, and Maui.

Eli has graciously typed up an incredibly detailed report of the entire trip with great advice and ideas and posted it on the trip reports board of the Dansdeals forums.

He was even able to use the free wi-fi on AA deal to submit the report from 35,000 feet!

They used one of my favorite awards, the AA OneWorld award, to book the trip in business class.

With that award, instead of using miles to fly to a single place for a set amount of miles (for example a business class ticket to Israel would be 135K miles) you book multiple flights and add up the total flown miles to determine the zone and its cost.  You could fly to Israel using a Zone 5 OneWorld award for just 115,000 miles in business class.

There are a few catches with OneWorld awards:
-You must fly on at least 2 OneWorld carriers (and AA can not count as one of the 2)
-You can’t have more than 16 flight segments.
-You can only have a stopover once in each city.
-You can only connect in the same city twice.
-You can’t stopover or connect in the city where travel originated.

With just under 20,000 flown miles, they were able to squeeze into a Zone 6 award which costs 130,000 miles in Business class.  Nicely done!


Want to make your own OneWorld award? Churn the Citi AA card or Get a Starwood AMEX and start spending! 20,000 Starwood Points becomes 25,000 AA Miles with Starwood’s 25% airline transfer bonus.

I spent the day today with my dear wife at the Cavs-Pistons game at the Palace of Auburn Hills where the Cavs finished their 1st round playoff sweep of the Detroit Pistons. (12 more wins to go for Cleveland’s first championship in 45 years!)

The coolest part?

The place was packed full of excited Cavs fans! Cavs’ play by play announcer Joe Tait even said that in his 39 years of calling basketball that he had never seen an opponent’s arena so full of fans of the visiting team! The “Lets Go Cavs” and “MVP” cheers easily drowned out any “Lets go Dee-troit” attempts… According to ESPN Joe Tait even joked that “It’s great to be in Cleveland” and the Pistons’ Antonio McDyess said about the Cavs turnout and chants that “It was just embarrassing.” How awesome is that???

The mood after the game all around the arena was breathtakingly celebratory, it’s truly hard to describe the scene, but it was basically a road game with ecstatic Cleveland fans and Ohio license plates everywhere you looked.

It was well worth the 3 hour weekend drive to experience.

Even Sarah’s Deli, a sweet little Detroit kosher restaurant, had at least 4 tables full of Cavs fans by the time I got there. If you find yourself there, ask for a Bubba Burger with Pastrami (A burger with 3 slices of hamburger buns and excellent breaded onions with bbq sauce) together with their famous ranch dressing, it’s truly outstanding.

I’ll be back in Cleveland tomorrow evening, but do any readers have any good Detroit tips for the daytime? Any good kosher groceries to pick up in Canada in case we take the bridge to Windsor? Post ‘em now!

Related posts:
-Up For Grabs: Panoramic View Suite At The Encore Resort By Wynn In Las Vegas!
-On The Road: The Upgrade Dilemma Edition…
-SIZZLING FOR AMEX PLATINUM CARDHOLDERS!!!!!! 2 FREE NIGHTS AT THE WYNN AND ENCORE HOTELS IN LAS VEGAS!!! (Still Alive!)
-Starwood AMEX Linky
-Platinum AMEX Linky

Here is a collection of random thoughts and advice from my recent trip. I’d appreciate feedback in the comments to see if this type of report is worthwhile or not...

Departure: Sunday, 03/15 on Continental flight 757 leaving Cleveland at 8:50pm, arriving in Las Vegas at 10:30pm.

-This may have been the latest east-west coast flight that I’ve ever been on. It’s kind of nice to have a whole day to do stuff before the trip, but when you arrive at your destination you are totally wiped out.

-The sold-out flight was surprisingly light on elites. As of Saturday night Continental had not sold a single first class seat, so all 9 elite members who had tickets on the flight were given complimentary upgrades, leaving 7 open first class seats.

-On Sunday I noticed that Continental had blocked seats in the first class cabin, indicating that coach was oversold and Continental was going to have an op-up situation. An op-up occurs when the airline needs to “bump” people from their coach seat into first class due to too many seats in coach being sold and not enough no-shows in coach. Anticipating this I was waiting at the gate 70 minutes prior to boarding. At 60 minutes when the gate agent arrived I was able to easily land an op-up for my wife just for the asking.

