Royal Princess Ship Inspection

Good morning travelers....  I'm baaaaa-aaack!!!!  Ft. Lauderdale was amazing.  Okay, I have to admit.  I'm actually writing this blog in Ft. Lauderdale sitting at the pool bar of my hotel while waiting for my ride to the airport.  Here's a photo of what I am forced to endure while working.  Hey, it's a tough life but these are the sacrifices I make for you guys. Someone's got to do this, right?  So, since I finished my last ship inspection on Monday at 1:45 pm and my flight didn't leave until 8:15 pm, there was no point in suffering or just sitting around doing nothing.  So, I wrote a weeks worth of blogs for you, my faithful follower, while I waited.

In case you missed yesterday's blog, (which I finished writing a few minutes ago) we discussed my rushed ship inspection on Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas. Again, I will say that the rushed inspection was not the fault of Royal Caribbean, but my inspection mate who only sells high end luxury cruises and therefore, had no interest in spending time on a moderately priced cruise ship. Also, I don't fault her at all, if I could make a living only selling high end luxury cruises, I wouldn't want to waste my time else where either.

With all of that said, on Saturday once I had a ship inspection under my belt, I felt that I could go out on my own for my Princess ship inspection.  This particular tour was on board Royal Princess the newest and most luxurious ship in the Princess fleet.  You might recognize the name of this ship simply because The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton is the godmother and christened the ship as her last official act prior to the birth of Prince George last fall.  On board they have this beautiful display case containing the dress she wore for the event and the broken champagne bottle.  In case you were wondering the dress seems to have been linen from what I could tell through the glass display case. Also, it is TINY.  Based on that dress if she weighed more than 85 lbs at 8 months pregnant,  I would be amazed. I'm pretty sure that my left thigh weighed more than she did at the end of her pregnancy.

Travel agents waiting for the ship to clear.

Anyway, we were on board the Royal Princess.  We had to wait about 30 minutes to allow the ship to clear. Federal law does not allow anyone to board a cruise ship (even visitors or workers) until all passengers from the previous cruise have disembarked.  So, if you are a cruise ship straggler, be aware that you are probably being cussed each time you finally manage to leave a ship. If that doesn't bother you, then good for you.  But I would like to think that those people holding things up just didn't know that they were affecting others.  When we finally got on board, they turned us loose and just told us what time to meet in the dining room for lunch. We had almost an hour before lunch, so I decided to start on the Lido deck and work from there to see all that I could in the time I had.

Before we go any further, I feel that I should tell you that Carnival owns the following:  Carnival, Princess, Costa, Holland America, Cunard, Seabourn and they go in that order from least luxurious and expensive to most luxurious and expensive. I would equate Princess along the lines of Royal Caribbean in price and luxury level. As far as Princess goes, this is their finest ship currently.  They have a new ship coming out soon, the Regal Princess the sister ship of Royal which will be close to identical to Royal.  This was a lovely ship with some amazing features that anyone who enjoys luxury and being pampered would find wonderful.

Believe it or not this is a pool bar on the Lido Deck. Sweet, huh?

As with all Princess ships, they feature Movies Under the Stars, but the movie screen on this particular ship is apparently bigger and better than the others.  The pools are nice and about what you would expect.  I think that in the upper decks the thing I found the most wonderful was Horizons, which is the Princess name for the buffet. Hot and cold food areas were sectioned off.  Deserts and salads were away from other buffet items.  Many things were under glass. After having been on a Princess ship recently the week following a minor norovirus outbreak I think this is probably Princess' answer to concerns over germs.

The cruising industry is continually faced with publicity concerning norovirus outbreaks when the reality is that norovirus occurs everywhere in day to day life and no one pays attention to it.  However, if it occurs on a ship, it is treated as though the plague has broken out. So cruiselines are taking more and more action to insure that passengers are protected in every way possible.  After all, the last thing you want to have happen while you are on a vacation of a lifetime is to come down with a stomach bug.

The big Movie Under The Stars screen in the pool area.

The sports deck is very nice and has lots of outdoor running and walking space for my marathon friends. I can tell you from experience that running on board a ship is harder than running around White Rock.  I don't know why, but it is.  So this might help you in your post cruse workouts.  Here's my theory regarding that, you run in an oval.  So during half the run you are running the same way the ship is sailing. During that time, with each step you take, you are going further than a step taken on land. I mean, seriously, if you are traveling at 20 knots and you are running, then you're probably running at 22 knots (that's 25 mph!!!). That's some serious running, my friends! (Okay, I don't want to hear from any of you scientific types.  I know my theory has flaws, but I'm still working on it.) Anyway, on that sports deck you will also find this state of the art fitness center with a studio for pilates, zumba and such.  There's something for everyone.

