Episode 1 The Travel Show

Heading to Europe's most popular theme park? If you're looking for a

good deal on tickets, we'll tell you why you might have to brush up on

your French. Coming up on this week's show, we

ask if Disneyland Paris is keeping some of its best prices a secret if

you book online. We tell you why this strange-looking contraption

might help you get over your jet lag. We sample some of the most

fashionable cocktails in northern Spain. And... Join me as I help

clean up some coral reefs here in Thailand.

Hello and welcome to The Travel Show, your new and essential guide

to global getaways from the BBC. We invite you to join us on our

travels, and in return, we'll offer you all the advice and information

that we pick up along the way. So here's a little taste of what we got

in store for you. We'll take you on a global tour of some of the most

exciting new emerging destinations, and discover hidden sides to the

world's most popular getaways. This is extremely difficult. One thing

you've got to be careful of is your balance. My top tip if you're into

diving like me is to head to Batala Maga Kanthila. We'll help you get

the best out of your gadgets while you're on the road, without

forgetting to experience the thrill of making memories that will really

last a lifetime. There'll be a wealth of additional destination

guides and features from the programme online, and even more at

BBC.com/travel. Plus, we'll feature your tweets and your travel tales

and you can follow us on our adventures on the road by signing up

to our feeds to join us real- time on our journeys around the globe.

Taking in over 70 countries and countless destinations in 2014.

Follow us on an amazing journey of discovery in 2014.

Let's kick off with a trip to France, home to Europe's most

popular theme park. But are Mickey and his gang being as upfront as

they could be about the cheapest prices to enter their magical

kingdom? Time to find out. Disneyland Paris opened with great

fanfare in 1992. More than 250 million people have

walked through the gates since then. These numbers make it the most

popular amusement park in Europe and fifth in the world, drawing in

tourists from across the globe. But the price you pay to actually get in

can end up varying depending on where you buy your tickets. Back in

London, I checked out the website. I've been looking online for the

cheapest price that a family of four would pay for seven days in the two

parks in February. Here in the UK, that would come to just over 1200

euros. However, if you jump on the train behind me for two hours, the

price changes significantly. If you visit the website in France,

a family of four is offered a much lower price for exactly the same

visit. At just over 600, it's less than half the price that I would

have paid in London. So, how does this work? It all comes down to

Disney's Annual Passports. On the French language websites in France

and Belgium, you can buy one of these passes for as little as 159

euros per person. For example, it could save you money on a five-day

trip but these passes are not mentioned at all on the websites we

checked outside France and Belgium, meaning people outside those

countries could end up paying a lot more. So what happens if you just

show up at the park? Yes, that's right, I've come to Disneyland Paris

to find out. Let's see what the cheapest price I can get is.

I have been to two ticket desks and I've found out that the cheapest

price I can get is half the price that you would get if you were

online in the UK. I would be gutted if I had spent that money and think

of all that extra cash I could be spending on Mickey while I'm over

here. In fact, we made four visits to the

gates to ask about ticket prices, and each time we were told that an

annual pass would work out cheaper if we were buying for seven days.

The leaflets and posters are also entirely in French, unlike other

advertising at the park. So, are they trying to keep these cheaper

prices a secret? We put this to them and they said: "All visitors are

able to purchase Annual Passports, either via the central reservations

office or the dedicated tickets sales desk at the park.

The annual passport was originally created and marketed towards the

local market, who are more likely to visit the resort several times in a

year. However, a variety of tailor- made promotions are offered at

different times of the year to reflect the local needs in each

market. Any guest wishing to purchase an offer seen on another

official Disneyland Paris website can call the central reservations

office." Well, that's what Disneyland Paris

had to say, but what can you do if you spot the cheaper passes when you

get to the gate? If when you get to the gate you find you've paid more

online than you could've got at the gate, what you need to do is make

them aware there and then that actually you've paid more, you're

not happy, and you want them to resolve it for you. Often, if you

can't resolve it, what you may have to do is go with the price that

you've paid for now and when you get back home to your country of

residence, make a complaint through the European Consumer Centre. The

European Consumer Centre helps EU citizens settle disputes across

borders. Those visiting from outside Europe can, of course, always

contact Disney directly with any concerns. Businesses should not now

charge somebody more depending on their country of residence or

nationality. If you find you've been charged more, you need to make sure

that you ask why. There can be legitimate reasons why you're

charged more, but question it and if necessary, make a complaint to the

European Consumer Centre. There's no doubt a trip to a theme park is a

lot of fun, whatever age you are. But if you're the kid at heart who

has to pick up the bills, here's your Travel Show guide to planning

the next trip. Tip one - before booking online, phone the attraction

direct and find out if there's a way to beat the web prices. Tip two -

always look at the price of annual passes. They can be surprisingly

good value if you're going for a few days. Tip three - combining

attractions with travel plans can save you cash. See if your flight,

train or bus operator offers combo deals. And tip four - look at offer

sites. If you are flexible on dates, you can get some real bargains on

quieter days. Still to come, the bottle that makes

water safe to drink in just 60 seconds and the sunglasses that can

mean you throw away your camera when you next go on holiday. But first,

here is this week's travel news. Hotel rates in Spain have taken a

nosedive over recent years, according to an industry insider.

