Bighorn sheep at The Living Desert.

The Living Desert in Palm Springs could charge the $12.50 admission for each of its three attractions: zoo, botanical gardens or model train display.

But you have to pay only once for all three. It’s a pretty good deal and a nice way to round out a trip to swinging Palm Springs.

Besides, it’s only $11 per person with the discount for seniors, AAA members and military personnel. Admission is $7.50 for children 12 and under, and free for children 3 and younger.

My daughter and I spent most of the day at The Living Desert yesterday. It reminded me of another desert zoo, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, another favorite of mine.

The Living Desert focuses on desert wildlife, including javelina, bighorn sheep and other animals that inhabit the Mojave Desert, as well as African species. They’re kept in big, natural enclosures among the botanical gardens.

The  gardens are extensive, including areas with local plant life and others themed to different regions of the world. The palm garden is amazing, with a vast variety of palm trees from around the world.

We were surprised to find an elaborate model train display, which covers and acre and includes models of historic sites. Whatever. It’s great. The petting zoo, with some very friendly goats, is also fun for kids.

Of course, there are ways to spend more money. There’s a $2 charge for admission to the butterfly and hummingbird exhibit (worth it) and a $6 charge for the trolley (didn’t need it.)

It has happened to me, many times. Usually, if it’s temporary, I just deal with the disappointment. But there are times when it’s appropriate to complain, and even to ask for some kind of compensation.

My daughter and I recently stayed at a very nice resort near Palm Springs where we got a very nice Priceline deal, but there was a separate $27 per night resort fee. We were prepared for this — resort fees are common at the resort level on Priceline and bidders should expect them. (I think Priceline should force resorts to include the fees in the price, but that’s another story.)

Anyway, we paid the resort fee and settled into our room, then decided to head over to the spa. Except there was a hand-written sign on the door of the spa saying it was closed. We tried to go back the next day at 4:30 p.m. and it was closed again — and the sign said it would be closed the whole next day, when we were leaving.

I complained at the front desk and the clerk said the spa was on limited hours because it wasn’t very busy. But she agreed to refund our resort fee. That seemed fair to me, as the resort fee is supposed to cover use of the spa and a few other amenities, most of which we weren’t going to use.

Now, I wouldn’t expect a refund or discount in every situation where I don’t get exactly what I want. My husband and I recently stayed in a hotel where the hot tub broke minutes after we arrived. Things happen.

But when a hotel advertises an amenity, charges separately for it and then chooses not to make it available, I’ll take my money back.

And if you’re booking a hotel directly (as opposed to making blind bids on Pricline) it never hurts to call ahead to make sure the amenities you want will be available and to check on the hours.

View from Diamond Head.

$5.50 – $6 Climb Diamond Head. Admission is $1 per person and you can take the bus for $2.25 each way or pay $5 to park a car. Then you have to climb rather a lot (though I’ve seen grandmothers do it, and small children in flip-flops) for a spectacular view of Honolulu.

$4 Go floating at Waikiki. Buy a $3 air mattress or inflatable tube from any ABC store (they’re everywhere) and the store will inflate it for you for less than $1. Then head over to Waikiki Beach and get your float on. (If you don’t require artificial flotation, this experience is free.)

$4 Chill beachside at the Hilton. Last I knew, the pineapple juice refills were free at the Hilton Hawaiian Village poolside bar, with a great view of the beach. Sometimes there’s live music, too. 

$12 – $25 Snorkel at Hanauma Bay. Entrance to the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, which offers excellent and gentle snorkeling suitable for beginners,  is $7.50 and the bus fare is $2.25 each way. Snorkel gear will cost you about another $12, if you rent it there. If you don’t want to take the public bus, Hanauma Bay Snorkel Adventure will pick you up at any Waikiki hotel and provide gear for $17, not including the $7.50 admission fee.

$0 Waikiki isn’t just about the beach. Head a few blocks back to the Ali Wai Canal, an excellent place for a stroll at dusk, when the kayaks and sculls are out on the water.

If you’re flexible about travel dates, there are round-trip fares from Bradley as low as $128, coming out to $168 with taxes and fees, from Delta, Midwest and American. Many other cities around the Northeast have similar fares.

