Arline Kneen 30 Jan 2011 1:45 pm You just have to love the new TV Land sitcom, "Hot in Cleveland." Forget for the moment that this October, God willing, I will be six years older than Betty White and still working my a** off, just like she is. Yep, this year I turn 95. Betty’s role as "Elka," the Polish landlady/mentor to the three needy, self absorbed but lovable displaced Los Angeles women whose "getaway" trip to Paris is diverted to Cleveland because of an airplane "mechanical failure," is the perfect blend of her previous roles of the devilishly bawdy Sue Anne Nivens on the seminal sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore" show and the delightfully Scandinavian scatterbrain, Rose Nyland of "The Golden Girls." Can you imagine how liberating it is for an old broad like me - who had to live through the endless array of sitcoms featuring 23 year old over-privileged spoiled brats living in overpriced loft apartments in trendy New York neighborhoods to the overacted "Camp Against Your Will - and Grace" to NOW see an ensemble cast starring "older" flawed women? And - the three "younger" (if you count 50 as "younger") characters are simultaneously snobby and vulnerable women who adopt Cleveland as their new home - for ALL the right reasons! And, who amongst us doesn’t just love Valerie Bertinelli - the quintessential All American Girl who never feared taking a pratfall if it helped the story. Jane Leeves of "Frasier" fame and the aggressively angular Wendy Malik all come together to make a wonderful and believable "family." And despite a couple of minor cheap shots as Cleveland , my home town (I mean, we here in Cleveland are in fact – the Parisians of the Midwest) what’s not to love? Wanna know what else is "Hot in Cleveland?" <i><b>Me.</b></i> Actually, that’s not what I really mean. I should say "US" - as in the people who have helped me run my travel agency for what will be our 50th - yep, you heard me - FIVE- OH! - years in business since I opened my doors in 1961. There was me, a rotary phone, a used desk and a world map on the wall. Today - over 100 astronomically astounding amazing people who range from 23 (my Granddaughter, Lindsay Kneen) to 72, all of whom are my "family" and who help make us who we are today. Like Madonna, we are re-inventing ourselves for the next 50 years. Our talents range from the "Sex and the City" types to the "Golden Girls" like me, and anywhere in between. Oh, and we also have some really talented guys too! To celebrate this - the prodigal son, Rob - (well, maybe not <i>prodigal</i>, but he’s my son and he took over managing the agency 30 years ago so I can do the fun stuff) is planning an incredible event - the "President’s Trip" which is an invitation only cruise on an unbelievable cruise on Holland America’s Veendam - its most intriguing, adventurous itinerary. Departing January 23, 2012, the 12 Day South American Passage will visit; <b>Ports of Call: </b> Buenos Aires, Argentina; Montevideo, Uruguay; Pt. Stanley, Falkland Islands; Cape Horn; Ushuaia, Argentina; Glacier Alley; Beagle Channel; Cockburn Channel; Punta Arenas, Chile; Strait of Magellan; Canal Sarmiento; Amalia Glacier; Chilean Fjords; Puerto Montt, Chile; Valparaiso (Santiago), Chile. Can you imagine - the excitement of rounding the "bottom on the earth" - the Straits of Magellan, like the early explorers? But this time in luxury and comfort. Because we are going as a group, there will be a huge discount - the best deal you’ll find, along with your hosts - my son, the President - Rob and his wife Nancy, me as the company’s founder and chief party planner, and a collection of some of the most interesting people you’ll ever meet. Some of our best friends and customers will accompany us. Senior travel industry executives and speakers like Jack Reynaert, will be along. In future blogs, I’ll give you more info on how to get in touch with Rob and receive your special invitation. For those of you who have accumulated tons of frequent flier miles and want to use them to fly to South America (into Buenos Aires, Brazil out of Santiago, Chile) the airlines open up their frequent flier mile inventory 11 months prior to your departure - so this will give you a leg up on getting the space you want! So, from the "Golden Girl" of travel, and despite the current weather here - still "Hot in Cleveland," thanks for reading. Arline Kneen 21 Jan 2011 1:45 pm What a time for broken promises already. Me, the World’s Oldest Travel Agent, beginning a blog, promising to update it once a week and then bailing on you. But I swear I meant to. at the time. But with the birth of my new Great Granddaughter, Nora, in mid December, I got swept away " literally " on a flight to Raleigh Durham, NC to witness her birth, assist my