Are Travel Agents Extinct?

Why call a Travel Consultant instead of going direct? Good Question! Lately I have been talking to a lot of people about owning a travel agency, and have been getting the same question, “why use a travel agent when I can do the research myself and book a trip on the internet?” Well, you are about to find out that there are several reasons to use a Travel Consultant (the new title), one of them being it is TOTALLY FREE to you, the client.

And about 5 years ago, it was predicted that being a Travel Agent was a dying profession, and in the age of technology, travel agents would become extinct. Well, here it is 5 years later and the agent community is alive and thriving. Yes, it is true that booking an airline ticket is a commodity, so they’re not quite the order takers they once were. Today’s Travel Consultant will help you figure out not only where your next vacation will be; they will help you weed through the piles of information on the internet and let you know what’s real and what’s not.

Why you SHOULD use a Travel Consultant

  • The biggest myth surrounding Travel Consultants is that they “charge” for their services. For the most part, their service is complimentary. Perhaps not for an airline ticket (because airlines have cut out paying any commission), but for travel – such as cruises, tours and land packages, their commission is paid by the vendor. Which means – Travel Consultant’s Services are FREE to you! 
  • You get the BEST DEAL by calling on a Cruise Planners/American Express Travel Consultant. We don’t work for any one Cruise Line or Tour Operator – we search all cruise lines to find you the best deal for the best available cabin at the time of booking. And the best part is a travel consultant will continue to work for you even after the deposit. So, if a cruise line has a rate change, we call and lower your price. If you book directly with the supplier, does the cruise line call you to let you know there has been a price reduction? I doubt it! 
  • A good consultant will also provide advice – once you pull into a port of call, now what? Try to Google the words “Mediterranean cruise” and you will see 1.5 million results. Yikes! Where do you start to look? Who is legitimate and who isn’t? A good Travel consultant will guide you and let you know which is the most popular site to see or even some hidden secrets they’ve uncovered while traveling. When calling a cruise line directly, do you think the hourly person who answers the phone can offer the same advice? 
  • If you run into trouble on a weekend while traveling, will the cruise line agent help? Most consultants check their e-mail or voice mail during the weekend just in case of any emergency.
  • Your time is valuable. Give an consultant a call and let them know what trip you are interested in and let them do all the work. Why spend hours and hours searching the internet or calling each cruise line? Call a Cruise Planners/American Express Specialist and they will save you time and money.
  • Who has the best deals? If I call direct, will I get the best possible deal? Yet another myth is that many online sites run exclusive promotions or hold space months in advance. This supposedly gives them an advantage on certain ships and sailing dates. Travel Consultant’s have access to all the best promotions as well. You might receive extra shipboard credit to spend onboard or pre-paid gratuities so all tipping is included. And on some itineraries a unique shore excursion is available. They aren’t available on all sailings, but if you book in advance you are more likely to enjoy a special extra perk.
  • A travel consultant can help you customize your vacation! So you want to have a family reunion, get married or renew your vows onboard? Call an consultant today! Don’t try and book this through the cruise lines or on your own as it will likely become a nightmare. By booking through a reputable consultant, they will take the burden off of you and become the “party planner”. They can set up cocktail parties, beach parties, special shore excursions, wedding receptions, meeting rooms, dining arrangements. Leave it to the pros!  

     

If after reading this you are still not convinced and want to continute booking online I leave you with a thought and a challenge.  First the challenge: call me and we can each look up and price the same trip and compare our findings and see who can come up with the better value.  Now here's the thought:  if you really think that a consultant is not for you, I encourage you to check out www.mydreamcruise.com when you are looking to book your next cruise.  From here you will be able to search all of the cruise lines sailings, and compare then side by side before you are able to book right there and then.  If you should have any questions or if you get lost along the way feel free to shoot me an email or call me and I will be happy to help!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read More

BRAZILIAN ADVENTURE: RIO AND BEYOND

Brazil is not one of the places that we see a lot about in travel magazines or on the web. It is a place that offers much for the traveler. My husband had talked about seeing the "statue" in Rio for quite sometime. Last year while cruising with Princess they highlighted a repositioning from Rio to Fort Lauderdale. That was made just for us. We left Houston on the long flight to Rio to board our Princess Cruise ship.

