Category Archives: Travel

Using O2 Abroad

Travel, ,

If you are a UK customer of O2 and you are travelling abroad you may want to take note of what might happen if you do not turn off your voicemail while you are gone.

I speak to you from experience of having incurred quite a few charges for calls that I did not even take (and who did not even leave me voicemails) whilst I was on a recent business trip. I had a local phone so I did not plan on using my O2 phone whilst away. However, each time somebody phoned me and I did not answer I incurred two charges – one of £1.25 listed as my own phone number as the destination and one for £1.50 going to this number: 7802091901.

So, each of these calls that I did not answer cost me £2.75. Ouch.

The thing that comes out of this is that if you go abroad you should turn your voicemail off if you are with O2 (I am not sure what other networks charge). I have been advised that if you do this then you will not incur charges for incoming unanswered calls.

The way to turn off voicemail for O2 is to dial 1760. When you want to turn voicemail back on dial 1750.

Hopefully this will stop other people incurring other unwanted costs on their mobile bill 🙂

Window Seat or Aisle Seat?

Travel

As someone who travels a lot I often think about my choice of airline seat and which one I should opt for! My staple choice is to choose an aisle seat on the left hand side of the plane that is about half way back.

But which one is the best one to choose? Well it does depend on a number of factors. If you want to see the view and get some nice pictures then you should obviously choose a window seat. What you do need to do though if you are really bothered is to check which will be the best side of the plane to be on as the window seat on one side may have way better views than the window seat on the other side of the plane.

Aisle Seat?One reason though that I choose an aisle seat is that when you are in an aisle seat you can choose to get up and walk around as much as you like without bothering anyone else. And it seems that research supports this theory as more people suffer from DVT who are situated in non-aisle seats. I would imagine that this is because when you need to ask for one or two people to move every time you want to get out of your seat, you are most likely to do this as little as possible. DVT has a higher incidence when you are not moving around so those in the aisle seats that get up more often are going to be less at risk.

Window Seat?

If you are on a short haul flight (say below 4 hours) then you are less likely to be affected by this so the choice between aisle seat and window seat may be less clear. Maybe then it will depend on how well you sleep on a plane and what time of day it is. Maybe if you are on a short flight that goes of an evening or night time, you may just want to sleep. So if you choose a window seat you are not going to be bothered by anyone else.

However, on longer haul flights with a higher risk of DVT then an aisle seat may be a better choice and may even give the chance to stretch your legs into the aisle every now and again. Even better, if you can get a bulkhead seat then you can get even more legroom. However, beware on the bulkhead seats that you may be sat next to a screaming child!

 

London Sightseeing Pass

Travel, ,

If you are looking for an all in one London sightseeing pass to see a lot of the top attractions in London, then look no further than the London Pass.

For a one off payment you can see many attractions (I will list some of the most popular London attractions included below) either over the space of 1 day, 2 days, 3 days or you can get a 6 day pass.

So, some attractions that are included are:

  • Tower of London
  • London Zoo
  • Windsor Castle
  • Westminster Abbey
  • Hampton Court
  • Tate Modern
  • Thames Riverboat Cruise
  • St Paul’s Cathedral
This is just a selection of the top attractions included, there are many more besides, check out details of the London Pass, which can be ordered up to a year in advance.

 

 

Carrying Golf Clubs on Oman Air

Travel,

I was recently flying to Dubai and trying to find the best priced flight which would also allow me to take my golf clubs on the airplane. The cheapest flight came out with Oman Air so I tried to check their website about whether they let you take golf clubs for free or not.

However, I couldn’t find any information about taking golf clubs on Oman Air on their website at all – in fact I did not find their website hugely helpful to be honest. I did find an email address to send any enquiries to about luggage but that came back with user unknown, so they had obviously not updated their website when that person had left.

Anyway, I did eventually fina another contact email address and sent an enquiry to them to see if you could take golf clubs for free. It took over a week to get a response and that answer was a bit cryptic but the long and the short of it was this:

You can take golf clubs on Oman Air but not entirely for free. Essentially the first 9kg of your golf club bag is free and anything over that you have to pay for. However, your baggage allowance is 30kg so if you do not use up all of your 30kg, say you only use 20kg, then you will only be charged for the extra over 30kg .

For me the information came too late as I had already booked and flown with another airline but maybe this info can help someone else!

California Weather

Local, Travel,

It is difficult to lump together all the areas of California in a kind of weather summary as the area covers quite a variety of slightly different climates due to the spread of the state and the fact that California has both coastal and mountainous areas, with weather patterns differing between these areas.

However, overall California is said to have a Mediterranean type climate with warm summers and mild winters. Temperatures however, will hit more extremes on the hot and cold fronts in the mountainous areas where winters can get much colder and snowy and  summers are  warm and dry.

With San Francisco being further north than, say, Los Angeles, it has a warm climate but is susceptible to fog, particularly in the summer, whereas Los Angeles, being further south, has weather that can be very pleasant in the summer with temperatures in the low 80’s in the summer and not getting too cold in winter with temperatures in the 60’s.

So if you are looking for California weather averages then you really need to be specific as to what area you are checking as you could be surprised if you just take an average weather temperature for the whole county.