Amazing 2010 Summer Road Trip Review – The Falls They Call Niagara…

Posted on by Scott / 0 Comment

What a View!
Sara had been really proud to find this cool hotel with an awesome view of the falls when she was making our reservations, but I don’t think either of us knew just how incredible it would really be until we stepped foot into our room. Located on the 30th floor of an otherwise relatively small hotel directly facing the falls, the view that we found through the floor-to-ceiling windows that ran the entire length of the room were, well…


We Need More Time…
Our original plan had actually been to just spend the evening in Niagara before continuing on our journey, but after taking a walk around the area closest to our hotel, it became pretty apparent that we’d be kicking ourselves later if we didn’t spend an extra day and actually take in all of the attractions that the Falls had to offer. Fortunately, the hotel gods seemed to be in our favor that evening and not only were we able to push our next reservation (in Vermont) out a day, but with some luck the hotel in Niagara was thankfully able to relocate us to a different, but still swanky room (with a jacuzzi!) for the second night so that we could further explore this strange, new land that seemed to have an overwhelming abundance of water.


That night we made a short trip back into the States to visit one of the wife’s college friends who lived in Buffalo. On our way, we happened to drive right past this awesome “Video Game Hotel” whose lights we had been admiring from across the falls, so we just had to stop – literally right in the middle of the road – to take a picture!

You “May” Get “Soaked”
I, myself, was impressed by the time we even got down to the main walkway just how wet everyone got from the mist coming off the Falls, however Sara really wanted to go on the Maid of the Mist – you know, those little boats that you always see people getting married on in TV shows – so after about an hour of standing in line, we had the unique opportunity to get absolutely soaked with about 200 other random strangers…


Thankfully, the ponchos were included in the ticket price…

My Wife Can Talk Me Into Anything…
We continued to wander around (and attempt to dry out) for the remainder of the afternoon, eventually winding up pretty far away from our hotel and instead over by what can only be referred to as Tourist Central in Niagara Falls. It kinda reminded me of I-Drive over in Orlando – just nothing but junky, tourist traps everywhere, and we ended up walking past most of them because they all wanted admission charges for the stupidest things … but it was when we walked past one attraction in particular that I looked over to see the evil grin that had appeared on Sara’s face and I knew that there would be at least one thing that we were going to end up going on…


Mind you, this same grin has also managed to get me on some pretty crazy rollercoasters over at Universal and Busch Gardens, and even though this was probably by far the tamest because not only was the ferris wheel completely enclosed, but it was even air conditioned and offered a soundtrack … that still doesn’t do much to comfort a guy who’s ridiculously afraid of heights! Needless to say, I took a lot of photos to try and distract myself from our current altitude!

Closing Thoughts
When we finally returned to Earth, we started that long walk back and realized that we were a lot farther from our hotel than what we had expected. We ended up just going out to see a movie (The Other Guys – it was pretty horrible) and finished up with a late night dinner of Wendy’s & Tim Hortons before retreating to the observation deck to enjoy a little Niagara by Night before heading off to bed…

A programming note…

Posted on by Scott / 0 Comment

For anyone who’s enjoying the posts specifically about my recent summer roadtrip – you know, the big one that was over three weeks long and covered something like 18 states and 2 countries?! – I’ve taken the liberty of setting up a separate tag just for those posts. I realized about a third of the way through that when all is said and done, it would be nice to have an easy way to reference the series, just in case I want to link to them from another website or something, because otherwise eventually the vacation tag is going to have new stuff on top of everything from the road trip…

New Stuff Hint: Woohoo!!!

New Stuff Countdown: 4 days, 11 hours, 17 minutes…and counting!

Amazing 2010 Summer Road Trip Review – The Magical City of Toronto

Posted on by Scott / 0 Comment

Cents Per Liter??? That’s Not Confusing…
It wasn’t until almost our third day in Canada when we finally figured out how in the heck their gas prices work! I had made a point just before leaving the US to top off our tank, but with 790 km to Niagara Falls, it was inevitable that eventually we were going to actually have to stop and buy gas in Canada. It took a lot of Googling, but we figured out how to convert Canadian into American, and then liters into gallons, and all was right with the world…


Well, as close as $3.78/gallon can be considered “right,” anyways! Ouch.

Harry Potter: The Movie Props
Our first stop in Toronto before even looking for our hotel was a neat, little exhibit that Sara discovered at the last minute. Originally we were going to try to stop by The Second City for a show, but our schedules just conflicted too much, so we opted for Harry Potter instead. The display was actually really cool – it was basically a huge collection of props from all of the movies, everything from clothes to room layouts like Harry & Ron’s room at Hogwarts and Hagrid’s cottage, and even some really big items like the Hungarian Horntail from the Goblet of Fire!

