I Wish Restaurants Would Stop Doing This
Plus, a new study on airline reward programs shows Delta remains a cult.
I’m flying this afternoon to Europe. London, to see my sister, then Amsterdam, Antwerp, Paris, and Athens for a wedding. Keen on having a productive visit, I spent much of the latter half of last week doing something I really don’t enjoy–researching and selecting restaurants.
I spent ages taking recommendations from friends and readers and balancing them with online reviews and lists that so often focus on things utterly irrelevant to me. Does the kind of person who takes the time to write a review on Google have the same tastes as me? It’s a question I learned to ask years ago. I’d been in Rotterdam for work and each night I had, no exaggeration, some of the best meals I’d ever had in stunningly designed spaces.
Excited to recommend them to readers, I pulled the spots up online to check info like opening times, address, and so on, only to discover that each of the three had something like 4.2-4.3s on Google. I was shocked, and confused. Surely, they were 4.7s. Then I started scrolling. While many reviews were ecstatic, a number that were clearly translated by Google Translate all had critiques roughly along the same lines: “Delicious food, great ambience, but too expensive,” and given the restaurant only four stars.
These restaurants had run smack into the reason we call splitting the bill “Going Dutch.”
This time, though, I found myself befuddled by a choice that so many highly-recommended restaurants in Amsterdam and Antwerp made. Using photographs in which the plating shows substantially more plate than meal and a not terrible appetizing one at that. (The images here are screengrabs of the images these restaurants use on their websites or distribute to press.)
In a quest to look cool and fancy, I suppose, they’ve gone for this aesthetic. But it just made me think that a) I would leave this place still hungry and craving a burger and b) that I was running the risk of it being a spot you’d find hard to relax in and enjoy a long meal with friends.
I started to scratch any restaurant with photography like this off my list, because I’ve lost all ardor for fussy food experiences and tasting menus designed by individuals who seem to prefer being magicians rather than lovers of food.
So, please, restaurants, consider having at least some photos of what most people would consider a meal.
DEPARTMENT OF GRIEVANCES
Point.me, a search and booking engine for booking flights with points, released their rankings for the best airline reward programs. Air France’s Flying Blue came in at the top, leagues ahead of everybody else. It wasn’t terribly surprising–they often have fantastic deals for award flights to Europe. What was shocking was that Air Canada came in second. Yes, it often has award flights for a reasonable amount of points, but their fees to book it are exorbitant, as are the change and cancellation fees they charge. (A practice no major U.S. carrier still engages in.) Plus, you still have a pretty weak onboard experience when compared to many flagship carriers. United came in third, which wasn’t a shocker to me. What also wasn’t a surprise to me, but should be another sign for those of you irrationally clinging to this idea that it’s amazing, is that Delta scored very, very low. Way below the other major U.S. carriers. That it still has such a devoted following when its award flights are a rip-off, is more evidence that it’s a cult!
Speaking of cults, these two pieces in the Los Angeles Times and the Hollywood Reporter about the couple who have spent $400,000 fighting to get back into Disney’s exclusive Club 33 are some of the saddest things I’ve read in a while. After spending tens of thousands of dollars to get into it, they lost access when one of them was found on a park bench unable to stand. Disney said it was because he was drunk and kicked them out of the club. I’m not trying to be a snob and look down on them for being passionate about Disney. But good lord, they’re having to set their retirement back five years to fight this!
I’ve been banging on about how the madness of prices in the U.S. has led to the softening in domestic tourism we’re currently seeing. But the gouging also runs the risk of people moving their travels elsewhere in the long term. Such a risk currently faces Napa and Sonoma. I stumbled across this piece from back in May which reported on the most famous wine regions in the U.S. “The number of visitors to Napa County wineries is down a dramatic 37 percent from 2016 numbers, and 32 percent in Sonoma County over the same period,” it noted. While one could shrug that off and say we still shouldn’t compare pre-pandemic numbers to now, another piece reports that compared to 2021, Napa’s hotel occupancy rate is down about 6%.
The culprit? Cost.
“In 2016 the average tasting room fee, across all of the US, was $16 for a regular tasting and $34 for a reserve tasting. Last year the average nationwide was $38 regular and $72 reserve. But in Napa County, the average fee is now $75 for a regular tasting and $138 for reserve. For Sonoma County, the numbers are $43 regular, $81 reserve. No other region comes close; the next-most-expensive region is Oregon ($33 regular, $61 reserve.) And it's not just tasting room fees. The average hotel room in Napa County cost $470 a night in 2022, up from $327 in 2019, according to the Napa Valley Register. Also, tipping is now suggested at two thirds of wineries; only 21 percent allowed it 10 years ago.”
