Living in New York, I've been surrounded by the tense faces and deflated spirits of picketing writers and Broadway stage hands for weeks. My husband works in Times Square and watching little girls cry over their beloved Wicked closed down, and hearing heartbroken tourists telling stories of waiting to see 'Phantom' for over a year has given the city a bristly, forlorn, confused, and irritable energy. Of course... it always kind of feels that way, but now it's amplified.
You probably know the Broadway strike is finally over and cost the city about $2 million per day in lost revenue. Most of the city seemed to support the strikers and hoped there would be a fair and proactive agreement within a few days. But aside from the politics of Broadway's unions and the effects on the city, how do travelers protect themselves against interruption? How many tourists from rural America are going to have the inside scoop on the trends of Broadway to figure out if a strike may or may not happen?
And what about the more familiar interruptions? Despite keeping your fingers crossed, it's impossible to know when you might get ill or when an emergency will arise. Most would-be travelers are now using services like priceline, orbitz, and expedia, as well as Internet airfare deals straight from the airline, which do not compensate for emergencies. I'm sure you've all discovered the hard way that tickets and hotels from any kind of discount provider are rarely refundable. And don't forget about the tours you may have booked in advance, tickets to shows, and other special events.
The price of travel insurance is worth protecting yourself from unforeseen interruptions. But you can also protect yourself by researching all refundable policies relating to your travel. Will the airline charge a $100 change fee (which is better than losing your airline ticket outright). Does the hotel have a cancellation policy? Keep an eye out for the small box on sites like Expedia that allow you to pay extra and insure your ticket against emergencies. Always make sure to purchase any show tickets from a reputable vendor like Ticketmaster who will refund or credit your money in case of cancellation -- or strike. Also check with your credit card company and find out what their policies are on insuring your goods and services bought on credit.
But just as important as the monetary compensation is having an innovative back-up plan. When I went to Paris for the first time, the Metro and all the museums (that's right, including the Louvre) were on strike. What started out as an extremely stressful misadventure turned into loads of fun. It was my first time overseas and I had no idea what to do. My roomie at the time had a brilliant idea to use the hop-on, hop-off tour buses to get to all the attractions. They were surprisingly uncrowded and took us everywhere we wanted to go. We were out of luck with the museums, but sat down with a guide book and looked at other attractions that we would have otherwise missed had we been slugging through museums all day. I like to have a certain element of spontaneity and go with the flow while traveling. If you pin all your hopes on just one event, you're likely to be disappointed.
As far as the poor tourists who missed out on their favorite shows, they hopefully stumbled upon the TKTS booth in Times Square or in the Southstreet Seaport. These booths sell Broadway and off-Broadway tickets at discounted prices for a performance of the same day. They may have discovered 8 shows were still running and a variety of other performances were available. And if all else fails, there's always the drag queen shows at Lucky Cheng's to keep even the most conservative of tourists entertained.
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The Broadway Strike and Unexpected Travel Interruptions
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