The Countdown is On

Well, this is the big day.  It's do or die time.  We've reached the day I must pack, get everything together for the pet sitter, tie up loose ends for my clients travel and finish cleaning the house before leaving for Ft. Lauderdale.  I'm just going to go ahead and fess up now.  I'm NOT ready.

I've been having issues for the last week with passwords.  Either I am not remembering them or the password goblins are going around behind my back and changing them.  I'm betting on the problem being with my memory.  So, I just attempted to check in with Spirit Airlines for my flight tomorrow and naturally, it isn't accepting what I thought my password was.  So, I did the Forgot Your Password? thing and waited for about 30 minutes for the email they were supposedly sending me to reset my password.  The good news is that I got my inbox cleaned out while I waited.  The bad news is that I still haven't gotten an email from Spirit Airlines.  So I did it again about 10 minutes ago and still nothing.  I hope this isn't an indication of what my week will be like.  Because I really can't deal with it.

I got a keyboard for the Nook over the weekend.  So, I'm pretty psyched about that.  You should expect to see a few blogs from me this week even though I'll be traveling if all goes according to plan.  This week for my first time ever, I'll be using Super Shuttle to go to the airport from my home.  I've used shared airport vans before at my destination.  But this will be a first for going to the airport.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.  They are supposed to arrive at my house sometime between 3:45 and 4:00 AM tomorrow.  Yes, you read that right.  I said AM... that's the one in the morning!  Ugh!  Normally, I am more likely to still be up reading from the day before at that time of night rather than being fully dressed and ready to face a day.

Good news!  The email from Spirit just came in... In fact, both of them did, with two separate reset codes. So naturally, I chose the wrong one to try first.  But after using the second one, I am now checked in for my flight tomorrow and it didn't cost me a penny to check in!  This is my first contact of any kind with Spirit that I wasn't charged for, so it's a pretty big moment for me.  On Friday when I checked my luggage, I joined their $9 club without realizing it cost $49 to join.  So, here's a recap....  If you check your luggage on line, your carryon is $20 and your first checked bag is $25.  But if you join their $9 club, they are both $9.  So, I'm no fool, I joined the $9 club.  I still haven't figured out where I missed the note that they automatically charge you $49 for joining.  But I wound up paying $36 ($9 each for 2 pieces of luggage coming and going) plus $49 for joining, so instead of paying $90 ($45 going to Florida and $45 coming back), I paid $85 and I'm a member of the Spirit $9 club for a year in which I probably won't fly Spirit again.  After all of that, I saved $5.  We're not even going to go into what they charge you to check luggage after you arrive at the airport.  Just bring a big bag of gold if you need to do that!

So, getting back to the early Super Shuttle arrival tomorrow morning, last night I stayed up until almost 3 AM hoping to exhaust myself today so that I'll be able to go to sleep early tonight.  Then I got up at 7:30 this morning.  I can already tell you that this tactic isn't going to work.  Anytime I start trying to outsmart myself on sleep, it back fires.  When I lay down tonight, my brain will go into overdrive and I'll probably get about 2 hours of sleep if I am lucky.  Then, I'll face tomorrow on 6 and a half hours of sleep in the last 48 hours.

One other factor that I failed to calculate into my plans for today is that it is opening day of the Rangers regular season.  Folks, I canNOT just go about my day pretending that it is a day like any other.  I have to stop down this afternoon and watch the game.  It's OPENING DAY!!!!!  So, the 15 things I have on my list to accomplish today will have to be done around the Rangers schedule.  I still have no clue what I am taking as far as clothing goes.

So as you can tell, this is probably going to be a VERY interesting week of blogs.  You're not going to want to miss the sleep deprived melt down that is practically guaranteed to happen by midweek.  Have a good Monday!

New Office Equipment!

For those of you who have received travel documents from me recently with printer ink smeared all over them or big blotches of printer ink in the lower right hand corner, you'll be happy to know that I finally got my new printer yesterday.  I guess I'm going to have to consider it a birthday present to myself.  After all, I used my Best Buy 10% off birthday coupon on it.

I kept putting off the purchase of this printer hoping that I would be able to use up all the ink cartridges that I had on hand or at least get them all in it before I put the old printer out to pasture.  After all, Epson printer cartridges are where the expense is if you own an Epson printer.  But it was like that allusive chip to dip ratio when you are at a Super Bowl party.... It just never works out.  I would finally be down to only 1 black cartridge when I would simultaneously run out of magenta and cyan at the same time.  Well, buying both of those individually is more expensive than buying a pack with those two colors plus yellow in it.  So, I'd fall for that evil print cartridge scheme and buy the pack. Then I'd have a spare yellow lying around when I finally got that last black cartridge in. Then I use so much black ink that I ran out of black again before the yellow went in.....  It's a vicious cycle.  But I finally got out of the cycle yesterday and I only have two unused black ink cartridges (Epson 69) if anybody is interested in buying them... I'll even throw in an Epson All in One printer for free.... It just leaves big black splotches of ink on the lower right hand corner of every other page it prints.  Plus it kinda tries to eat the lower right hand corner of the paper before releasing it.