Just as many in the hotel industry having shifted from focus on occupancy to how much revenue a single room can drive (RevPAR), the inflated prices mean they are making as much money if not more with fewer customers. But it also creates real risk of driving travelers to other regions and leaving Napa and Sonoma behind for good.
There have been seven reported deaths in the Grand Canyon since July 31. It’s a staggering number, even given the fact that a dozen and change people die here every year. I do wonder what it’s like to be an employee at a National Park who signed on because you love the outdoors and education and now spend a significant amount of your time dealing with dead tourists.
Sometimes, I really hate the timeline we’re living in. One of the big social media trends right now is that people are creating airport tray aesthetics for TikTok…
Not everything on TikTok is bad. A trend in travel media this summer has been talking about “coolcations.” In an idea harkening back to an era before air conditioning, “coolcations” are trips to places in summer that, basically, aren’t hot. Places where there is a breeze and it might even require a sweater at night. The drive for these is that vacationing in the peak summer months on the Mediterranean is getting borderline miserable because of the heat. But this TikTok I stumbled on outlines one of the major issues for this trend—infrastructure. While the countries ringing the Mediterranean have been building out airports and hotels and restaurants for decades such that they can (barely) handle hundreds of millions of tourists, these “coolcation” destinations would be overrun if a significant fraction of those hundreds of millions tried to visit.
I get the need for headlines to be fresh and grabby, but this Telegraph headline made me chortle: “Brazil is the winter sun destination we’ve all been missing out on.” Oh, really? Brazil?? Nobody has been thinking about Brazil as a winter getaway??? And then there’s the opening line: “Brazil is famous for not selling itself as a tourism destination…” I mean, come on.
The new deal between American Airlines and its flight attendants will include boarding time in their pay—the first major contract with an airline to do so. This is huge, as flight attendants are traditionally considered “working” only when the plane door shuts. If this has an effect on other airline labor negotiations, maybe we will finally see sensible boarding policies that prioritize speed and efficiency over ancillary revenue streams like priority boarding. (I.e. it will cost airlines more money to have longer boarding times than what they bring in by having us all fight for the privilege of boarding first.)
TRAVEL INDUSTRY NEWS
The TSA is once again asking for a version of a delay for RealID rollout
Southwest’s former CEO Gary Kelly steps down as executive chair, and six board members will resign
Airlines might soon have to fork over cash for delayed and canceled flights
Madrid is banning a number of major scooter operators
United will be adding free Wi-Fi after signing a deal with Elon Musk’s Starlink
2 Italian and 2 South Korean climbers are found dead close to Mont Blanc's summit
And two Delta planes collided on the tarmac at Atlanta’s airport
Regarding the deaths in the Grand Canyon and other national parks (and elsewhere)...
My preferred holiday is long-distance trekking. (Think the Camino.) But I have spent my life outdoors so much that I am a seasoned Mountain Search & Rescue member, even while on vacation. I used to wonder how exactly people endure trouble on the trails so I asked the people we saved or found or helped. It was never really expressed in this way but the prevailing sentiment is they had given thought to the 'putting-in' but not the 'getting-out.' That is, they thought they were out for a walk in the park and nothing untoward would befall them.
Just that sort of thing occurred with the actor, Julian Sands, who loved hiking the trails and mountains of LA. He respected the trails' wild nature - yet still fell victim to the the seductions of Mt Baldy.
I sympathize. Several decades ago I was hiking part of the Backbone Trail in LA. Alone. I decided to go off-trail and rough it to a purported waterfall that occurred in Spring if the winter had been wet. While I was clambering down the creek bed, a rock I stepped on dislodged and I twisted my ankle so horribly badly that I just collapsed straight to the ground. And then threw up, thanks to the blood vacating the rest of my body and rushing to the scene of the crime (my right ankle). When I could, I got up and tested my weight on the ankle. No good. I was miles from the trailhead and, I hoped, other hikers; even farther from my car. I had nothing but a small bottle of water; no food, no cell phone, no warm jacket, no nothing. I was on my own. I looked up and could see houses above - people would be there, but no one up there would ever see me and no one would ever hike the part of the wilds I was on. And I sure was not in condition to hike UP.
I was on my own. I removed the right boot, rubbed the ankle furiously to try to disperse the swelling (and pain), and then quickly put the boot back on. (My foot would have frozen walking barefoot down the creek bed so I had to put the boot back on before it would not fit.) ...
I learned my lesson. Dress in layers. Walk with a buddy. Have food and water. Have a cell phone. Have an exit plan.
Sure wish other people could have the sense knocked into them, as it did me, before calamity strikes. Until it does, I help find them before it is too late.