Leisure … more than a word, it's a lifestyle

A lot has happened since my last blog post … I jumped on a plane with my family and we flew out to Las Vegas to celebrate my wife’s birthday. Shortly after arriving I opened my laptop to be met with a blue screen terminal error meaning I couldn’t get my emails or online…it was as if someone was saying “take a break”…so I did!

Unfortunately while taking a break I went down with a heavy head cold … bloody airplanes! So I didn’t get to enjoy the 5 day break as much as I would have wanted…however, we did some neat things, had some great meals and met up with some friends who had flown out from the UK especially to see us, Las Vegas and Grand Canyon.

I haven’t been to Vegas for a few years so it was pretty amazing how things have changed. The Aladdin has gone to be replaced by Planet Hollywood and a new hotel, Aria, has come onto the scene…seems like the whole strip is slowly being updated for this century!

Unfortunately some of the seedier sides of Vegas still exist and the sooner they get those guys and gals off the street pushing their porn cards on the unsuspecting public the better everyone will be. I know the saying is “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” but these guys are nothing but an eyesore let alone the mess that is created by people dropping the cards on the floor.

So, the next question to ask is…”what’s this I hear about an economic downturn?” …judging from the amount of people around and the ongoing construction then it doesn’t seem to have made much difference as the place was absolutely heaving. Restaurants had 90 minute wait times and the casino’s seemed to be doing well. Sure, I understand the real estate market has bombed and I’m absolutely puzzled as to how all these shops stay open but something seems to keep attracting the masses to this market.

Coming from Orlando, we see Vegas as being a major competitor for travel business but my thoughts are that it is very much a different market …one geared for a shorter stay.

In Orlando, it’s pretty much impossible to get around all the theme parks in just 3 or 4 days, let alone enjoy some down time and all the other attractions we have but 4 days in Vegas is just about enough for most folks from what I understand by talking to some of them.

The restaurants are absolutely superb though and we dined at Mon Ami Gabi, The Eiffel Tower, P.F. Changs (twice), California Pizza Kitchen and a couple of other places as well. I do need to single out Mon Ami Gabi though…it’s simply one of my favorite restaurants for lunch in the world. Located at the front of the Paris hotel it’s a great venue for people watching while enjoying an extensive and fabulous meal. The steak frites are pretty much the best I’ve had anywhere including the real Paris.

So with that said, The Eiffel Tower restaurant was not up to it’s usual high standard. This was a special occasion for us as we were celebrating a milestone birthday for my wife but somehow the meal wasn’t quite up to the standard we’ve enjoyed there before. The food was good so don’t get me wrong but the standard of service was pretty poor and even though I’d paid for a couple of extra upgrades from their menu of services, I was left feeling disappointed. (Word of warning: watch out for the photographer…comes around and asks if you’d like a picture…he takes it and then shows you the digital image and asks if you’d like him to print it out… you say “yes”, he says “OK, I will add it to your tab”. I say “what’s the cost?”, he says “$25″, I say “well for that kind of money I’d like to see the print first”… he doesn’t say anything, just walks away with me assuming he’s going to oblige. I don’t see him again all night. No print, no charge. Crazy…because if I was in charge of that restaurant I’d be kicking his sorry butt up and down the strip for not closing the sale).

So with that going on another couple of things annoyed me. Firstly the lack of attention to detail…nothing major, just small things such as trying to give the wrong person the wrong dish… and then the fact they didn’t attempt to upsell us with the trip up the Eiffel Tower for the view of Vegas. (I doubt we’d have done it anyway because it was pretty windy but if we’d been asked, we may just have said “yes”….again another lost sale.

All in all, I just felt the restaurant and the restaurant staff have become complacent and with all the old and the new restaurants now springing up or being upgraded I just feel this place needs to up its game to keep its regular (OK….”regular” meaning 3 to 5 years since we last visited) patrons coming back. The Eiffel Tower restaurant is always on our list of “must do’s” when we visit but next time it might not feature so high as we really didn’t have such a memorable time as we might have done.

Vegas has so many great choices though and the hotels are simply outstanding. Normally, we’d stay in the Venetian but this time we tried a place that didn’t have a casino…Polo Towers. A simply great location and our three room suite was pretty good for the money we paid. OK, it wasn’t a 3 bedroom vacation home with a private swimming pool that we are used to renting for about the same price to our Orlando guests but it was the perfect match for our plans this time around.

A great location on the strip can save you being tired out come days end and having stayed at Circus Circus on our first ever trip, we quickly learned that we want to be more centrally located nowadays. Planet Hollywood was a 5 minute walk and the new Aria hotel was straight over the street.

Our location made it easy to see everything and even a trip to Mandalay Bay to see a performance of the Lion King was simple enough as we set off early enough to have a pleasurable stroll through New York, New York, Luxor and Excalibur on the way.