The only two critiques that I had were that a) photography wasn’t allowed, which was a bummer because there was a lot of neat opportunities, and b) the gift shop afterwards was kind of lackluster. I mean, they had all of the usual mass-produced movie toys like dolls and replica wands and t-shirts, but aside from some artwork, they seemed to be lacking as far as collectible items that would’ve been neat to replicate from the movies. They had Chocolate Frogs (which I later found at half price at CVS) and a really ugly stuffed Scabbers (Ron’s pet rat), but why not some Pumpkin Juice in a neat vial or even the Golden Snitch from a Quiddich match? I definitely would’ve picked up those to put on my shelf, but instead we just got a couple of postcards, a program, and that was about it.


Note: Tri-Wizarding Cup NOT for sale…

Side Note: We still want to make it over to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Univeral sometime this fall, so it’ll be interesting to see if they did a little better on the merchandising…

Toronto Driving is CRAZY
Once we left the science center, it was time to make our way over to the hotel … and boy, what a chore that was! Apparently the hotel that we had picked was located directly downtown, which was needless to say, just a bit bigger than what I’m used to seeing in downtown Tampa! There were people zipping in and out of traffic on bicycles, streetcars running along the same routes that the cars did, and of course, it didn’t help that at one point they were having some sort of festival that just resulted in hordes of people crossing the streets in every direction – even diagonally!!! Needless to say, by the time we got to the hotel I didn’t feel as bad about paying the ridiculous valet fee to take the car away…


A Fancy End to a Long Day…
Now after we finally got checked in and settled, Sara wanted to walk around downtown and find something to eat … which admittedly made me a little apprehensive just because I get nervous when I don’t know where I am, not to mention that “bigger city” worry about getting mugged or something. And mind you, I can walk around downtown Tampa at 11pm no worries and we’ve got bums here, too! Maybe I just feel safer because it’s home, and because I worked downtown for a couple of years, so I know the area fairly well.

Anyways, in the end I’m glad she did push me to explore and find something new because we eventually settled on a place called Milestones for dinner that, while it looked way too trendy for my tastes, ended up having some absolutely delicious food that would later rival an even fancier place that we tried down in DC. You heard it from me, kids – try new things, and occasionally you’ll find that they were worth the effort!


Be forewarned, though – it doesn’t always work out that way…

my VoicePulse dilemma…

Posted on by Scott / 0 Comment

So over the weekend I discovered that our home phone had stopped working. I had actually been suspecting it for a while because the answering machine hadn’t been filling up with messages like it normally does, but honestly we rarely use the thing so it wasn’t that big of a deal. It finally became an issue because we had given the home number to the mattress store so that they could call with the delivery times for the new bed that we bought this weekend, but I had no idea it would’ve ever gotten this frustrating.

We currently have a VOIP line through a company called VoicePulse. They’re a lesser known provider than the big VOIP giant Vonage that you see advertised pretty much everywhere, but overall they’ve been great to work with and actually, the reason I went with them instead of Vonage was simply because 5 years ago when I wanted to leave Verizon, VoicePulse was able to port my number over when Vonage insisted that it wasn’t possible. So up until pretty much today, I’ve always been an extremely satisfied customer and tend to name drop them quite a bit when I hear friends or family considering whatever overpriced VOIP option that their cable company is pressuring them to add.

That said, fast forward to today. Basically, the adapter that plugs into my router (and then the phone into it) is pretty much dead – won’t respond to the router, lights don’t acknowledge when I pick up a handset, nothing. I did some testing of my own just to make sure that it wasn’t a problem with my router or maybe a bad cable, and then opened up a ticket with VoicePulse, who prompted me to do some more tests by sending some codes to the adapter via the phone. Nothing worked, and so the response after reviewing my feedback for their tests was that I needed to call into customer support for more details.

I called in and they verified that the next step was to replace the device, which I kind of expected because it’s literally the same device that I received when I started their service back in 2005. I mean, I’ve had multiple routers go bad in that time, so it wasn’t a big surprise that the adapter finally bit it, too, and I figured this was probably a good time for them to just swap it out for a more current model anyways. We were all set to do the exchange – they’d send out the new unit, along with a return envelope for the old adapter – and then the kicker … oh yeah, there would be a $39.95 ACTIVATION FEE required to setup the new box!

What the hell kind of company tries to charge you a fee when something goes wrong with their service?!

I argued back and forth with the guy about how it was ridiculous and how their “1 year warranty” shouldn’t matter because I didn’t own the device in the first place, they did, but he just kept repeating the same scripted crap over and over again before I finally threw in the towel and hung up. I even called back later on that afternoon after reviewing their Terms of Service and taking note of the clause about requiring a Replacement Deposit that would be refunded once they received the old device in return, but another rep insisted that this fee was different and would not be refunded, discounted, or waived, even in the event that a long-time customer like myself was really pissed and threatening to switch to another carrier over their asinine policy.

