It left as quickly as it came, but as it does every year, April Fool’s Day had some of us laughing and the rest scratching our heads wondering if anything is actually true.
In pop-culture was saw Pac-Man eating his way across Google Maps; Samsung said it was inventing the world’s first ‘Smart Knife’ (yeah, a blade with technology attached); and a shoe company took the selfie-phase to the next level with ‘Selfie Shoes’.
But the fibs didn’t stop there, UK newspaper ‘The Sun’ reported that Simon Cowell would be appearing on £5 notes and supermarket store, Tesco, said it was introducing ‘bouncy aisles’ to help shorties reach the top shelves.
In travel, Uber revealed the world’s first UberBOAT and Flight Centre introduced a new class of travel… the cargo class offering passengers a “fully lay flat bed in a personal suite pod” on cargo aircraft.
The list is never-ending, so we thought we’d compile our top five April Fool’s Day travel pranks:
5. Contiki age bracket rises to… 65
Can an experienced 65 year-old traveller keep up with all-night partying, adventure seeking twenty-somethings?
Contiki tried to pull our leg yesterday by saying it had extended its age bracket from the current 18-35 to 18-65.
The youth travel brand said the ‘change’ comes after receiving demand from mature holidaymakers.
“This includes parents and grandparents who want to accompany a young family member on their first big overseas trip or some of the many people who went on Contiki when they were young and are looking to rekindle that youthful spirit.”
Katrina Barry, Contiki MD
4. AAT King’s ‘HoverCoach’
AAT Kings tried to fool its fans with a ‘HoverCoach’, which according to the company would be used in tours from Circular Quay in Sydney to Manly.
Described as a ‘groundbreaking innovation’, MD Anthony Hayes said it was an ‘exciting development’ in the company’s 100-year history.
In the April Fool’s prank, the tour company said an inflatable Kevlar carbon-fibre bag skirt would be fitted to the bottom of the bus. It would inflate and make the buss ‘hover-ready’ in less than three minutes.
3. Qantas picks up the ‘U’
Finally, we thought, Qantas is following the English language rules and adding the ‘U’ to its name.
And then in unison we looked at each other and said: “as if”.
The airline had us for a second when it announced on Facebook it was putting the ‘U’ in Qantas.
But we checked today and it’s still spelt ‘Qantas’.
2. Move over Tinder, because here comes STAnder
STA completely fooled when it announced it was launching a dating app called ‘STAnder’.
In the release sent out by the company’s PR team, STA said it was ‘coming out onto the online dating scene’ with the app, which would focus on safely hooking up fellow backpackers abroad.
In addition, STA Travel said it will block out discounted spaces on scheduled flights, hop-on hop-off buses, boats and adventure trips – solely for single STAnder travellers.
The company completely had us fooled (I’m going to be honest we almost ran it as an actual story) until we contacted them asking for images only to receive the response – APRIL FOOLS!
1. KarryOn is not moving to Fiji… yet
It’s true. KarryOn is staying put in its Surry Hills HQ for the time being.
Early yesterday morning, we published a story announcing that we had decided to relocate our entire operation from Sydney to Fiji. Read on
The ‘exciting creative experiment’ would have seen all 15 members of the team working and living together at new offices located 20 minutes from Nadia airport.
But unfortunately, Fiji airways will not be flying us there, nor are we working with the government on a relocation deal (except maybe in our dreams we are).
We received so many incredibly supportive comments from readers and friends who were not only excited about the move but keen to see how it would help shape the news.
Big shout out to you all!
Click here to read a message from KarryOn’s Founder, Matt Leedham on how April Fool’s pranks could become a reality.