AAA Texas New Member Admission Fee Discount/Coupon

I recently purchased the AAA Texas  Classic membership for my cross-country drive from College Station to Wyoming. The membership for the classic is about $52 plus $20 for a new member admission fee.

If you are purchasing a new membership from AAA Texas, remember to give them a call first and check whether they can waive the new member admission fee. I was able to get a waiver for the new member fee and for automatic renewal they reduce another $4.

Its always good to ask before you buy online :) Enjoy.

Free Boat Tour - Port of Houston and Ship Channel Boat Tour

This is a free tour for about 90 minutes. Few important things to remember.

• Please have a valid reservation before you go there. You cannot just show up and ride the tour boat. You need to go online at Port of Houston web site and go to Outreach section where you can make a reservation. Also remember to make reservations for all your members including the children. 

• Tour boat capacity is for 100 people, most of the time people cancel it last minute, so you can modify the reservation accordingly by calling or sending an email to them.
• I guess this should be an appropriate tour for a family with young children.
• Remember to have the IDs for all the members above 18, they will not allow you to enter the place otherwise.
• You can take camera's with you and take pictures. Please don't listen to other reviewers. Yes the notice says no photographs, but I guess its the port authority surroundings. During the boat ride you can take pictures. I was so frustrated after listening to the previous reviewers, I just kept my camera at the vehicle, but later noticed everybody else had one during the ride and they took pictures. I had to rely on my iphone. :( 
• They will serve you some soft drinks during the ride back (after the first half of the ride). Thats a nice surprise :)

Its a nice tour, don't worry about the mild smell of the channel, and what other reviewers say. Its not that bad at all. There are some places so dirty, but thats how it is when its a working port. Its a comfortable ride, there's AC inside and you can relax inside during the return trip so you don't have to watch the same thing again.

It is difficult to find the location of the boat. Initially there are signs, but the sign pointing to the final turn at the entrance gate is not posted. After you get your e-mailed confirmation, call the number on the confirmation for detailed directions including the gate number. This may be why they tell you to arrive half an hour early - you need the half hour to drive around in circles and eventually pull over and make the call for help.
There are many signs posted that video and photography is not permitted, but remember to have one during your boat ride :)
As others have stated, visitors are more likely to like this if they are interested in ships, marine industry or related industries. This is a marine and industrial boat tour... it passes by several refineries, a gypsum plant, grain elevators, navy ships, and other container vessels. Soft drinks, but no healthy alternatives such as water available onboard.
The back of the boat is nice with a comfortable seats, there are no seats in the outside front area. No seats around the outside of the boat. You have enough seating inside the boat.

They open the line exactly as stated. So if it is 10am, be there before couple of minutes. They will check the names only when you get on to the boat just 5 minutes before the ride starts. You have to stay around if you go early.

Here's the link for registration : Sam Houston Boat Tour
Visited September 2012

Been There

This is a running list of places I have been to in the United States and around the world. No particular order or date.

North America

• Texas
  Austin, Bryan/College Station, Corpus Christi, Houston, Laredo, San Antonio, San Marcos 
• Mexico
  Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo  
• Washington
  Seattle, Redmond

Europe

• Italy
  Catania, Milan, Verona, Venice
• France
  Paris
• UK
  London, Becontree

Asia

• Sri Lanka (most places except northern part) 

UK Transit (stopover) Visa, London Heathrow Airport

I noticed number of visits for one of my previous post about the stopover at London Heathrow airport. This happened in 2007 and me and my wife both were in transit to USA after our vacation at Sri Lanka. We had a 15 hour layover (or stopover) at Heathrow and we were able to obtain 24 hour entry visa to UK and spent few hours at my cousins place before catching the flight next day.
See my previous post here.



I'm not sure how the law regarding this 24 hour visa, and I'm still getting number of emails requesting more information about this. So, I did a quick search and found following information, so this will help you deciding whether you need a transit visa before the travel or whether you can obtain visa on arrival through the UK Border Agency. But most of the time it is a safe bet just to contact your airline to make sure that you need or need not transit visa.

A Stopover in Venice by Walker, Kathryn [Paperback] (Google Affiliate Ad)

This questionnaire will help you to decide some of it.

Do you need a visa?

This section explains how you can transit through the UK when traveling to another country. It also explains the documents that you will need to bring with you.
If you pass through the UK without staying here on the way to another country, this is called 'transiting'.

The Scientific Tourist Through England, Wales (Google Affiliate Ad)

There are two types of transit through the UK:
You will transit airside if you arrive on a flight, remain in the arrival lounge of the airport without passing through immigration control, and then depart on another flight from the same airport.
You will transit landside if you arrive on a flight, pass through immigration control and then leave the UK within 48 hours (or 24 hours if you are travelling under the 'travel without visa' concession).

If you want to spend longer than 48 hours in the UK before continuing your journey, you must come to the UK as a visitor.

