RE: New Orleans
We just spent 4 days at the French Quarter RV park earlier this month. Was on the expensive side at $75/night with Good Sam discount but the park is so closely situated to the French Qtr, historical graveyards, etc. that we felt it offered good value for the money.
The park is very clean and well maintained. It is close to I10 so you hear some traffic noise and lots of sirens but that didn't keep us from sleeping. It's close to a group of subsidized housing projects so I didn't feel real safe walking back to the park from the French Qtr after dark. If it was really late at night (anytime after 10:00 p.m.) I would recommend taking a cab back to the park. There is a large police station just a block away from the park entrance so I'm sure that adds some security to the neighbourhood.
This is not a reflection on the park but the streets in the old French Qtr just reek of urine. This city needs to provide better restroom facilities or improve their street/sidewalk cleaning system.
Ditto for FQRP. We stayed there during our visit last year. The ultra convenient location is definitely worth the premium cost. We walked the short distance both to and from the French Quarter but would second taking a cab after dark.
RE: Zip Code required to buy gas
.............Strange. As I mentioned previously, I travelled up and down the east from Ottawa, ON to Key West, FL, and I've never had a problem using ###00. In upper New York I've started noticing these instructions being written on a sticker affixed to the pumps.
I have been surprised at just how often ###00 actually does work at the pump, but it doesn't work all the time. For fueling I now tend to use my BMO US$ Mastercard with the Zip for the US billing address I put on that card before each trip south. It has worked all over Florida in recent years except at one station in Zephyrhills. I think that station rejects the BMO card simply because it was not issued by a US based bank (tried it several times the last couple of years). Of course, my US based bank credit cards with US billing address work at the pump everywhere all the time. Interesting that you mention that some stations in upper New York are posting the ###00 solution. Nice to see that the industry is finally responding to our long standing complaints about not being able to use our Canadian credit cards at the pump.
RE: RVing from Vancouver BC to DisneyLand
dsaj, I'm with All58Parks, I took a quick look on S&T. Your trip is quite doable in my view. In my younger days I made quite a few trips like this in this time frame and have been to most all the locations you mention including doing the Coho from Victoria, down the Oregon Coast, Anaheim, San Diego etc in a single trip.
But I would forget doing CA1 (Big Sur etc this go round. It's wonderful but leave it for another time) south of San Francisco and, south of Willits, use US 20 to cut over from US 101 to I5. You would have some relatively long driving days on this trip but you should also then have sufficient time in Anaheim and San Diego to make it worth while. There are lovely ocean beaches not far from Anaheim. Our favorite place to stay while there is now Orangeland RV Park just off Katella a bit east of Disney but, as you probably know, there are a number of RV parks closer to Disney. In the past we've also stayed in ocean front parks near Huntington Beach (I suspect fully booked up by now). Yes, if you have never done it before, go over to Tijuana.
I would also leave the jet boat thing for another trip and beeline it home to BC from San Diego leaving more time in Anaheim (and area, at least 4 nights would be nice) and San Diego (3 nights). Enough stuff to do near both cities for many trips.
RE: Canadians require International Driving Permit in Florida
Hi gypsy,
Well, the $25 I have to spend on the documentation will be $25 I do not spend in Florida. Multiply that by say 100,000 people and it becomes 2.5 million not spent in Florida. Since the spin off effect of dollars spent is at least 6 to 1, that's 15 million of loss.
This will be the 9th such thread today unless I missed one and is much ado about nothing. When they do decide to enforce the IDP it will not make a hill of beans difference IMO in spite of dire and premature predictions of the total collapse of Florida tourism.
This just sounds all so wrong to me. To begin with the $25 will never see this country in the first place, but will stay in Canada. Second, you are a guest of Florida's, you're getting the use of their roads, utilities infrastructure, WalMart RV parking, police, fire, and EMS for free while the residents have to foot the bill for all of us tourist, and our almighty dollars. No wonder they are happy to see us come, and happy to see us go.
Just a little fact about 9/11. The terrorists were train in plane take off in Florida. The terrorists also came over into the US via Canada. What's so wrong with Florida wanting to tighten up things. Maybe it has everything to do with that, and nothing to do with anything with $25 dollars that will never see US soil.
Good grief, will this old myth never die? The 9/11 terrorists did NOT enter the US via Canada!!
RE: Travel to US & Emergency Health Insurance
road2002runner, what has been your experience with TIS? Have you made any claims and how were they to pay? Their on-line application looks quite straightforward and their rates appear to be very reasonable.
Thanks
LAR
Have used for 2/3 yeqars - recommended by other friends. We have not made any claim so ?. They did and had no problems.
