Report Cards

REPORT ON JORDAN… For our November-December 2011 trip to Jordan, we hired a private driver, Jehad Abu Saeed, whom we highly recommend. Jehad was courteous and a good driver and had a clean and comfortable car. He showed up on time and was always waiting by the car when we finished touring a site. When we wanted to adjust our plans for the day, he was happy to oblige. He is not a guide and will not accompany you into the various sites, but, typically, there were guides available for hire at most of the sites we visited. For an airport pickup and dropoff and six days of touring, we paid...

On MALAYSIA & SINGAPORE, February-March ’09. . .

• On flights between Los Angeles and Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia, Feb. 25 and March 4, I was very favorably impressed with Malaysia Airlines’ business class, which, at $4,100, cost much less than other airlines’ business-class seats (low of $6,600).

The planes were squeaky clean; the bathrooms were cleaned every hour! Up in the “hump” of the 747, it was quiet and I slept quite well; the seats reclined to nearly flat. The food was mostly Asian and very, very good.

The flight attendants were pleasant and extremely...

From BADEN-BADEN, Germany, July 15, 2009. . .

• Hotel Colmar (Lange Strasse 34, D-76530, Baden-Baden, Germany; phone 07221/93 89 0, fax 93 89 50, www.hotel-colmar.de) — located in central Baden, on the pedestrian zone.

This is a fine and friendly hotel, written about by Mr. Rick Steves, himself, as a good place to stay in Baden. However, the Colmar is the loudest hotel I have ever stayed at — period.

We last stayed here in 2000. We booked our room online, and the hotel once again offered us three nights’ stay (July 12-15) in a great central location, with a kind staff...