So here I am, now a few hours later trying to decide what to do about the whole stupid situation. On one hand, I’ve rarely had any issues for the entire life of my service with VoicePulse, so part of me wants to just pay the forty bucks, get a new adapter, and put it all behind me … but then again, the other part of me out of principal knows that that’s just completely and utterly bullshit. Again, what company tries to stick their customers with a service charge when it’s their equipment that’s broken in the first place? I borrow a cable box from my cable provider just the same and if it starts having problems, they don’t send me a bill to replace their own hardware! Sure, if I add some new services and need a new device, I can see how that might warrant an “activation fee,” but one simply triggered by a device being issued to replace something that is broken? I really feel like I’m being taken advantage of here and their customer support group, albeit small and knowledgable, made absolutely no effort to address my concerns about being bilked for a support issue – at least a larger corporation would’ve transferred me to a retention department who would’ve had someone with the brains to realize that a 5-year account that always pays on time isn’t worth losing over a policy that’s stupid to begin with. Is the life of my account really worth losing over $40???

Right after I hung up, I went over to Vonage’s website and couldn’t help but notice that they don’t charge an activation fee. I’m half-tempted to send their sales team the scenario and ask if they would charge their customers for technical support, just to see what they say! As much as I don’t want to leave this company who’s otherwise been good to me for the last five years, I can’t in good conscience pay them forty bucks to replace a piece of hardware that I don’t even own in the first place. And besides, what if it happens again – are they going to just keep hitting me up for “activation fees” every time they have a problem? The third option would be to stay with VoicePulse, but buy my own adapter, which would be about $60, but that’s not really guaranteed to work with their service, either.

I really wish I could get this story to someone higher up in the company who gave a shit. From here I can’t tell if this is just a stupid, overlooked loophole in a policy that their customer service department doesn’t care enough to address, or a completely legitimate, albeit ridiculous policy that somebody deliberately put down on paper to make a few extra bucks. Maybe most people just pay it because it’s easier than switching carriers.

Or maybe it’s just really bad customer service that needs to be corrected, but the powers that be aren’t even aware that it’s happening.

Amazing 2010 Summer Road Trip Review – Scientific Nostalgia

Posted on by Scott / 0 Comment

Preface
So our intent of visiting Canada, as the nice Customs dude referred to it, was two-fold – first and foremost, we wanted to visit Niagara Falls and since the only other means is traveling through Detroit, which I have no desire to do, instead venturing through scenic Canada seemed like a worthwhile alternative. The second was that, since we’d be passing through anyways, it’d be a nice opportunity to revisit one of the science museums that I have fond memories of growing up. In hindsight, there actually ended up being more than two worthwhile reasons for this particular route, but I suppose that’s how hindsight works… 🙂

Scott’s Return to Science North
Ever go back to someplace that you just absolutely loved in your childhood and come to find that it just isn’t quite the same? I guess that’s kind of how I felt walking around this still very cool, hands-on science museum in Sudbury, Ontario. Part of me is just writing it off to the fact that we don’t have kids yet, and most of the exhibits are really aimed at kids, and ultimately I suppose I felt the same way the last time I walked through our own MOSI here in Tampa. All of the exhibits are neat to look at, but there were only a handful that we really got into and played with for a while. Don’t get me wrong, we both still had a good time and Sara even managed to teach me a thing or two about her job with the assistance of visual aids! Still, we found ourselves done considerably more early than we had expected and had to do some shuffling in order to avoid just sitting around waiting all afternoon.


“Smoking stinks – yuck!!!”


Distant Stars and Furry Dinosaurs
Fortunately, the front desk folks were very accommodating and had no problems moving our special exhibit and planetarium times up a couple of hours, so we were able to grab a quick snack and then just proceed on to those instead of having to wait until the end of the day like we had originally planned. The planetarium was great – probably my favorite activity that we did there because it featured both a walkthrough of the night sky and also a short video about the Mars Rover – both of which were pretty neat. They also had a special dinosaur exhibit that was short, but incredibly well put together … except for one particular detail that Sara and I just for the life of ourselves couldn’t manage to get over…


My, what thick fur you have…

Room Service!!!
After all was said and done, we found ourselves back at the hotel considerably earlier than expected, however having spent pretty much the entire previous day driving and with more to come the next, we decided that the time was right to take a break and just chill. After roaming around a nearby, although incredibly creepy, deserted mall in search of food, we ended up just going back to the room and splurging on room service and a movie. I’m usually skeptical of either because they always seem so overpriced, but dinner was actually pretty reasonable, the lady who delivered it was really cool and even pointed out that a tip was already included so that I didn’t accidentally add another one, and the movie realistically wasn’t any more than we would’ve paid at the movie theater (which had been a previous thought before our encounter with the creepy mall). The movie was surprisingly funny, as was dinner on both accounts, and ultimately we verified that even when you’re on vacation, sometimes it’s nice to just stay in!