PeterRS

I think when any hotel listed on a site like Tripadvisor gets 1,495 5-star reviews from those who allegedly stayed there and 1,371 of these are in that 5-star category, there has to be, as some would say, something fishy about the figures! When I was working for one company and they put executives up in 4- or 5-star hotels in Singapore, I can definitely state that no hotel I ever stayed in was as bad as the Marina Bay Sands. I forgot to mention that in my large non-smoking room, there were six cigarette burns on parts of the furniture. No doubt this was partly a result of the hotel appealing to so many Chinese tourists whose sole reason for staying was the casino in the basement. But my stays were quite some years ago and perhaps things have improved.

Finally a video has been posted on the web which shows what a really fun day Sunday was. And some photos also from the web Photo: Peerapon Boonyakiat/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images Photo: The Nation Photo: Dodge Photography Photo: Dodge Photography

Apologies again. The date I wrote is the one given on the official FGG site. But surprisingly it lists no year. In fact, the ten original finalists were decided in May LAST year. Hence Denver and Perth only just now being announced as the two finalists for 2030.

A fair point. I do not understand the various internal rules within One World carriers. Although Cathay Pacific was my home carrier for decades, once One World started I switched to British Airways. Although the miles were the same whichever one I flew, with BA's loyalty programme based on a points system rather than actual miles, I found that with one round-the-world trip I could gain almost enough points to reach Gold status and therefore Emerald on One World. On CX I would need to fly twice as many miles to reach that status. To the fury of BA Executive Club members, BA massively reduced its perks over Christmas last year. Now miles and tier benefits are based on how much you actually pay - and you must pay a great deal more than before. I wonder how long the million mile programmes can last. Back in the 1990s before One World, CX had a programme that if you flew 2 million kms you qualified for lifetime membership of their Marco Polo Club with access to first class lounges and other perks even when flying economy. As that was a decade when I was flying virtually every fortnight, I quickly built up those kms. Having reached 1.7 million, CX joined One World and immediately cancelled the 2 million km deal! As @unicorn suggests, what mght happen if - or more likely when - Alaska changes its rules. I have a friend in Sydney who for many years vritually commuted to Melbourne. He preferred Ansett to Qantas and had built up a mileage bank of around 330,000 miles. Then Ansett went bust and all those miles went down the drain!

A sad day. He achieved so much for the gay community. I love his quote mentioned in The Guardian obituary that @tm_nyc posted - Having come up in the late 1970s, he once said of his generation: "Gay fiction before that, Gore Vidal and Truman Capote, was written for straight readers. We had a gay readership in mind, and that made all the difference. We didn’t have to spell out what Fire Island was.”

So true. In the example I quoted, the huge Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, it is a fabulous looking building. The problem is that it was a vanity project of the SIngapore government, often referred to as Singapore Inc., and so could not be seen to be anything other than excellent. When the Convention organisers accommodated me there it was one of the three highest ranked Singapore 5-star hotels in the Tripadvisor ratings. Yet with 1,850 rooms, the queuing was horrendous - 20 minutes for checkin, 5 minutes every time you wanted a lift, nearly 20 minutes before a table for breakfast (and no other eateries close by), trying to swim in the rooftop infinity pool with 80 or more tourists who had merely paid to get up there to gawk at the pool looking directly at you, 20 minutes to get a drink, and then another 20 minutes for checkout - no automatic checkout, the whole experience was near ghastly! I was quite pleased that after my correspondence with Tripadvisor, the hotel gradually moved down the 5-star rankings and within about a year was virtually the lowest!

And @Keithambrose is another who has not provided any explanation. Taking all the accurate quotes in my post into account from various posts in various threads, his comment does not stand up. Without an explanation he merely jumps on the bandwagon of criticism. His post then becomes all but worthless.

I note that @khaolakguy still backs off providing any explanation for his use of the word "deranged". His post was also a pitiful attempt to persuade others to read just one thread when my post had specifically - and very importantly - referred to and quoted from two threads, one written in February. His comments were selective and inaccurate, and he chickens out of backing them up.

