ilikeanswers

8 minutes ago, clo said:

We've traveled the last few years on Oceania and their wifi has been fine for us. I can't remember any time we've actually NEEDED to make contact.

Some people need to check in on family, sometimes even work will butt into your holiday. Once I had an issue that didn't resolve before I left for my trip so I was really grateful for the WiFi so I could still send the relevant emails

8 minutes ago, clo said:

I really need to count the number of countries I"VE been to. (My husband traveled intl a lot for business.) But I've hit six continents. Just checked: I've been to Antarctica but they have no restaurants including fast food 

🙂

There are apps you can use where you input your countries and cities and it calculates all your travel statistics. I find them fun plus it is a great excuse to reminisce over trips😊. 

9 minutes ago, ldubs said:

 

Some need to make contact.  McD is the place to go.  

 

Of all the countries I've been to (53 in total), the most common fast food seems to be KFC.  I haven't actually counted.  It just seems they are everywhere.  

Not really surprising as chicken is the second most eaten meat globally. 

56 minutes ago, K32682 said:

My interests are more in eating the real thing from genuine local vendors instead of whatever pale imitation an American fast-food giant decides to slap together to pander to local tastes.  

It might not be your thing but it is definitely a phenomenon. There are travellers who make it their mission to try McDonalds at least once in every country they visit. Funnily I have heard the same critiques levelled at cruise ship food😂. 

You would think billionaires would be a little bit wary of submersibles🤨

1 hour ago, leaveitallbehind said:

Well as I just posted a few minutes ago on the other thread....

 

Well Friday - at least EST - has come and gone.  Unfortunately it doesn't look like the new format went with it.  Oh well, so much for listening to your members...... 

I looked up EST America and Google says as I am posting this it is 3am so CC staff might still be asleep😄. I think it is fair enough to wait till the sun comes up at least. 

10 hours ago, Davechipp74 said:

Why would you eat at those places when traveling?  

One reason would be to try their local variations. Like in Japan you can get matcha sundaes, taro pies in China, banana pies in Brazil, biryani in India, pasta soup in Hong Kong, kale soup in Portugal, bulgogi burgers in South Korea, McFalafels around the Middle East, shrimp burger in Cyprus and Greece, McSmazak in Czechia, McCurrywurst in Germany, they use rye buns on their burgers in Finland, alcohol is served in French and Serbian McDonalds, arepas in Colombia, local sauces like aji in Bolivia and Chile, the list goes on. Sometimes it can be fun to see how international franchises adjust to the local area. 

4 hours ago, leaveitallbehind said:

Never fear -  Friday is here.  

Maybe for you but as I post this, it is the middle of Saturday over here 😜. 

5 minutes ago, Blackduck59 said:

Lynn is working on a puzzle. 

I always do the border first as well, it is  a great strategy 😄. 

10 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

Cheers,

Btw, it is India's Independence day as well. Any Indians here?

Easy mistake to make. It is India's Republic Day which celebrates the official adoption of their constitution. Independence Day is 15 August. 🇮🇳

The most eaten protein in the Caribbean is chicken and fish so that probably would explain the popularity of KFC.

Somewhere I read that Bajans prefer the flame grilled flavour of Burger King compared to McDonalds pan grilled flavour. BBQ meat is very popular overall in the Caribbean so perhaps Burger King is just a better match to their palette. 

Thinking of those in Townsville, good luck this Australia Day 🫂 hopefully they can do a make up BBQ when the storm passes. 

Nord Kapp? 

18 minutes ago, *Miss G* said:

Now I’m wondering what the travel group “R” is!  😂

One of the posts said if you write out the website name your own post goes to moderation so I was trying to be careful, but here is a clue, Snoo is the logo and I was referring to their Travel sub forum. 

1 hour ago, leaveitallbehind said:

So since there already is a "like" feature - which allows one to express their support of a given post, thus indicating its' popularity - what then is the purpose or value in "upvoting", especially when that results in the reorientation of the response stream thus taking that "upvoted" response out of context? Isn't that just another "like" feature? Seems kind of redundant - at best.