• Find out whether you need a visa to transit airside
• Find out whether you need a visa to transit landside

Also read the more information section bottom of each of the above links which gives you information based on your country and whether there is a valid entry visa for Australia, Canada, New Zealand or the USA, and a valid airline ticket for travel via the UK, as part of a journey to or from one of those countries (which is called Transit without visa' concession - DATV exemptions)

Visa required to enter Sri Lanka - 1st Jan 2012

This is to keep you informed, from 1st January 2012, all foreign passport holders would require to obtain a visa prior to entry into Sri Lanka.

The process is simple and the cost is just US$50 as a standard for all countries for processing the visa prior to arrival. Those who arrive at the airport without a prior visa could obtain so at the port of arrival for US$75!

However, Singaporeans and Maldivians are not required to have a visa prior to arrival (to reciprocate their kindness).

The Visa could be obtained as follows:

• On line by logging on to www.eta.gov.lk (detailed information and the visa forms are provided through this site). The information is available in many of our key languages ( English, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, German, Spanish, Chinese etc). The visa is provided within a day.
• Through a 3rd party
• At the port of arrival

ETA processing fee Charges in United States DollarsTourist Visa with Double Entry for 30 days US$ 50

Tourist Visa Single Entry up to 90 days US$ 50
Tourist Visa with Double Entry up to 90 days US$ 50
Business Visa with Multiple Entry for 30 days US$ 60
Business Visa with Single Entry up to 90 days US$ 60

* * The visa prior to arrival will be implemented from 1st January 2012 and on 1st of October 2011, www.eta.gov.lk was launched. Hence please feel free to check this simple yet informative site for more details.

No Reservation ( Anthony Bourdain ) - Sri Lanka

I like this episode of No Reservation, at my lovely home, Sri Lanka. We used to watch the travel channel lot, Bizarre Foods by Andrew Zimmenrn and No Reservation specially. Throughout this episode, I felt that something is missing, especially they showed the congested city of Colombo, tightened security, Burger community, Tsunami hit southern village???? I didn’t see any Sinhalese home? No Buddhist temple? No visit to beautiful up country, Kandy and Nuwaraeliya. No visit to great city of Anuradhapura, and Seegiriya??? No visit to “helmalu” paddy fields? ………………OK at least they showed we got pretty good food, and we are totally different from India…………and we don’t speak hindi…….
This is a quote from his final conclusion about Sri Lanka
“ This could be such a beautiful place if one could wonder freely from top to bottom of this country, it’s so amazing people were you seeing, they are lovely. The food after all my troubles earlier on what felt like the verge of death? Finally would able to actually enjoy it, a revelation. So distinct from Indian, so different from what I’d expected. And I guess and I hope when it all opens up, Sri Lankans settle their problems one way or the other, this will again be a place that a whole world will fall in love with”

……I totally agreed Anthony Bourdain………….cheers………..

Heathrow London, Paris France Transit Visa - Overnight Stopovers

***Update: I have a new post regarding transit visa here.

This is to help people who are regularly querying to know about stopovers in Heathrow London Airport. Last winter, precisely on January 10th, me and my wife spend almost 15hrs in London on our next flight to USA which is on next day morning around 10.30pm. I’ll try to give you some guidelines and advices as much as possible and that’s your responsibility to make your arrangements accordingly.

First of all, I’ll give you some idea on my visa and background issues. Me and my wife both graduate students at Texas State University San Marcos, and we both on F-1 student visa status. Our trip was from Colombo, Sri Lanka to Austin, Texas. Almost 2 stopovers throughout the flying, first in London Heathrow about 15hrs, and second in Chicago O’Hare 9hrs. This was our return flight from the winter break at Sri Lanka.

When we fly to Sri Lanka on December 13th 2007, we had a 9hr stopover at Charles de Galle Paris. Before our trip, I researched on the transit visa issues and couldn’t find precise information on Paris transits too. So, I’ll give you some idea on Paris transit visa too, in case someone needs to know on it. As I can remember we landed to the terminal 1 and depart from Terminal 4. Our flight f USA was from United Airlines and we thought we don’t wanna go out or do anything, and just stay at the airport for the next connecting flight. For the transit visa’s, there was no transit visa whatsoever required (at least for US F-1 Student visa holders) to stay 9-10hrs at the airport. But I don’t know there is change when you want to stay overnight at the airport for connecting flights. In case of the Heathrow London, you cannot stay overnight at the airport. I’ll come to this next. So, about CDG airport, its better to have at least 4-5hrs transit time if you travel to another destination. Don’t worry about spending that time if you are not in a hurry or in a business trip. In case our trip, we spend almost 9hrs in the next terminal (I guess it was terminal 4). Have some snacks ready, b’se we spent almost 10E (almost$20) for a yucky, ice cold sandwich. Everything really really expensive, so be prepared. Specially in terminals, for boarding there was a big line, so my advice is, if the boarding is started, try to clear that as soon as possible. If I’m correct the terminals are called satellites so don’t be confused with the names. So from my experience on this travel, there is no need of transit visa if you have a stopover at Paris, France (US valid Visa holders traveling from or Travel to USA).

