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Busman’s holiday: Ciara Foley
Yosemite and Grand Canyon: West coast favourites
Every month we ask a leading travel professional to write about their personal holiday experience. This month: Ciara Foley of Platinum Travel, chair of the Visit USA committee in Dublin.
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rowing up in a family where my Dad worked for an airline, we were well used to not always going on exactly the holiday we had planned! We were very lucky to able to avail of Standby flights to Europe and the USA but inevitably we always had to brace ourselves that we may be “bumped” and have to head home only to try again the next day!
For small children that was tough – but it was the Norm! One abiding memory I have is asking my mother once when we didn’t make it Florida for the 2nd day running, and
heading home to our house was “will I have to go to school now?” Good ole mum said no and we got on the next day! It was all part of the adventure! Without a shadow of a doubt my favourite place to be is in the USA. If I had the chance, I would love to see every part of it! My favourite trip was our first fly drive across West Coast of the US 14 years ago. It was so poignant because as having never done anything like this before it opened up a whole new realm of possibilities. One minute you are in Yosemite National park, the next you are heading to Alcatraz after a day in San Francisco and then you hit the amazing coast down
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
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ow seriously should we take Michael O’Leary’s summer utterances? In the case of his demand for no checked bags, very seriously indeed. Sometimes the publicity is carefully planned. More times he stumbles into it. And sometimes he means what he says. His record is more than 5,000 news articles that were generated by the proposal to close check-in desks in February 2009.In
comparison, charging for using the total, while it went viral, fell way behind with 3,800 articles. When he talked this summer about pricing baggage out of the hold, you get the feeling he meant it. Every airline dreams of not having to check in bags and pay baggage handlers, not to mention the bureaucracy of tracing the two or three bags that go missing, on average, on every flight. Ryanair wants the baggage free
business. He can get closer to his dream than the 80pc baggage free business he currently enjoys. But checked baggage wont; go away, it wil just go to someone else. That will mean more hassle for the airlines who still handle bags. That means more hassle and more costs for your clients. For every bag-free customer that Ryanair steals away, there is one that has to go back to the traditional airline. Bad news for everyone.
as far as San Diego! After you can finish with the Grand Canyon and some slots in Vegas! With towns like Monterey, Carmel & Santa Barbara all along the way, what was not to like! That was it, I had caught the bug and I knew I would want to come back for more! So we tried a few more and it was infectious – the more you see the more you want! And best of all, it doesn’t have to cost a fortune. I think what I like most about the USA is that every state is different and has something new to offer. The list is endless Will I get to see them all? That remains to be seen! However I won’t give up trying!
IN YOUR NEXT TRAVEL EXTRA: Available to Travel Agents or online September 15 2013
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