Every case is different - you could give them a call - 800# - pleasent to deal with.
bbt
Thanks a lot. I have now gone with TIS for myself and Travel Underwriters via AllState for my wife. The latter is interesting because they offer some optional, albeit limited, coverage for unstable pre-existing conditions. She gets a new prescription solely for travel purposes so that automatically puts her into the unstable category for one condition. TIS is administered by Travel Insurance Specialists and underwritten by Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc. I would have gone with Travel Underwriters for myself too, as I have in past years, but they want to ding me really hard for the medications I take for my mild asthma. TIS is much more reasonable in this regard.
LAR
RE: Locking Adapter-15 Amp 125 Volt Male Plug To 30 Amp Female
That should work just fine for your purpose. I made my own pigtail to accomplish somewhat the same thing with this Locking L5-30R Connector and a few feet of 10 gauge cable with one of these on the other end. 30 amp RV plug
We have a Class B and sometimes we like to leave our 30 amp cable at the campsite if we plan to be away for only a short time. With my "adapter" we can use any standard RV 30 amp extension cable rather than the expensive and much harder to replace Marinco cable. We've had our 30 amp extension cables "borrowed" twice over the years while we were away. Replacements were to be had at the nearest Walmart.
I use one of the small 30 amp female to 15 amp male adapters when I want to use a lighter 15 amp cord, which we do at home (for fridge, charging, lights etc) and sometimes even on the road. Of course, with the lighter cable we are limited to using just one heavy amp device at a time in the camper.
RE: Travel to US & Emergency Health Insurance
road2002runner, what has been your experience with TIS? Have you made any claims and how were they to pay? Their on-line application looks quite straightforward and their rates appear to be very reasonable.
Thanks
LAR
RE: Prescribed Burn - Jonathan Dickinson State Park
Great. Lets hoping they don't use the same idiots that tried to burn down Yellowstone some years back.
Don't worry, The Florida Park System is VERY well versed in prescribed burns as they have been doing it for years now without an incident.
I think they had to evacuate the Pine Grove campground at Jonathan Dickinson a few years back when one such burn got out of hand.
RE: US bank account
RBC and Desjardins are the only two banks that I am aware of that provide full on-line integration between their Canadian accounts and their accounts at their US bank affilates (RBC's setup is much easier to use in my view but Desjardins' works as well). RBC USA is now mainly internet only in the US and Desjardins has only a few branches in Florida but this works well for us because we don't need in-branch banking services while in the US. Both provide US debit cards, US credit cards and ATM access all over the US, including access to many ATMs at no fee.
Last I heard, TD's operations in the US are not at all integrated with TD's operations in Canada, although there were rumors that this might change. BMO's relationship with its US affilate, Harris Bank, is similar but, interestingly, Canadians can make an application for a Harris bank account over the internet while in Canada.
However, as already pointed out by the other posters, many Canadians without SSNs have opened accounts at a number of other US banks. Plus full internet integration with your Canadian banking accounts may not be as important to you as to us, although there are ways around this, albeit not nearly as convenient as the on-line integration. With RBC, one-sign in gives you access to both your CDN accounts in Canada and your US accounts in the USA and you can do instant transfers from one to the other.
Some Canadians have found that US bank branches in areas more removed from the CDN/US border are just not familiar with the process for opening accounts for Canadians without SSNs. But there are so many Canadians in your part of Texas and the RGV, you would think that many would have opened accounts at US banks there and that the banking staff would be aware of the process. Interesting.
RE: Tracphone
Bumpyroad, since you don’t need more minutes, your approach makes sense. We use most of our minutes since the DW likes to call home a lot.
Four 60 minute 90 day cards gives us all the minutes we need in addition to one year of service at only slightly more cost than the continuation plan (with no minutes) and for less cost than buying a one-year card with minutes. Bumpyroad, you can input as many cards as you want at one time and the time and minutes both accumulate (ie four 90 day cards provides 360 days of service). No need to travel across the border to add cards sequentially. Just buy the four cards (or whatever) and add them to the phone before leaving the US (actually I buy the equivalent on-line, but the result is the same).
Unfortunately, Tracfone’s web site won’t accept a Canadian credit card with a Canadian address. Many businesses will not accept foreign credit cards on-line. I've even heard of Canadian gas stations that will not accept US credit cards. This is in spite of my understanding that the agreements that these companies have with Mastercard and Visa etc state that they must accept these credit cards no matter where in the world they are issued. But there is probably more to it than this.