 

But as mentioned before, this also just makes responses far more subjective v objective as they are "upvoted" not based necessarily on correctness but by other's "liking" of the answer.  Sorry, I just don't get it. 

 

To me there is absolutely no value in it and I clearly hope the mods listen to the overwhelmingly negative responses and go back to what didn't need "fixed" in the first place.

I would assume if they adopted up voting they would remove the Like button but that is up to the web designer. As for whether the post is correct I can only go with my experience in the R travel group and usually the information is pretty good. To be fair if you don't like the top response you can set it to newest post first so you do have choices. As for the reorientation you clearly did not read my original post when I said they would obviously have to change the threading of the conversations. Every site that uses up voting use nested threads because otherwise the conversation would be taken out of context. 

1 hour ago, John Bull said:

 

@ilikeanswers 

 

Errrr, no. 

When a post is up-voted it goes up the chain - replies don't. So the conversation is broken, eventually by several pages. .And that's particularly pertinent if the reply corrects inaccurate information in the first post.

 

A few days ago I proved that point by up-voting a reply to a post. The result was that the reply came waaay before the post it was referring to, and made a nonsense.

Added to that, the up-vote changed all the post numbers. The reply had also referenced another post by its post-number, the up-vote meant that the referenced post-number was an entirely different post. And the same would apply to references to all the intervening threads.

 

Those are just a couple of the many cans of worms that get opened.

Up-voting has also sacrificed number of views on a thread and any reference to the last post - name, day/date, even which post is the latest

I will now up-vote your post to see what confusion that creates (with apologies to @leaveitallbehind whose post will doubtless, along with mine, get detached from @ilikeanswers post

 

JB 🥴

EDITED TO ADD. And hey presto. Ilikeanswers' post is now way back on Page One, whilst my reply to that post is stuck here on Page Three, along with leaveitall's (my apols to leaveitall)

Thank you for the detail response and your little experiment but you could have saved the effort by re reading my original response that already addressed your issue. I clearly said that up voting will obviously not work on linear threads. 

1 hour ago, ontheweb said:

But if you move it to the top and someone clicks on the star fo go to the first unread post, how do you find it in the pages and pages of responses when it is now at the top?

I have to be honest I am not sure I understand your question. The sites that use up votes don't have linear conversation threads therefore there is no first new unread post hence why I said in my original post which everyone seems to have skipped that it would not work with this current style of threading. 

Hopefully I have cleared things up enough that I don't have to repeat myself again😂

35 minutes ago, navybankerteacher said:

So you like this change - instead of allowing conversation concerning a topic we are limited to participating in a popularity contest among posts - with absolutely no indication of what it is that a voter might have liked about that post.  Kind of pointless, if you ask me.

You do realise you can still reply to posts? Up voting doesn't take away that feature, therefore you still have a conversation. As for popularity it is not that much different to likes which already cruise critic participates in. No one asks posters who like posts why they like it so why should people who up vote justify their choices?

If you have a post that is really informative and answers the OPs question it can be useful to have it at the top especially if there are pages and pages of posts. Not everyone has time to read through hundreds of posts sometimes veering off topic to find the answer they are looking for. Up voting itself is not a bad feature but within the current linear thread structure it won't work. 

As someone who frequents the Travel group in R I have to say up voting is not that bad, and you tend to get most informative answers at the top. However R's whole thread structure is that they nest reply conversations so the flow isn't interrupted by the reorganising of up votes. If my reply to a post doesn't go directly under that post, it will end up a disorganised mess. You can't have up voting without changing how conversations are threaded. 

Since you are from USA may I recommend you try this website:

Australia Travel Advisory

And this website:

Australia Traveller Health

They give you official information on the entry requirements into Australia and as you can see with both sites no Covid restrictions are listed. There have been some sensationalist claims made in regards to Australia and Covid, that is why when it come to travel health advisory it is best to stick with official sources instead of random internet articles designed to generate clicks. 