Granddaughter Kristin in caring for her two-year-old son, Nolan and otherwise help with the logistics of people coming and going. While it was lots of work, it was also lots if fun. Nolan and I went so many places, like the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science, with its "walk through a tornado," experimenting with water pumps and surrounding yourself in a giant bubble. We watched in wonder as exotic butterflies floated by in the Magic Wings Butterfly House and felt a chill go up our spine as we visited with un-caged giant orb spiders. Then, on to Nolan’s favorite "the home to an actual Apollo Command Module and Neil Armstrong’s space suit, made the history of space travel come to life for Nolan and reminded me of that amazing day in July of 1969. If they can land a man on the moon, you’d think that I could keep up with my blog! So I’ll try harder next time. In the mean time, look at these awesome pictures of my family with its newest member! Just look at this picture. Norman Rockwell couldn’t have made it any nicer. OK, enough excuses, no matter how valid I think they are. Here’s a question from left field that it will pay you to have the answer for in my next post".I PROMISE. Ready? Here it is. "What’s your return on life?" No fair reading ahead or “GOOGLING.” You gotta wait till the next Arline Kneen 09 Sep 2010 1:45 pm Airline mergers, consolidations, code-shares, joint ventures, alliances. It’s all over the news, and for whatever reason seems to garner more interest and attention than, for example, why the stock market plummeted amidst all the chatter about the recession being over. Someone asked me the other day where and when I thought airline mergers might end, and I joked, "when there is one and only one airline called "Unimericondelternier " Blue. My son, Rob has always threatened, jokingly I hope, to leave the travel agency and start his own airline called "Generic Airlines."In his twisted logic, all of his planes would be painted white with one single black stripe around it and black, block letters spelling out simply "Airplane." Reservation agents would answer the phone - "Thank you for calling an airline" and ticket prices determined a sophisticated system called "The Airfare Dartboard." Anyway, back to the airline merger thing. I’ve been in the travel business long enough to see airlines - some good, some bad, some average - come and go for all kinds of reasons. In the distant past, my travel agency, Traveline, was a wholesale reseller (consolidator) for the once great Pan American Airlines, which symbolized America’s greatness and adventurousness by opening routes for business and vacation travelers to areas of the world once inaccessible to all but explorers or the very wealthy who had months, if not years to devote to their quest for the "ultimate one up" travel experience. Sadly, Pan Am’s demise was due less to the tragic Locherbie Scotland incident than it was an airline management team which allowed itself to become bloated, making bad decisions during boozy business meetings in smoke filled rooms or golf courses by baggy eyed good old boys who refused to understand the transition needed to compete in a de-regulated market. The thing Pan Am DID have going for them even up to the end were some of the globe’s most coveted and profitable routes to Asia, India, Europe you name it. They had it. Ironically, in the universe’s evolutionary scheme it was United Airlines that became the recipient of those awesome routes, which they managed to retain and service with a job done. Now the celebrity marriage that will bring together the industry’s best DNA and gene pool the management of the incredible Continental Airlines team to a once great United Airlines, led by Continental’s brilliant CEO, Jeff Smisek, is on track to rescue United’s progeny and transform its pear-shaped, lethargic sales prevention strategy into an athletic, agile, and competitive jungle cat. The New United should be a boon to travelers everywhere. It will be a defining moment in the airline industry. Speaking of defining moments, can I just tell you of the many places I have traveled in my 50 year career, the one place I have not been is the Galapagos Islands. As I write this, I am in the middle of planning a "Defining Moment Trip" using one our agency’s fabulous Virtuoso products Celebrity Cruises. An "alternative Thanksgiving" will include my son, daughter Jill (Dr. Jill Stamm to those of you in brain research) their spouses and my grandchildren. After the cruise, we will then visit my Chilean "daughter," Beatriz "Taty" Demoras and her family in Santiago, Chile. Taty was an exchange student who lived in our home for a year from 1960 - 1961 and we have remained family every since. Oh, and remember, at that time of the