The new printer is an HP 6600, I specifically chose an HP because the ink cartridges were less expensive than Epson ink cartridges.  This baby does everything!  I can print on it when I'm away from home using my Nook, Droid or laptop. I can scan, copy and fax.  I'm pretty sure that after it copies my clients travel documents, it will slide them into an envelope and carry them to the post office for me.  Best of all, it hasn't attempted to eat a single piece of paper so far.  So, I'm thinking HP has got themselves a winner with this one.

So anyway, that's the big news in the travel biz this morning.  Now if I send you an envelope of travel documents, you don't need to put rubber gloves on before opening it.  It's a win.  It's going to be another busy day at Places You'll Go Travel.  I'm hoping to hear back from a couple of clients today who are traveling this summer so that we can get their travel booked before the big KHM - Funjet sales ends next week. A $100 discount on your beach vacay is nothing to scoff at!

Have a great Saturday!  Happy Travels!

It's a Business Trip... Really!

Once again, I have a trip planned for early next week and I haven't begun to think about what I might take much less started packing.  Why is this so difficult for me?  I really am looking forward to it, so procrastination shouldn't be a big problem.  But alas, I have done nothing.

Then to make matters worse this morning as I was pouring my first cup of coffee I thought that today was Thursday.  So, I was sort of planning out my day in my head and I thought to myself, that this afternoon I would run a few errands hitting the pet supply store, grocery store and post office.  Then I would get my suitcases out.  That would give me tomorrow to finish getting all the dust that the painters left behind cleaned up and laundry done.  Then I could spend Saturday on last minute preparations, Sunday I could go to my parents house to see my uncle who is visiting from out of state and that would leave me Monday to finish packing, finish up any last minute things for clients, and go to bed early since I have to be at the airport at 4 AM Tuesday.  So with the discovery that today is actually Friday, normally the happiest day of the week, I'm suddenly stressed.

I'm going to a cruise conference.  So I am pretty sure that they are going to give us tons of freebies to bring home.  So now I'm trying to figure out the logistics of shipping that stuff home to make my packing easier.  It will certainly be cheaper than adding a piece of luggage on the way back since I am flying Spirit.  By the way, I still haven't gone to the Spirit website and paid my luggage fees to avoid their exorbitant airport luggage fees.  Gotta add that to my list. So, I'm thinking the next several days will be anything but relaxed. I'd really like to see my uncle who I only get to see every couple of years.  So, I'm keeping that on the list for the time being.  That just means that everything else gets smashed down and I have one less day to complete it all.

If I were going on a vacation, I don't think this would be stressing me out so much since I would know that as soon as I reach my destination, I can relax and all the stress would go away.  But I am going to Ft. Lauderdale for 7 straight days of non-stop lectures, seminars and ships tours.  Okay, I do have to admit that since I am a travel agent, I did plan a little bit of play time for myself.  What would be the point in going to Ft. Lauderdale after the coldest winter in the Metroplex in decades and not making time to get to a beach?  I mentioned that I have to be at the airport around 4 Tuesday morning?  Well the plane lands at 9:38 AM, I've arranged an early check in at the hotel and then I'm walking over to the beach for the day.  My first lecture isn't until Wednesday morning.  Hey!  I'm no fool!

Oh!  Then this week, they sent out an email saying that the attire for the conference is "business wear", well..... since I am a home based travel agent, my "business wear" most days unless I am leaving the house is ragged sweat pants with a tee shirt and I don't think that's what they had in mind.  I discussed this with a friend the other night and I have decided that they are just going to have to accept me in business casual since even my last several years in the corporate world were spent going to work in that type of clothing.  I no longer own suits and I'm not buying new ones for this.

So, now I'm trying to decide how much stuff I can take with me.  I'd really like to take my laptop so that I can write a few blog entries while I'm gone. I mean, you're going to want reports from the conference, right? If nothing else, you'll need to see photos of Ft. Lauderdale, the ships and stuff.  I feel like I owe it to my public to keep you informed.  But my laptop is so big and unreliable.  So, then I'm wondering if I can write my blog using my Nook, which will be in my hands at almost all times anyway.  I think if I want to do that, I'm going to need to make a run to Barnes and Noble this weekend for a keypad for the Nook.  My Nook is very much like an iPad, but I don't mind telling you that almost the only thing I have ever done on it is read e-books.  I'm just not all that tech savvy.  That means, I'll have to figure out how to do all my work on it. Ugh!  Have I ever mentioned that I have no patience for reading instructions?

Well, as you may have gathered from this blog entry, I have a lot of work to do and very little time in which to complete it, so I had better get busy.  Have a great weekend!  I'll let you know how the prep work for my trip is coming on Monday!

