Tag: travel

Canadian writer, Ilona Biro From Huffington Post Travel Loved Her Time Here- Read On from Linn Parisi

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Linn Parisi writes-

Following is the first of a few articles that Ilona Biro from AOL Canada (now Huffington Post Travel) is doing about the Seafood Trail.

She and her husband had a wonderful visit here, and they plan on coming back with their kids.  That’s what we like to hear!

The Seafood Trail will continue to make a difference in visitation, as does your generous participation in these FAMs.

Thanks-    Linn

When You’re in Boston, Hit the Seafood Trail

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This summer, my husband and I were lucky landlubbers – lucky enough to land on Massachusett’s Seafood Trail, one of those culinary road trips that dreams are made of.
Just north of Boston, the Seafood Trail (unofficial slogan: "all seafood, all the time"), serves up everything you can imagine, from crispy fried clams, oysters, and fish ‘n chips to rich, lip-smacking chowder, steamers and mussels. From casual meals fresh off the boats to romantic four-star dinners, it can all be had here. In truth there’s so much amazing food along the Seafood Trail you could take a week to experience it all. We did our best to pack in as much as we could in a single day.We started in Gloucester, dubbed America’s Oldest Seaport and founded in 1623. It’s a tight-knit town that’s seen more than 10,000 of its souls perish while fishing on the plentiful seas, among them the men of the Andrea Gail, whose story was captured in the movie The Perfect Storm (which was also filmed here). A monument honouring those brave men takes pride of place along the seaside promenade leading into the town centre, and the seafaring tradition carries on today.
So before we got cracking on the lobster, we wanted to meet some of the locals. One local light, Clarence Birdseye, invented his flash freezing technique in Gloucester, and went on to fame and fortune. Fast forward to today and Gloucester is still a working fishing village, not a replica of something from the past. While Birdseye’s methods are still in use, we were curious to see the inner workings of the seafood industry today. First stop was Steve Connolly Seafood where we met up with foreman Romeo Solviletti. It’s a busy place, where fish was being gutted and filleted and lobsters cooked in huge pots, before being sent off to grateful diners – from Los Angeles to Hong Kong. Soviletti showed us a 14-pound lobster that he said was more than 100 years old. It looked like it belonged on the Seafood counter at Harrod’s, but Solviletti told us what happens to a lot of these monsters: "At Christmas, people come in and buy the biggest lobster they can get and set it free in the harbour. It’s a tradition for some people, and to be honest, you’re better off eating a smaller, younger lobster anyhow." Our mouths were watering by this time, but we wanted to do a little more exploring.
So we went to Joey’s place. One of Gloucester’s biggest boosters, Joey Ciaramitaro has run the Good Morning Gloucester blog for years, and has built the Web’s largest collection of mutant lobster photos, one blue lobster pic at a time. If you want to tap into what’s happening around town, you’ll find no better place. And if you want fresh lobster, straight off the boat, head to Joey’s dock and he’ll weigh it in for you with a huge smile. Extra bonus? Joey’s unvarnished opinions on the best seafood restaurants this side of Boston. Follow his advice and you won’t go wrong. His tip on lobster rolls: "Never, never put

for the rest of the story follow the link-

When You’re in Boston, Hit the Seafood Trail

Ponies of Chincoteague

Posted on by Alicia Pensarosa

One reason I wanted to visit Chincoteague was to see the ponies on the beach. On Assateague Island there are 150 ponies that run wild in the marshes and along the beach. They are managed by the Volunteer Fire Company with vaccines and annual auctions to thin the herd. The legend is that the ponies of Chincoteague are descedents  of horses that washed ashore from a wrecked Spanish galleon off the coast of Assateague Island 300-400 years ago.  The book and movie, Misty of Chincoteague, made the Island famous and a tourist destination. The book was written in 1947 by Marguerite Henry based on a real family of Chincoteague.

Here are the ponies we saw from the road into Assateague Island

and by Boat on Assateague Island

Some Travel Tips From Your Boy Joey Regarding Airlines and Booking Flights

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Most of you may already know this but I think it bears repeating because I am sometimes guilty of making the same mistakes repeatedly.

When searching for airfares for my winter vacations I start early, about three months ahead of time and I check the regular websites for the best deals on flights.  The main website I use is Kayak which gives you some pretty decent customization options as far as whittling down the exact flight times and non-stop flights so you can only be viewing flights that meet your criteria instead of 1000 or so flights that have 2 or more connections or are red-eyes. 

