For that family road trip: rental cars with satellite TV

I have fond memories of being in the back seat on the road as a kid. My brother and I would play I Spy and word games, tell jokes and riddles and punch each other in innocent rounds of Slug Bug. This would inevitably turn into not-so-innocent sessions of tearing one another apart. I’m sure my parents enjoyed these memorable hours of family bonding too.

Still, if they’d had the opportunity to tune all that out by turning their back-seat passengers into something else entirely, I know they would have jumped at the chance. That’s why I’m taking a couple of moments now to mourn the further decline of the good, old-fashioned road-trip game. Relief-seeking parents will surely be among the first in line when Avis and Budget begin offering cars with satellite television, possibly as early as next month.

In case you haven’t heard about the coming feature, announced in January: Customers at select Avis and Budget car-rental locations will soon be able to rent a rear-seat, satellite-television-equipped entertainment unit offering 22 channels, including Disney Channel, Discovery Kids, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network Mobile. The AT&T CruiseCast will be available for $8.95 per day or $62.65 per week.

For those champing at the bit for the add-on, we don’t know the exact date it will be released. “In the second quarter,” said Alice Pereira, an Avis Budget Group spokeswoman. In a phone conversation on Wednesday, Pereira was unable to tell me which locations, or how many locations, would offer the feature.

Stay tuned. In the meantime, try to enjoy that quality road-trip time with rear-seat passengers who actually engage with you every so often (at least when they’re not tuned into their iPods). Once the TV’s on back there, you might just miss them.

– Susan Derby, Special to the Los Angeles Times

[Photo: CruiseCast.com]

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 1:40 pm by Susan Derby and is filed under News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.