A Non-Travel Travel Blog

Last week my mom told me that lately my blogs haven't been as fun for her to read because, you know, they were just about.... well, travel.  I pointed out that it IS a travel blog.  But after reading back over a few, I suppose I could liven things up a little.  So this one's for you Mom.

A week or so ago, I was watching TV one evening and something happened or some program came on that made me think about transistor radios.  I can't remember what triggered the memory of transistor radios and I suppose it really isn't that important anyway.  But I started thinking about how kids today would have no idea what a transistor radio even was.  And they sure as hell wouldn't put up with one.  But back in the day a transistor radio was one of your first signs of independence.  It signified that you were growing up with your own taste in music and by God, you could listen to anything you wanted... with a strong enough AM signal. 

I remember vividly the Christmas that me and my brothers got our transistor radios.  It was a great day that apparently still effects my life.  I say that because that first transistor radio was citrus orange.  If you spend any time around me at all, you know that to this day that is my favorite color and it has always been.  Now I call it my signature color in honor of Elle Woods whose signature color we all know was pink.  But basically, since the day I got that treasured transistor radio, orange has always been a significant color to me.

For you kiddies that don't know what a transistor radio was, it was a compact device roughly the size of a box of 64 count crayons with a telescopic antennae, a single very small built in speaker, two dials - one for volume and the other to tune the radio to your favorite AM radio station, and a small wrist strap so that it could dangle from your wrist as you walked down the street.  They came with a single ear piece that you stuck in one ear to listen.  With the other ear you listened to whatever was going on around you because if you didn't respond when your mom spoke to you, you just might get smacked.  Back then, we had no idea what earbuds were.  It was just an ear piece, which incidentally looked almost like a single earbud.  Apparently, we were way ahead of our time.  The earpiece was the part that got lost roughly 10 minutes after the radio was taken out of the box never to be seen again.  After all, it wasn't that important because we wanted to share our music with the other people around us.

Now I know if you are under the age of 20 you might be thinking to yourself, what the hell is AM radio??!!!?!?!?!  It was our only form of entertainment besides the 2 or 3 network TV stations we got (if we were lucky) using the antennae that was on the roof of our houses.  On AM radio you could listen to anything from country music, to rock and roll and baseball from St. Louis if you pointed your antennae in the right direction. It all came through that one speaker that sounded pretty awful if the truth be known.  But the radio took us to worlds we had never seen and had only dreamed of.  

The transistor radio was significant because it allowed us to listen to our own type of music for the first time in many of our lives.  I grew up in a family that LOOOOVED it's country music.  I, on the other hand, did not.  I would go places with friends and they would ask their mom to change the radio station to a rock station and she would just do it.  That was never an option in our car.  For a long time I didn't know that there was any other station in Nacogdoches other than KSFA, which was all country from the time the national anthem played in the morning until it played again in the evening....  What?  Are you so young that you don't understand what that means?  Back in the day, radio and TV stations didn't air 24/7. When they came on the air in the morning, they played a recording of the national anthem and when they signed off in the evening they did it again.  On TV afterwards, you'd get a test pattern for a few minutes then it would go to snow.  I'm sorry, I can't explain snow.  Ask your parents or grandparents....  But this is what a test pattern looked like.

I have no idea why it displayed on the TV before it went to snow, but it did.  But I digress, this is about transistor radios and the freedom they offered.

Once I got that radio, I discovered the other radio station in Nacogdoches that my parents didn't talk about. I discovered KEEE and friends, that was rock and roll at it's finest.  Okay, it was actually more of a pop station.  But for me, that was wild!  For a long time my favorite song was Locomotion.  I first heard it at the skating rink where they played it a lot and then I would call KEEE everyday and request it.  Most days they would actually play it for me.  Then I fell in love with a song called Brandy.  They played a lot of the Osmond's and you all know how I feel about Donny.  My transistor radio was my first introduction to Donny. I guess in a way, the transistor radio brought me and my first love (Donny) together.

I vividly remember taking the transistor radio with me on long car trips with the earpiece.  I would sit in the back seat and constantly work at tuning the radio station.  You see AM radio stations didn't and still don't have a strong signal, I mean except for KMOX out of St. Louis which is reputed to have a signal that can be heard in 44 states and was certainly strong enough for me and my brothers to listen to at night in Nacogdoches.  In the car, with each passing mile a radio signal would increase and another would decrease. So tuning your radio station was a constant.  As soon as you found a good radio station playing a great song, it would start to fade and you'd have to go in search of another one.  I don't think I ever listened to a full strong in the car on that radio from start to finish before the station began to fade.  But it kept us on our toes.