Read More

A culinary detour to ancient Jaffa offers a walkable feast

Jaffa, Tel Aviv's twin city, offers a food lover's walking tour of delicatessens, specialty markets and street stands.

The ancient, annexed port city is a favorite haunt of Janna Gur, editor of the popular Israeli food magazine Al Hashulchan (``On the Table'') and author of The Book of New Israeli Food (Schocken, $35).

``Jaffa's a culinary melting pot, with remnants of a disappearing culinary world,'' she said as we headed down the main drag on a sunny Sunday.

Read More

In Seattle Area, an Assortment of Treats

The factory, in the Fremont neighborhood, occupies a building that was once a trolley barn and later a brewery. Tours of its production line are conducted several times a day. With frequent samples to keep us focused, we were instructed at length by our guide, a pipe-thin woman dressed in funky hand-sewn clothes, on the origins of chocolate, its cultivation and, naturally, the virtues of Theo’s environmentally conscious method.

Read More

2/15/10 - PAPUA NEW GUINEA ADOPTS NEW CRUISE DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

Peter Vincent, Chief Executive of Papua New Guinea’s Tourism Promotion Authority, announced today the adoption of a comprehensive cruise development strategy for the nation. The strategy will be released in full on March 30. Key elements will be available to cruise lines and others for whom PNG is destined to become a focus of interest over the next five years.

Read More

POLAR ISSUES RAISED

Passengers from Orion on a Zodiac.The polar regions are seeing an increased push in demand for voyages and landings. With more ships and capacity appearing in these regions over the last decade, there is no shortage of issues at hands for the lines to deal with. 

“All of a sudden we have a situation where there is a lot of interest in the Polar areas with the climate change hype,” said Sven Lindblad, president and founder of Lindblad Expeditions. “Companies are waking up and saying ‘hey we’re going to take some people to Antarctica today,’ without any prior knowledge. It would be like me waking up tomorrow and wanting to run tours in Vegas.”

Read More

Hot Springs and River Pools With Baja Wild Outfitters

By Janice Mucalov

Sea kayaking is a popular sport at Cabo Pulmo. // © Janice Mucalov

Sometimes the weather just doesn’t cooperate when you’re on vacation, and plans have to be reconfigured. A good tour company is one that can react quickly and turn a cancelled excursion from a disappointment into a terrific day — despite the change in plans. On a recent visit to Cabo San Lucas, Baja Wild Outfitters did precisely that for us.

We were booked to go kayaking and snorkeling at Cabo Pulmo Marine Park, a national marine sanctuary on the unspoiled eastern cape of the Baja Peninsula. One of only three living coral reefs in North America, Cabo Pulmo has been described by Jacques Cousteau as “the aquarium of the world.”

Marcos and Fernando, our guides, picked us up at our hotel early in the morning for a scenic, two-hour drive.

When we reached the town of Cabo Pulmo — population 111 — we piled out of the minivan at the general store to fill up on warm empanadas (meat pies) made fresh that morning. Then, we carried on to the wild, secluded five-mile bay of Cabo Pulmo.

Wild it was, in more ways than one. In summer, waters are calm and ideal for scuba diving, snorkeling and kayaking. But between December and March, heavy winds can restrict water activities for days at a time. And so it was with us. No one would be heading out into the water that day.

“How about going to the hot springs instead?” suggested Marcos.

While not on Baja Wild’s standard list of adventures, the hot springs are sometimes offered as an alternative.

Declared a biosphere reserve in 1994, the protected, granite mountain range is home to clear running streams, canyons, swimming holes, remote farms and ranches, green forests, hot springs and plenty of wildlife. It’s an area that few visitors to Cabo San Lucas explore, but one that offers adventure seekers and outdoor enthusiasts a rich, fulfilling experience — very different from a day at the beach!

