Lobby Bar – September 14: Carpool Karaoke with the Beatles, Power Pokémon, and ‘I’ll Take Thurston Howell III for $500, Alex!’

Lobby Bar: Making Travel News Great Again

Gilligan! Jonathan Spira and a guest took a three-hour tour of City Island and ended up chartering a boat from Jack’s Bait & Tackle, skippered by a familiar looking character with a black skipper’s cap who went by the name of Jonas Grumby. They haven’t been heard from since.

No soup for you! Tired of serving as a punching bag for irate customers, customer service reps – aided by some of Silicon Valley’s best hackers – are turning the table on abusive customers. Now, CSRs are able to press a button and tase the customer into submission.

The Brady Bunch. Wondering why everyone’s talking about Florence Henderson this week? So were we. Turns out that the news is actually about Hurricane Florence, although there is some resemblance according to Greg, Peter, and Bobby.

Das Waffel Haus. The Belgian carrier Brussels Airlines wants more travelers to transit through its Brussels hub. It previously bribed passengers to do so with offers of free Brussels sprouts, but after a marketing survey convinced them that many people do not like Brussels sprouts, said it will switch the offer to Gaufres de Bruxelles, also known as Belgian waffles.

Let it be. Volkswagen will say goodbye to its iconic Beetle after 70 years, looking elsewhere for inspiration. Don’t worry, there will be a replacement: the Beatle, shaped like Paul McCartney’s bowl haircut from the 60s. Just a heads up: only Beatles tracks will play in the car’s audio system.

Pokémon Go. Hilton is enlisting its employees as local guides through its new Explore feature in the Hilton Honors app. The app works something like this: As guests walk around the city in real life, employees of other hotels will appear on the screen and Hilton guests will be able to throw Poké balls at them to capture them.

Jeremy Del Nero and Jonathan Spira contributed to this Lobby Bar.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)