There are kids today who don't know of a time when XM didn't exist.  Kids today have never had to listen to the first two lines of their favorite song and then listen to it fade to static as the strength of the signal could no longer carry the song to them.  You learned to deal with disappointment with an AM transistor radio. Maybe that's one of the things wrong with kids today.  They've never had to deal with that disappointment. If they start listening to a song, they can listen to it until the very end unless they choose to end the song early. They also don't have to call the radio station after a song ends and ask what the name of the song was or who was singing it.  It's displayed across the radio, iPhone, smart phone, iPod or computer screen throughout the song.  Back in the day, radios didn't have screens.  

We also had DJ's back then and they weren't guys who scratched records for a living.  They played them. When you called the radio station, the Disk Jockey who was playing the records actually answered the phone.  If there was a contest in which the 10th caller won, he would pick up the phone when each person called and say something like, "K-E-E-E... you're caller number 5" and then he'd hang up and go to the next call. If you called to request a song, sometimes he would talk to you for a minute.  Other times, if he was tired of you calling 5 times a day to request the same song over and over again, he'd tell you that he wasn't going to play it again today and hang up. But he was real and all little girls had crushes on the DJ's even though most of them actually had a "face for radio", which meant they were too ugly to be on TV.

Yep the transistor radio was greatness.  And while I realize that maybe you opened today's blog hoping to gain some wisdom about some travel topic or sage words of advice on traveling, you've hopefully at least had a nice little walk down memory lane.  Or if you are too young to know what a transistor radio is, perhaps this was a history lesson.  Either way, thanks for reading and have a great hump day! 

You Never Know....

Wow!  Talk about turning something bad into something good....  The people on board Navigator of the Seas this week are actually pretty darn lucky even though you wouldn't think that was the case.

With the collision of a barge and a ship in Galveston Bay last weekend, there was a pretty massive oil spill in case you haven't heard.  That meant that the Princess Ship that was in the Houston Ship Channel at the time of the accident couldn't leave port.  Additionally, the Royal Caribbean ship (Navigator) and the Carnival ships (Magic and Triumph) were scheduled to come into port on Sunday and Monday to return the previous weeks passengers and pick up new ships full of people to take back out. Each of those returns to port were delayed due to the oil spill.

I've often been on a cruise and dreamed of being told by the captain, "we're sorry but we can't take you back home".  Of course, I'm sure that some of the people on board the ships which were stuck at sea might have wanted to go home.  Although, I really don't get that.  But here's what happened with Navigator.  They were supposed to arrive back in port on Sunday morning around 7 AM.  They were finally allowed to come into port late Sunday night.  So, all those people got to go home although many of them probably missed flights and probably had to take an extra day off work.  Then RCCL was able to re-load the ship Monday morning with the passengers who were supposed to go out on Sunday.  But the Port Authority still would not allow the ship to leave port again due to the spill.

So all those people got on board and then they couldn't leave.  This morning when I went to the Royal Caribbean travel agent site to process some cruise payments, they had a notice posted saying that this weeks cruise has officially been canceled.  Each passenger will receive a 100% refund for the cruise, plus a 25% discount on their next cruise.  But here's where it gets good.  The ship and the crew have no place to be and nothing to do and the passengers are already on board.  So, they have been invited to stay on board until next Sunday when they were scheduled to return. While on board they will be able to enjoy the free food, entertainment and all the other amenities that you would normally enjoy while at sea, free of charge.

Ummmmm.... let's see.... my choices are A.) Spend a week on a cruise ship, being fed, entertained and waited on hand and foot or B.) Go home and probably go back to work, cook my own meals, clean up after myself and watch reruns of Chopped.  Did I mention that all of this weeks passengers are being given a 100% refund and 25% off their next cruise on top of this????  I think my choice would be pretty clear. When it gets right down to it, I don't care if the ship ever leaves port as long as a cabin steward continues to clean my cabin a couple of times a day and the food continues to flow.  It's basically like staying at a hotel in Galveston except that the meals are included.  The Strand is within walking distance of the cruise ship terminals.  So, you can spend a little time there.  Maybe you could even go over to Moody Gardens one afternoon or tour some of the old Victorian houses around Galveston. If you're one of those people who spends most of the cruise in the casino, you might be disappointed since the casino can't open in port.  But otherwise, it's kind of a great deal.

You might notice that I haven't told you what is happening with the Carnival ships or Princess.  That's because, I'm not really sure.  You see, after going through both of their websites looking for information, they aren't offering any to travel agents.  I have read a couple of news stories on line from the TV stations around Houston saying that all of the ships have been allowed into port.  However, I have no idea if they ever let any of the others leave or not.  I don't know if they have offered full refunds.  I don't know anything really.  I think this is the biggest reason that I am so loyal to Royal Caribbean.  As a traveler and a travel agent, I like to be kept informed.  I don't think I am very different from most other travelers.  While I don't have any clients on any of the Princess or Carnival ships affected, I would like to know what is being done for them so that I can advise my future clients about how the cruise line responds to vacation disruptions.  A lack of information about this just makes me uneasy.  So once again, I can assure you that if you book a cruise on Royal Caribbean, you can be certain that you will be taken care of in the event of unforeseen circumstances. If you book a cruise on any cruise line falling under the Carnival umbrella, I don't know.

