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| Vol 4 , Issue 10 | October 2010 | |
Greetings!
In this newsletter, we're cruising, meeting the people in Jamaica, looking at the six most common "gotchas" with booking travel online, writing on hotel walls, and checking out the new Club Med... Grab a beverage, put your feet up and enjoy... |
| Cruising the Panama Canal... | |
What an awesome experience!
We thoroughly enjoyed our Panama Canal cruise.  Our first port of call was Ocho Rios Jamaica where we participated in the "Meet the People" experience outlined in the article below. Second "port" was a full transit of the Panama Canal... What an amazing feat of construction! I can't believe that this was accomplished in the early 1900's! Third was Puntarenas Costa Rica. A great shore excursion featuring the Pacific Aerial Tram through the canopy of a rainforest, a Costa Rican lunch, a boat tour in the Guacalillo Estuary and the Tarcoles River. Next was San Juan del Sur Nicaragua. Another awesome tour featuring the Handicrafts Market in Masaya, the Masaya Volcano (an active one!), a typical Nicaraguan lunch at a local restaurant, and a visit to Granada. Our last port of call was in Huatulco Mexico. What a beautiful place. We were shown around by a wonderful lady from the Huatulco Tourist Board who took us to several vantage points around Huatulco, a local store for a Mezcale tasting (aka Tequila) with a local delicacy... crickets. Others tried them but I admit I wasn't brave enough! I'm told they were salty. We ended our tour by visiting a local weaving shop. Our cruise ended in Acapulco which gave us the opportunity for a quick tour and a stop for the cliff divers before heading off on a beautiful drive through the Sierra Madres to Mexico City to catch our flight home. If you'd like to see more pictures, click the "Find us on Facebook" link and go to the photo albums area. |
| Meet the People in Jamaica | |
A program run by the Jamaican Tourist Board
"What better way to experience the culture of a nation than through its people? For travellers seeking insight into the Jamaican experience and the warm welcome of a Jamaican friend, the island's Meet-the-People programme provides an ideal option." "Visitors wishing to take part in the Meet-the-People programme are teamed up with Jamaican hosts or volunteers who share a common profession, hobby or interest, free of cost. In true Jamaican fashion, these volunteers offer a hand of friendship and hospitality to visitors who genuinely want to know Jamaicans and the Jamaican way of life."  Our MTP experience matched us with a wonderful lady in Ocho Rios named Verona. Verona runs the Jamaican Heritage Museum in Ocho Rios as well as lecturing about Jamaican history in schools.
We were able to visit an elementary school, had a private tour of the Museum and when we asked about real estate, Verona took us to a new home development to tour a model home and speak to the developers. Unfortunately we ran out of time and had to head back to the ship before we were able to join her for lunch. If you are planning a visit to Jamaica and would like more information on the Meet The People experience, please click here |
|
Six Common Travel-Site Gotchas | |
ShopSmart Magazine
Booking online seems so simple - you search for the lowest rates, you click, and you're on your way! But being your own travel agent isn't as easy as it might seem. ShopSmart magazine compiled a list of six common travel-site gotchas.
· The gotcha FARE JUMPING
· The gotcha ADDED FEES
· The gotcha OVERPRICED PACKAGES
· The gotcha PRICE GUARANTEES
· The gotcha DYNAMIC PRICING
· The gotcha HIDDEN BARGAINS
To read the details... click here
And better still... Use a travel agent!
There is no additional cost to you to use me... So take advantage!
That's what I'm here for. |
| Go Ahead... Write on your hotel room walls! | |
Ever have a light bulb moment at 3 a.m. in your hotel room but can't ever find paper fast enough to jot down your idea? Or you want the kids to do something - anything - other than play their Nintendo DS all morning? Well, the new trend among hotels to encourage you to literally write on your walls might just help. Hotels are increasingly incorporating white-board walls and chalkboard doors in guest rooms, and inviting guests to write or draw as much as they'd like. Think of it as DIY design. At the Hotel Keen in leafy Palo Alto, Calif., for instance, you can write whatever you want on your walls - whether an inspiring poem or projections for your Silicon Valley startup. The hotel's 41 modern rooms - within walking distance to Stanford University - feature white boards around the flat-screen TVs, and the hotel provides dry erase markers. Rooms start at $149 a night. Other hotels joining the DIY design trend: |
| The New Club Med | |
By Rosemary McClure Special to the Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Grace Bay, Turks and Caicos Islands - The last thing I expected to see when I arrived at Club Med's Turkoise resort in the British West Indies was a gray-haired guy balancing on a walker...
 But along with the graying crowd at the adults-only Turks and Caicos Islands resort were enough thirtysomethings (and spry 40- to 70-year-olds) to keep the dance floor vibrating until 2 a.m. every night.
I'd come to Turkoise, on brilliantly blue Grace Bay on Providenciales (Provo) Island, with some friends who were looking for a little partying and a lot of relaxation. That goal was a 180-degree departure from my first visit to a Club Med village more than 20 years ago, when a friend and I were looking for a lot of partying and a little relaxation.
Conditions were primitive on that first visit. No TV, no air conditioning, bad food, beds so hard that sleeping on the floor seemed preferable. I was more comfortable in a pup tent at Girl Scout camp when I was 8.
 Fast forward to 2010: escargot in puff pastry in the dining room, massages in a bungalow overlooking the bay, chocolate mints on the pillow at night. And all those things that had formerly been lacking: TV, air conditioning, a comfortable bed - the resort had become sort of a Holiday Inn with perks. The perks, of course, are an important part of Club Med's all-inclusive experience: Guests can eat, drink, play and dance the night away for one set price.
The club here doesn't have the chic, expensive lines of its pricey competition up the beach, but neither does it have the high rates. And there are other perks: trade winds that keep it from being too hot and muggy; a reef that calms the waves, making swimming safe and easy; a lagoon that's an unearthly shade of turquoise; and a night sky so full of stars it shimmers.
I ran into the man with the walker one afternoon at lunch. He'd injured his leg on the flying trapeze. But no regrets, he said. He would try it again next year.
To read the full article, please click here. |
| Tidbits | |
Good or interesting information that doesn't require a whole article! An Alaskan company with a long history in the boating business has announced plans to launch a new small ship cruise line in the state. As was first reported by industry watcher Travel Weekly, the new line will be called Alaskan Dream Cruises and operate two vessels that until last month were part of the Cruise West fleet.. Full story here.
Here's a tip for passing through Customs: keep exotic animals out of sight. It's advice Robert Cusack could have used in 2002, when a bird of paradise flew out of his suitcase at Los Angeles Airport during a routine inspection. When agents asked if he had anything else to tell them, he was reported to have said, "Yes, I've got monkeys in my pants." He wasn't lying: stuffed down his trousers were two small primates... more here
Royal Caribbean's newest cruise ship, the soon-to-debut Allure of the Seas, will serve as the setting for scenes from an Adam Sandler movie scheduled to hit theaters in 2011. Royal Caribbean President and CEO Adam Goldstein disclosed in his blog that film crews would be aboard the ship in November during pre-inaugural events to shoot segments for Sandler's Jack and Jill, co-starring Katie Holmes and Al Pacino. |
| Questions & Answers | |  Q - "How long is the wait for a Passport these days?"
A - Processing times vary depending on how you submit your application. My most recent passport renewal only took about three weeks. A passport can be obtained in as little as 24 hours if you have travel booked and pay a huge surcharge for your passport. For more information on Canadian Passports, please visit the Passport Canada website. For US Passports, click here.
Send your questions to Janna. |
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