Pause for One Moment   In a very brief video, visit the Church of the Pater Noster (the "Our Father" or "Lord's Prayer) on the crest of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.  There you find this much loved prayer written in over 60 languages on wall plaques.  Hear the Lord's Prayer recited by the late Master Guide of Israel, Josef Gilboa, in the language Jesus himself spoke.

Everyone in our Agency is crazy about Hawaii:  any island, any time!  And one of our fondest memories of the Islands is the fantastic experiences we have all enjoyed at luaus on various islands.  A luau provides hours of unrelenting fun and pleasure, as one "act" flows into the next--and the next.  Naming one particular luau as best is virtually impossible, because luaus tend to have different flavors which appeal to different esthetic tastes.  That said, the Luau at Paradise Cove is definitely among the top of the lot.  The setting is idyllic.  The staff knows how to treat guests in the traditional "Aloha" fashion.  The grounds are immaculately kept.  The performers are all top notch.  The food is irresistable.  The men performers are handsome; the women are exotically beautiful.  Our video, filmed in 2011, provides a mere glimpse of the fun and fantasy of a great luau.  Enjoy!  And then, call our Agency and book your own adventure to Hawaii.  You'll always be glad you did!

Airfares on the Increase Again  If you haven't flown lately, you may not have noticed that airfares have been on a steady rise.  The culprit is generally escalating fuel prices, about which airlines can do little except pay.  Today's newest airliners are more fuel efficient, but no airline can replace an entire aging fleet overnight.  Some airlines have very successfully hedged (basically bought insurance against gargantuan fuel increases) their bets on fuel prices, but even that technique has its limits.  Since charging for checking baggage has been such a huge success, airlines are constantly seeking other revenue producing tacts.  Look for more airlines to sell flight insurance and insurance that "locks" a fare against further increases, or "low price guarantees" that promise to refund the amount of a fare decrease after you've paid for a ticket in full.  If you have flown recently, you have doubtless noted that the planes are packed, often oversold, so "capacity discipline" (as one airline calls it) means steadily monitoring the census of each flight and putting on smaller aircraft if too many seats fly empty.  The simplest and most obvious way to boost revenue is to raise fares, and that is exactly what the experts say will continue to happen as summer approaches.  The largest carriers have attempted to raise fares four times this year thus far--and have succeeded twice.  When they do not succeed, it is because of the competition waged by low cost carriers.  But, considering that three major airlines have been eliminated in the past four years, there is less and less competition.  Our clients frequently ask us whether they should pay the prevailing amount for a fare--or wait.  Naturally we have no answer to such a question.  What we say is something like this:  "If you feel comfortable with the cost of this fare and you are determined to make this trip, then go ahead and buy your ticket, knowing that its cost could go up or could go down prior to your departure date."  It's a sort of "better safe than sorry" attitude.

While the City of New Orleans is well known worldwide, not everyone knows of the excellent facilities at the Port of New Orleans.  A significant amount of money has been spent in the past several years on renovating and enlarging and improving the Port, so that now it offers a smoothly efficient port of debarkation.  There are currently 3 major cruise lines offering a variety of cruises from the Port:  Eastern Caribbean, Western Caribbean, Bahamas, and Nassau.  New Orleans itself is accessible to millions of people with a very easy to more demanding car trip.  Particularly for a family with children, driving has become a more and more popular option to flying because of considerations of cost and hassle.  Then, too, driving offers a great opportunity for overnighting in this one-of-a-kind, beautiful, funky, picturesque city:  the French Quarter, the Riverwalk, hundreds of years of architecture and history, and culinary delights at every street corner!  The accompanying video suggests some of the possibilities of cruising out of NOLA - New Orleans, LA.

The new $56 million dollar Pearl Harbor Visitor Center was dedicated on December 7, 2010, at a gathering of thousands who came to commemorate the 69th anniversary of the attack.  The new Center rests atop hundreds of pilings driven up to 200 feet into the ground and boasts an area of 24,000 square feet, twice the size of the old center which dated from 1980.  The new Center includes interactive exhibits, a remastered version of the 26 minute film visitors view before going to the USS Arizona Memorial, a new bookstore, and a central ticketing agency for visits to the Arizona Memorial, the "Mighty Mo" (USS Missouri battleship), and the USS Bowfin submarine tour.  Visitors enjoying the new Center give it highest praise.  Special praise goes to the exquisite, dignified film presentation that prepares visitors for the Arizona Memorial exhibit.  Our nine minute tribute film to the American heroes who died during the Pearl Harbor attack is entitled "Pearl Harbor Remembered."

Younger Generations will never experience the Joy of Flying  Many of us can remember the thrill of boarding an airplane, whether for business or pleasure.  That thrill is largely gone these days, replaced by aggravation, dread, or pain.  Security measures have made getting to a gate the equivalent of maneuvering an obstacle course, oftentimes peppered with unpleasantness caused by ill trained or overly aggressive TSA personnel.  And then we come to the boarding process which is, plainly speaking, uncivilized.  When airlines began to charge for checking baggage, they knew--or should have known--that cost-conscious flyers would opt to porter their own baggage.  Thus, the flight and fight primitive response is evoked in passengers, dead set on jamming an oversized carry-on bag into a metal overhead bin, defying physics in the process.  Inevitably there is not enough bin space to accommodate the luggage of those who board later in the process, say in Zones 3 or 4 or 5, etc.  The desirability of aisle seats has been lessened by the surety that aisle seat passengers will be banged and bludgeoned by fellow flyers who are dragging unwieldly luggage, and too much of it, down the aisles in a frantic attempt to claim precious overhead bin space.  Forget even thinking of neatly folding your coat and placing it in an overhead bin.  Flight attendants will immediately spot your infraction, deliver your coat to your lap unceremoniously, and inform you that overheads are for carry-on luggage only.  Since when, you may wonder?  Since now!  "After the carry-ons are loaded, we will be happy to place your coat atop the carry-ons."  If they remember.  If there is an ounce of space remaining.  Sympathies to all the flight attendants who have to manage harried passengers dragging all their worldly possessions aboard cramped planes (or so it would seem).  To the airlines' credit, they are moving to ameliorate the disaster their "fee for checked luggage" has created.  New planes are featuring larger bins that allow carry-ons to be shoved in feet first (rollers first).  Other existing bins are being modified to do the same, at times with new doors that are curved to squeeze out extra inches of space.  This phenomenon bodes good and bad for future flyers.  It concretizes the airlines' determination to make flyers pay for checking luggage and means that the act of boarding and deboarding an airplane will never again be sane or civil.  It guarantees that many short or elderly passengers will have to depend upon the kindness of strangers to lift their carry-ons into bin space--and retrieve them at journey's end.  But, since flyers are insistent upon bringing more and larger trunks on board, it means that with a little less squeezing, forcing, and jamming, they may actually manage to make their treasures fit in the overhead space available.  All in all, it is sad to realize that younger people will never experience the joy and civility of breezing through an airport and marching elegantly to assigned seats without risking a concussion or unhappy brush with fellow passengers. 

The European Union has decided unilaterally to impose fees on all airline flights into the 27 nations which comprise the European Union plus three other adjacent countries as a means of making the airlines pay for their CO2 emissions.  Delta has already announced the imposition of  a $3.00 surcharge each way on flights between the United States and Europe.  Delta has not stated whether this surcharge is specifically to reduce the burden of the EU fees.  No one is certain what the impact on these fees could be, but some have estimated that they could eventually increase fares from $50 to $90.  The United States, along with China and India, have claimed that such fees, unilaterally imposed, are violations of their sovereignty.