Category Archives: Review

Review

Buyer beware while shopping online

I read David Colker’s Column One and chuckled. Not that I was amused that Colker unknowingly bought a fake pair of expensive headphones (although, my sense of frugality would balk at buying headphones that retailed for $79.99, no matter how great they are) — no, no, I’m just grateful in my pretty good track record in buying stuff online.

Even though online is such a huge part of my life, I am not really into buying things online. Books, music, sure, why not — those sort of things are not hard to buy since I don’t have to ingest them or put them on as I do clothes or shoes. More recently, online airfare, hotel bookings and car rentals have occupied a lot of my time (and bank account). But stuff like electronics? I’d rather go to Fry’s, as much as I hate going to Fry’s.

Big purchases I’ve made online include my iBook (from the Apple site, so I’m not sure that counts), my first mp3 player (a Creative Nomad, pictured to left), and a wireless router. The iBook arrived fine, but both the mp3 player and the wireless router had delivery problems. The mp3 player’s problem was that it wasn’t arriving soon enough — so I ended up going to the UPS plant in Baldwin Park to pick it up myself. The wireless router was delivered to my door when I lived in South Pasadena, where someone presumably came off the street and picked it up. I ended up fighting with the company I bought it from for about three months for a refund for non-delivery.

But stuff like shoes? Ech. I was explaining to someone the other night — instead of actually going to Zappo‘s or something, I like to check out inventory on sites that I know has a retail store nearby — like Target, Wal-Mart or JC Penneys. For shoes, I like Shoe Pavilion and Famous Footwear — I’ve found their websites to be great.

Photo lifted from Antique Radio Classified

Two sides of Florida food

At Jerry’s Famous Deli in South Beach, this is what we got when we ordered appetizers. We had plenty of onion rings, but only eight wings and four Tex-Mex eggrolls. Oh, and when we asked how many wings were in the order, the waiter had the temerity to tell us it used to be 10 — but its only eight now. Greeaaat.

And this is how much it all cost. The food was fine, but when its that expensive, my taste for it dulls a little.

Oh, but then there’s Versailles.

I ordered the Cuban Classic Sampler. It cost just $11.95 (I think), and came with all sorts of stuff that I don’t exactly recall off the top of my head — but my tongue sure remembers. YUM.

That’s all I was able to eat, especially since I was also eating plantains off Trinity’s plate and lechon off my friend Belinda’s plate.

See? We’re happy campers. You didn’t see us posing in front of freakin’ Jerry’s Famous Deli.

Traveling the Spirit way

Those ads for airfare as little $10 each way look tempting, don’t they? DON’T DO IT!

Trin and I were shorter on cash this year to go to the AAJA convention, after moving last year and the death of his brother earlier this year. So, even though we were unfamiliar with Spirit Airlines, we bit the bullet, since it had the cheapest airfare. And I tell ya, it was never more evident than with this experience that you truly get what you pay for.

First, booking. I’m not Internet retarded, so I’m not entirely sure how our booking got transposed, having us originate from Fort Lauderdale to arrive at LAX, rather than vice versa. Perhaps it was me, since I was a little distraught and distracted that week with family issues. Nevertheless, I noticed the error three days later and called to have them correct it. Oh, but things are just not that easy. They couldn’t simply rebook my tickets so that I would be going from LAX to Fort Lauderdale — oh, no. I had to either pay a $160 fee for them to do it over the phone, or pay $120 to cancel the booking online, receive a voucher, and rebook them myself correctly. Obviously, I took the latter route, but oh, here’s a little more salt in my wound — the tickets I booked for LAX to Fort Lauderdale cost $56 less, but instead of using that to help cover my $120 fee, they issued me another voucher. !#^&$$@#*(%^+3%! So now I have a $56 voucher that Trinity nor I want to ever use because we never want to deal with Spirit Airlines again.

Oh, but that’s not all. On the Spirit website, they allow you to pay for checked luggage in advance and hawk it as $5 per piece, rather than $10 a piece at the counter. I know what you’re thinking: You have to pay to check your luggage???? Oh yes. Anyway, what they forget to tell you is that $5 per piece is ONE WAY. So if you GOTTA have your luggage with you on the way back, you have to pay for it. And God FORBID you buy so many souvenirs that you need to check another piece of luggage.

Oh, and if you want to snack on the plane? Make it like a trip to the drive-in theater and bring your own stuff. The only thing that’s free is water – sodas, alcohol, any type of snack, you must pay for, and you can’t use cash — its all credit and debit cards. And, if you have a voucher like I do, you can’t use it for snacks or checking bags — you must use your own damn money.

The flights themselves? Eh. LAX to Florida was uneventful. But from Florida? Hee. I had looked at my ticket and saw gate F1. But there was no F1 in the terminal. So I checked the board — it said our flight was leaving from H7, and ooh, there’s H7. So we went to the security people to get into the security line, but when they looked at our tickets, they said we had to go to Terminal 3 (meaning, we had to get back out into the hot, muggy Florida weather) to get to gate F1. So we go to Terminal 3, find gate F1 and sit down to relax. Oh, but wait…the guy behind the counter says our gate was just changed H7 –back at Terminal 4, where WE JUST WALKED FROM.

So, let me just make it plain: We went to the correct terminal and gate first, were directed to the wrong terminal and gate after getting through security, had to go through security one more time (with a bunch of other similarly angry passengers), to get to the correct gate that I wanted to go to in the first place. If it wouldn’t have gotten me arrested, I would’ve raised hell.

Oh, but that’s not the end of it. That was the first of three gate changes. Oh, and our flight was delayed at least an hour. Plus, we weren’t alone — at least four other Spirit flights in the same terminal were delayed. Folks were not happy.

Bottom line — if you depend on me for reviews or opinions, then take this one seriously. DO NOT spend your money on Spirit Air.

Thank you, and GOOD NIGHT!