As one who still travels quite a lot (although not on cruises), I am frankly sick and tired of all the requests I receive to complete satisfaction (or otherwise) questionnaires. On my March trip to the UK, I stayed with a familly member most of the time. But I also had one night in London. With six flights, I had two questionnaires from British Airways, four from Cathay Pacific and one from the hotel. For last week-end's trip to Taipei, I have had two from China Airlines and two from the hotel agent - one for experience on arrival and one on overall experience at departure. I do accept that the opinion of other travellers can be useful. The problem I find is that so many different travellers have so many different expectations. So how do you assess the accuracy of questionnaire results? I trash some but in others will highlight any bad service or areas which could be improved. On the other hand, if I have had particularly good service I will always include that in my comments along with staff names. However, I also know that some travel sites deliberately manipulate their supposed travellers' comments. Years ago i used to value Tripadvisor's comments. Until i had the unfortunate experience of staying at the flagship Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore when attending a Conference. I disliked the experience from arrival to departure, but found that Tripadvisor had many one-line comments basically stating how wonderful the hotel is. I dd some research. I discovered that of something like 20 such comments, 16 were fake in that they had been inserted by staff at affiliate companies of the hotel. Getting in touch with Tripadvisor is not easy, but I wrote to their head office. Then, surprise, surprise, virtually all of those comments disappeared! Only after that did I read a Business Traveller magazine comment about how Tripadvisor manipulates its comments section.

300,000 marchers would be absolutely amazing. Somehow I find that number hard to believe - but then I was not there. Only a couple of years ago the numbers were barely in the thousands. PS: There is a vdo on an Indian website which clearly shows there were lots of marchers and lots of spectators. It merely states that thousands marched, but from the video it looks quite a bit more. Excellent news. As for the number 300,000, this is not a fact. It was merely a guesstimate given of the number of likely participants on another website thaipr.net and provided in advance by Waaddao Ann Chumaporn, Chair and Founder of Naruemit Pride and organizer of Bangkok Pride Festival 2025. He said, "We expect more than 300,000 Thai and international participants to join the parade." It took Taipei about a dozen years to build up to the 100,000 marchers mark. I guess that Bangkok probably had somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000. Even so, that in itself would be a huge advance on previous years. https://www.wionews.com/videos/thousands-march-in-bangkok-s-annual-pride-parade-1748781327294 https://www.thaipr.net/en/life_en/3605358

Participants is one thing - and a good one at that. But I wonder how many took part in the Pride March. That's also a key issue.

On May 2, the FGG announced ten finalilsts in the bidding for the 2030 Games. This is what is called "The Long List" and it is eventually narrowed down to about 3, I believe. The Denver site claims that the list has been narrowed to 2 - Denver and Perth after Auckland bowed out. How the bid process narrowed so quickly I have no idea! And since Vancouver already hosted the 1990 Games, I cannot understand why it is back on the list! https://www.denver.org/gay-games-2030/press-releases/denver-moves-closer-to-hosting-2030-gay-games-as-bid-field-reduces-to-two/ Adelaide, Australia Auckland, New Zealand CapeTown, South Africa Denver, Colorado, USA Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Frankfurt, Germany Melbourne, Australia Perth, Australia Taipei, Taiwan Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

You may well be right in your comments re Taipei. But I cannot agree with you about Tokyo. I hope I am wrong, but from my experience it just is not going to happen any time soon. There certainly have been quite major developments with more attention being given by various of the 23 wards in the city to their LGBTQ communities. Shibuya was the first iin 2017 and it has been followed by 12 others. The mayor of Suginami ward, Sakoto Nishimoto, told the Japan Times last December that it is "essential to enshrine same-sex marriage in law." The mayors of nine other city wards have called on the government to review the rights of same sex partners. This follows the ruling in the Tokyo High Court last October where the presiding judge stated that not allowing same-sex couples to marry is unconstitutional. He added that the ban is "a groundless legal discrimination based on sexual orientation" which violates two articles of the Japanese Constitution. In Japan, judges have no rights to overturn laws. Only the national Diet (parliament) can do that. And this is the crux of the problem because the Prime Minister and a considerable number of politicians are against giving same-sex couples the right to marry. Japan has basically had just one party in power for most of the period since the 1950s and that party has a considerable number of ultra-conservative right wing members. https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/12/29/tokyo-ward-mayors-call-for-more-rights-for-same-sex-couples/ I just believe that the developments in LGBTQ rights have been too slow to host World Pride. Besides, although the Tokyo Gay Pride Marches started way back in 1994 (almost ten years before Taipei started its Pride March), the official Japan Gay guide website estimates that this year there will only be 1,100 marchers! That no doubt disguises the fact that Pride events around this huge city, which include a large number of entertainment and other spectacles, attract even more than Taipei's 200,000. That perhaps gives greater importance to the 47.2% of the population discovered to be in favour of same-sex marriage by a 2023 Stanford University Study. As with many research studies, how many really hold this view as opposed to those who only feel they should hold the view is unknown.