Hotels and casinos (even for non gamblers like our family) are what makes Vegas though. Some simply amazing hotels like The Venetian, Palazzo, Wynn, Bellagio and Caesars Palace all have some fabulous architecture, design and style as well as some of the greatest shopping experiences you’ll ever find. One example… a $750.00 cup cake made with Louis XIII de Remy Martin Cognac, Valrona Palmira single estate chocolate and vanilla caviar, topped with edible flakes of real gold!!

Another highlight of our trip was to be in town for the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Plenty of green could be seen and an awful lot of people seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves with a Guinness or some other tipple as they listened to some of the performers that featured along the strip or in the hotels.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you more about our visit to Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam…

Here’s today’s clue in the book hunt…it’s at one of there three locations:

Someone surely has to find it now?

Some lucky person in the New York area is about to win a 4 night stay in a Florida Leisure Vacation Home … the only thing is, they don’t know it yet!

Hidden in one of New York’s book stores is a copy of my new book “Big Ideas For Your Business” and inside the book I have placed a special message so that the lucky winner can contact me and win their free vacation. Each day until the book is found, I’ll leave a clue. Here’s today’s:

The book is in a book store somewhere in New York… these pictures will give you a clue

Good hunting!

After all the excitement of Friday night it was hard to believe we could surpass all that fun. We managed it though and we were lucky enough to charter the “Calypso” from Pier 59 so we could take to the Hudson river and view New York from the water.

We arrived on board to be met with Bloody Mary’s and Mimosa. For Europeans, we know that as “Buck’s Fizz but either way, it went down a treat! The yacht is actually certified for 45 passengers and 5 crew so we had plenty of room to wander around but one of the more interesting facts about this vessel is that The Calypso actually featured on season 1 of The Apprentice. The web site is www.CalpsoNYC.com and you can see the Apprentice video here.

The Calypso is no stranger to the lime light though as it has been chartered by cast members of the Sopranos, Will Smith MB2 Donna Karen – and was originally built for Jack Wrather, where it was christened the Lone Ranger IV in recognition of his television and radio show.  In 2004 Catherine Zeta-Jones was featured in InStyle magazine aboard the Calypso and more recently the vessel has been seen on The Real Housewives of New York City.

The cruise was simply fabulous and the weather was superb. A beautiful Saturday morning in August in New York on board a superb yacht is really hard to beat and we really enjoyed sailing along the Hudson past Battery Park, past the Staten Island Ferry terminal, and up the East River to take a look at the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

Seeing New York this way gave me a new appreciation for the city and the views of Manhattan were simply awesome.

To cap it all, we then sailed over to the Statue of Liberty and got up close enough to take some great pictures.  This was the perfect end to a perfect trip and there was no better place to be at the end of it all than the most recognizable icon of the United States… the symbol of liberty and freedom. It was also a great place to recognize how much this country has given me and how lucky I have been.

Nigel Worrall, Wayne Kelly & Nick Nanton

It was up nice and early on Saturday as we had a big day planned. First off was a meeting with Nick Nanton (America’s Premier Experts) and Wayne Kelly, the host of the Wayne and Jayne radio show at KBS-FM.  We had a great time and I got to learn a lot more about radio show demographics and how to keep listeners listening.

Nigel Worrall & Peter Shankman

After lunch it was time to get together with Peter Shankman… the Social Media guru. Peter’s such a fun guy and he kept me entertained for several hours with his stories and his jokes. I also learned a whole lot more about the impact of social media on society today and I guess we’ll soon see how much I picked up by how this blog develops.  If you want to learn more about social media, I’d strongly suggest taking a look at his web site http://shankman.com as there’s lots of good stuff on there.

So…it was on to the main reason for visiting New York… the book launch. Having never written a book before I really didn’t know what to expect and to be honest, when this possibility was first mentioned I thought it was a bit over the top to go to Times Square to do it! That said, I was finally convinced and you only live once so why the hell not?

I posted some pictures from the book launch late on Friday night so I’ll not bore you by posting too many more as I’m sure you’ll get the drift that we really did have a great time. The party was hosted at the Hard Rock and we had a great view of Times Square from the balcony overlooking everything. The drinks flowed freely and the spread was fabulous. We then got round to the official book launch and I received my certificate for having a “Best Seller“. That was the remarkable thing for me…to now be considered a best selling author and as someone else said “they can never take that away from you.”

Remarkable.

And what was even more remarkable was later on seeing my book in the bookstores alongside the likes of Donald Trump and Napoleon Hill.

Nigel Worrall - Big Ideas For Your Business

It’s nice to get out and about and visit places but it’s sure nice to come home again isn’t it?  That’s how I feel today after a busy three days in New York and it’s sometimes just nice to get back to some calm and some peace and quiet after a crazy few days.