I prefer early morning direct flight departures and mid day direct flight returns.  Kayak allows me to do searches for the exact flights that meet my criteria. 

The searches can be then filtered by cheapest price or best times or shortest route.  The way I usually perform my search for the best flights is this-

I check off

  • Non-stop
  • My flights are flexible (Plus/Minus 3 days)
  • Depart Early
  • Return Mid-day

Now I’ll check every other day or so until the flights I want come up within the prices that are reasonable to me.  For Florida this means direct flights at the right times for anything under $235 and for the Caribbean anything under $400.

Once I see those flights coming up I go directly to the airline’s site for which that fare is listed to se if it is listed for cheaper on the Airline’s website.  I figure that most times the airfare aggregator probably adds $10 or so to the costs to pay for their service.  some times it will be listed a little cheaper on the Airline’s website, sometimes not but it’s always good to check IMO.

Now here is the thing though that even I who I consider to be a pretty informed and savvy web travel person still to this day forget at times in the excitement to book a great deal.

Firstly there are the baggage fees that should be taken into consideration.

Here is an airline baggage fee chart from Kayak for reference-

American Airlines charges $25 for your first checked bag on domestic travel.

Jet Blue offers the first checked bag as free.

So when comparing the two 9 times out of ten I will book the cheapest fare the way it is listed on the Kayak site but forget about the baggage fees. A $225 flight to Miami on American actually will cost you more than a $240 flight to Miami on Jet Blue if you check one bag, but it won’t be listed that way on either kayak or on the individual Airline’s respective websites. now $15 isn’t a whole lot but then if you consider that you might be flying with a partner or children and it turns out to be three checked bags that would be $45 each way equals $90.  Ideally you can travel light and avoid checked bags all together but in many instances that is just not a reality.

The next point that I would like to make is that not all airlines are created equal and some don’t have TV or Internet on them.  I don’t know about you but I would gladly pay an extra $30 for round trip airfare anywhere in the country that offered tv and/or internet in the seatbacks in front of you. 

So now lets take the above instance of the flight to Miami on American for $225 which doesn’t have internet and only has a couple of TV’s in the middle of the aisles for which you may or may not have a decent view of and charges you an extra $25 for your checked bag.

$240 for a flight without a checked bag fee on a newer Jet Blue plane which offers wifi internet and individual TV’s in each seat is an absolute bargain.

Take your time when you are booking your flights and figure out what the baggage fees will be along with if the airline has wifi on your flight.  A flight to Vegas with internet access will literally FLY BY a whole lot quicker with the internet to distract you, I guarantee it.

Rocky Neck Accomodations Renovations With Mona

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Mona Faherty Gives Us a Tour Of The Under Construction Suite In The Top Level Of The Rocky Neck Accomodations

Click here to go right to Mona’s Rocky Neck Accommodations Website

White Hair Sticks Up -title provided by The Bean

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Hey guys what do you think about the Bean’s guest blogging abilities?  She is in charge of the titles.

White Hair Sticks Up -title provided by The Bean, originally uploaded by captjoe06.

 

Why Don’t Planes Have Cupholders?

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Seriously, how hard can it be to put some goddamn cupholders on planes?

They make you buckle in for safety they make you stow your luggage completely under the seat in front of you.

Am I the only person in America that thinks that cup holders are a good idea to have as a convenience on planes.  You get a cup of coffee from the flight attendant and then have to juggle the thing around til its not too hot so you can enjoy it.  I swear they put grease on those tiny little trays and everything is sliding around on there.  I’m a nervous wreck until whatever beverage in front of me is fully consumed, and is that really any way to enjoy coffee?  Chugging it down quickly?  Hell no!

Try traveling with a two year old and soon to be four year old and al the gear that comes with trying to entertain them for a three hour flight and tell me you can enjoy any type of liquid refreshment in front of you on that teeny, tiny slippery tray.  Forget it!

The Mrs was the unfortunate victim of a lap/seat full of apple juice when Madeline inevitably spilled it off the tray in front of them.

With no change of clothes on the plane The Mrs had to sit in that sticy liquid for two hours til landing in Boston.  All that could be avoided I thought with the simple addition of cupholders.

I’m sayin it right now to any airline out there- I’ll gladly pay $5 more per ticket for a cupholder.  Get it done.  It just makes sense.

end rant