Travel Briefs

Aboard a double-decker bus with a kitchen below, you can enjoy a gourmet meal while on a sightseeing tour of Paris with Bustronome (2 avenue Kléber, 75116, Paris, France; phone +33 954 444 555, www.bustronome.com). A free "Audiopen" provides commentary (includes English).

Tours run daily, a 1¾-hour, 4-course lunch (meet at 12:00 or 12:30) and a 2¾-hour, 6-course dinner (7:30 or 8:30). A lunch tour costs €65 (child, €40) or, paired with wine, €85 (near $100) and dinner, €100 (child, €50)/€130.

On New Zealand's South Island, near Lake Tekapo, visitors can take a stargazing tour at the Mt. John Observatory with Earth & Sky (Lake Tekapo; phone +64 3 680 6960, www.earthandsky.co.nz). Mt. John is within the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve, among places noted for the clarity of their night skies.

A data breach involving Air Canada's smartphone app may have resulted in the stealing of the personal information, including passport information, of thousands of customers. Authorities are unsure how the breach occurred or who is responsible for it but noted that Air Canada had a weak password system. All customers with an Air Canada account have been asked to reset their passwords using new, more stringent guidelines.

Budget Canadian airline Swoop (www.flyswoop.com) started operating four routes in the US in August, with only one fare class on each flight: from Edmonton (YEG) to Phoenix-Mesa (AZA) [for CAD99 (near $76)] and from John C. Munro Airport (YHM) in Hamilton, Ontario, to four airports: Las Vegas McCarran (LAS) [CAD179], Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood (FLL) [CAD179], Orlando (MCO) [CAD169] or Tampa International (TPA) [CAD159].

At press time, tickets were available for purchase for the dates of Oct. 11, 2018, to April 27, 2019.

Marriott International acquired Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide on Sept. 23, 2016. On Aug. 18, 2018, the two companies merged their rewards programs. Members of Starwood's Preferred Guest program now can trade their points in for Marriott Rewards, at a 1-to-3 rate (one Starwood point equals three Marriott points), at www.marriott.com/marriott-rewards/connect-my-accounts.mi.

Points can be used to reserve a room at any Marriott, Starwood or Ritz-Carlton hotel.

Participating accommodations in the Cayman Islands, in the Western Caribbean, offer a "hurricane guarantee" that allows guests to cancel bookings or rebook at a later date with no penalties if a hurricane warning occurs within 48 hours of their scheduled stay.

To see if your accommodation participates in the guarantee, visit www.visitcaymanislands.com/en-us/about-cayman/weather/hurricane-guarantee and click on the link provided.

The nation of Chile created two new national parks in 2018.

• In the south-central region on the Corcovado Gulf, Parque Pumalín (www.parquepumalin.cl/en) comprises 715,000 acres of Andean and coastal terrains and includes endangered flora and fauna. Numerous hiking trails and campsites are located within the park.

The Coastal Pacific, a train connecting Picton to Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island, is scheduled to resume service in December 2018 after being shut down for track repairs following the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake. The roughly 7-hour journey follows the island's east coast and makes stops in Rangiora, Kaikoura and Blenheim.

A Flexi Pass, which allows hop-on, hop-off privileges at all stops on the day of validity, costs NZD159 (near $107), one way. For info, visit www.greatjourneysofnz.co.nz/coastal-pacific.

In Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, in Spain's Canary Islands, the Poema del Mar aquarium (Sanapú Dock, Las Palmas; phone +34 928 010 350, www.poema-del-mar.com/index.php/en) opened in January 2018.

Its centerpiece is a tank with the world's largest curved window — 118 feet wide, 24 feet tall and more than a foot thick. The tank contains nearly 1,500,000 gallons of seawater and 3,000 specimens of 40 different species, such as rays and rarely exhibited bull sharks and sand tiger sharks.

Exhibiting glass art by contemporary Czech artists, Museum Port heimka (Štefánikova 68/12, Smíchov, Prague 5; phone +420 776 036 111, www.museumportheimka.cz/introduction), housed in a Baroque-era summer palace in Prague, Czechia, opened in June 2018. Six themed galleries hold the permanent collection. Temporary exhibits are also held.

10 a.m-6 p.m., Tues.-Sun. CZK120 (near $5), adult, or CZK60, senior.