Want a good value on your next vacation? Sure, we all do. Phoenix, shown here from atop Camelback Mountain, was recently rated one of the top places for good travel deals. According to the Hotwire Travel Value Index released yesterday, these are top U.S. cities for travelers to hit up when they’re looking to stretch their vacay dollars:

1. Phoenix

2. Dallas-Fort Worth

3. Orlando

4. Denver

5. Atlanta

6. Los Angeles

7. Washington, DC

8. Kansas City

9. Miami

10. Milwaukee

Frankly, I’m surprised to see L.A. and Miami on the list, as I was just last week hunting for decent deals on hotels in both cities and came up surprisingly short. I mean, yeah, you can stay somewhere cheap, but it often means staying somewhere really bland, really out of the way or really sketch. And that’s not what I call a “value.” In my mind, a good value is something a traveler can get excited about. Not just an inexpensive place to bunk in.

That said, the HTVI rates cities on more than just existing hotel rates. The range of activities in a city and availability of affordable entertainment also figure in. And both Miami and L.A. have plenty of affordable entertainment options (beaches, museums, landmarks). Then again, both cities also happen to have some of the country’s most expensive and exclusive restaurants, bars, retail shops and clubs. Really, in the end, whether or not you’ll get a good value in in any of the cities on the list depends heavily on what you enjoy doing when you travel.

Some unsuspecting guests at Disney’s Pop Century Resort were recently bilked out of close to $11,000 after handing over their credit card numbers to phone callers pretending to be resort employees. Luckily for the guests, Disney refunded the money. But news of the scam is a reminder to travelers that - as the old adage goes - when something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

If a person claiming to be a hotel employee calls your room and requests a credit card number for any reason, tell them you’ll be happy to clear up the matter in person with a visit to the front desk. There’s absolutely no reason a hotel employee should need to take your credit card number over the phone when you’re a current guest.

Credit Card Scam Hits Unsuspecting Walt Disney World Resort Guests

If you’re going to be in New York this weekend and you love travel, consider checking out the New York Times Travel Show, a veritable smorgasbord of travel information from resorts, hotels, spas, cruise lines, tour operators, tourist agencies and adventure travel companies from around the world. Along with vendor booths and live entertainment performances representing a vast array of cultures, the show features a Taste of the World Pavilion filled with international cuisine and cooking demonstrations, a Spa Pavilion offering sample treatments and discounted packages at spa resorts, travel author appearances and special travel deals offered to folks brave enough to book their next vacation on the spot. And with travel experts Rick Steves, Arthur Frommer, Ian Wright and Stephanie Abrams - among many others - leading seminars, the show offers a rare chance for face-to-face learning from leading peeps in the industry. Cost: $15.

Pop Quiz

Question: The greatest football team ever to roam the planet earth?
Answer: Daaaaaa Bears!

Question: The greatest coach ever to lead a football team to certain victory?
Answer: Ditka!

Question: It’s Ditka vs. Superman. Who would win?
Answer: Ditka!

Question: If Ditka fought the sun, who would win?
Answer: C,mon, ask me a tough one. Ditka!

Question: When was the last time you were seen in public wearing a coconut bra?
Answer: Ditka!!!!!

If you answered any of the above questions correctly, or have been known to eat brats while experiencing a mild heart attack, then we’ve got two vacation destinations for you: Mike Ditka’s Lighthouse Key Resort and Spa and the Runaway Beach Club, both in Orlando, FL.

Opening this weekend, the Lighthouse Key is the larger of the two resorts and offers villas with gourmet kitchens, washers and dryers and flat screen TVs. On the grounds, visitors will find two pools, a huge European spa, fitness facilities and a 50-seat movie theater. For a weekend in April, I found rates starting at $299/day for a two-bedroom suite.

Also, opening this weekend, The Runaway Beach Club Resort also offers villa accommodations with similar amenities, but has smaller grounds and fewer resort amenities, i.e. no grand European spa. But there are two pools and a fitness center. For a weekend in April, I found a one-bedroom villa starting at $149/night and a two-bedroom villa starting at $189/night.

Don’t forget to grow out that ’stache before you go!

Both resorts offer free shuttle service to Walk Disney World theme parks (both resorts are within 2.5 miles of the maingate).

Yeah, last minute travel can be cool. But it can also leave you cash poor, especially when you’re talking high-season travel in major vacation destinations. But as with most things in life, a just little edumuhcation can go a long way. Case in point: Kayak.com’s Fare Alerts.