One of the things I visited on the Lido deck was the Seawalk.  I'm not generally afraid of heights.  But I must say that it freaked me out a little.  It goes out over the water and the floor is glass.  So, the net affect is that you feel like you are walking on air a few hundred feet above the waters surface.  This photo was taken while the ship was docked obviously, so you can see the cement dock below me which I think screwed with my mind more than walking above water.  After all, water would be softer than cement if the glass suddenly broke, right?  The photo below is what it looks like as you are walking through if you don't look down.

Between running to the public venues I was able to sneak into a few cabins.  We weren't invited to visit the cabins, but the doors were open while the cabin stewards were preparing them so I snuck in and took a few photos.  I think you will agree that while small, they are pretty darn nice. Most of the cabin stewards were very friendly and helpful even though I was interrupting their work as they prepared for passengers. One of the cabin stewards did grumble a little bit when I got in his way, but I just acted like I didn't hear him.  And then smiled and thanked him as I left the cabin.  The cabin below looks very much like the one I had on board Caribbean Princess except that the TV was above the fridge rather than mounted on the wall.

This is a normal balcony room.  Very small with no real room to sit.  The only chair blocks the balcony

To the left is the bathroom for that balcony room.  The shower is the size of a postage stamp and you can ALMOST turn around in it without injury to yourself. Below you will see the much more comfortable Deluxe Balcony. That sofa folds out into another bed. So if you are going to have three people or more in the room and you wanted a balcony you would need this.  Also, if you would like to be able to turn around in your room, this one would probably be a little more up your alley.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that this room also had a bathtub (pictured above on the right) in the bathroom.  Talk about luxury!!!!

After all of that, I started working my way down to the dining room we had been told to meet in for lunch.  But on my way, I ran into a few other areas of interest.  I came across some seating areas and bars including the Crown Grill and Wheelhouse Bar.  In the Wheelhouse Bar, I found the most amazing wine tasting area pictured below.  I had to post a photo on Facebook while I stood there to show my travel buddy what she and I might consider a cruising mecca of sorts. She said it brought a tear to her eye.  That's me in the tasting room down to the right.

When I finally made it to lunch, I must say that I was very impressed by the dining room and the meal.  First of all, there are several dining rooms and although I didn't get to the others, this one was fairly small. Not the huge dining rooms that I have grown accustomed to on ships.  It was more like a dining room in a large restaurant.  On most ships the dining room can be 2 or 3 stories tall and hold hundreds of tables. This one was one level and probably had 30 or 40 tables.  But again there were several dining rooms on the ship where you could have assigned dining.  We were seated at tables surrounding a beautiful table which was set apart.  We were later told that it was the Chef's Table.  Guests who wish to, can dine at this table for a fee where they will be joined by the Chef who will go over each course of the meal with them and the maitre 'd.  I have seen a chef's table on a Royal Caribbean ship before and it was in a separate room so that others couldn't observe and listen to what was going on.  So I was surprised that this one was in the middle of the room.  Then the maitre 'd came around and told us that they were about to close the curtain and sure enough a beautiful beaded curtain enclosed the entire table.  Apparently once all the diners are seated, they close it off to the rest of the dining room so that the chef can address the diners who have paid to sit there.  It was really amazing.  If you chose to pay for this experience, your wine is included in the price as well as a cookbook autographed by the chef.  It was a little over $100 and I think it would be totally worth the price.

On board the Royal Princess my meal consisted of Cold Smoked Salmon and Sauteed Crawfish Tails followed by Chateaubriand of Beef Tenderloin with Milky Chocolate-Hazelnut Souffle for dessert.  It was all delicious.  Princess served wine with our meal which was very nice and the entire dining experience was wonderful.








Following lunch there was a little time left to visit a few other areas.  One interesting note, I went to the ladies room after lunch and was pleasantly surprised by the public wheel chair accessible area.  Basically, behind an automated door within the ladies room was a separate self contained wheel chair accessible restroom that a lot of businesses on land would do well to emulate.  Those photos are below all the food photos.