Parking on a rancher’s land, we trudged a short distance through the bush until we reached a beautiful oasis of palm trees and lush bamboo groves. Here, a spring-fed river running through an arroyo is punctuated by large smooth granite boulders, which form a series of pools. Small sand beaches curl around the rocks and nudge up against the river’s edge. Some pools are deliciously warm, fed by underground hot mineral springs.

Stripping down to our swimsuits, we settled into a large hot pool. Marcos passed around soft drinks and snacks, and we happily lounged in our own private garden of Eden — a pretty good substitute for kayaking, we all agreed.

When we were ready, we drove to the small town of Santiago. Earlier in the day, Marcos reserved us a late lunch in the courtyard of a Mexican restaurant. We feasted on fresh fish and hot cheese quesadillas, washed down with cold Coronas and lime, and toasted our guides on making our day a great and spontaneous adventure.

Read More

Switzerland Lands More Locations on UNESCO List

On July 7, the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO added the Albula and Bernina line of the Rhaetian Railway to its world heritage list. This makes the Rhaetian Railway, serving the Canton of Graubunden in the south east part of Switzerland, only the third railway worldwide to be considered "universally outstanding" by UNESCO. On the Bernina line (built in 1903) the railway crosses 52 bridges and 13 tunnels. The Albula line (built in 1910) runs over 144 bridges and through 42 tunnels. The Rhaetian Railway (RhB) is the highest-altitude trans-Alpine line in Europe, and a line with one of the steepest gradients in the world without the use of rack and pinion technology.

Read More

Forever Young in Copenhagen

< p>Last month Monacle Magazine named Copenhagen the world's "Best City to Live In." At almost any time of day you'll find visitors crowding Copenhagen's waterfront to gaze at the statue of the Little Mermaid, who looks longingly from her otherworldly perch for her human lover. The statue embodies the city's most essential trait, namely it provides you with ability to keep one foot in childhood as you negotiate the steps of adult urban life. A child-like wonder can be found all over this city, where the omnipresent spirit of Hans Christian Andersen seems to turn up at every corner -- a spirit that recognizes children have as much to teach adults as adults do to learn from them.

It's no wonder then that in 1964 Walt Disney said of Copenhagen's Tivoli Gardens: "Now this is what an amusement place should be!" Though Tivoli Gardens opened in 1843 just outside the city gate, today it's as fully integrated into the heart of the Copenhagen as Times Square is in Manhattan. And it's just as integrated into the lives of the city's people, who use it as one of the top meeting places in town.

The fact that people of all ages, with and without their children, enjoy Tivoli Gardens so much is due in part to its 19th century atmosphere – it is part amusement park and part beer garden. But it's also due to the way Tivoli has continually added modern elements along the way. Andersen joined the crowd at Tivoli's opening night, an experience that inspired his "Emperor and the Nightingale" tale. Like Tivoli, Andersen's best tales speak as eloquently to adults as they do to children. People of all ages still take refuge in Tivoli Gardens, where a full schedule of music, ballet and opera are integrated seamlessly into a landscape out of a childhood dream.

In Tivoli, rides, duck ponds, shooting galleries, band stands, gardens and glowing lanterns mingle comfortably alongside gourmet markets, 38 restaurants and taverns. Tivoli's Concert Hall attracts a steady stream of international artists. Its Friday night Rock series, "Fredagsrock" has featured such luminaries as the Smashing Pumpkins, Sting, the Beach Boys and the Pet Shop Boys. This September the New York City Ballet will perform for six nights.

From the Pirate Ship and the Chinese Pagoda to the New York City Ballet and the gourmet restaurants, Tivoli gives Copenhagen a place where you can engage in grown-up pursuits within a context that recalls the way the wider world looked to us as children. From the outside, the palatial Nimb building with its fountain and its onion domes conjures up our first wonder of Islam as a fantastical culture of magic carpets, magic lamps and jolly pashas. Inside the building, there's a gourmet wonderland with The Paul, a Michelin-starred restaurant, and the Restaurant NIMB where the kitchen is the restaurant itself and where diners sit next to working chefs who prepare their meals in front of them.