year it will be SUMMER – so we’ll be escaping the ravages of winter here in Cleveland. Can’t wait. So - before I go, why don’t you call or write me and tell me what your "Defining Moment" trip is and I will match you to the Virtuoso trip of a lifetime. I’m an email away - – <a href="mailto:akneen@traveline.com" target="_blank">akneen@traveline.com</a>. Or you can call me on my direct dial line 440 602 5944. Let’s talk travel. Go Granny Go. Arline,The World’s Oldest Travel Agent Arline Kneen 20 Apr 2010 1:45 pm Return on Investment? "R.O.I.?" Oh, Blah Blah Blah. Yadda, Yadda, Yadda.. I’ve heard my so-called financial experts and planners talk to me about my R.O.I. on financial investments for WAY too long to give their claims any credence. Ultimately, the funds that I have chosen by myself, with no expert’s help have done better than those selected for me by the pros. Sometimes I make the choice based purely on whether I like the sound of the company’s name or whether the products they make don’t harm our environment. Bear in mind, at 93, I’ve seen recessions, depressions, booms, busts, runs on the bank, stockbrokers jumping from windows, but today flaunting their unearned $1 million "performance" bonuses with houses in the Hamptons, while giving the finger the public. So, from my perspective of nearly 100 years, I can’t help but ask, is that all there is? Did I really get any satisfaction from a 14% return or a 40% drop in my IRA funds? There just has to be something more to life than "R.O.I." on money. All you have to do is look at Bernie Madoff to understand that principle. What a miserable human being. Even before he got caught. There’s a lyric from one of my favorite Stephen Sondheim songs titled "I’m Still Here" from the Broadway Show "Follies." It goes like this; "I’ve gotten through Herbert and J. Edgar Hoover Gee, that was fun and a half When you’ve been through Herbert and J. Edgar Hoover Anything Else is Laugh!" Fortunately, in my years of discovery in the travel business, I’ve been able to enjoy something quite different from R.O.I. What is it? Well, it’s what my friend Matthew Upchurch has coined an appropriate phrase for – R.O.L. R.O.L, you ask? Wanna know what it stands for? It’s Return on Life! It’s about spending time on what matters most to you. Maybe it’s a personal journey to your favorite destination. Perhaps it’s creating wonderful vacation memories with family, friends or your significant other. It may be that you want to get back to nature. Whatever your priorities, reconnect through unique and wonderful experiences and realize your greatest return on life. Our Virtuoso affiliated advisors are here to help with personal expertise and exclusive offers to fulfill your travel dreams. "We are now facing a time of economic uncertainty and naturally people are taking time to reflect on what’s important to them: personal fulfillment and enrichment, quality time with family and friends, and the opportunity to detach from their everyday worries and de-stress," said Matthew Upchurch, CEO of Virtuoso. "Return on Life encapsulates these desires, and travel is one of the best conduits to achieving a higher ROL." Here a couple of examples that can insure that by the time you get to be my age you can say that you had a great R.O.L by recognizing and pouncing on those opportunities to live life to the fullest through travel. Arline Kneen 16 Nov 2009 1:45 pm When I married the incredibly handsome guy to my right in the photographs of our honeymoon in Havana in 1940, Fidel Castro was 14 years old. The only revolution I knew about was the Russian Revolution, which occurred the year I was born in1917, the same year the First World War was declared. Bob, my husband, who died in 1992 and who remains to this day the one and only love of my life, was the most interesting person I had ever met. Nine years older than I, he was beautiful,well educated, athletic, sophisticated and had the best sense of humor of any person I had ever known. And he had been married before, which back then was scandalous! As an 18 year old girl running a restaurant I had bought with the money I was supposed to use for my college education, (which I did without telling my parents) I was stunned the moment I met him. Bob was one of my first customers at "The Pantry," because it was located in the factory laden neighborhood of Cleveland’s "Harvard and Miles"district and he owned a small business in that area. In those days, the area was a testimony to the success of the industrial revolution. Factories boasted success by billowing, black sooty smoke into the air, no one gave a second thought to what price we would pay for and I would live to see the damage it would create to our environment. While our courtship lasted longer than most, due to