We don’t like...

But she’s not so impressed with “Hotels that stick rigorously to their 3pm check-in time, even when the place is clearly not busy and cleaning staff have long since disappeared. Lurking in the foyer for unnecessary hours does not contribute to a good Tripadvisor review.” Tell us what you like and don’t like in the world of travel. Email travel@nzherald.co.nz Inland see Budapest has been voted the world’s top cruise destination for 2017 — quite some achievement considering it’s further from the sea than any other port in Europe. The Hungarian capital won the Cruise Critic cruisers’ choice for “its rich history and architectural beauty”. Travel Wires has boarded a river cruise along the green Danube in Budapest and can only applaud the discernment of the website’s readers. (By the way, cruisecritic.com is one of the most authoritative and well-researched travel advice sites around, far better than its sibling, TripAdvisor). Other rising ports of call: Alaska, Singapore and Dubrovnik, because some people can’t go anywhere unless it involves a tedious and overblown TV series. French bred Downunder, the winner is Akaroa. Fourth last year, our little piece of France on Banks Peninsula creamed last year’s winner, some obscure village on the shores of Botany Bay, followed by Auckland and Tauranga. Canterbury Tourism’s Caroline Blanchfield says: “This award shows that visitors find the town a beautiful place to visit and are obviously enjoying the Akaroa experience and its people.” Enjoy it while you can: Lyttelton’s $56 million cruise berth opens in 2019. Hold to ransom Britain’s rapacious low-cost airlines have started charging passengers to keep their carry-on luggage with them in the cabin. Jet2 has brought in a fee to “guarantee” that cabin baggage does not go into the hold, starting at £2.59 a person for each bag each way. Ryanair says only the first 90 passengers are guaranteed to keep their bags with them — and it charges extra to board first. Coincidentally, the fees appeared just as families jetted off for school holiday trips. A consumer group found the UK’s top 10 carriers made £21.5bn in extras last year, up from £1.6bn in 2007. Flight to nowhere “The world’s most useless airport” will finally get a scheduled flight — but no one knows when or how much seats will cost. The $500m St Helena airport was built at UK taxpayers’ expense to provide a lifeline for the remote South Atlantic island where Napoleon was exiled and died. Despite warnings about tricky weather conditions, a runway was built in 2016, and immediately closed because of wind shear. South Africa’s Airlink will fly from Johannesburg to St Helena each Saturday. The UK Government will subsidise the operation up to $3.3m in the first year — $870 for each available seat.

— travel@nzherald.co.nz