I hope this won't change your affection for me Helenz, but I don't really think fodors has become banal. In many ways I think registration has been an improvement. But I do miss those names, and the challenge of coming up with them myself. A big MWAH back atcha!

Before registration, there were days I laughed so hard at this forum, I practically wet my neighbor. I'd re-tell the postings and responses at parties. Good times.

Now, it's just b-o-r-i-n-g. And I don't trust half of the people posting, because people's tastes vary so widely. I see people raving about a hotel I consider mediocre at best, and think "Good God!"

I have gotten valuable info here, don't get me wrong. But so much of it is generic, and you have no understanding of the poster's weltanschauung.

The above poster qualifies falls into the category as an intelligent comment . . . Tansy, you sent me off to the Merriam Webster to look up the word "weltanschauung". For anyone else who's scratching their head, it's a "worldview" or to be precise,
the overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world; and a collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.