S.P. and Lola, that is weird that the new minutes/time show on your phone even though it has no service. I don’t think that has been reported before for Tracfone’s in Canada except for CDMA phones that did have service. Interesting.
last I bought one, long time ago, you could buy the one year/400 minutes (don't remember if that was double 200 or straight 400) for under $100. do you buy the 90 day ones for less than $25.00?
are you positive that you can activate 4 cards at the same time sequentially? I thought that when I tried to add a card before the time was up that they would not tack it on the end, maybe was Onstar however. :)
bumpy
You can still buy the one year/400 min card for $100 and the minutes do double so one gets 800 minutes on a double minute phone. My four 90 day 60 minute cards cost $20.00 each. So I get all the minutes we need annually plus one year of service for $80.00. Yes you can indeed add time and minutes before the time is up and they do tack both on the end. I've been doing it like that for several years. With promo codes found on the internet I often get even more minutes than provided by the face value of the four cards. There's really not a huge saving one way or the other but no need to spend $20 if one doesn't have to. I just thought I would point out that there is another way of keeping the Tracfone alive for another year.
RE: Tracphone
Bumpyroad, since you don’t need more minutes, your approach makes sense. We use most of our minutes since the DW likes to call home a lot.
Four 60 minute 90 day cards gives us all the minutes we need in addition to one year of service at only slightly more cost than the continuation plan (with no minutes) and for less cost than buying a one-year card with minutes. Bumpyroad, you can input as many cards as you want at one time and the time and minutes both accumulate (ie four 90 day cards provides 360 days of service). No need to travel across the border to add cards sequentially. Just buy the four cards (or whatever) and add them to the phone before leaving the US (actually I buy the equivalent on-line, but the result is the same).
Unfortunately, Tracfone’s web site won’t accept a Canadian credit card with a Canadian address. Many businesses will not accept foreign credit cards on-line. I've even heard of Canadian gas stations that will not accept US credit cards. This is in spite of my understanding that the agreements that these companies have with Mastercard and Visa etc state that they must accept these credit cards no matter where in the world they are issued. But there is probably more to it than this.
S.P. and Lola, that is weird that the new minutes/time show on your phone even though it has no service. I don’t think that has been reported before for Tracfone’s in Canada except for CDMA phones that did have service. Interesting.
RE: Tracphone
.
Also, I understood that all accumulated minutes were lost if the phone expired and a new SIM card was needed.
the $5.95 a month continuation plan cures these headaches.
bumpy
Would this would work if the phone has no service like in Canada ie must the phone itself be updated to keep the account active? If one could use more minutes, on an annual basis it seems like spending about the same amount of money for four 90 day cards that provide both time AND minutes might be a better approach. Also, I suspect that a Canadian would need a US bank based credit card with a US address to invoke the continuation plan option.
RE: Tracphone
While in Canada I've purchased Tracfone airtime "cards" on-line from Walmart.com. The PIN number is emailed to you. But I still don't know if adding the card via Tracfone's web site is sufficient to keep the account active when the phone has no signal or whether the time/minutes also have to appear on the phone itself, which, of course, is not possible if the phone has no service signal.
Last I heard, Tracfone would not mail a new SIM card to a Canadian address. Maybe this has changed.
Also, I understood that all accumulated minutes were lost if the phone expired and a new SIM card was needed. It would be nice if this were not the case and some on this thread are reporting otherwise. As suggested, maybe a phone call to Tracfone can address.
Tracfone's CDMA phones worked in Canada (not anymore?) but Tracfone would cut off the service if they became aware of such use. Some people apparently got away with limited use. I believe Tracfones sold now in Walmart stores are all GSM phones with SIM cards and they do not work in Canada.
RE: Tracphone
To keep my telephone number and to avoid losing minutes, I too buy one year of service on my Tracfone before leaving the US (actually buy four 60 minute “cards” so with double minutes on the phone I also get lots of minutes along with the one year of service).
I now use a credit card issued by a US based bank along with a US address so I can buy minutes on-line or on the phone itself. But before this, I WAS able to buy minutes on-line using my CDN credit card IF I didn’t log onto Tracfone’s web site FIRST. Going on-line to Tracfone’s web site, I selected the “buy minutes on-line option” without logging in. Then when it came time to pay, I was able to select Canada as the country which allowed me to then enter my CDN address. This wouldn’t work when I logged into my Tracfone account before attempting to buy minutes. I don’t know if one can still get around the US address thing in this manner.
I tried once to add minutes on-line when I was still in Canada and had no service to the Tracfone. I was able to add the minutes on-line using the credit card/address work-around noted above but, of course, since I had no service to the phone these added minutes did not show up on the phone itself. The next time I crossed the border and had phone service, the minutes did show up on the phone, but only after going on-line to Tracfone’s web site and retrieving a string of numbers to punch into the phone. In this case, the extra minutes were added before my time on the phone actually expired so I don’t know if just updating the minutes on the web site alone would have kept the phone active or not. Maybe someone has experience with that.
RE: CAN/US$ Exchange
Cool Canuck - I really don't see any downside risk here - there is no fee to get it (or use it) and the account can be managed very easily electronically. They even show temporary authorizations. It has just made things so much easier for us with charges already in $CAN (and for the past bit less than we were charged in $US!!!). We just try to limit cash use as much as possible.