Next information is for the Heathrow, London Airport. I’m not sure if you have a stopover at day time, then what is the situation, but definitely if you have a night stopover (in our case 15hrs) you needed to go through the immigration to get 24hr visa to go out from the Heathrow. So here’s the deal. Whenever you arrived at the airport, if you wish to go out or get 24hr visa, hurry up and don’t waste your time on going for restrooms or getting some break. Run as soon as possible to the immigration section, why? Because there’s a big line of people ahead of you if you wanna get your visa done. Especially if you have a limited time of stopover at London, then this is a must. This is crucial; we stayed about 1hrs on the line to get the visa done. There is no need of special paper work to get 24hr transit visa at Heathrow London.

But you need following documents mandatory for that.

1. Unexpired Valid US visa
2. Unexpired Passport
3. Immigration documents for USA, in our case (for F-1/F-2 student/dependent visa holders) I-20 issued by US College

4. Air tickets stating that you have prior arrangement to leave UK and your stay is just for transit via UK

The immigration officer didn’t ask anything other than this and it was just 1min interview to get the document stamped with 24hrs visa. Important thing is remember to get ready for your connecting flight and plan ahead. We stayed at Becontree, London and its about 2.5hrs from Heathrow. Believe me, next day we arrived just 1/2hr before the flight and needed to sprint through the airport to get the flight on time (Thanks to a helping hand from the United Airlines Officer at the check-in desk).

Let me know if someone needs more information on this. My email sampathid2003@yahoo.com

15Hr stopover at London Heathrow airport - any comments???

***Update: I have a new post regarding transit visa here.

Yesterday we booked our tickets to Sri Lanka for the winter break. Hopefully if everything works well we'll be at Sri Lanka on December 13th. We both pretty much excited. Only problem is the long transit time we have to spend on the tour. We have 6hr transit at Chicago and bone crushing 15hr stopover at London Heathrow airport. We don't know what to do??????? Totally confused. Yesterday I talked to Pola (charith) regarding this, what he mentioned me that we can visit London on the stopover. But I have no idea what to do. Do we need transit visa for that, how much we need to pay for it? We already paid almost $3400 for the tickets, and don't wanna waste much on anything. But I'm worried about the 15hr waiting at the airport. We need to face this same transit problem on the way back. Same hours on the same places. I can remember how I spend my 6hr transit at LA on my first arrival to US, but its bearable, but 15hrs????Yesterday we booked our tickets to Sri Lanka for the winter break. Hopefully if everything works well we'll be at Sri Lanka on December 13th. We both pretty much excited. Only problem is the long transit time we have to spend on the tour. We have 6hr transit at Chicago and bone crushing 15hr stopover at London Heathrow airport. We don't know what to do??????? Totally confused. Yesterday I talked to Pola (charith) regarding this, what he mentioned me that we can visit London on the stopover. But I have no idea what to do. Do we need transit visa for that, how much we need to pay for it? We already paid almost $3400 for the tickets, and don't wanna waste much on anything. But I'm worried about the 15hr waiting at the airport. We need to face this same transit problem on the way back. Same hours on the same places. I can remember how I spend my 6hr transit at LA on my first arrival to US, but its bearable, but 15hrs????Yesterday we booked our tickets to Sri Lanka for the winter break. Hopefully if everything works well we'll be at Sri Lanka on December 13th. We both pretty much excited. Only problem is the long transit time we have to spend on the tour. We have 6hr transit at Chicago and bone crushing 15hr stopover at London Heathrow airport. We don't know what to do??????? Totally confused. Yesterday I talked to Pola (charith) regarding this, what he mentioned me that we can visit London on the stopover. But I have no idea what to do. Do we need transit visa for that, how much we need to pay for it? We already paid almost $3400 for the tickets, and don't wanna waste much on anything. But I'm worried about the 15hr waiting at the airport. We need to face this same transit problem on the way back. Same hours on the same places. I can remember how I spend my 6hr transit at LA on my first arrival to US, but its bearable, but 15hrs????Yesterday we booked our tickets to Sri Lanka for the winter break. Hopefully if everything works well we'll be at Sri Lanka on December 13th. We both pretty much excited. Only problem is the long transit time we have to spend on the tour. We have 6hr transit at Chicago and bone crushing 15hr stopover at London Heathrow airport. We don't know what to do??????? Totally confused. Yesterday I talked to Pola (charith) regarding this, what he mentioned me that we can visit London on the stopover. But I have no idea what to do. Do we need transit visa for that, how much we need to pay for it? We already paid almost $3400 for the tickets, and don't wanna waste much on anything. But I'm worried about the 15hr waiting at the airport. We need to face this same transit problem on the way back. Same hours on the same places. I can remember how I spend my 6hr transit at LA on my first arrival to US, but its bearable, but 15hrs????

I saw several posts regarding the possibility of getting 24hr transit to pass the immigration area of the London airport without visa. But I don't know whether its available for Sri Lankans. Both of us on valid F-1 student status with valid visa and I-20. Anyone with some ideas will be really appreciated. Anything to do in London Heathrow airport in this long stopover????????