I would really love to sail on this ship.  I think that if you are into any sort of luxury you would enjoy being on board this ship. Best of all, you can cruise this ship at a very affordable price. I took so many more photos of other public areas of the ship that I'm just going to post them randomly below.  If you have questions about what you are looking at, just let me know.

On board wedding chapel

Inside Sabatini's a specialty dining option.

Looking up at the Seawalk from the dock

My First Ship Inpsection!

Well travelers, I have had a very exciting few days.  The last time I touched base with you guys, I had just met Capt. Stubing from TV's The Loveboat and while that was exciting, it wasn't actually my reason for coming to Ft. Lauderdale.  I came here with the intent of meeting more travel professionals, learning as much from them as possible and touring some magnificent ships.

The travel professionals have been met, knowledge was obtained and I have just spent the last three days visiting three ships that I had never been on before.  While I only had a few hours on board each of the ships, I saw enough to fill several blogs.  So prepare yourselves for information and photos.

Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas was my first ship inspection on Saturday.  I will tell you that I was pretty seriously rushed on it and therefore didn't get to see as much as I would have liked.  The rushing through the ship was not the fault of Royal Caribbean.  Unfortunately, I decided to pair myself with a lady who while lovely and very helpful, had no interest in seeing the ship that we were on.  Her biggest concern apparently was just getting to the end of the tour.  So she rushed me through everything so that we could hurry up and leave the ship and sit outside waiting for the rest of the travel agents to leisurely walk through and see all the points of interest on the ship.  In her defense, I am certain now that I know her better, I could have told her that it was a ship that I needed to slow down and see for my clients and she would have allowed me to take the lead slowing down our progress through the ship.

The travel agent who I spent my time with will be a great help to me going forward as I get more into the luxury market.  But currently, with most of my client base being more interested in the mass cruising market, it would have been beneficial to me to spend more time on one of the industry's largest and most sought after ships.  But since this was the first time that I actually successfully got on a ship inspection other than my seminar at sea on Vision of the Seas which I was on for 3 days, I was worried about getting separated from the group and doing something that I wasn't supposed to do, going somewhere I wasn't supposed to go or just being left on board and causing some kind of international CLIA incident when I was exposed as a stow away.  So I decided to stick with someone who I knew was a veteran.  Besides, she was really nice and I like her a lot.

By the time I got to the other two inspections I was a ship inspection veteran myself and could go out on my own.  So, you will get a lot more information from me in the next few blogs from my inspections of the Royal Princess and Holland America's Zuiderdam.  In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that both of these ships cater more to the type of cruising that I love.  I am a cruiser who craves luxury and traditional cruising and with both of these ships, we'll be leaning more toward traditional cruising. But let's start with Oasis.

Oasis of the Seas is the first of the Oasis class of ships from Royal Caribbean.  She came out in December of 2009 and carries a maximum capacity of 5,400 passengers and 2,180 crew members.  That's a ratio of about 2.5:1 passengers to crew which is pretty common on a mass market cruise ship.  The total number of guest cabins is 2,706. As you get more into the luxury brands the passenger to crew ratio goes down dramatically making it almost as though each passenger has their own crew member.  I mentioned maximum capacity because on these ships which are geared toward family cruising, you will see more cabins at full capacity than on ships aimed at a more leisure minded cruiser.  Her maximum speed is 22 knots (25 mph) and she got some enhancements in 2011.

A sign in the Promenade to aid you in finding your direction.  It's easy to get lost on this ship.

Mmmmm.... Cupcakes!

 As we boarded Oasis, we were running a little late.  We came on board into the Promenade where as you can see, I was able to snap a few photos.  Our tour guide took us immediately to Central Park and told us that we could take a few minutes to walk through it and then to meet in the dining room.  So, my friend and I ran through Central Park and then rushed down to the dining room.  But as we ran through Central Park I managed to snap a few shots of various seating areas and restaurants that open onto Central Park.  It was all very nice but a little smaller than I had thought from pictures I had seen.

But seriously, it's a cruise ship.  I don't know how big I was expecting it to be.  It is big enough to give you outdoor space and to feel like you are just in a crowded city park with no views of the water. There are many balconies that overlook Central Park.  If you are into green spaces, one of these balconies might be for you.

Several of the specialty restaurants have entrances that open onto Central Park to give them bistro feelings.  Additionally, a few of the bars and shops open onto Central Park.  It's a nice touch.

