This animation of the very brief but eventful flight of US Airways 1549 is amazing. It is amazing how calm the flight crew is as they are saying things like “we may end up in the Hudson”.

US Airways 1549 Animation

Whales make an awfully big speed bump is what the residents of Rockland, Maine just learned.

Whales force Royal Caribbean cruise ship to abandon port call in Maine

Call it the revenge of the whales.

The Herald Gazette of Rockland, Maine reports Royal Caribbean has canceled a much-anticipated June call in the budding port town due to a new federal right whale regulation.

The news outlet says Royal Caribbean told officials Friday that the 2,446-passenger Grandeur of the Seas wouldn’t be visiting as planned because of a recently announced federal restriction that limits vessels to no greater than 10 knots (11.5 miles) per hour in a protective area off Cape Cod. The ship would have had to transit the area to reach the town.

Don’t you hate how long it can take to get off of an airplane when you are in a hurry. Even if you do… don’t try this on your next trip.

Man jumps out of taxiing airliner at Dallas/Fort Worth

Authorities say a 26-year-old passenger ran to the front of a taxiing plane, opened a door and slid down (the inflatable emergency exit slide) to the tarmac before being detained.” That’s from The Associated Press, which reports that the incident occurred on American Airlines Flight 1343 from Charlotte to Dallas/Fort Worth on Tuesday. No injuries were reported among the flight’s 87 passengers.

Chris Elliott had a great article about how your browser might be costing you money.

Are online travel agencies quoting higher rates because of your Web cookies?

Are online travel agencies quoting higher prices because of your personal information? It’s been difficult to prove that Web “cookies” were being used in that way. Until now, maybe.

Matt Ilardo stumbled across some interesting proof when he tried to book a rental car through Hotwire.

Other articles that caught my eye:

• Free or Cheap Things to Do in Las Vegas, Nevada
• Top 10 Things NOT To Do During Mardi Gras
• Faulty altimeter caused airliner crash

This time of year crowds flock to San Francisco’s downtown neighborhood. The shops from Market Street to Union Square take on a particularly festive holiday air. Every street corner seems to have someone from a local charity who want to tap into the goodwill that flows through the streets.

Union Square

Most of Union Square has been converted into an ice rink for the Christmas season with a long line of skaters looking to take advantage of this temporary wonderland.

  The Holiday Ice Rink will be open from November 12, 2008 to January 4, 2009
  Sunday - Thursday 10am - 10pm :: Friday - Saturday 10am - 11:30pm
  Admission Monday to Friday 10am - 6pm - $8 Adults, $4 Children Eight & Under

The scene is dominated again this year by the huge Christmas tree that joins the statue of Alma Spreckels as the focal point of the square.

How Much is that Doggy in the Window?

The Macy’s windows are filled not with sale items but with puppies and kittens from the local SPCA which drew crowds of kids pressing their noses against the windows in eager expectation. Last year this San Francisco tradition helped in the adoption of 277 animals and generated $37,000 in donations to the SF/SPCA.

Visa Card Holder’s Christmas Benefits

Even Visa was feeling in a giving mood as they were giving away parking last week at the 5th and Mission Street Garage. This promotion will last until December 26th, 2008. You need to show your Visa card to someone wearing a Visa shirt near the cashier to take advantage of this offer. They have a certain amount budgeted each day and when they reach that amount they go home. On a busy day that might be as early as 2pm so this will benefit early shoppers the most.

Visa also has discounts available so pick up a booklet from them before you start you shopping for a free StarBuck’s coffee, a treat from Godiva chocolate, etc. One of their benefits is a Visa card holder only section in the busy food court of the Westfield Center. Visa holders will enjoy the VIP treatment but at least a few non-Visa holders were a bit miffed.

5th and Mission Street Garage

The 5th and Mission Street Garage also has a deal through February 2009 where if you have a carpool of 3 or more people when you pay for your parking at the cashier on the way out you get the first hour for free.

See also my Shopping Tour of Union Square in San Francisco.

$99 a night for a hotel with the bathroom down the hall might sound a bit expensive, but in New York City any hotel for less than $100 a night is a bargain. The newly opened Jane Hotel is in a historic space in a “red lighthouse of a building in Greenwich Village”. The building was built in 1907 and has housed sailors and titanic survivors. Now the target audience is young people who might otherwise be looking at a hostel. All rooms will have free wi-fi and flat screen TVs but cannot be described as spacious as 150 of the 200 rooms are only 50 square feet in size.

Budget Travel reports a surprising development at Walt Disney World. Something free from Disney? Cool.

For the last few years, Walt Disney World has offered free dining plans in September to entice visitors during a notoriously slow month. Well, Disney announced yesterday that the Disney Dining Plan will once again be offered free with select vacation packages. If you stay at one of Disney’s “value” or “moderate” category resorts�or at Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa�between Aug. 24 and Sept. 20, 2008, and you book a 5-night “Magic Your Way” package (at a starting price of about $1,300 for a family of four), then they’ll throw in the dining plan for free. The plan ordinarily costs $38 per day per adult.

This week I had a rare business trip to Atlanta, Georgia. I booked the least expensive flight as usual using an airfare aggregation site. In this case I used Kayak.com as I often do. But fare alone is not the only measure of which is the best flight. I had two things that made my trip less than ideal.

• The night before I was scheduled to depart, US Airways cancelled my flight. They did not have a crew. So after I had spent a lot of time picking the right flight so I could spend an evening in Atlanta (not knowing that a tornado had torn up downtown) I ended up instead getting to my hotel at midnight.
• I had a very tight connection on my flight back (26 minutes) which is less than I would recommend for anyone. My flight was delayed a few minutes by bad weather and I ended up running between flights and arrived at the gate where the monitors said I would find a flight to San Jose but found a plane waiting to go to Seattle instead. A moment later they announced the last call for my flight 2 gates down.

There are always things that cannot be controlled when you fly, but situations can be predicted. For instance, some flights are habitually late. What if I had known that my flight from Atlanta was always late, then there is no way I would have taken a chance on with such a short layover. There is now a airfare aggregation site has just that sort of information. The site is InsideTrip.com.

Boston.com writes:

You thought you got a good deal when you booked that $200 flight from New York to Fort Lauderdale after scouring various websites to find the lowest fare. But after suffering through a long delay, a cramped flight on an old plane, and the airline’s losing your bags, that flight may not have felt like a bargain, after all.

Most travel sites, like Expedia and Kayak, do a good job of digging up the cheapest airfare for a given route, often giving you dozens of options. But when it comes to key factors that can help determine whether a flight is worth the money or is one to avoid - like how much legroom you get, a flight’s on-time performance, and mishandled luggage rates - travel sites tend to fall short.

For each search, InsideTrip provides not just fares but also evaluations of what Pelter calls 12 “pain points.” These include the amount of legroom in a cabin, how often the flight is on time, the aircraft type (larger jets get higher ratings), how crowded a specific flight typically is, and if you can walk to your connection. It even considers how long it usually takes to get through the security checkpoint nearest the gate.