News, Tips & Bargains : New Tradition at Tivoli

For the first time in its 151-year history, Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens will be open over Christmas.

Tivoli, one of the world’s oldest amusement parks and a summertime tradition, begins its holiday schedule Friday and ends it with a New Year’s Eve fireworks display. The park will be closed Dec. 24-26.

More than 100,000 colored lights will twinkle in the park, which was built in 1843 on the ramparts that once surrounded medieval Copenhagen. The Danish capital has since grown around Tivoli.

Although the park’s rides will remain closed, several of its restaurants will be open, serving traditional Danish holiday fare--pork roast, duck and goose along with red cabbage, glazed potatoes, sweet dumplings and glogg, hot burgundy with almonds, raisins and spices.

Several shops will also be open, selling Christmas decorations and gifts, and Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations” will be performed in Danish at the Glass House Theater.

Tivoli’s holiday hours will be noon to 11 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 7 p.m. Sunday. Admission will be free.

Five Diamonds for Nine Hotels

Nine hotels, including three in California, have been awarded their first Five Diamond rankings by the American Automobile Assn.

In California, the 1995 newcomers include Chateau du Sureau in Oakhurst, the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles and the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco. Other first-time awardees are the Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island, Fla.; the Four Seasons, St. Regis Hotel and the Ritz-Carlton in New York City; the Fearrington House Inn in Fearrington, N.C. (just south of Chapel Hill), and the Fiesta Americana Coral Beach Cancun in Cancun, Mexico. The nine are among 53 lodgings and 25 restaurants in North America that this year earned the Five Diamond designation, AAA’s highest honor.

DOT Revises Air Travel Guide

“Fly-Rights: A Consumer Guide to Air Travel,” revised for the first time in nine years, is now available from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The pocket-sized “Fly-Rights” describes federal regulations in areas such as overbooking, smoking and refunds, and contains new chapters on frequent-flyer programs, travel scams and the rights of disabled travelers, among other topics. There is also a list of more than two dozen consumer travel publications available from agencies such as the State Department, the Customs Service and the Federal Aviation Administration.

The 58-page booklet is available by writing to the Consumer Information Center, Department 133-B, Pueblo, Colo. 81009. The price is $1.75. Enclose a check or money order payable to the Superintendent of Documents.

Rental Car Roundup

Following in the tracks of Avis, Hertz has announced that it’s installing computer navigational systems in more cars and in more locations than Avis: California, Florida, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York and Washington, D.C.

Avis, meanwhile, has started a Return Valet service in which customers dropping off cars will be driven to their airline terminals at 35 major airports (including LAX, San Diego and San Francisco in California) for a fee, from $4 to $12.

And Alamo is offering one day’s free lift ticket to customers who reserve and rent a four-wheel-drive vehicle for a day in selected cities in Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico, Dec. 1 to April 30. Rates start at $39 a day.