Ice Hotel in Quebec
I’ve had the opportunity to visit the Ice Hotel in Quebec. I sipped a wonderful vodka from an ice jigger. I tested the ice beds strewn with furs and blankets. I can tell you, it is not for me. A friend of mine stayed one night and ended up sleeping in the bathrooms (the only heated portion of the place).
The hotel’s ball room will be an igloo 12.2 metres (40 ft.) in diameter with a ceiling 7.6 metres (25 ft.) high. Among its features will be a huge video screen so guests can watch the Super Bowl plus Vancouver’s winter Olympics surrounded by snow and ice.
The entire structure gets built in five weeks using 500 tons of ice and 15,000 tons of snow. A construction crew of 20 commenced the rough construction early in December when large blocks of ice started arriving from a Montreal ice maker.
Stacked like bricks, the ice blocks will form the interior walls and pillars supporting the dome structure, as well as the beds, the bar, chairs and the pews in the chapel. There’s no coat room. You’ll want to keep it on.
Commercial spaceport designated in Florida
Near Jacksonville, Florida, Cecil Field just has been awarded a federal designation as a commercial spaceport. It is being built to ferry tourists, scientific researchers and the curious into the outer reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere and beyond.
Cecil Field becomes the country’s eighth licensed commercial spaceport and the first in Florida cleared to fly space vehicles that take off and land horizontally, like planes.
“This is a relatively new component to the space industry,” Lindner said.
“Up until this point, people are automatically assuming space launches are vertical because we all grew up watching the rockets go up from the Cape.”
In addition to suborbital passenger flights like those Virgin is offering, Cecil Field hopes to offer commercial orbital launch services staged from the suborbital craft.
Amtrak adds Wifi on Acela trains
Heck, Bolt Bus has it, Megabus has it, some airlines have it. We’re talking about WiFi while traveling. I have long been using my computer on Amtrak trains because I have a Verizon Internet card that provides seamless service between Boston and New York. But now those without cards can use Amtrak’s WiFi starting in March.
The government-owned corporation said that after a review of the early trials, WiFi will be fully launched on Acela Express high speed trains by March. The service will initially be free, though Amtrak says “pricing may change depending on customer response, system performance and costs.” WiFi may be extended to other routes in the future.
In addition to free wireless internet, Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman has said the company plans to upgrade cars and locomotives. “It’s time to replace our aging fleet,” Boardman said in a conference call.
The upgrades can’t come any sooner, as Amtrak faces fierce competition from low cost bus services who increasingly offer free WiFi. Surely, train passengers couldn’t help but wonder how JetBlue managed to offer free internet access at 30,000 feet back in 2007, while lowly Amtrak couldn’t even get a land-based system off the ground.
Photo: PurchaseyMind blog
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
