Debating whether to use a live travel agent to book your vacation or to go it alone by using the Internet?
1. You’ve Googled “Mexico vacation,” and come up with 17.8 million responses. Need a little help editing those choices?
2. Remember when you used that obscure website to book your hotel, and when you got there you spent your beach vacation overlooking a parking lot?
3. How many hours were you on hold with the airline when your flight was canceled because of a snowstorm?
4. Did you really mean to spend your honeymoon at that resort whose one tiny pool was filled all day with 12 screaming children?
5. Who knew that when you booked that “villa” in Tuscany, it would be a small room with a kitchenette and no air conditioning? Funny, it looked much better on your computer screen.
6. No one explained to you that in July, it’s winter time in Rio, and so you showed up there with nothing but five Hawaiian shirts and three pairs of swimming trunks.
7. How about the time you really needed a restful vacation, and you ended up in New Orleans during Mardi Gras and someone threw up on your shoes?
8. Yes, I guess that hotel must have used a telephoto lens when they took a picture of those guest rooms that you saw on their website.
9. I suppose contacting the Attorney General to resolve the fact that that Internet site has billed your credit card three times instead of once is the only route to take at this point.
10. It was definitely odd that there were no cab drivers at the airport at 3 o’clock in the morning when you finally landed in Costa Rica, but booking a transfer to your very remote hotel would have been a good thing to remember when you purchased your airline ticket and hotel online.

Travel Lady Cruises, always providing you with TLC!

Good Reason Why Everyone Should Use A Travel Agent

James Michener

Travel Lady Cruises, always providing you with TLC!

Travel Quip

Henry Boye

Travel Lady Cruises, always providing you with TLC!

Travel Quip

George Winters

Travel Lady Cruises, always providing you with TLC!

Travel Quip

Al Gore

Travel Lady Cruises, always providing you with TLC!

Travel Quip

It is easy. Book yourself into a pre-existing group.

Travel agents, like myself, can get these special amenities for their clients by booking group space with the cruise lines. As a cruise specialist with Cruises, Inc. I have access to hundreds of cabins inside group space booked to offer all of my clients. Group amenities are wonderful to take advantage of when you can be flexible with your dates. Cruises, Inc. offers all types of cabins in pre-booked group space, on almost all sailings, on all the major cruise lines, every week of the year and to all destinations! To book a cabin in a group, reservations must be made at least 3 months in advance, since the cruise lines require travel agents to release any unsold space back to them usually 90-75 days prior to sailing.

All amenities are based on the destination and the length of the cruise. So a travelers will get more options on a longer cruise, than that of short 3 – 4 day cruise. Often there are no amenities offered on cruises less than 3 days.

Another advantage of booking into group space? Cost. Group space locks in cabin rates from future cabin rate increases plus many times there is a lower deposit amount due up front.

Even if you don’t want to meet anyone in the group while you are cruising, you can still take advantage of getting the best deals by booking your next cruise cabin as part of a group, and take advantage of getting all the special amenities the travel agent has negotiated with the cruise line on the groups behalf.

So next time you call or email about a cruise, ask ” Are there any groups I can get a cabin with and get some extra treats?” I know, I always try to offer these to my clients – it is an extra added value to the travel services I offer.

Travel Lady Cruises, always providing you with TLC!

How To Get The Best Rates & FREE Amenities On Your Next Cruise

Alaska Cruise Traffic Jam

Recently many cruise lines, such a Holland America, Princess and Carnival have announced that they will be restructuring their schedules and reducing their sailings plus the number of ships that they have cruising for the 2010 and 2011 Alaska season. The cruise lines site several reasons, one being the new Alaska tax being charged by the State of Alaska on cruise passengers, environmental groups raising awareness to the possible harm that the total number of ships could be causing the wildlife issues in their own habitat plus the cost of travel to get to and from Alaska has increased greatly adding on a significant amount to the overall cost to the people wishing to cruise Alaska.

With fewer ships will also renew the allure of cruising through Alaska as someplace special, not just another destination. Cruisers were aware that an Alaska cruise was always more costly that a Mexican or Caribbean Cruise. There had been a limited inventory when combined with it’s short cruising season, people would often have to plan a year in advance to cruise Alaska. Over the past several years there was an increase in ships to the region, sailing from Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia so the cruise passengers had more options, more sailing dates and lower prices. That also then meant that with 2-3 ships (many carrying over 2000 passengers) in a single port in one day, there would be 5000 to 6000 people arriving at one time, so the Alaska cruise ports were overwhelmed with visitors. With cruise companies building bigger ships meant more people in these ports as well. Many of these ports are really small rural cities that have depended on the cruise tourist but have also been overwhelmed by the mere volumes of tourist.