You will note that I didn't mention anything regarding compensation for missed flights.  It's because, that's what travel insurance is for.  A lot of people feel that travel insurance is just a waste of money.  I doubt that it would seem like a waste of money if you had a 2 PM flight home from Houston to Minneapolis last Sunday and you were sitting on a ship still at sea when it left.  At that point it would probably seem like $100 well spent.  It also would have come in handy if you were one of those people who arrived in Galveston Sunday expecting to board a ship around 1 PM and were told "maybe tomorrow....  Why don't you go see if you can find a hotel room for tonight....."

Well, I have a house full of painters and I suppose I should step away from my desk for a little while.  Have a great Tuesday!

Open Your Eyes and See the Beauty

My parents emailed me a link this morning that I debated opening.  Someone had sent it to them.  All the message said was "This video clip is worth your time to watch, and a great reminder that we all have so much to be thankful for if we will just open our eyes and look.  Enjoy - Jack "  I didn't know who Jack was. So, my first thoughts were cynical and I immediately started to think it's probably a virus..... But my parents took the time to send it and I noticed that they also sent it to their preacher so I decided it might be worth opening.

This is the video.  Open it and take Jack's advice.  Enjoy!

Advice, Whether You Need It Or Not

I'm preparing for my very first Cruise3sixty.  In case you didn't know, it's basically a convention for travel agents that focuses on cruising.  It is huge and it is being held in Ft. Lauderdale, which I love!  I don't know if it is held in Ft. Lauderdale every year because quite frankly, I didn't know that it existed before this year. From looking at their website, I have gathered that it may have been held in Seattle previously. But I'm really not sure.

I can tell you that the scope of this event is unlike anything I ever attended in my 30 years in the retail industry. I'm thinking that maybe.... just maybe, this is the Comic Con of cruising.  It's a full week long.  I'll actually be gone for 8 days.  During that time, I'm scheduled to attend 16 lectures, general sessions and classes in addition to 4 ship inspections.  That's a lot of information to take in.  I could have attended many more events and lectures.  But I tried to keep them down to no more than 3 a day (on the day I arrive and the day I leave there are none) so that I would have plenty of time to take in all there is to see.  I'm scheduled to attend lectures on everything from Social Networking to one called "France, Diversity of Experiences to Suit Every Taste". (They had me at France!)

I'm excited about this.  I'm not excited just because of what I may learn, but also because of whom I may meet.  I hope to meet lots of travel professionals who can shed some light on things for me.  As a home based travel agent in only my second year of operation, sometimes I feel like I am out here all alone.  Sure, I could call my host company to ask questions and I do.  Additionally, you can always contact representatives from the travel suppliers, they are more than willing to help.  But sometimes it would just be really nice to have other travel agents who have muddled through all of this before to bounce things off of.

I just think that the more travel agents I have to network with, the better service I can be to my clients. And who knows there may be some clueless travel agent out there who knows even less than I do who I could answer a question for occasionally. Stranger things have happened!  So this morning I started thinking about the things I have learned in the last 18 months that I would pass on to another travel agent if given the opportunity and here are a few of the things I came up with.

• When someone calls or emails and says "I need to get away, find me a vacation!" - ASK QUESTIONS!!!!  When they say, "I don't know, just anyplace...."  Don't believe it! I can't tell you how many days I have spent running queries for clients to go some place that they had absolutely no interest in!
• When talking to friends at dinner and they say in passing "I need for you to book me a trip to Europe..."  Don't sit around and wait for them to call you with details of what they want to do, when they want to travel, or how much they want to spend.  They apparently think you already know.  Email or call them the next business day and ask for the details!
• When someone tells you, "I would never go on a cruise, I get seasick", don't believe them.  They will turn around and book a cruise on their own 6 weeks later.  I don't understand how this works, but apparently the phrase "I get seasick" is some sort of trigger for making a person book a cruise on their own with no help from a travel agent.
• Plan lots of home improvement projects for times when you expect business to be slow.  This will trigger clients to call or email and book a trip for immediate travel during the times when the most work is being done in your home within two feet of you.  There's no better accompaniment to being on the phone with a client than having a jackhammer working just a few feet away.
• If you have cats and ever want to get any work done while it is cold, get a space heater and aim it at whatever cat tower you want them to sit on to keep them off of you.  This will have them lined up in the direct path of the space heater thus allowing you to work.

  

  Jingle on the cat tower closest to the space heater... Mrs. Beasley waiting for her turn on the cat tower closest to the space heater.