5 hours ago, clo said:

Santorini is a MESS! A business owner there told me that Chinese people will come there to get their wedding photos taken. Not to get married, just the pix! We hated it.

There is documentary called China Love that is all about the wedding photo industry in China. Couples will spend a small fortune in China to have stylised wedding photos before the wedding so it doesn't surprise me to hear they are now going overseas to do after wedding photos😂. 

If gratuities are already included then I would think the comment card recommendation would probably be more use with this cruise company than extra tips. Luxury brands tend to want to keep the best staff and reduce staff turnover. They care about the comment cards feedback forms alot more than mass market cruises. If you only privately appreciate the staff it might make you feel good but it is not going to do much for their careers. Having their name in the feedback form full of praise is going to incentivise their employer to do what they can to keep them and in the long run it will lead to far more riches than a couple of Euros a day. 

14 hours ago, bazzaw said:

Where's a good place to get Foreign Currency these days. It's been a long time since i had the need for any - but I am going to need a few hundred dollars of Japanese Yen for arrival into Japan soon. Looking mainly for convenience rather than exchange rates, etc. 

I got my yen straight out of the ATM at Haneda airport. For me that was the most convenient. 

1 hour ago, lyndarra said:

but do not get on a scooter under any circumstances, you will not be covered.

I was told if you have a motorcycle licence you would be covered for a scooter accident. Is that not true? 

4 hours ago, Galesa said:

I'd have to look it up but I would have thought it was reasonable for the insurer to ask for some supporting evidence that there was actual damage to the car which resulted in the car rental company withholding the excess.

Evidence of damage for sure, the rental companies I have used always gave me a car diagram with the encircled damage along with a summary page providing further description and with cost outlined. But I have never been asked to prove the rental company actually fixed the damage. I'm not really sure why an insurance company would care since I am their client and I'm being charged whether or not the rental company goes through with the repairs🤷‍♀️. 

3 hours ago, Galesa said:

I had 3rd party rental car insurance. To assess the claim they needed evidence of damage and repair. I suspect the damage was never repaired. 

Now I'm curious who was your insurer, because none of my claims they ever asked for evidence of repair. Sounds like an insurer I need to avoid😬. 

19 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Yes, that does seem a little strange.

 

I do know that although markets on some of the smaller Pacific island will accept AUD they are so grateful when you offer to pay in the local currency. It can be hard for them to get currencies changed and it costs them quite a bit. One guy on one of the PNG island was pleading to people passing by to change a AUD $5 to Kina. We had a bit of extra cash so I changed it for him. He was so thankful. 

Kind of reminds me when I was flying out of Bali these Balinese men would walk around our check in lines asking if we would take their accumulated $1 and $2 AUD coins they had been given in exchange for notes of the same value since they couldn't exchange coins at all. 

18 hours ago, Over from NZ said:

 there's no way the average retail assistant is versed in spotting counterfeit money from foreign currencies they very rarely see if at all. 

Not just counterfeit but out of date money. Unfortunately I heard on the Carribean Islands tourists who had out of date foreign currency would use it there and the retailers wouldn't find out they had been tricked till they went to exchange it and were told it can only be exchanged by a bank from the currency's country which obviously the island didn't have😕. 

22 hours ago, Galesa said:

Only for 1 day. Pay the extra for the rental companies' insurance. Yes. I know you may have 3rd party insurance from your TI provider or your CC coverage but small price to pay for total piece of mind and not having to gather a whole heap of "evidence" from a not totally cooperative car rental company in a land far, far away should the unthinkable happen.

Are the USA rental companies known for being uncooperative? I have made three claims in my travelling life and so far all rental companies have been very cooperative however none were in USA. If anything the process seems to be automated, they know what documents the insurers will want and fill everything on site. Only once I had an insurance company request a document I didn't already have and the rental company sent it quickly.