UK-based hotel wholesaler JacTravel say that rates have dropped by

almost a third in Madrid, mainly because fewer Spaniards are visiting

the capital. So it could definitely work to your advantage to shop

around and see just how low hotels will go to get your booking. Fast

food giant McDonald's has opened its first ever outlet in

communist-controlled Vietnam. Up until now, the country has resisted

the lure of Big Macs, French fries and steaming hot apple pies. But now

they have succumbed to perhaps the most potent of capitalist culinary

icons. And researchers in Germany and the UK are investigating how

virtual reality technology could help people overcome their fear of

flying. Volunteers are being strapped into machines that recreate

turbulence and then being exposed to 3-D images of scenes which are meant

to counter the stress caused by a bumpy ride. The research is part of

a wider project aiming to predict what the in-flight experience will

be like 35 years from now. San Sebastian, in Spain's Basque

country, has long been renowned for its culinary imagination and

traditional cider production. More recently, the seaside city has

adopted Spain's drink of choice - the gin and tonic.

So I enlisted the help of some locals to see if I could find out

why this drink had become so popular. You see, this is where the

love is. In any other place in the world, you order for a gin and

tonic, I bet you they won't go like touching the, you know, where you're

going to put your lips. It's important. Ellie explained the

Basque have their own word for love when referred to food and drink.

Mimo. So it makes sense that locals wound up with a weakness for a drink

that aids in digestion, propelling the gin tonic, as it's called in

Spain, from a sloppily poured mixture to a perfected ritual.

More modern bartenders like to experience it with rose petals. It

seems like we have over 20 kinds of June to choose from. Right now, I'm

not going to pretend to know what to do with that. But it's not just

about the gym. It's about temperature. It poured into a huge

glass filled with ice rocks. But as amazing as the gin tonics were, we

knew we had barely scratched the surface of San Sebastian's rich food

and drinks scene. Needing a solid base for our evening, Ellie

introduced me to pintxos, the local version of tapas that, thankfully,

are always a delicious precursor to a night of drinking.

OK, everything looks amazing. Tell me what we're getting. In here,

they're called pintxos. I'll get you to try some hot pintxos from the

kitchen or maybe some ham, of course. Whatever you think is the

best, I'll eat it. Of course, long before gin tonics

came onto the scene, more than 700 years actually, the Basque had been

pairing their pintxos with cider or sargadoa. I want to see your pouring

skills. Pouring a glass of cider the traditional way is quite tricky.

From above the head to aerate the cider and enhance the flavour and

natural carbonation. This one I'll use the pourer. And this one without

the top. Ooh! Well, let's see if this works, really.

I foolishly thought I could do better.

SHE LAUGHS. I came to San Sebastian for the gin

tonics. But as is often the case, it was the unexpected that made me want

to stay. Stay with us here on The Travel

Show, because coming up... Let's go diving.

It's estimated that around half of the coral reefs in this area have

already disappeared. All that and more here on The Travel Show.

Here's a gadget for when you wake up in a foreign country and completely

forget that the tap water isn't safe to drink. The CamelBak All Clear

bottle uses UV light to neutralise bacteria. The lid contains a battery

that's charged through a USB port. Full charge will take around five

hours, but that'll give you enough power to clean 80 bottles of water.

It takes 60 seconds to purify a whole bottle of water, and the great

thing is, if it's not just tap water you want to purify, if you want to

use it to make waterfall water safe to drink or something out of a river

or a stream - anywhere where there's natural water flowing, this will

make good to drink in a minute. You just have to keep it moving until

the light goes out. So if you're trekking or if you're off on some

expedition, it's ideal. However, if you're just going to a country for a

couple of weeks and you're not comfortable drinking the local

water, then actually it might be cheaper if you just buy your water

bottles from the shop. Ssh! I'm undercover. These might

look like normal sunglasses - but they're not. With the SunnyCams, I

can film everything that I see. I'm filming you guys right now! Wave...

The SunnyCams record video from a tiny camera in the middle of the

glass. You press down on the control panel to start recording, and your

film will be stored on a Micro SD card. Now, this does take a little

getting used to, cos you physically have to move your head in the

direction that you want to film at, which can make you feel like a bit

of a robot when you're walking along. And we did find, when we

watched it back, that the audio was slightly out of sync with the video.

But, if you are a boarder, if you like skiing, then these are ideal.

I, however, am neither of those - so I'm going to go back to being a spy.

