Virtual Graceland
Elvis Presley's Graceland is now offering live online tours for fans around the world. The Tennessee tourist attraction said the two-hour guided tours will take virtual visitors into Presley's former Memphis home, which has been turned into a museum, and through the Meditation Garden, where he is buried. Also included in the $100 ticket is a tour of Presley's jet and a walk through the entertainment complex, which houses exhibits and artifacts related to Presley. Viewers will be able to ask questions during the tours. Graceland was closed for several weeks last year and is now open for limited-capacity, in-person tours. Virtual tours are scheduled for Jan. 27, Feb. 25 and March 25, with more dates expected.
Associated Press
Epcot gets 'Soul'
Epcot is adding an exhibit about jazz, featuring a character from Disney-Pixar's "Soul" film, inside the American Adventure attraction next month. "The Soul of Jazz: An American Adventure" includes Joe Gardner, the lead character of "Soul," voiced in the film by Jamie Foxx. The exhibit will be a "musical tour across America," said Walt Disney Imagineering exec Carmen Smith, including New Orleans, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Multiple jazz museums are participating in the project, she said. Neither an exact opening date nor the length of the exhibit's stay at Epcot was announced.
Orlando Sentinel
American in Bali deported
An American graphic designer is being deported from the Indonesian resort island of Bali over her viral tweets that celebrated it as a low-cost, queer-friendly place for foreigners to live. Kristen Antoinette Gray arrived in Bali in January 2020 and wound up staying through the coronavirus pandemic. "This island has been amazing because of our elevated lifestyle at much lower cost of living. I was paying $1,300 for my L.A. studio. Now I have a treehouse for $400," one of Gray's posts on Twitter said. Gray's posts were considered to have "disseminated information disturbing to the public," which was the basis for her deportation, said Jamaruli Manihuruk, chief of the Bali regional office for the Ministry of Law and Human Rights.
Associated Press
No Cayman cruises in 2021
The Cayman Islands has for years been a top Caribbean cruise destination, but that status will not continue when sailings resume sometime this year. The country's premier announced this past week that cruise ships will not return to the territory in 2021. Cruising "is not on our radar at all at this stage," Premier Alden McLaughlin said in a local news report. He added that he does not anticipate cruise tourism to the country resuming "on any sort of significant level before next year. The cruise ship business is not really within our contemplation at this stage." Virtually all of the major cruise lines operating from U.S. ports have canceled sailings at least through spring.
TravelPulse