I don't see any downside risks. The advantage I see with my Wells Fargo check card is that I have a US address and zip on it. This helps with online purchases and fuel pumps requiring zip codes. But it doesn't give me credit or points. :(
Some US on-line merchants do not accept CDN bank/institution issued cards even if they have a US address attached to them (they can tell from the card number). But obviously not an issue if one doesn't desire to use a card for that purpose (we do frequently). Plus rather than be subject to the exchange rate of the day when making purchases, we prefer to play the exchange rate game and buy US dollars when the rate is in our favor and use our US cards. It may all come out in the wash if the exchange rate doesn't vary much but.............. and we find our US cards useful for other purposes. RBC Bank USA has a rewards program for its Visa Cards.
RBC Bank USA Rewards
On the other hand, if one was going to use a CDN $ card in the US, the Amazon.ca Chase card would be near the top of my list. We do use our Capital One Mastercard for some US purchases but its 2% cash back provision cushions the exchange fee hit somewhat, albeit not totally. And, although RBC makes it as easy as possible, there certainly is a lot to be said for the simplicity of managing a single credit card. Watching exchange rates, buying and transferring money and managing multiple accounts and credit cards may be more than a lot of people would want to deal with.
Interestingly, some CDN bank issued US$ credit cards (in our case a BMO US$ card) can also be used at the pump if it has a US address and ZIP code attached to it (and then there's the postal code trick etc etc but this subject has been dealt with extensively on other past threads).
RE: CAN/US$ Exchange
I use RBC in Canada and RBC Bank US (headquartered in Georgia with a Winnipeg Call centre) in the US. You can transfer to the US acct using your Canadian online banking as well as view your US accounts and are charged just the standard exchange rate. I have an RBC US Client (Debit/Visa) card as well as a RBC US Visa rewards card. Note the banking data network is run by Visa in the US and using the client card as "Visa" will withdraw the amount instantly from your account so it is not a "credit card" really. Accounts Service charges are $2.95 per month (no transaction limits) and as others have suggested, you can get cash (generally up to $100) back on most purchases from merchants including Wally World so it is convenient. You can also use PNC banking machines if you can find one. From my perspective, this arrangement works well and I can transfer monies to the US account when the exchange rate is good. From what I have read here about what others have, it seems to be a pretty good and cost effective arrangement.
X2
In addition to no fee for using its debit card for cash at PNC ATMs, RBC Bank USA will refund the fee for using third party ATMs (up to two per month). We also find the RBC Bank USA credit card (and VISA debit card) handy for making on-line purchases from US companies that won't accept a CDN card. Using RBC's on-line banking system, we buy US dollars when the exchange rate is good and can at anytime instantly do no fee transfers back and forth between our CDN bank and US bank.
RE: Leaving Lynx levelers at CG while touring
....................On trick I used in Quartzsite (No hookups and had to drive a mile for Water and Dump every few days.) was when I got level the first time, I would place a stone by each tire on the drivers side. When I returned I could back right into the same spot. I didn't even have to readjust the Dish antenna.
We do the same thing very often. Small stones, twigs, whatever is handy, sometimes just marks in the dirt.
I forgot my water regulator on the faucet when changing sites at Koreshan SP. Remembered about 30 minutes later. Walked back to retrieve but it had already been liberated.
RE: Leaving Lynx levelers at CG while touring
We don't leave anything behind that we are not prepared to lose. Several times, we have had lawn chairs, electric cords, water hoses, table cloths, and leveling boards "stolen" while we were away from the site with the camper. Once, in a state park, we had our table cloth (minus clips), water hose and electric cord returned to our site a couple of days after they went missing. I'm guessing they thought we had forgotten all these items but when they saw our camper come back that night they decided to return them later at a time when we were not at the site.
We travel widely and stay at many different parks. Now if we leave anything at a site (and we only do so if we are sure we are returning since we too have been known to just move on rather than return to the site at the end of the day) we always use an occupied site sign. Still no guarantee, but we haven't had anything taken since. If we are not feeling comfortable, we may only leave the occupied sign and nothing else because we find that sometimes people do not read the little permits on the post (and some parks don't use these at all) and it's a nuisance to find someone else on your site when you return late (always got sorted out but a pain none-the-less).
RE: Florida tolls
Get a Sunpass the day before you leave and put enough on it to cover the tolls to the end of the Turnpike. Load it a day before you leave.
Is it possible to get one without being in the state? Thanks.
I think CVS pharmacies sell them. Give them a credit card number and have them mail you one. Call the 800 number and put some money on it.
I bought one last year from the Sunpass web site and they mailed it to Canada. Was all set up when we got to Florida.