I flew into New York on Thursday and I quickly made my way to the hotel (Grand Hyatt at Grand Central …yeah I know…I do hate hotels but this one was actually OK and the best I could do as there are no vacation homes in Manhattan that I know of…yet!). I didn’t hang around long as I wanted to get out and about as I had heard the Queen Mary 2 cruise ship was at the docks in Brooklyn and I hadn’t seen it before even though we have had some of our guests sail on it. (www.GoCruisePlanner.com)

Now, it’s important to say at this point that sometimes in life you hear people say certain things and you imagine they can’t be as bad as portrayed. Well, all I can say is that next time a friend of yours tells you that cab drivers in New York are crazy…just believe them. My cab driver was a certified nutcase…and he was obviously proud of that fact by the way he displayed  his New York cab driver license in his window but it may just as well have said “You take your life in my hands…thanks for trusting me”.

We hadn’t gone more than a couple of hundred yards and he was on his horn, trumpeting at anyone who got even remotely in his line of fire. And line of fire is exactly what I mean…he just saw a gap in the traffic and he tore into it like a bullet out of a trained G.I.’s machine gun.

We eventually got to Brooklyn and I was more than happy to pay the $5.50 to go through the Brooklyn tunnel as the lunatic couldn’t change lanes in there! Got to say though, the guy knew where he was going and it really wasn’t long before I was standing right alongside the QM2.

Now this puzzled me…everywhere I have gone in the USA to board a cruise ship, security has been extra tight. Not here. Not even a security guard point to go through until you reached check in! Amazing.  Anyway, I was glad of that fact as it allowed me to get up close and personal with the ship.

After a 15 minute stop it was time to head back to the hotel via a store I had heard of called B&H Photo & Video.  At a time where electronic stores like Circuit City are shutting up shop, this place was apparently still tearing up the record books according to an article in Inc. magazine and I just wanted to see how it operated. I was looking forward to spending a few minutes there and picking up an extra memory stick for my camera but I was to be disappointed. Speedy Gonzalez got me there in no time, even despite some heavy traffic and him being annoyed by other drivers enough that he opened his door to yell at them(!), but the store was closed as we made our approach via the runway otherwise known as 9th Avenue.

I was disappointed but not entirely surprised. After all, this is the place that closes down completely on Saturday’s as the store’s Jewish owners follow their faith. What’s even more remarkable is that customers cannot even make an order via the internet on a Saturday because they also close their web site such is there belief. I have to say, you just have to admire that level of commitment to anything and I respect it…even though I was actually there on a Thursday!

It was my fault entirely though. I hadn’t done my homework. If I had clicked on the link “Holiday Schedule” on their web site, I would have seen they were closed for Tisha B’Av. So that was that, and I knew full well that my hectic schedule would not allow me to make a return trip there over the weekend. Oh well…I’ll have to save it for another day.

So after that it was time to head back to the hotel and get ready for the “Pre Book Launch” party and to meet up with some old friends again. The party was fun and the location was great. We had a great view of 42nd and people watching was a lot of fun!

So that was Thursday…more about the trip next blog.

Here’s some pictures from my book launch in Times Square tonight… will post more later…after some sleep!

Nigel Worrall & Peter Shankman

Thanks to Peter Shankman who took time out of his busy schedule to come along.

And the book made 7th spot on the Amazon Best Selling Business Books – Leadership and Management Category.  Amazing!

Just spent a few minutes reading a report on the best destinations for value. It’s somewhat interesting :

Domestic:

1. Las Vegas

2. Orlando

3. Fort Lauderdale

4. New York

5. Los Angeles

Have to laugh when I read that…obviously there’s some political influence taking place here…I mean how can New York and LA ever be considered places of value with their overpriced hotels, shops, restaurants, etc. Maybe it’s a sign of the times and “recession pricing” is seeing some bargains after all.

Further, the people who did this have never been to Orlando and stayed in a vacation home. If they had, then Orlando would outpull Vegas. Vegas doesn’t have a product that can sleep 8 to 16 people in a 2000 sq ft to 3000 sq ft home for around $16 per person per night as far as I’m aware, but that’s exactly what we have in Central Florida.

Add in the fact that guests get their own fully equipped kitchen so they can save money by eating in instead of going out to expensive restaurants and that the real winner is their own private swimming pool, I’d say Orlando easily outranks Las Vegas in the “VALUE” stakes.

On the International front the top five were:

1. Rome

2. London

3. Paris

4. Madrid

5. Prague

I absolutely fail to understand what the hell London, Paris and Rome are doing in that list. They are all horrendously expensive places and value is practically impossible to find compared to places like Lisbon, Dublin and Amsterdam.

Let us know what you think. Where are the best value destinations in your opinion?