For business, this is not a bad thing but for the environment and having such large numbers of people descend on small areas does have its own impact on the wildlife and the surrounding areas. People go to Alaska because it is so open and underpopulated but with the influx of such large numbers of tourists, growth and expansion had to happen. Hence the tug of war to see Alaska as an unspoiled beautiful, natural habitat but accommodating vast numbers of people. Somewhere, somehow, something had to give.

I think personally, it is a wise decision to have less ships, to protect the environment and for to better take care of the people who live in Alaska and it’s natural environment after the cruise season is over and all the tourist go home. This will also make cruising to and through Alaska again a special opportunity to experience what grandeur there is to be seen there.

So keep your plans to cruise to Alaska, just make sure you plan ahead and enjoy it to it’s fullest once you get there! So you see less is more…

Travel Lady Cruises, always providing you with TLC!

2010 Alaska Cruise Season Will Have Less Choices

I read this in the Readers Digest September 2008 issue on age 88. It is a submission by Louis Allard.

One for the Road.

‘One our first day at a resort, my wife and I decided to go to the beach. When I went back to our room to get something to drink, one of the hotel maids was making our bed. I grabbed my cooler and was on my way out when I paused and asked, “Can we drink beer on the beach?”

“Sure,” she said, “but I have to finish the rest of the rooms first.”

Hope this brings a chuckle to your day!

Travel Lady Cruises, always providing you with TLC!

Now this is what I call room service!

From the Photo Studio Staff:

Q. How do I tell which photos are mine?

From the Dining Staff:

Q. What do you do with the ice carvings after they have melted?

From the Spa Staff:

Q. How small does your face have to be exactly to get a mini facial?

From the Cabin Stewards Staff:

Q. Why does the cabin steward keep leaving those small pats of butter on my bed at night?

From the Pursers Staff:

Q. What religion are all those people who have those small patches behind their ears?

A. Maybe they are Apache

Q. I am a liter over my liquor quota, but I drank it all, do I still have to claim it?

Travel Lady Cruises, always providing you with TLC!

Hilarious Stupid Questions Asked onboard a Cruise Ship

 Q – Does the crew sleep on board this ship?

A – Of course not. Late at night a water taxi picks them up and takes them home.

Q – Do these stairs go up or do they go down?

A – Yes

Q – Does the ship make it’s own electricity?

A – No, don’t you see the long extension cord trailing the ship?!

Travel Lady Cruises, always providing you with TLC!

Silly questions asked about cruising

It is so rare to be offered a meal on a airline these days that I was surprised to hear the flight attendent ask the man sitting in front of me,

“Would you like dinner?”

He responded “What are my choices?”

She relied “Yes or No.”

Travel Lady Cruises, always providing you with TLC!

Airlines Meals

Bob Hope

Travel Lady Cruises, always providing you with TLC!

Lost Luggage

Cruise Ship Home

About 2 years ago my wife and I were on a cruise through the western Mediterranean aboard a Princess liner. At dinner we noticed an elderly lady sitting alone along the rail of the grand stairway in the main dining room. I also noticed that all the staff, ships officers, waiters, busboys, etc., all seemed very familiar with this lady.

I asked our waiter who the lady was, expecting to be told that she owned the line, but he said he only knew that she had been on board for the last four cruises, back to back.

As we left the dining room one evening I caught her eye and stopped to say hello.
We chatted and I said, “I understand you’ve been on this ship for the last four cruises”.
She replied, “Yes, that’s true.”
I stated, “I don’t understand”

she replied, without a pause, “It’s cheaper than a nursing home”.

So, there will be no nursing home in my future.
When I get old and feeble, I am going to get on a Cruise Ship.
The average cost for a nursing home is $200 per day.
I have checked on reservations at Princess and I can get a long term
discount and senior discount price of $135 per day.
That leaves $65 a day for:

1. Gratuities which will only be $10 per day.

2. I will have as many as 10 meals a day if I can waddle to the restaurant, or I can have room service (which means I can have breakfast in bed every day of the week).

3. Princess has as many as three swimming pools, a workout room, free washers and dryers, and shows every night.

4. They have free toothpaste and razors, and free soap and shampoo.

5. They will even treat you like a customer, not a patient. An extra $5 worth of tips will have the entire staff scrambling to help you.

6. I will get to meet new people every 7 or 14 days.

7. T.V. broken? Light bulb need changing? Need to have the mattress replaced? No Problem! They will fix everything and apologize for your inconvenience.

8. Clean sheets and towels every day, and you don’t even have to ask for them.

9. If you fall in the nursing home and break a hip you are on Medicare; if you fall and break a hip on the Princess ship they will upgrade you to a suite for the rest of your life.

Now hold on for the best!
Do you want to see South America, the Panama Canal, Tahiti, Australia,
New Zealand, Asia, or name where you want to go?
Princess will have a ship ready to go.
So don’t look for me in a nursing home, just call shore to ship.

PS. And don’t forget, when you die, they just dump you over the side at no charge.

Travel Lady Cruises, always providing you with TLC!

Take me to a cruise ship – not a nursing home!