The Titanic Awards

Name David G. Molyneaux
Who? A travel writer, editor of TheTravelMavens.com and former travel
editor of The Cleveland Plain Dealer. He writes for newspapers around
the U.S. as cruise columnist for Universal Press Syndicate. His blog is
TravelMaven.typepad.com. He is president of the Society of American
Travel Writers Foundation, which oversees the annual Lowell Thomas
Travel Journalism Competition.
Countries Visited visited 81.
Age “Will you still need me, will you still feed me?” (64)

Titanic Nominations
1. Worst Cruise On the old, old Galaxy in the Mediterranean in October
1982, in a tiny inside cabin, where, as the seas rolled all night, my wife
and I rolled, too, from the edge of the bed to the wall — bonk — and back
to the edge of bed, then back to the wall — bonk. Bruised, we reached
Santorini in the morning, only to stay aboard because of rough seas.
Beware of the Med on a small ship in October.
2. Worst Happy Hour With the insects at Parrot Cay in the Turks and
Caicos islands. The resort opened in 2000 without resolving the small
island’s bug infestation, which required massive foggings at dawn and
dusk. Happy Hour on your balcony at sunset? Forget it. All guests were
ordered inside to protect us from the mosquitoes, the sand fleas — and the
bug spray.
3. Worst Flight On Flying Tiger in the 1980s, a 747 rearranged from
hauling freight to people packed like freight between New York and
Europe. It was very cheap. We stopped in the middle of the night in
Brussels to add enough fuel to get the plane to Athens and back. “We
are now at the maximum weight,” warned a flight attendant, and I closed
my eyes as we tried to take off, inching with a groan along the runway –
bebump, bebump, bebump — for miles, it seemed, until we rose slowly to
treetop level and into the black of night.
4. Worst Accommodation A house in the Louisiana Bayou billed as a
getaway but more like a “what are we getting into?” The little house sat
next to a junkyard, complete with a limping, weepy-eyed dog. I was
traveling with three women, who insisted I park my bed wedged against
the front door, for protection of some sort. I slept little but we got out
alive.
5. Worst Propositions In Bangkok, where no one believed me when I
said I was not interested in hiring a prostitute. Problem was, I was
traveling alone, a clear tip-off. I was hassled at the airport and got several
calls to my room from an insistent woman who apparently had been
tipped off by my taxi driver. She said she was waiting in the lobby. She
still may be waiting in the lobby.

Famous Travelers