Invaluable tools used: pda.continental.com, seatguru.com and flyaow.com/classamex.htm

-Just as we were about to board the flight the lead flight attendant was knocked unconscious by the errant luggage of a passenger. We were deboarded while 2 ambulances came to take her to the hospital. Continental quickly scrambled for a new flight attendant and the flight took off only 40 minutes late and landed only a few minutes behind schedule.

-The brand new Continental Presidents Club is the nicest non-hub lounge that I’ve ever seen. It is expansive and has a beautiful view of the Vegas skyline.

-I brought along the lonely planet guide for Vegas as well as the lonely planet guide for the incredible looking Zion and Bryce Canyon just in case…

-Renting a one-way car from Avis the airport: $280 with tax.
Renting a one-way car from Avis on the Las Vegas strip: $170 with tax.
Only problem: The strip location wouldn’t open until Monday morning, which meant finding my own way to the hotel on Sunday night.
You definitely want to rent a car in Vegas as there is an abundance of free parking at every hotel, and the good kosher restaurants are over 7 miles away from the Strip, or about an $80 taxi ride round trip!
We wound up with a fully-loaded Saturn Aura with leather seats, which turned out to be a nice mid-size car, perfect considering the amount of miles (over 600!) we put on it in such a short time.

-Supposedly there is some law that the strip hotels can’t provide shuttle service to/from the airport. So that left me with the taxi vs. shuttle debate. The hotel said that a taxi should run about $15, so with the shuttles costing $6.50 per person it seemed like a no-brainer to take a taxi…Until I saw the impossibly long line for the taxi.
I had read in the lonely planet guide that the airport porters have access to skip the taxi line and one even offered his services when we doubled back inside the airport after seeing the taxi line. For a simple $2 tip for our solitary suitcase we skipped the entire taxi line.

-The lonely planet guide warned about taxis fare-gouging by using the airport connector tunnel to the interstate for a longer route. Instead it suggested to tell the taxi to take paradise road. Good luck with that though-our taxi driver refused! At 11:30pm, which was 2:30am as far as my body was concerned. I was too tired to argue with the steadfast taxi driver. The fare wound up being $27.50, and incredibly the guy had the nerve to scream at me for not tipping! How about following directions next time buddy?

-It’s hard to express just how nice the Wynn and Encore resorts are. To get an idea, they cost over $5 Billion (yes, with a B) to to develop. The Wynn opened in 2005 and the Encore just opened a few months ago. They are true masterpieces. The 2 buildings are attached via an ultra-high end shopping mall.

-The Wynn and Encore hotel checkin areas appear to be chronically understaffed at nearly all times. Surprising for such a luxury hotel…

-We started off the trip with 2 nights at the Wynn. The nights were absolutely free! No tax, no nonsense, no nothing!
At check-in I was given a personalized letter thanking me for coming and offering $120 of breakfast credit, $90 of lunch credit, and a 4pm late checkout. I explained that as a religious jew I wouldn’t be able to partake in the food offerings and asked just to trade it for free wi-fi (normally $14/day), which was immediately granted.
As part of the AMEX package we were upgraded to a panoramic view room on the 58th floor, which was quite spectacular!
The room had it all, an amazing view, a coach and workspace, a widescreen HDTV, etc. The bathroom was huge and had 2 sinks, a jacuzzi, a separate shower, and a separate room for the toilet. The robes provided were splendidly luxurious.

-We had no problem checking out of the Wynn and immediately checking in to the Encore. Same deal, except this time I was turned down for the free wi-fi. We were upgraded in the Encore as well to a panoramic view suite on the 55th floor.

-The Encore is brand new and we both preferred the look and decor of the Encore. Also the room layout, with a split bedroom and workspace was nicer at the Encore as well.
I also loved the power panel at the Encore next to the bed. From it you could control the shear drapes, the main drapes, all of the lights in the room, and you could even turn on a privacy light so you aren’t disturbed by housekeeping in the morning. Another nice thing at the Encore was the number of available outlets-at the Wynn those were hard to find!

-There is so much to do (Visit Paris, Venice, NYC, Cairo, and French Polonesia) and free shows (Volcanoes erupting, pirates fighting, fountains dancing, circus acts, Carinival, etc.) to go to in Vegas to keep you occupied for days without betting a dime. And that’s all besides for other sites and side trips like the nearby Red Rock Canyon, Hoover Dam, or even the Grand Canyon and Zion/Bryce.