Likewise, the Chinese Pantomime Theater, with its mechanical peacock curtain, recalls childhood images of China. Last summer, Denmark's Queen Margrethe created scenery for the Pantomime Theatre's production of Andersen's The Tinder Box and many in attendance that night didn't realize that the woman bowing to their applause at the end of the show was a monarch from the oldest of royal European lines, one that stretches back more then a 1,000 years. How like a kingdom out of Andersen, in which the Queen performs incognito before her subjects and bows to their applause.

Many of Tivoli's rides are familiar bumper cars and merry-go-rounds, but the Rutsjebanen, one of the park's four roller coasters, is a historic gem. Built in 1914, the Rutsjebanen is a historic wooden roller coaster. The Rutsjebanen earned 7.5 out of 10 from Coaster Grotto which rates roller coasters all around the world. Each of the Rutsjebanen's cars has an operator working the brakes.

Andersen is well represented at Tivoli with the Hans Christian Andersen Castle, the Hans Christian Andersen Shop and The Flying Trunk ride, which depicts 32 scenes from his tales. Just across the street from Tivoli you can pay homage at Andersen's statue. Andersen (1805-1875) moved to Copenhagen in 1819 when he was 14 and the city's old town looks much as it did in his day. The houses he lived in are all still there, as are many of his favorite cafes.

The Royal Theatre, where Andersen played in chorus roles and which he wrote plays for, is still Denmark's top venue for theater, opera and ballet. The Wonderful World of Hans Christian Andersen Museum, presenting his life and works, is located right in City Hall Square.

Tivoli Gardens stays open from mid-April to mid-September and reopens with a Christmas market during the holidays. In their Best City rating, the editors of Monacle Magazine cite Copenhagen's biking paths, its human scale and its superb airport (which recently received a fabulous new terminal), but I've got to believe that Tivoli Gardens plays a major role in making Copenhagen's citizens so happy to live there. Tell your clients to arrive at Tivoli in the early evening as the lamps gradually grow their mystical glow as the darkness comes in.

 

Read More

Swimming with Whale Sharks

0%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0">

By Cancun Convention and Visitors Bureau


Swimming with the Whale Shark, the largest fish in the world is a dream that can only become a reality in few places throughout the world, such as Australia and Belize. Closely and conveniently situated near the U.S., Cancun located in the Mexican Caribbean, is particularly privileged due to the fact that the majority of the whale shark species prefer these waters. The best time to be a part of this fantastic adventure is during the months of July and August.

The Whale Shark's impressive size and ample mouth extends to almost 5 feet when opened. These characteristics are just a few of the reasons why this creature is so unique. Known as a migrant species, those who study the migration of whale sharks are still uncertain where they travel from or where they're heading next. All we know is that whale sharks enjoy traveling through warm waters and tropical seas around the globe.

The presence of this creature in the northern areas of Isla Contoy and Cabo Catoche is thanks to the nutrient filled water, which generates a large quantity of available food. This is a phenomenon adventurers from all over the world come to Mexico to take advantage of, being that the opportunity to observe the dynamics of this species is limited to these summer months.

Those choosing to experience the wonder of swimming with whale sharks are accompanied by experts who provide all the necessary information to better understand the behavior of these creatures. Once familiarized with the animal, the tourists can jump off the boat accompanied by a guide and snorkel to see the Whale Shark up close. Measuring up to 59 feet and weighing 15 tons, this is the biggest fish in the world!

The experience is truly amazing and there is no need to fear since this shark feeds exclusively on tiny organisms known as plankton, therefore they are completely harmless towards humans.

The tour to observe the Whale Shark can be taken in Punta Sam, just north of Cancun, and lasts approximately five hours, allowing plenty of time to interact with this amazing species that reminds us of the many wonders our world has to offer.

 

Read More

Displaying 1 – 10 of 10      Page 1 of 1