my policy of staff not socializing with customers, Bob was resolute, determined, and I ultimately agreed to go on a date. It was only with the understanding that it would be a double date, chaperoned by my friends from high school, who viewed this "older man" as a potential troublemaker. In addition to his ability to charm, what we all discovered was that he possessed the most incurable case of wanderlust, adventure for travel and discovery, which would ultimately result in our opening a small travel business in Willoughby, Ohio in 1962. I mean, he had been to Europe on an ocean liner, and traveled throughout the continent and British Isles on an Indian Motorcycle, and played trumpet in an orchestra that featured a then unknown singer named Bing Crosby! He had met Ernest Hemingway and had been part of the "café society" that was Paris in the 1930’s. The stories that follow in this blog of my career in travel are clearly a result of having met this man who was happiest, at his best and most prolific, while he was traveling the world, and not dealing the with daily drudgery of business and commerce. Nonetheless, he worked hard in his industrial coal and stone business and we lived what could be considered the perfect life, having four wonderful kids together. The most unique aspect of our young lives, in comparison to other couples who longed for bigger houses, and even bigger finned cars, was that we lived simply ,almost austerely, in a very modest home in a blue collar community. But,each time we had a few extra bucks we had saved, rather than buying the latest model of Oldsmobile Rocket 88, we would rocket our way around the world, most of the time with kids in tow. Our kids all considered us slightly eccentric, especially for the times, but each of them would tell you today that those early days of taking the road less traveled made all the difference. Ultimately, Bob’s "mid-life crisis" involved him selling his business and becoming a small town lawyer at age 52. For me, it was opening the travel agency at age 45. Late bloomers in some ways, but then, my daughter Jill just published her first book at age 60! The reason I opened this blog with the title "Cuba to Cuba in Three Generations" is a play on words, from the saying Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations, referring to the cycle of life from poverty to riches and a return to poverty. But the Cuba reference has nothing to do with money; rather it has to do with the fact that, hopefully within my lifetime, but certainly within my grandchildren’s lifetimes, we will see the return and renaissance of Cuba as the exciting, energized, artistic salsa destination" that, while it’s riches, opulence and excess of the 40’s and 50’s were destroyed by the communist regime and Fidel Castro’s philosophies, its culture, joyous people, weather and natural beauty remain refuse to be vanquished. For those of you who remember the tension of the now historical confrontation of the "Bay of Pigs" incident, when our families were all parked in front of our rabbit-eared black and white TV’s waiting to see if nuclear war was imminent, I know you’ll agree that the Cuba of the post Castro era will be a sharp and joyful contrast.! This blog will have to do with (mostly) travel related experiences, commentaries, even a few complaints and laments about the travel industry between the time of the 19 year old woman on the beach and the 93 year old woman you see pictured holding the world in her hands. (It’s a balloon actually). My plan is to update the blog once per week, although if I get the chance to go someplace fantastic, it may just have to suffer until I get back. In this year alone, I’ve been to South Africa to visit my granddaughter Lindsay Kneen studying to become an M.D., helped my granddaughter Kristin move from Los Angeles to Raleigh Durham, where she is now a professor (please note: DR. Kristin McNealy, Ph.D), and sailed on the Danube River with my son Rob from Budapest to Vienna. As I write this, Halloween is coming to an end in Phoenix AZ, where I go each year to my daughter Jill’s home to trick or treat with my special granddaughter, Jennifer, now 32, for whom this, next to Christmas is her favorite day. My great-grandchildren are another whole story in themselves! Nolan is now 3, and we are awaiting the arrival of "Baby-Girl" McNealy in December! Look for details soon. This is my "intro-blog," so not all of them will be this long. I guess my point is "Life’s a Trip." Live and enjoy every day with as much energy as passion as you can! Oh and be sure to travel, whether you book it through me or any other qualified travel agent! . So, go ahead. Get "off your rocker!" Arline <a href="http://worldsoldesttravelagent.com/comments"><img src="Comment.jpg"/></a>