-If you look around you will find promo offers at every hotel for signing up for their frequent players card. For example we got $20 of free play at the Excalibur just for showing them our Wynn room keys!

-Tix4tonight offers up to half off on dozens of shows. They have multiple locations throughout the strip and it’s definitely worth stopping by before paying retail.

-If you are into gambling it’s worth investing the $0.97 to buy a card like the blackjack basic strategy card, which limits the house advantage to under one half of a percent. The casinos allow you to refer to the card while playing. (If you’re mathematically inclined it is also totally legal and fairly straightforward to count the cards in play to actually give yourself an advantage over the house. Just do it discreetly as it is frowned upon…)

-Kosher restaurants that we went to:
Adar Pizza: Great location, but breathtakingly overpriced. $15 for a calzone? $7 for fries or refried onion rings? $6 for an ice cream?
The kicker? After returning 2 pitchers of water with highly suspicious objects in them we were offered bottled water-and then charged $4 for it!
Once and done.

Panini Grill: About 8 miles from the strip, the food was very good but the service was entirely incompetent.
My wife’s greek salad ($10 was quite good, but I decided on a eggplant parmigiana ($12). What came was literally half of an eggplant, skin attached, with cheese on top. When I asked the waitress where exactly the sauce was, she apologized and brought it back to the kitchen. When they remade the meal the eggplant was still frozen in the middle. At this point they asked if I would just like another meal so I chose one of the ravioli dishes. What came out was entirely different…a plate of spaghetti!
Aurghhh!
Finally they got me the ravioli, which was actually quite nice, and comped us a delicious piece of cake (normally $8). They were friendly and quite apologetic throughout, so I did actually leave a nice tip…

Village Steakhouse: Now this place is a gem!
Service was outstanding, and everything we ordered was made to perfection! One night I got the green peppercorn prime reserve steak and the next night I ordered the orange bbq ribs. Both were absolutely incredible and well worth their ~$40 price tags. The side dishes were even more impressive. The sweet potato fries with maple aioli were out of this world. Best of all a generous portion of them was just $5. The menu was different both of the times we went (both of the entrees I ordered only appeared on one night) which was neat as well. The complimentary bread and dips also changed between the two times that we went. Equally impressive (especially for those who have been to restaurants with me) is that I never reached the bottom of my water glass!
This is also located about 8 miles from the strip.

-On Wednesday I hid the room key to my Encore room in the parking garage in anticipation of giving the room away for that night. Joshua F. was the first confirmed respondent and he had the privilege of playing detective trying to find the hidden room key! Congrats on getting the free night!

-We decided to drive from Las Vegas to Irvine, CA where my wife was to attend a wedding. People there seemed shocked that I would drive. Honestly I can’t understand why. It took about 3:45 to drive the 260 miles at an average speed of about 70mph. In order to fly it would take well more than that to return the car, clear security, fly to LAX/LGB/SNA, rent another car, and drive to Irvine.

-Those Virgin America creative floks weren’t making up the “somewhere over Zzyzx, CA” place in their promo video. We passed by the sign for it on the drive! Double miles if you can pronounce that correctly!

-I took the liberty of slipping out of the wedding in order to go learn with my brother JJ in his yeshiva for an hour before treating him to a “gourmet” meal at Jeff’s gourmet. Mmm now those are good homemade onion rings!

-We stayed in the category 2 Westin LAX for 4,000 Starpoints. The paid rate would have been over $200+tax!
I was upgraded to a terrace suite with 2 rooms and a nice balcony with just clear skies above it. A decent hotel, but it can definitely use better soundproofing!

-We flew back on the red-eye, Continental 634 from LAX-CLE which was a completely sold-out flight. Luckily we were seated in row 14, in which you probably have more leg room than first class, and have the added bonus of being able to recline while the row in front of it has no ability to recline on you!

-Poor timing: With an 11:20pm PDT red-eye return flight, I was on one of the last Continental flights to not qualify for the double elite miles promo ;(

Pictures (Click on thumbnail to expand in a new tab/window):

Wynn Bathroom 1

Wynn Bathroom 2

Wynn Bedroom

Wynn Phone (personalized)

Wynn Room Key (personalized)

Wynn Hotel

Wynn Hallway

View of Encore From Wynn Room

Encore Bathroom

Encore Bedroom 1

Encore Bedroom 2

Encore Entryway

Encore Living Room

Encore Hallway

Sweet Potato Fries At Village Steakhouse