Create a Fare Alert (or 12) on Kayak.com or SideStep.com for the summer getaway(s) currently sequestered in your noggin by clicking on the “Get fare alerts for this trip” link on the top right-hand corner of the flight results page. You can track fares for specific dates, a flexible span of time (e.g. summer weekends or, say, the month of June) or an entire region (e.g. Europe). When your daily or weekly Fare Alert (you choose how often it arrives) touches down in your email inbox, you’ll be able to make informed travel decisions.

Depending on what you ask it to track (specific dates, flexible span of time or even top cities in a region), each Fare Alert can show you:

- How much the fare for specific dates has increased or decreased in dollars since the last alert

- The airfare history for your trip dates based on searches made by Kayakers over the past 90 days

- A snapshot of prices in Kayak.com’s matrix view, so you can quickly compare prices by carrier and number of stops

- The lowest fare available during a specific span of time (e.g. the next four weekends)

- The best fares available for popular destination cities in a region you want to visit (e.g. Africa)

Who knows, maybe you’ll still pay craptons to travel to the most expensive resort on the hottest island right in the middle of the high season. After all, it’s high season for a reason. But at least you’ll be pimping it out with full knowledge of your unbridled American excess. Just remember the wisdom of G.I. Joe.

(**Editor’s note: Yeah, Kayak.com owns us. You wanna make something of it? I’ll have you know I was surreptitiously using Fare Alerts to aid in making my personal travel plans long before Kayak.com bought our parent company SideStep.com in December. Nepotism, bias, blah, blah, blah. Fare Alerts just make good travel sense.)

This past weekend marked the one-year anniversary of the death of Anna Nicole Smith at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. Along with it came plenty of news stories reflecting on the former Guess and Playboy model’s larger-than-life persona, the lifestyle she seemed to love flaunting to the world and her accidental overdose on a lethal combination of prescription drugs. But for travel geeks, the most interesting tidbit of information surrounding Smith’s death is not so much what happened, but where - and what’s happened there since.

As we reported back in August 2007 (You Can’t Stay Where Anna Nicole Died), the room where Smith was found is no longer. After Smith was found unconscious in room 607 of the hotel and died later that day in the hospital, the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel gutted and remodeled the three-room suite and even went so far as to change the all room numbers on the sixth floor. Why? To deter visitors with a taste for the macabre from visiting the hotel in hopes of sleeping in the room where Smith last laid her platinum head. (Yeah, we know. Guess you’ll have to cross one destination off your “must visit” list.)

Room 607 - at least the version that existed when Smith fatefully checked into the Hollywood, Fla. hotel last February - may no longer be part of the hotel, but some guests say that the room’s removal hasn’t stopped the blond bombshell from sticking around. According to one (cough, tall) tale, Smith was seen on New Year’s Even in the hotel lobby:

Now at least one guest that attended a party there earlier this year believes that she has spotted Anna’s spirit wandering the resort….The guest tells the weekly entertainment magazine In Touch that she believes that she saw the late star’s ghost wandering the hotel. “The ghost looked just like Anna,” Pont says.

Riiiight. All we can say is that must have been one fun party.

Anna, R.I.P.

File this under Ironies in Travel:

Disney World Bans Children from Fanciest Park Restaurant

When I saw this headline, I thought to myself, now who exactly goes to Disney World - of all places - to get away from children? And then I thought, duh, precisely the parents who brought them there!

With the push of the holidays upon us, travelers have even more reason to seek out pampering and personal maintenance services in airport terminals. And hey, what better way is there to spend a lengthy layover than indulging in a massage? But which airports have the best spas? According to Style.com, the Five Great Airport Spas that stand out from the crowd are:

1. Oasis Day Spa - John F. Kennedy International Airport

2. Jetsetter Spa - Boston Logan International and Miami International Airport

3. OraOxygen (pictured) - Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport and Calgary International Airport

4. Departure Spa - Newark Liberty International Airport and Orlando International Airport

5. Elemis Travel Spa - John F. Kennedy International Airport and London Heathrow Airport

Looking for a second opinion? Citysearch has a longer list titled Top 10 U.S. Airport Spas.

Celebrity Travel 11.09.07

Things have been relatively quiet in celebrity travel news this week, a few things of note did happen. Just don’t get too excited.