   
• If you need more business, go on a trip where you can't be reached.  This will have clients coming out of the woodwork to book a vacation.  When you get home, you'll have loads of new clients just waiting for call backs and several returning clients who want to book a cruise for 10 or more people.  Sometimes when I have nothing planned for myself, I can go a full week without hearing from a single client.  But if I'm within 5 days of leaving town to go anywhere, I suddenly become inundated with people ready to book.  Thanks to this phenomenon, my parents have seen more of me in the last year than since I moved away from home.
• Network, network, network!  This is especially effective if you have a few friends who you've noticed having random conversations with homeless people on a train.  If they'll talk to a random homeless person on a commuter train, they will talk to anyone and you want them to carry your business cards around.  (Just make sure that your physical address isn't on your business cards!)
• Blog!  People especially like it when you tell self deprecating stories about yourself in your travel blog. They LOVE knowing that you have no coordination and fall down and skin a knee every time you go on a trip or that you have been known to get on a subway going the wrong direction in Manhattan. This apparently makes them feel better about their own travels.... or they're just entertained by your misery.  Either way, it keeps them coming back and that's what it's all about!
• Work Bridal Shows!  I thought I would book enough honeymoons from each show I did to pay for the show expenses plus make some profit.  It turns out that you do book some honeymoons.  But the real money is in booking wedding recovery trips for the mother and father of the bride that they take after the wedding!  Dad figures he just spent at least $30k on getting a kid out of the house, he deserves an Alaskan cruise tour with no expense spared!  Talk to the parents!!!  

So anyway, those are a few of my helpful hints for travel agents starting out. Even if you aren't a travel agent, I would just say that starting a business is a humbling experience not to be taken on by the faint of heart. Have a great Monday and happy travels!

A Little Texas Pi Day Road Trip - Revisited

Note:  This blog entry was copied from last year with a few minor revisions since Pi Day falls on Friday this year rather than Thursday and one or two of the pie restaurants have made slight changes to their weekend marketing and or hours.  But I enjoyed writing this blog last year and based on my readership, several of you enjoyed reading it.  Hopefully, one or two even took my advice and took a little Pi Day road trip.  If not, maybe you will this year using my guidance.  Have a great weekend!

Well, it's Pi Day.... You know, like the number pi (3.14159265359), not the pastry pie.  So in honor of  3/14 or Pi Day, I'm celebrating the pastry rather than the number.  Because honestly, what kind of a geek would want to celebrate a number, for the love of Pete.....

So let's talk about the best places to go for a really great piece of pie.  Now, if you're asking me, the best place to go for a perfect piece of chocolate or coconut meringue pie is my Mom's house and back in the day my Grandma's house was a close second.  However, if you all show up at my Mom's house with forks in hand, she's probably going to get a little pissy and none of us wants to see that.  So I found an article from Southern Living on line that ranked the top 10 pie places in Texas and since it is going to be a perfect spring weekend in Texas, I thought what better way could my lovely readers spend their time than driving around the state conducting your very own pie tasting comparison?

Now I have to be honest, although I have lived in Texas all my life and I have lived in several different parts of Texas, there are still parts of the state that I either don't even know exist or just prefer not to visit.  So, although Southern Living ranked 10 in their article, I'm only going to give you information on the ones in locations that I think are worth your visit.  I mean let's face it how many of you are really willing to drive out to Medina this weekend to visit an orchard during it's off season?  None of you, right?  So, I'm not going to tell you that the apple pies at the Love Creek Orchards in Medina were ranked #1 by Southern Living.  What sense would that make.  The fact that I had to Google Medina to even find it on a map is pretty telling, I think.

So moving along, you might be interested in visiting the Blue Bonnet Cafe in Marble Falls this weekend.  After all, the bluebonnets may be starting to bloom and you probably haven't tossed your kids in a bunch of them on the side of the highway in the last year for a photo op.  This weekend would be the perfect time to do it and there is no better place to do that than along Hwy 281 in Marble Falls.  Monday through Friday the Blue Bonnet Cafe has a pie Happy Hour from 3 - 5 p.m.  If you take off from work early today, you might be able to make that.  If you need a place to spend the night in Marble Falls after OD'ing on pie, check out the Bella Vista Bed and Breakfast for a relaxing evening of digesting your pie.

But wait, it gets better, because you could really make a big weekend out of your Pi Day celebration if you drove over to Stephenville and took Hwy 281 south stopping at Hico first.  You wouldn't be able to stop here and still get down to Marble Falls for pie Happy Hour, but  you see, the #3 place in Texas for pie is the Koffee Kup Family Restaurant in Hico at the intersection of Hwy 281 and Hwy 6.  They also have great chicken fried steak but how could you expect anything less?  I mean, it is right smack dab in the middle of Texas.  So, okay, here's the new plan, you leave work early today.... head to Hico.  Get your pie on there.  Then you head on down to Marble Falls....   If you happen to lapse into diabetic coma after the pie from Hico, you can always stop in Lampasas for the night.  But I would recommend driving on to Marble Falls since you are going to have several more stops to make before the weekend is over.