With respect, I think the Hong Kong Games were nothing like a good example. Please remember that Hong Kong bid for the Games back in 2016 and the city was awarded the exclusive right to host them in October 2017. Sixteen other cities around the world had been part of the bidding process. That surely is an indication of the amount of tourism revenues the Games can bring to a cty. People in Hong Kong at that time were overjoyed. But Hong Kong then was massively different from what it was soon to become. This was not primarily the result of the city's lock-down measures to combat covid, although these did push the Games back by a year. It was a result of huge political changes in the city following years of protests. In 2020, the laws were changed in Hong Kong. Basically the new National Security Law had a very distinct "I love China" element. Hundreds of activists were rounded up and jailed, while others fled verseas where they remain. Beijing was determined that never again would Hong Kong permit demonstrations against Hong Kong government policy and actions. Briefly, it also did not want the Gay Games! But it was stuck with them. It attempted to have them moved out of Chinese territory, but failed. In February 2022, the leader of Hong Kong's bid stepped down. The FGG Committee then realised it had to do something or the Games might not even happen. They were probably right, for in the month prior to the Games, seven local politicians called for them to be banned as they might infringe on the National Security Law. Even before then, in June activists had called on the FGG to cancel the Hong Kong Games. Before that political mess, the organisers had offered half the events to the city which had come second in the 2017 bidding, Guadalajara. By splitting the events into two in different continents ten thousand or so kms apart, the FGG basically shot itself in the foot. No spectators were going to spend hard-earned cash commuting between the two cities. Naturally they would choose one or the other. With Hong Kong becoming politically far more dicey, it was inevitable that virtually all the spectators chose to go to Mexico. Besides, as @hojacat has rightly pointed out, with zero government desire then for Hong Kong to host the Games, it ensured that as little PR as possible was undertaken. Even some Hong Kong people did not know they were taking place! In my earlier post, I got the date of the 2026 Valencia games slightly wrong. They start on 26 June and last for 12 days. An estimated 12,000 sports participants are expected along with up to 3,000 for the cultural events. 100,000 spectators are also expected. For the Games held in Paris in 2018, only 33% of spectators were French of which 18% were from the city of Paris. Of the remaining 67%, 33% came from the USA. Given these figures are from 7 years ago, I think they actually prove that the Gay Games can be a significant money spinner for the host cities., better even than the much shorter World Pride Events. Taipei's Pride March certainly attracts huge crowds, but of the 200,000 marchers, certainlly the vast majority are from Taiwan. I can find no figures, but I expect the number of incoming tourists to be less than around 10%.

@floridarob you are entitled to your opinion which I know you frequently express. You can also call me an ass or whatever you like. But when someone calls one of my posts "deranged", that poster clearly has a reason for it. In which case he has a duty to explain that reasoning both to me and other members to whom it has been expressed publicly. If he does not, @khaolakguy is merely showing his very distinct cavalier attitude to posting by other members without taking the issues expressed in them anything like seriously. He has covered up his obvious concern at his statement because all he has done is suggest others read the posts. That's just a cop out! Other posters have never used the word "deranged". He just makes himself appear foolish! This may be a "dead horse" to you. It is not to me!

The Olympic Fitness Club at the Pathumwan Princess Hotel at the end of MBK is one of the largest in the city and has a membership consisting of many younger Thais. I have stayed at the hotel but did not visit the Club. I am told it is more than usually cruisy.

Statistics for the period May 1 - 14 show that rainfall was 95% greater this year compared to the 30-year average. In a Bangkok Post article much of the rain during the month fell in what it calls "rain bombs". These were caused by a stronger southwest monsoon in the Gulf of Thailand coupled with a stronger monsoon covering the north of the country and part of the south. Then between May 25 and 27 the deluge of rain was reminiscent of the severe flooding of 2011. All this is odd because May is not generally a month for heavy rain. Associate Professor Seree Supratid, director of the Center for Climate Change and Disasters at Rangsit University, has said that the weather phenomenon La Nina has altered its usual pattern this year with climate instability and unpredictable seasonal shifts. However, he suggests that rainfall will ease this month and next, with August and September seeing drier weather. The rains will then return in October as usual. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/3041376/rain-bombs-revive-fears-of-2011-floods

