Ahhhhh, the lure of far-away
lands, the call of the wild ...

Star-Bulletin file photo
Tourists pack Egypt's pyramids and the Sphinx, among
the sites gearing for a New Year's Eve deluge.

Looking for excitement?
Check these out for thrills

Many staying home
Get plans in writing

By Christine Donnelly
Star-Bulletin

From skydiving over the international date line to pondering the mystery of time at Machu Picchu, there's a lot competing with Hawaii in the millennium marketplace. Here are just a few of the memorable ways available to greet the Year 2000. It helps if money is no object. And, as always, caveat emptor:

TAKE A DIVE: At dawn on Jan. 1, 2000, a group of skydivers will leap from 12,000 feet over the international date line into the Pacific Ocean, 800 miles from New Zealand. Billed as the place to see the first sunrise of the millennium, organizers expect the event to be televised worldwide as part of New Zealand's "First Light" celebration. One spot on the team is to be auctioned by e-mail to a tandem passenger, meaning a non-jumper who'll be attached to an experienced parachutist. At press time, the highest bid was $8,000. The money raised goes to the Child Cancer Foundation of New Zealand. For more information, see http://www.millenniumjump.co.nz/ on the World Wide Web.

EXPERIENCE L'EXPERIENCE: For $32,000 each, 230 travelers setting out from Australia in a chartered jet will crisscross the globe from Dec. 29-Jan. 16, spending New Year's Eve at a black-tie gala at New York's Plaza Hotel, then continuing on to Havana, Cuba (where the tour operator promises guests will be hosted by Fidel Castro himself).

From there it's a few days at Half Moon Resort at Jamaica's Montego Bay, complete with private butlers. Next there's time to party in Rio De Janeiro, before the "once-in-a-lifetime" trip culminates with a three-day safari in the Masai Mara of Kenya. Wow. Sounds exotic. And exhausting. An e-mail reply from the company said this was on. For those who want to check it out, go to http://www.lexperience.com/.

Machu Picchu in Peru offers the thrill of seeing
ancient Incan ruins on a remote mountaintop.

NEW YEAR'S EVE FOR THE ANAL-RETENTIVE: It's the millennium, so you want to be sure to celebrate on time. Where better to count down, then, than on a boat moored yards from Greenwich, England's meridian line, where the universal standard Greenwich Mean Time is set. Overnight cruises include meals, entertainment, dancing, champagne, and midnight fireworks over the Millennium Dome on the Thames River. Check out the Bridge Travel Service website at http://www.celebrate2000.co.uk/itinerary.htm for the latest packages and rate information.

BUT CAN WE SEE "DICK CLARK'S ROCKIN' EVE" FROM HERE?: Ponder the mystery of time among the Incan ruins at remote Machu Picchu in Peru, where you'll overnight on New Year's Eve near the ancient Sun Dial and Moon Calendar. This nine-day tour by the Maupintour agency also promises visits to ancient Cuzco and the Sacsayhuaman Fortress, peering into the Incan civilization that developed the first calendar. The rate of $7,035 per person includes round-trip airfare from Miami. Go to the company's Web site at http://www.maupintour.com or call (800) 255-4266 for more information.

DOES THE PRICE INCLUDE ALPO?: Spend four days guiding your own dog-sled team through the old-growth forests and vast frozen lakes of Algonquin Provincial Park, in the eastern Canadian province of Ontario. The trip lasts from Dec. 27 to Jan. 2, including four days of dog sledding for four to six hours each day. Accommodations along the trail are rustic cabins, complete with outhouses. The cabin for the last two nights has an outdoor sauna and hot tub, and groomed cross-country ski trails begin right outside the door. The organizers promise participants will celebrate New Year's Eve with a bonfire on a frozen lake, sipping champagne and gazing at billions of stars in the crystal-clear sky. And they provide the dogs and sleds. The trip costs $1,525, plus extra if you need to rent warm clothes. Contact Call of the Wild Personalized Adventure at (800) 776-9453 or see the Web site at http://www.call-wild.com/millennium.html.

A very different kind of thrill, modern and glitzy,
can be experienced at the MGM Grand Hotel
in Las Vegas

MAKE THAT THE MGM (SIX) GRAND: Ante up $6,300 to the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas and you'll get a three-night stay in a deluxe room in the Grand Tower and two $1,500 tickets to Barbra Streisand's New Year's Eve concert at the hotel-casino's Grand Garden Arena, which seats 15,200 people. And forget what you heard about Las Vegas being sold out. This package remained available at press time, as were rooms at hotels up and down the Las Vegas Strip. Available, but not necessarily cheap. For more information, call the MGM Grand at (702) 891-7777.