This little fare skirmish may be related to the fact that Southwest recently began service to Milwaukee. And if you plan on checking a bag on your trip, you might be better off on Southwest. Its fares, as low as $219 from Bradley with all taxes and fees included, allows you to check two bags free.

The fares are not available every day. In fact, they seem kind of wildly scattered, so you’ll want to do a flexible search on Kayak or another metasearch site. They do seem to be available, though, well into the rest of the year.

Las Vegas, Orlando, Central America, Cancun and China are on his list. And that’s not all. Head on over to Arthur’s blog and read it all.

This is depressing but otherwise sort of unremarkable. It’s the kind of “unbundling” that the airlines have been doing for a while now.

The reason I had to remark on it was this quote:

“Our customers want more choices,” said Jim Compton, Continental’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer. “Seats with additional legroom are higher-value seats, and we want to offer them to customers who recognize that value.”

Please. When did the airlines get the idea that “choice” is a synonym for “fee.”

If you’re going to start charging for something that you didn’t previously charge for, it’s not particularly honest to suggest that you’re giving the customer some new choice. Continental’s passengers always had the option of sitting in an exit row, if they booked early enough to snag one. They have no new choices here, just a new fee to pay.

Besides, exit row seats aren’t some sort of perk, like the cursed economy plus on United Airlines. They’re a safety feature, and sitting in one involves some responsibility to fellow passengers. It’s kind of unseemly to be auctioning them off.

Also, the company’s press release refers to these seats as “premium seats.” They’re not. In most cases they’re no wider than typical seats, and in some cases they don’t recline.

And if you’re going to charge extra for these “higher-value seats,” shouldn’t you discount for seats that are “lower-value?” I mean the ones near the bathrooms, the ones that don’t recline because they’re at the very back, or in front of an exit row.

That rate is available Sunday through Thursday through April. You need to book via the link on Travelzoo. Rates through the hotel’s website are much higher.

You’d be outraged. Maybe you’d call the state consumer protection department.

So why do hotels get away with essentially the same thing?

I’m talking about the hotel resort fee, originally imposed only by very posh hotels, often per person, to cover the use of the pools, tennis courts and other amenities. Sometimes the fee was even optional, and you could skip it if you didn’t want to use the amenities in question.

This has changed. More and more hotels, including many that have no right to call themselves resorts, impose a mandatory, per room fee that may cover such routine amenities as parking, Internet access and discounted phone calls — whether you use those services or not.

This is not a fee for an optional service. It’s part of the base rate disguised as a fee so that the hotel can advertise a lower rate.

It’s deceptive and sneaky and wrong. And I think I know why hotels can get away with it and your local appliance store can’t.

When travelers get tricked and scammed, they’re out of their own jurisdictions. There’s no political advantage to a legislature or attorney general who takes the side of the traveler against the travel industry and its local representatives.

So get used to the abuse folks, read the fine print before you book and try to reward those hotels that refuse to adopt this pernicious practice.

The State Department has published a notice of its intent to raise passport fees by $35. That will increase the cost of a new passport to $135 and a renewal to $110. The State Department says $15 of the increase will pay for the cost of processing applications and $20 for increased border security.

The application fee for a passport card, which allows limited land border crossing and port entries, will rise from $20 to $30.

Also, if it looks like you’re going to need more pages in your passport for visa stamps, get them now. It used to be free but will cost $82 when the new fees go into effect.

You need to join the chain’s Choice Privileges loyalty program. It’s free.

You have to complete two separate stays (checking in and out on consecutive nights at the same hotel will count only as one) at a Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Quality hotel, Sleep Inn, Clarion hotel, Cambria Suites, MainStay Suites, Suburban Extended Stay, Econo Lodge, Rodeway Inn or  Ascend Collection hotel in North America or Western Europe before April 30.

You must book at choicehotels.com or by calling 800.4CHOICE.

Your Choice Privileges account will be credited with 8,000 points, enough to book a free night at one of more than 1,500 hotels around the world. That’s a lot of hotels, but the chain has more than 6,000 hotels, some of them requiring considerably more points for a night’s stay.

More details are available on the Choice Hotels website.