OMG, having the holiday of a lifetime. Loving London, I can see

Big Ben, the London Eye. I've got to tweet about this, right? So I'm

going to send a picture. What? The battery on my phone has died?

Hashtag sad face! One way to avoid a social media blackout is the XD

Design Solar Charger. There are two ports on the side of the panel - a

USB port for your phone and one next to it where you plug in the device

to charge itself. I know what you're thinking. Why does a solar powered

portable charger need to be plugged into the mains before you can use

it? Well, it doesn't have to be. Because - this can be charged by the

sun's energy alone but that takes up to 13 hours. So, if you were to plug

this in before you left your house or your hotel, and then you're

hanging by the pool for the day, you're on a long coach trip, you

could use the sun's energy just to keep it topped up which will mean

you don't get caught short with your mobile phone or whatever device

running out of power. I just wish it was a bit more sunny.

HE YAWNS. After a long day of gadget testing,

I think I deserve a few minutes out just to relax, maybe just a little

power nap. If only I could just get comfy.

It gets to the point where you'll do anything just for a little bit of

kip. Even wear one of these. I know it looks weird but it's strangely

comfortable. Ssh! The Ostrich Pillow is filled with micro-beads, and it's

got holes at the top to slide your hands into. But don't forget about

your belongings. Someone could take everything you own while your head's

in this thing! Coral reefs cover less than 1% of

the world's ocean floor, but they're home to around a quarter of the

Earth's marine life. But climate change and pollution are putting

many of these vital underwater habitats at risk. Here in Phuket,

Thailand, tourism is also taking its toll, and threatening some of the

most stunning reef systems in the world. But there is hope. There's

one organisation in particular which are claiming to make a difference.

I'm going to be spending the day with them and seeing if I can do a

little help myself. with them and seeing if I can do a

Morning. Good to see you. Diving is big business in Phuket, and many

holiday-makers come here specifically to snorkel or scuba in

its warm Indian Ocean waters. Many of the people who work for the dive

companies have joined up to form a group that tries to protect the

unique environment which provides them with their livelihood. And

today I'm going with them, as they go to give one of the local reef

systems a spring- clean. We're on the way to the dive site at the

moment, it's about an hour and a half away, so in the meantime I get

to relax and enjoy the view. An organisation called Go Eco

organise an annual big clean up of the reefs and seas around Phuket

every summer, but today I am taking part in a smaller scale event, to

give me an idea of just what kind of rubbish makes its way to the ocean

floor, and what kind of harm it causes once it's down there.' The

reef in Phuket is the one to bring all other tourists come to witness

the reef. So if you don't have the reef, we have less tourists. That

means we don't have income. We have lots of pollution here, like plastic

bags, for example, that people throw in the rivers and the sea that float

out to the sea. And also sun block, for example the people who're using

sunscreen and go in the water. There's also fishing equipment, some

people do not really care about, they just throw the fishing

equipment in the sea. And before I join the clean up, there's just time

for a quick briefing with my dive buddy Marc. We're going to go down

the reef, just below us, about six metres, and we're going to descend

down along the line. Once we get down to the reef we'll be looking

for garbage. So we're going to be wearing gloves, cos they protect you

from the reef which sometimes can be sharp. And we're going to carry one

of these mesh bags each, so whatever you collect you can stick it inside

and then we're going to bring it back to the surface. OK. Ready to

go? Let's go diving. It's estimated that around half of

the coral reefs in this area have already disappeared. And it didn't

take long for me to find out one of the reasons why.

It was easy to pick out what shouldn't have been there, although

I followed the advice from up above and left undisturbed any rubbish

that had already been consumed by the reef. Go Eco say that removing

that type of embedded debris causes even more damage to the reef than

leaving it where it is.' A keen eye ensured that my bag filled up

quickly, and after 20 minutes, with my air running low, it was time for

me and Marc to surface. A couple of things that we managed

to pick up were a couple of cans here, this length of rope, and a few

of these bottles. This one in particular looks as if it's been

down there for quite a while. But the actual process of going under

the water with Marc and combing through the coral reefs, you really

feel as though you're a part of something, like you're really making

a difference. Tourism isn't the sole cause of the damage to the reefs

here. The fishing industry needs to also accept some of the blame for

the debris that finds its way to the ocean floor. But if you're keen to

take part in the next clean up, and hold a current diving qualification,

you could be helping play your part in ensuring that these amazing

wonders of nature, and home to so much of our marine life, survive.

That's your lot. Coming up next on BBC Two. As the world prepares to

mark the centenary of the start of the First World War, we will be

asking if it now OK for places like these to be called tourist

attractions rather than sites of remembrance? If you fancy something

with a poppy on it, you are spoilt for choice. A tea towel?

Until next time, from me Ade Adepitan and the rest of the Travel

Show team here in Paris, it's au revoir, a bientot. Goodbye.