I'm thinking now that you are going to have to eat your Marble Falls pie for breakfast or lunch because you've gotta get to Round Top before the Royers Round Top Cafe closes at 9:30 on Saturday night for your second dose of pie of the day.  By the way, it is Antique Week in Round Top which is the smallest incorporated town in the state with a population of 77 people.  So, the website recommends that you make reservations at the cafe.  I'm just sayin'.....  I'm thinking that finding a place to spend the night in Round Top is going to be pretty tough unless you are related to one of the 77 residents.  So you might want to head down I-10 and look for a hotel room.  But don't go too far because tomorrow we are hitting our next stop in Chappell Hill.  Bad news this year about Royers Round Top Cafe, last year they had a Pi Day special in which they were offering 25% off pies ordered from their website all weekend long.  I guess they're too big time for that this year.  Maybe I sent so much business their way, they couldn't keep up with the demand but no such offer this year....

The next stop in our weekend of celebrating Pi Day is in Chappell Hill, Tx. at Bevers Kitchen.  We're in luck too!  Friday and Saturday are Mexican buffet days in the restaurant.  Be sure to check out the website for this place because the photos of the pies and bread are amazing!  After the Mexican buffet and a big old slice of pie you might want to walk it off at the Chappell Hill Lavender Farm which just opened a few weeks ago for the 2014 season.  You can cut your own lavender for $5 a bundle.

As you leave Chappell Hill, you will make your final stop in Brenham.  Now, I know what you're thinking.....  Whoa there Susan!!!!  It's Pi Day not Ice Cream Day!  But Brenham also happens to be the home to Must Be Heaven and yes, to answer your question it is indeed also an ice cream parlor selling Blue Bell Ice Cream.  The stop in Brenham will wrap our trip up.  But after 3 days of pie, we will need to get back home and head to the gym anyway.  So if you are still conscious after all of that pie, head on over to I-45 to drive back to the Dallas area and if you get hungry along the way, stop at Buck-ees for a little snack.  Yeah, that's right, I said it.

Have a good weekend.  I'll talk to you all on Monday.  Happy Pi Day!

Upcoming Ship Inspections!

I'm so excited!  The confirmations have been sent out for the March 23rd ship inspection on Navigator of the Seas and I am a part of it!  I had initially tried to get in on the February 16th ship inspection.  But it filled up before they got to me.  I'm thrilled to be getting on board before too many of my clients sail dates come around.  I hope to become a regular wealth of information once this is done.  The day before the ship inspection, I'll be attending a luncheon in Houston with my Royal Caribbean Business Development Manager. This is also very exciting for me since I have never met her after a year and a half of working with her.

But mostly, I'm excited to see a virtual balcony in person.  Recently, a friend and I discussed the concept of virtual balconies.  She could see no point in them and thought getting a cabin with a virtual balcony would be a total waste of money.  She always gets inside cabins because she prefers them.  I talked her into getting a balcony cabin once and she really disliked it.  Meanwhile, I've only ever been in one inside cabin and while it wasn't claustrophobic as I expected it to be, I still am a balcony girl and would never pay to be in an inside cabin if given any other option. So for me, I think with as much as I currently know about virtual balconies, it would just help me to keep from feeling closed in while not paying a full balcony price. But maybe I'll get on board and find out that my friend was totally correct.... Or perhaps I'll discover a huge advantage that I can pass on to clients.  We'll see.

Regardless of what happens with the virtual balcony debate, I intend to take tons of pictures and explore every nook and cranny of Navigator while on board for 5 hours on a Sunday before she sets sail. So here's the question. What do you want to know about Navigator of the Seas before you book a cruise to sail the Western Caribbean out of Galveston this summer?  I have two opportunities to find out from the experts during that weekend and 5 hours on board to see for myself and photograph for you everything you are interested in seeing.  I currently have a number of people booked on board who haven't yet reached their sail date.... including me, my mom, 3 aunts and 2 cousins in June. So I'll be going to all the cabins I have booked to get pictures of their cabins to send to them.  But again, I'll have access to a wealth of information. So what do you want to know?

Didn't book through me but still interested in finding out a thing or two?  Well, I still care about you.... and maybe I can help you in ways that your current travel agent can't.  Or God forbid, if you booked it yourself using no travel agent, I can certainly give you more information than you are going to get otherwise. All I would ask is that the next time you plan a vacation you remember who can get you answers.... even if you are located in a different city! This is the electronic age folks!  You don't need to be within 20 miles of me to utilize my travel expertise and booking a cruise costs exactly the same no matter how it is booked.  The cruise lines pay my fee.  If you do all the work yourself and don't use a travel agent, it just means the cruise line makes more money.  But the savings do not get passed on to you.  So, book through a pro.