 I would imagine that these Central Park tables would be in high demand once the ship fills up.  When this photo was taken, they had just started letting people on board about an hour prior and you can see that already most tables are taken.  Below, you can see the entrance to Giovanni's which is one of the specialty restaurants with a nominal fee per guest for dining.  I'm not usually a specialty dining person on board ship because I like the dining room too much to skip a night there. But this might be nice if I could get an outside table.  I'm all about dining al fresco whenever possible.

 The outside entrance to Vintages (a wine bar) is pictured to the right.  It's one of my favorite on board places to visit in the evening and I just took a photo to point it out to my regular travel buddy.  That's all. :-)  Below is one last look at Central Park as we were walking back in doors to head to the dining room.  This kind of gives you an idea of how big it is.  As you can see, there is quite a bit of traffic out there even though the ship had only been boarding for about an hour.  I would assume that a day or so into the cruise when the novelty wears off, the traffic would lighten up a little in Central Park....  I assume.....

One last look at the Coach Store in Central Park for the girls.

After rushing through Central Park we ran to the dining room and found our group.  We were served a very nice lunch in which I chose the Smoked Fish Tapenade, the Grilled New York Strip Steak and naturally, I went ahead and ate the Chocolate Cherry Cake for dessert.  I think, after this week, that most travel agents must be much more demanding than me because I heard a few complaints about the food while I couldn't find anything in the world wrong with mine.  Let's face it, if you can manage to complain about the ice in the iced tea, you are pretty much going to complain about everything and I can't take anything you say as a real problem.  Ice is ice.  Just shut up and deal with the coldness and hardness of it.

Smoked Fish Tapenade

Grilled NY Strip Steak

Chocolate Cherry Cake

Following lunch we still had time and the person that my friend had decided we should follow was guiding people up to the Boardwalk so against my friends judgement we were able to go up there for a few minutes.  The other travel agents complained about the number of people on board.  Really???!??!!?  It's a ship that holds more than 5,000 passengers.  The whole idea is that it carries a LOT of people.  If you decide to book on the ship, chances are you know that going in.  If you don't you either A) have a crappy travel agent or B) have no travel agent and booked your vacation on line.  If your answer is B and you are unhappy with the result, then perhaps you will remember for the next time that cruises cost the same amount whether you book them yourself or through a travel professional.  If your answer is A, my phone number is 469-828-0254 any my email is smeyers@placesuwillgo.com. Don't hesitate to call or email.

On the Boardwalk, we were able to see the carousel, the pool that houses the water shows and various other venues that are draws for Oasis and her sister ship, Allure. Oasis and Allure each have 2 rock climbing walls and 2 FloRiders.  There is nothing special about the fact that there are two of each of those things. You just have to keep in mind that there are twice as many people on board, so they need two of each just to keep up with the demand.

Under the blue cover is a pool that is used for water and diving shows.

The balconies looking into the Boardwalk area and over the water show pool can be premium staterooms. Unfortunately, we didn't get into any of the cabins so I can't tell you about what they were like.  I would assume that they worked on some serious sound proofing for these cabins since the boardwalk seemed to be one of the more highly trafficked areas and with a zipline going through it and so on, there could be some very loud noises to keep you up if you are the type who is early to bed.  But if you are the early to bed type, you might opt for an ocean balcony rather than a Boardwalk or Central Park balcony.

Following our run through the Boardwalk, we rushed downstairs to the area where we were supposed to depart and wait for the bus.  But on the way, we walked past my favorite place on any Royal Caribbean ship, the Champagne Bar so I forced my new friend to stop while I took a couple of photos to remember it by. Sometimes you just have to put your foot down and in this instance I would not take "no" for an answer. (You're welcome Jenny Stankus....)

All in all, it was a lovely ship.  If you are thinking about sailing her, you should keep in mind that she is BIG. She carries a LOT of people and although they try to minimize how full it feels on board by breaking areas up and creating lots of outdoor space no matter how you cut it you are just one of 5,000+ passengers.  They will do what they can to make you feel special.  But there are only so many ways to make 5,000+ people all feel special at the same time.

Strange how everybody on the carousel was late 40's and older....

I am sad to say that there was no time for us to look at cabins on board Oasis.  But I do have some stock photos of the cabins that I can send to you if you are interested. If you have kids, you will never hear those dreaded words, Mom, there's nothing to do! while on board.  Royal Caribbean is my pick for best family cruiseline available. If you are traveling without kids, but like adventure Royal Caribbean is also for you. I would call Royal Caribbean a moderately priced cruiseline and terrific for 30 to 50 year olds. As far as Oasis Class ships go, they are going to be the higher priced ships within the RCI brand simply because they are more sought after than some of the other ships in the fleet.  They also sail great itineraries.  So again, that makes them a little more expensive.

