Those high-pitched sounds youve been
hearing are squeals of delight from the makers of lists. They love
this time of year. They practically wallow in it, what with
shopping lists, lists of the great events of the last year, lists
of things they forgot to do, lists of things they want to do,
resolutions, predictions. The list, as it were, goes on and on.
Our own maker of
lists, who normally toils in a dark cubicle, has been groveling and
gnawing at our ankles for the chance to shine in this space. And so
we relent and give it over, just once, for the mother of all lists:
The First and Only Travel Weekly List of Lists We Will Not Make in
2007:
Ten airlines that
should never merge.
The 50 least
expensive motels in America.
The 10 best
cruise ship names that are not yet taken.
The 10 best
Amtrak stations.
Bob Dickinsons 10
favorite wines (he wont stop at 10!).
The 10 fastest
airport people movers in Europe.
Fifty travel
dot-coms that time forgot.
One hundred and
one hotel brands that youve never heard of.
Top 10 apocryphal
stories about Bob Crandall.
Top five airlines
that have never been involved in a merger.
Ten good ways to
respond to a debit memo if you truly dont care about the
consequences.
Ten tour
operators where nobody in the company is related to anybody else in
the company.
Top 10 true
stories about Herb Kelleher.
Twenty-five
Alaskan towns that love cruise passengers.
The 10 worst
Amtrak stations.
Ten clever places
to put the tip for the hotel maid.
Top 10 funny
sentences made from airport code combinations (e.g., DEN SUX, OMA
MIA).
Countries with
cooler passports than ours.
Twenty-five
Caribbean islands that love cruise lines.
Things not to say
in the airport security line.
A dozen new uses
for your old brochure racks (with illustrations).
Ten movies the
airlines will never show in flight.
Ten things you
cant do at an airport check-in kiosk.
The travel
industry sectors that Adam Aron hasnt worked in -- yet.
Five funny
stories involving Bob Crandall and Herb Kelleher.
Forgotten
nautical terms.
Five places on
the Freedom of the Seas where nobody has actually been yet.
All the things
that could go wrong in the cockpit if you use a cell phone in
flight.
Seven synonyms
for timeshare.
All the different
ways to calculate gross registered tonnage of cruise ships,
including the right one.
Ten ways to tell
the difference between an upper-mid-upscale hotel and a
mid-upper-upscale hotel.
Suggested names
for the Travelocity gnome.
Twenty-five
travel industry acronyms that mysteriously went away when we werent
looking (e.g., CATM, UBOA).
Richard Bransons
five least-exciting hobbies.
Twenty-one
questions you should ask yourself before making a list.