Now, here's more news regarding ship inspections.  In April, I'll be visiting Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas, Celebrity Constellation, Royal Princess and Holland America's Zuiderdam all in Miami and Port Everglades.  So, if you want to know anything about any of those ships, this is your chance to get answers!  I won't have quite as much time on each of these ships just because there are too many ships to visit in a short period of time.  But if there is anything specific you want answers about or photos of, let me know.... I'm your answer girl!  Additionally, for a solid week, I'll be in Ft. Lauderdale at a cruise convention meeting with countless cruise line representatives and attending classes, seminars and lectures.  If there is something you want to know, I can get you an answer!  That offer also goes out to all of my travel agent friends who can't attend.  I'll get you any information you are interested in as long as you are willing to reciprocate when you visit a ship or a trade show that I'm not able to attend.

So send me your questions!!!!  I'm here to help!  That's right - I only think of you guys... You're my reason for being.... ahem...  smeyers@placesuwillgo.com

Spring Break in Plano?

Wow!  Yesterday I decided that I needed to leave my home/office for a few hours to maintain my sanity in the middle of the day.  When you live and work in the same 1,300 square feet with no other humans and 3 cats, you like I, might find that there are times when you either must leave for a few hours or you might begin to have in depth conversations with cats in which they seemingly talk back .  This is never a good thing.  So, I strongly recommend a lunch out at least once a week.  So that's what I did yesterday.

When I left the house, I didn't really know where I was going other than to the bank.  But knowing that I needed to be away from home for a few hours, I took the precaution of bringing a magazine along and decided that I would find a nice place where I could sit outside and have lunch since the weather was so amazing.  While sitting in the bank drive thru I decided to hit the Katy Trail Ice House for lunch, because after all, it was nearly 2 in the afternoon, so there was no way even with the perfect weather there would be that many people having a late lunch or early happy hour..... WRONG!  When I drove into the parking lot, there were no parking places within the first two parking areas.  Now I have gone into the Katy Trail Ice House on one occasion when the parking lot was that full and I had to sit about 5 feet from the main bar inside.  Well, the hole point in going yesterday was to enjoy the beautiful weather.  So I wasn't going to go for a table inside.  So, I left.  

At that point it dawned on me that it was Spring Break in Plano and the Plano mom's that work take off work during spring break to stay home with the kids.  I know this because in my previous life I employed several Plano mom's and you couldn't get any of them to work during Spring Break. The other factor coming into play was that most Plano mom's aren't really the types to sit at home with kids and cook meals, so they go out to lunch and probably dinner too while the kids are home for Spring Break.  So I decided to head south back toward Dallas where the mom's aren't quite so involved and more willing to leave the kids at home alone during Spring Break, or at least if they stay home with the kids, they might keep them at home and not fill up all the restaurants.  

Back in North Dallas, I decided to give Hook, Line and Sinker one more try.  It's a casual restaurant that serves fish (mostly fried) and they too have good outdoor seating.  I went a couple of times right after they opened last year.  Each time the food was not seasoned at all.  I mean, fried fish and fries with no salt is just insane!  Who would ruin fried fish by not using any seasoning in the cooking whatsoever???  So, I thought surely they had fixed that issue in the last year.  Not so much.  Additionally, I got two pieces of catfish one of which was taken out of the fryer a few minutes too early and was raw in the middle.  Add to that the "tarter sauce" was just a glob of mayo with no seasonings in it.  What do these people have against seasoning? And the only thing even remotely good about my lunch is that 3 cats weren't walking across my plate poking their noses into my meal to see what was for lunch.

But while I poked through my catfish looking for bites that might be edible and burning time before I had to go back home and sit back down at my desk to finish up some cruise queries while trying to keep cats from trying to catch the cursor as it moves across my monitor, which by the way, happens to be a touch screen monitor (this is particularly fun for the cats), I started thinking about why those annoying Plano mom's didn't take their kids on a vacation for Spring Break.  I mean seriously!!!!  What is their problem?  It could have been a win/win/win.  I could have booked it for them earning a buck or two to put toward painting the interior of my house/office.  They wouldn't be in Plano right now taking up all the outdoor dining space with their rowdy little monsters.  Plus if they played their cards right and booked a cruise or a kid friendly all inclusive, they could put those little monsters in the kids programs while they experience a total state of relaxation.  What's wrong with these people?

But here we are with all these kids out of school with no place to be because their parents didn't plan ahead and book a vacation last year when they could get an outstanding price.  Don't let this happen to you next year.  Plan ahead!  Call your friendly self employed home based travel agent who could really use the business and just might be willing to meet you at your home, place of employment, any restaurant or Starbucks you choose, or any place else that doesn't allow cats and has free WiFi to work on planning your family trip of a lifetime.  So keep that in mind next year.  If we book your Spring Break trip just as soon as school calendars come out, you're certain to get a great price and you'll have it to look forward to through the entire VERY long winter.  

Hope the rest of your Spring Break is great and you can get into the restaurant of your choice.  But if that's your desire, stay out of Plano and probably Frisco and Allen too!