Jen’s Haunted House

Halloween may have already disappeared in the rear-view mirror, but Jennifer Anniston is still acting like it’s in full swing. The actress is reportedly staying at the Heathman Hotel in Portland, Oregon while filming upcoming movie Management (which also stars Woody Harrelson, whom we absolutely love for being such a certifiable nut and total Hollywood iconoclast).

While the five-star Heathman does not actively promote its designation as a haunted hotel, the current hotel manager acknowledged the hotel’s ghostly goings-on, but said guests shouldn’t be worried. Apparently, the supernatural guests at this Portland lodging option are the friendly sort. Considering the location, they’re probably the ghosts of hippies past.

Nicky On the Block

In news we already knew but lacked the legal documents to prove, it looks like Nicky Hilton’s Nicky O Hotel is dead. But this time, it’s deader than dead. Instead of just not happening, the hotel project now has the embarrassing tarnish that only bankruptcy can bring. According to court documents obtained by TMZ, a judge has ordered the Breakwater hotel that was supposed to become the first Nicky O Hotel property to be sold at auction to make up for some of the bungled project’s $60 million of debt.

High-Energy Holmes

Last weekend, Katie Holmes reportedly treated daughter Suri to a posh tea party at the Carlyle Hotel’s Bemelmans Bar on Saturday. The next day, the star ran in the New York Marathon.

Sheesh, the girl just might qualify for the most energetic woman of the year award. On second thought, I’m starting to think she might be a robot.

Bada Bling

Pockets were getting padded at the El San Juan Hotel and Casino launch party held in Puerto Rico last weekend. Sopranos actor Robert Iler (a.k.a. “AJ”) reportedly won $10,000 playing craps at the resort, which was celebrating the completion of its $100 million renovation project. Other celebs at the party included Nick Lachey, Vanessa Minnillo and Michael Lombardi.

Speaking of the Sopranos, we hear that Lorraine Bracco was hanging out in the VIP lounge at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, FL.

Also last week, the Gramercy Park Hotel was the much-talked-about site of Ashely Olsen and Lance Armstrong’s reported spit-swapping session. This week, the celebrity magnet hosted Duran Duran, Richie Sambora, Roberto Cavalli, Fran Drescher and Donovan Leitch, among others.

Here’s hope the celebs get into some better rumbles next week.

Crushed Hooters

It seems staying in a Hooters-themed inn isn’t for everyone. Or really, for much of anyone at all. After pouring $1 million into its Lakeland, FL inn back in 2002, the owl-loving restaurant chain demolished the Hooters Inn Motel over the weekend. But fear not, ye traveling fans of buffalo wings and hot pants, the adjacent Hooters Restaurant along Interstate 4-U.S. 98 remains. Phew.

Emeril Does Vegas… Again

Come January 2008, celeb chef and restaurateur Emeril Lagasse will open a Table 10 restaurant at The Palazzo, which is currently being built by the Las Vegas Sands Corp next to the Venetian Resort Hotel and Casino. The new dining destination will be Lagasse’s third in Sin City.

Up, Up in the Air

Last week, Frontier Airlines began the first non-stop service between Denver and Sioux City today, something we are sure plenty of traveling Iowans will consider a pretty Sioux-weet development.

Southwest Plays Fashion Police Again

This time, the airline objected not to a woman’s skimpy outfit, but to a fishing enthusiast’s t-shirt emblazoned with the phrase, “Master Baiter.” The passenger changed his t-shirt, but not before protesting that the airline’s request infringed upon his First Amendment right to free speech. Of course, then he sat down and shut up so he could make it home on time. In other news, Southwest officially has the sense of humor of a British governess. From the 1800’s.

Sustainable Tourism Made Simple

Travelers these days are always looking for ways to “do good,” whether it be buying carbon offsets or heading on volunteer vacations. But there’s a much simpler and more concrete way to do good the next time you head to the airport: actually tip your skycap. Most baggage handlers who perform curbside check-in make the majority of their money in tips. Fork over a buck or two per bag. Consider it good travel karma.

In the Pink

As the Informed Traveler blog notes, the Kor Hotels group, which operates posh spots like the Viceroy Santa Monica, is offering special Think Pink rates, special pink cocktails and pinked-themed gifts at its hotels this month in honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. At the aforementioned Viceroy Santa Monica, the Think Pink package for a Saturday night in October starts at $379/night and includes overnight accommodations, pink velvet martinis for two and a fleece picnic throw (also known as a tiny blanket). Ten percent of the proceeds from your stay will benefit the UCLA Breast Cancer Center.