Condom use - or the inceasing lack of it over the last dozen and more years - has become a topic occasionally covered by this Board. If I read posts correctly, the general view seems to be that all sex has risks, but with relatively more recent medications like PrEP and treatments for early detection of some other STIs like syphillis, the need for condom protection is now far less. But there are other STIs out there and, as discussed in this thread, gonorrhoea is one which now has to be taken much more seriously. I remember the pre-HIV days when we all took risks and maybe some of us caught the occasional STI which was relatively easily treated. Then came HIV-AIDS which quite literally put the fear of death into us. I may have reduced my sexual activity but certainly did not stop it. I just made sure that I had a constant supply of condoms and lube both at home and on my frequent travels. I knew there were some countries I visited where gay sex was pretty much a taboo subject. I would have felt more than awful had I knowingly or otherwise infected a young guy realising he would die as a result. Even when AZT and the anti-retrovirals became more common, I was never without a condom and that has remained pretty much the case even today. With a young partner in Thailand and, with his knowledge not being sexually inactive when travelling, his health and the simple desire not to pass on any STI I might otherwise have picked up I believe this is being sensible. I know others do not agree. I know too that the lack of condom use, especially among Thailand's younger generations, is especially worrying. I hear of saunas outside the centre of Bangkok where condoms are rarely if ever used. To those of us who lived in the later 20th century, this always seems odd, given that it is the popularity of condom use that has brought the birth rate down from nearly 6 per family in the late 1960s to under two today. (One reason why we now see so few Thais in the gogo bars when you never saw non-Thais on their stages even 30 years ago). Condoms are in common use in Thailand. Yet the government seems to do nothing to get this mesage across to the nation's youngsters. It is desperately sad.

Further to my earlier post, the Denver Bid Committee website has announced there are now only two finalists on the short list for the 2030 Games - Denver and Perth, Australia. Third on that list would have been Auckland, New Zealand. Officials from the Federation of Gay Games will make final visits to the sites next month and it is expected that the announcement of the 2030 winning city will now be made at the end of the next Games being held in Valencia, Spain next month. https://www.denver.org/gay-games-2030/press-releases/denver-moves-closer-to-hosting-2030-gay-games-as-bid-field-reduces-to-two/

I envy your trip. I am not sure when you will be travelling but please remember that last year Greece suffered from dreadful fires. https://www.timeout.com/news/where-are-the-fires-in-greece-what-wildfires-in-kos-mean-for-your-trip-070224 Also the gorgeous island of Santorini has been subject to many small earthquakes this year. https://euroweeklynews.com/2025/05/30/planning-a-trip-to-santorini-heres-what-the-earthquakes-mean/

What a shame that no one seems to have attended the Pride March on Sunday! I was in Taipei that day but my partner went with some friends and they loved it, but it was the first one he has attended and so I don't think he had any expectations. Anyone know how many participated - i.e. marched? Khaosodenglish has a brief description along with a few photos. Other sites have some basic information. But I can find absolutely nothing about the numbers marching. And on google I find nothing from the Bangkok Post! https://www.khaosodenglish.com/life/2025/06/01/thailand-kicks-off-pride-month-with-a-parade-in-bangkok/#google_vignette The reason I think this is relatively important is that Bangkok has anounced it will be in the running to become the first Asian nation to host the 2030 Gay Games event. Actually it would not be the first. Hong Kong (yes, Hong Kong!) was co-host of the 2023 Games (postponed by a year due to covid). Denver has already announced it will bid for 2030. But of the previous 10 Games four have been held in US cities and I think Denver, despite a lot of backing, may miss out for that one reason. As I wrote a few days ago, there has been no news about Taipei perhaps applying to host the Games. With 200,000 marching in their annual Gay Pride Parades and with its having almost totally changed the island's approach to the LGBTQ community very significantly over the last 20 years, my gut feel is it would have a better chance of hosting than Bangkok. The host city will be announced some time next year.

Bravissmo! I think that is one of the funniest and most apt ways of handling such a question.

Fair point. I did send @bkkmfj2648 a PM response the same day that I first read his post which outlined my views in detail. Naturally PMs are private affairs and I asked that the matter not be dragged into the main forum. Please note I have had absolutely no response from @bkkmfj2648 to that PM which was sent more than five days ago.

You have had a day and an evening to respond to my question - - and no response from you who usually are pretty quick off the mark. But you may well have been busy. Still, I will appreciate knowing why you consider one post vindictive and the original post made by the other party is not? Or perhaps you did you not read the original post?

The comments I quoted are not cut and paste! And you have failed to answer my simple questions: how is my post above "deranged"? And how was my post in the Dangers thread "condescending"? Seriously, I am interested to know. As I have said, I accept all criticism for anything I write. But criticism has to have a reason - and you have made quite aggresssive comments but provided no reasoning.