Quantum, RCI's newest ship comes out in November.  They will have even more adventures available than the Oasis class ships have including skydiving, bumper cars and a glass enclosed capsule that will take you up several hundred feet over the water for a birds eye view.  Quantum will sail out of Bayonne, NJ which is the cruise harbor that services New York.  If you want to spend a few days in New York shopping, sight seeing and going to a few shows, then board a cruise ship for some R&R to recover from the madness of Manhattan this will be the trip for you. Quantum is going to be the polar opposite of Oasis carrying only about 3500 passengers.  So a cruise on board her will be the perfect way to recover from 2 or 3 days in Manhattan.

With a fleet of 22 ships ranging in size from 1,800 passenger vessels to over 5,000 there is something for everyone at Royal Caribbean.  Tomorrow, we'll spend some time on Royal Princess, which is currently the newest ship in the Princess fleet.  Have a great Tuesday!

An Update from Ft. Lauderdale

Hi Travelers!  Yesterday was a spectacular day in lovely Ft. Lauderdale.  It started out with a few informative seminars and ended with a couple of hours at the CLIA trade show.  I can't tell you how many bags and free ballpoint pens I got.  It took me an hour to go through all the literature that I picked up last night and figure out what I needed to try to get home with and what I could live without.  FYI....  I could live without quite a lot of it.

But the highlight of the day was when I got to have my photo taken with Gavin MacLeod of TV's The Loveboat.  You might remember him as Capt. Stubbing.  He was such a nice man taking time to talk to everyone.  I think if I were famous and had to spend hours signing autographs and having my photo taken, I'd very quickly turn into Alec Baldwin.  That's why I don't understand why it upsets people so much that he gets all crazy and goes off on the paparazzi.  I'm more amazed by the celebrities that don't do that.  You know?

Me and Gavin MacLeod (Capt. Merrill Stubbing) from ABC's The Loveboat

But getting back to Capt. Stubbing, Princess employs him these days as a spokesman. After all, the Loveboat was a Princess ship - The Pacific Princess, in fact which was scrapped last year after a very long career as the flagship of the Princess fleet.  I've often said that I wanted to be Julie McCoy when I was a little girl.  Maybe that's what finally got me into this business after the previous career at the former employer who shall not be named ended so abruptly a few years ago.  Maybe I finally decided that being a travel agent was for me since the Julie McCoy gig didn't really seem to be in the cards for me.

In line yesterday waiting for my 2 minutes with Capt. Stubbing, I enjoyed chatting with others who were as excited to get a photo with him as I was.  The woman just behind me kept talking about how cute he was and how she just wanted to kiss him. I'll be honest, she was scaring me a little.  I thought about hanging around when I was done just to see if she would molest him. Many of us discussed how The Loveboat had really kind of put cruising on the map.  Prior to that show, no one really thought that a cruise was something a normal person could do.

I think, in all, I probably stood in line for about 30 minutes to get this photo taken and then he autographed a photo.  His handler looked at each persons name tag as we came up and told him our names and then he started working on the autograph.  In some cases, the autograph seeker would strike up a conversation with him.  While others, like me, just stayed quiet.  After all, I didn't feel like I really had much to say other than when I was a little girl, I wanted to be Julie and marry Gopher.  But I didn't really feel like that was anything he would be that interested in hearing anyway.  I also felt like the show "jumped the shark" when they brought the little girl on who played his daughter.  I never watched it after she became a regular.  It was just wrong that Capt. Stubbing had a little girl that he didn't know about. I also thought it was weird that she could live on a cruise ship and not go to school. Again, probably not a good conversation starter.

So, I guess he was a little taken aback by the fact that I didn't say anything so he started talking.  He looked at my name tag which contains the city that I am from and said "Dallas, Tx - I love Dallas!"  Then he went on to tell me that he played in many shows at the Majestic Theater downtown.  I said that I loved the Majestic and had been to a few shows there.  Then he told me that he and his wife had at one time considered buying a house in Ft. Worth.  Then we talked about the Stockyards.  I thought he was very nice and gracious. After all, for a man who is probably in his late 70's to hang around all day signing autographs and making small talk with middle aged to elderly women he was much more tolerant than I ever would have been.