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By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Travel consultant Linda Pang of Regal Travel consults
with a client over the telephone about travel plans.

Fear, frugality
keeps us home

And besides, what better place
could you be than Hawaii when
the new millennium arrives?

By Alisa Lavelle
Star-Bulletin

Jetting to some farflung, exotic locale on Dec. 31? No, local people want to stay home when the millennium turns for two reasons: Y2K computer fears and high plane fares.

That's what local travel agents are discovering.

"Corporate people, like bank employees, are being told not to go anywhere," said travel agent Geoff Ross of International Travel Service, which handles mostly corporate clients. "Y2K has become a universal deterrent.

"Even if they are not being affected directly, there's still hesitance and reluctance."

And like his colleagues who handle leisure clients, Ross noted cost as a prohibitive factor for many.

Ross said though the 'Mahalo' or "Mele' fares are announced in September usually, he doesn't foresee a rush. Even if people could afford airfare, he said, they may not be able to handle price increases for hotel, car rental and incidental costs.

"Hawaii kids are not able to come home from the mainland," said a spokesperson for Didi Ah Yo's Creative Holidays. "Plus international people are being cautious because they're not sure the rest of the world is caught up with Y2K."

American Hawaii Tours & Travel Company manager Dee Chen said the only trend she sees with travelers is that they are staying put.

"We get a lot of calls, but no one wants to commit."

With places like Fiji, Australia, France and Germany planning big celebrations to bring in the new millennium, people want to leave their options open. In America, the hot spots for mega-parties will be San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago, Miami and New York.

Ron Solace of Cheap Tickets noted that international flights are being reduced, but domestic or in-bound American flights are being increased.

"There are some people who are ready to go and celebrate," said Cheap Tickets spokeswoman Stacy Lewis. "Half are being jacked up and ripped off."

She recommended waiting for fares to go down - or making travel plans later in January.

Solace advised taking advantage of last-minute deals and travel packages for Australia, London and Paris because those tend to be more reasonable.

"If money is not an issue, you'll have people going to Disney World, Brazil and Rio," said Regal Travel operation manager Lynda Bell. "But we don't have much of anyone going anywhere. We don't think anyone will be booking last-minute stuff either," said Bell, attributing the slow season to Y2K computer-related fear of flying.

"(Travelers) might take a cruise because it's less worries," she suggested.

American Hawaii Cruises' Tom Carmen said its Millennium Cruise was already 90 percent booked in January.

"Our normal demographic of non-local people are booked," he said.

And finally, for many, home simply is where the heart is.

"Since we are one of the last ones to be in the 20th century, we plan to stick around home," said Solace, musing that Hawaii should capitalize on this fact.

"It seems like lots of local people are celebrating with family," Lewis noted. "So if they are traveling, it's for a quiet party with family."

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Traveling? Get
it all in writing

Don't rely just on electronic
ticketing and reservations

By Christine Donnelly
Star-Bulletin

For those who plan to travel around New Year's, whether across the globe or to Waikiki, experts offer the following tips:

Get everything in writing. Don't rely on electronic airline ticketing or telephoned confirmation numbers for hotel rooms, rental cars or entertainment event reservations.
Having ticket in hand, or at least written proof of purchase, helps not only in case the Y2K bug wipes out computerized reservations, but also in case of overbooking, which many travel agents consider a more likely scenario.
When inquiring about advertised "millennium" travel specials, don't assume it's for New Year's weekend. Some advertised "millennium packages" are deeply discounted because they're for travel in February. Ask up front for prices on the travel dates you prefer.
Consider buying travel insurance that covers trip cancellations, and don't be surprised if the premiums are higher than usual.
Beware of deals that seem too good to be true; they're probably scams. Stick with travel agencies you know.
Reconfirm your reservations and get to the hotel or airport early.

For more information about celebrations in Hawaii throughout the Year 2000, call the Hawaii Millennium Commission at 550-2000 or check out its Web site at http://www.hi2k.net. Also, the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau has a Web site at http://gohawaii.com.

If you're planning to celebrate in a foreign country, check the U.S. State Department's travel warnings, which later this year are to include Y2K updates for specific countries.

The Web site is at http://travel.state.gov/y2kca.html

Since the Y2K computer bug is expected to bite harder abroad, travelers to foreign countries should build time into their itineraries for delays.