Airline food returns, but it'll cost passengers

Airline food returns,but it'll cost passengers
NEW YORK -- Getting fed used to be part of flying. Then meals on most flights were eliminated to cut costs. Fortunately the food was so bad most people didn't miss it.
Now airline food is back. It's better, but you have to pay for it.
US Airways is offering $7 breakfasts and $10 lunch or dinner meals such as a chicken caesar sandwich salad. Delta's new low-cost carrier, SONG, has organic cuisine, including vegetarian sushi and gazpacho, created by Michel Nischan, a well-known chef who formerly headed the kitchen at the W New York Hotel. Other airlines are partnering with chain restaurants like T.G.I. Friday's, which is testing food on certain United Airlines flights.
But discount carrier Southwest, one of the few airlines to remain profitable since the Sept. 11 attacks, has no plans to sell food. "Our philosophy has always been, 'Have a low fare and then go have a $50 steak dinner when you get where you're going,"' said spokeswoman Linda Rutherford.
On the road again?'Car-I-Oke' beats blahs
Family car trips can be about as much fun as being trapped in a barrel of monkeys -- cranky, restless, misbehaving monkeys.
"Daaa-aaad, are we there yet?"
"Maaa-aaaa, he's looking at me!"
"Ow! She pinched me!"
Workman Publishing has a remedy: "All-American Car-I-Oke" by David Schiller ($14.95). The 56-page book contains lyrics for 15 songs and four rounds, instructions on playing harmonica, back-seat drumming, "dancing" with your seat belt on and other fun ways to expend energy. For karaoke-style accompaniment, there's a CD back-up track. And there are lyrics booklets for back-seat singers.
The songs range from "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "Mama Don't Allow" to more contemporary fare, such as "Proud Mary." There also are trivia tidbits about the songs, diverting digressions on musical families from the Von Trapps to the Jacksons and lists of songs about transportation, from "Wabash Cannonball" to "Little Deuce Coupe."
Of course, you don't need a family to enjoy "Car-I-Oke." Just pop in the CD, and go rollin' (and singin') down the asphalt river all by yourself.
After years, opera housereopens in Napa Valley
The happiest fellow in the whole Napa Valley has got to be Michael Savage, executive director of the Napa Valley Opera House, which had a rousing reopening recently after being dark for 89 years.
The opera house, built in 1879, abandoned in 1914, and saved from the wrecking ball by a $14 million rehabilitation, is poised to bring a variety of culture to the Napa Valley wine country.
Savage, former managing director of the San Francisco Opera, says Napa folk who had to drive 50 miles for live entertainment will now have music on their doorstep. He's also hoping tourists who visit the wineries by day "will come to us at night."
Besides opera, the resurrected Margrit Biever Mandavi upstairs stage will echo to musical theater, plays, dance, cabaret, chamber music, jazz, blues, comedy and family programs. Coming soon is the Italian actor-singer-comedian Ennio; Les Yeux Noirs, with Gypsy and Yiddish music, Sept. 3; and the musical drama, "1776," Sept. 19-Oct. 5.
For details, call (707) 226-7372 or visit www.napavalleyoperahouse.com.
Activity lets participants'surf the net' at resort
"Surfing the net" takes on new meaning each summer at Kiawah Island, S.C. For 15 years, families have learned about sea life by helping pull a 20-foot-wide net through an Atlantic Ocean beach. Resort naturalists supervise participants in this ancient fishing technique. Working together, participants scoop up the seine net and deposit the contents in a portable aquarium set up on the beach. The naturalists then discuss each catch and instruct participants on how to handle each organism. Everything caught is returned to the ocean at the end of the one-hour program. The fee is $7 per person for guests of Kiawah Island Resort and is held daily from Easter through September.
Reservations are recommended. Check the resort's nature center for start times, because the program is tide-dependent.
For more information, call (800) 654-2924 or visit www.kiawahresort.com on the Web.
Travelocity.com studytargets rental fees, taxes
Surprise! You get to the car rental counter only to find your $37.50 a day rate has just been jacked up to $65.63, mostly because of local taxes.
Travelers renting cars in Texas are most likely to get hit by these high fees, while California renters won't carry such a burden.
That's according to a study by Travelocity.com.
Six of the top 10 airports with the largest difference between daily rates and the total price are in Texas.
Houston Bush Intercontinental, at 71.7 percent in additional taxes and fees, was the highest in the country, followed by Dallas/Fort Worth International at 61.1 percent; Austin Bergstrom, 55.8 percent; Cleveland Hopkins, 51.7 percent; Houston Hobby, 51.7 percent; Kansas City, 58.1 percent; Phoenix, 48 percent; San Antonio, 44.1 percent; El Paso, 42.9 percent; and Albuquerque, 41.6 percent.
But Sacramento added additional expenses of just 7.7 percent; followed by Palm Springs, 7.8 percent; Fresno, 7.8 percent; Burbank, Long Beach and Los Angeles, 8.3 percent; Orange County, Calif., 10.2 percent; San Diego, 11.6 percent; Syracuse, N.Y., 12.4 percent and Buffalo, 13.1 percent.
Details, including data from each of the 100 airports researched, can be found at www.travelocity.com/rentalcarstudy.
Combined dispatches