I'm fairly certain that a lady about 10 people in front of me was trying to hook up with him.  She was at least 65 and was hanging all over him.  She stayed for about 10 minutes after her turn, snapping photos of him every time he was alone. She even kissed him at one point.  I have no idea what Princess pays him to work events like this, but it can't be enough.  The people in line around me all figured she was trying to slip him her hotel room key.  It was just embarrassing. What would her grandchildren think???!?!?!

Beyond meeting Capt. Stubbing, I got a pretty good tote bag from the nice folks in Barbados, a Butchart Gardens perpetual calendar, a few cruise brochures that I haven't been able to get through the mail and a tear away apron from Royal Caribbean.  I mention the cheap tear away apron from Royal Caribbean because one of the most entertaining things I saw yesterday involved that apron.  I was walking through the Royal Caribbean booth because I needed a new Travel Agent Guide and I keep forgetting to order one when I saw a lady with one of the aprons around her neck and a man working for RCCL who had just draped it around her.  She seemed so happy about the apron and I remember thinking that it was so flimsy that it would only be good for one use since it could never be washed. So it struck me as strange that she was so excited about it.

As she walked away, the man draped one around my neck and continued to drape them around the neck of each person who came through. I, like most of the others passing through, took my apron off and stuffed it in one of the many bags that had been handed to me.  Later, I saw the woman who had gotten the apron in front of me again and she still had the apron draped around her neck but not tied exactly as he had draped it when he handed it to her.  I thought at the time it was strange that she was the only person still wearing hers.

The apron in question

Much later, as I left the trade show in the lobby I saw her again still wearing it and someone asked her where she had gotten it.  She responded saying that one of the men who worked for Royal Caribbean recognised her as an outstanding travel agent so he rewarded her with it.  It was one of those bless your heart moments.  It was sort of sweet and sad that she thought she was the only person around special enough to earn one of the cheap throw away aprons.  But it was nice that she was so pleased to get something that I decided to keep so that I could use it the next time I make soap and then throw it away afterwards.

Today I very quickly toured Oasis of the Seas.  Just got to see a few public areas then we sat down for lunch.  I'll tell you all about the ship tours next week when I get home and can download photos.  Tomorrow I'll be on Royal Princess, the newest Princess ship which was christened by Kate Middleton, then Monday I'll be aboard Holland America's Zuuderdam.  Have a great weekend and happy travels!

The Weather is Here, You Know the Rest

I arrived  in Ft. Lauderdale on Tuesday morning. In case you don't read my blog regularly, I'll fill you in.  I'm attending the CLIA Cruise3Sixty conference in Ft. Lauderdale.  It's an annual conference for travel agents that features a week of seminars, ship inspections, opportunities to meet with representatives from various cruise lines and tourism boards as well as offers credits toward travel agent certifications.  So, it's a pretty big deal if you are a travel agent.  This is CLIA's 10th anniversary.  So I suppose this year is even a bigger deal than past years.

Since I arrived I've attended seminars on everything from being my own paparazzi to the Caribbean island of Martinique which is apparently magnifique! Now Martinique's tourism board seems to be on top of it. They sent the nicest woman with a beautiful french accent who not only gave everyone attending gifts, but at the end of her presentation, she gave away a few bottles of rum and a trip for 2 to Martinique.  Then she offered us hor de'orves and and wine.  I've been to 8 other seminars, hers was by far my favorite.  Not only because of the wine, but also, because she had a great product to sell.  I really want to go to Martinique now!

Tomorrow begins the trade show.  I'm really looking forward to that.  27 cruise lines are here to show off at the trade show.  I can't wait to become aquainted with some of the cruise lines that I have never experienced before.  I finally have my first ship tour on Saturday.  The first one I'll be visiting is Oasis of the Seas.  That is really exciting for me.  I've sent people on Oasis before.  But being able to see it in person is going to make it so much easier to answer questions about it.

I still haven't been anyplace in Ft. Lauderdale other than my hotel and the convention center where the conference is being held.  So, I'm hoping to have time to do some stuff around the city on Saturday afternoon.  When I was here before, we did the water taxi thing.  It was fun.  If nothing else, I might do that again.  But I'd really like to do an Everglades tour too.  So, we'll see how it goes.

For now I guess I'll just leave you with a few photos that I've taken since I arrived. Have a great evening!

The view from my balcony

The view from my table ;-)

A scarey selfie of me today at lunch.

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!