Travel Tip of the Week-Which Cruise Do I Take?

Getting Off To A Good Start

Ok...so you are sitting there thinking about taking a vacation, or as I like to refer to it, a journey. You are pondering all of the places you have thought about visiting and trying to figure out that first step. Do you search for hotels first? Do you look into airfare? What about things to do in a particular place? The questions can seem endless and sometimes can get overwhelming.

So I want to give you a first step that you might think about before doing anything else. Ask around and find a "reputable" travel consultant or agent. Notice that I said reputable. That is the number 1 qualifier for selecting a good travel agent. Like so many other professions in this day and age, there are hoards of people who claim to be professionals or experts in the field of travel while their actions and credentials are telling a different story.

Social media sites have been inundated with people who say they are the expert at XYZ and some put their trust and even their money with that person while never checking to see what qualifies them as being the so-called expert.

Numerous travelers can share their horror stories from various vacations where they put their trust in a travel agent that they selected off the internet. I am here to tell you that bad experiences can be avoided if you take one simple step before choosing your next travel consultant. Here it is.

Check for credentials and references.

Technically that is 2 steps, but really it is the first step in the process of making sure you have the best vacation possible. Asking for references should be mandatory and any good travel consultant will gladly send you a list of clients who they have helped and who have offered to be a reference for that particular professional. Then ask for credentials or ask about their own experience in travel. For example, there are designations such as CTC, CTA, ACC etc that tell you that a particular agent has a certain number of years experience in the field of selling travel and he/she has completed some extensive training and has passed an exam showing their proficiency in their field. I am currently a CTA which stands for "Certified Travel Associate" which means I have completed the mandatory hours of course work and successfully passed the exam awarding me with that professional designation. Designations set those who have chosen this profession to be their full-time job apart from those who only get into a profession for their own personal benefit and only tinker in the business.

This does not mean that every agent or consultant who does not have a certain designation is not proficient in the field of travel. Some agents may never be called a CTA, or CTC but their experience in traveling to a variety of destinations sets them apart from those who are not serious about being a true travel professional. So ask..."Do you possess any certifications or have you traveled extensively?"

Remember this; a travel agent's services are always free unless a fee is agreed upon upfront. Take advantage of all of the ways a true travel professional can help with the trip planning process and take a moment to qualify that particular person before allowing them to make any reservations on your behalf.

Have you had a bad experience with a travel professional? I would like to hear some of your experiences so please feel free to comment and share. I am determined to put the word "professional" back into the industry I love and you can help me with that by only agreeing to do business with those who are truly in travel to help and consult clients and who possess the highest level of professionalism possible.

Cruise Excursion...Who Should I Book Through?

My last travel tip video was related to cruise excursions and I addressed the pro of booking the excursion through the cruise line versus going through another supplier etc. As I stated in the video, the number one pro for booking an excursion through the cruise line is that the cruise will have a record of everyone who is on any of their excursions which means they will wait for you to get back on board if your excursion happens to run a little late etc. If you go through another supplier or just decide to go on your own in any of the ports of call, you are responsible for being back on board before the scheduled departure time. The ship will leave you if you are not back and it is up to you to get to the next port or back home and at your own cost if that ever happens.

Now with that said, here are some cons for booking your excursion through the cruise line. Cost is one negative. Typically the cruise line will charge a bit more for the same excursion that could have been booked from a private excursion company. For example, a "Swim with the Dolphin" excursion in Cozumel Mexico would cost @$139.00 per person through one of the larger cruise lines while costing only $108.00 through a private excursion company. That is significant savings for a family of 4.

Another negative is the selection. If you book through the cruise line, you are limited to their selection of excursions for a particular port of call. You may do some research and find that there were choices you would have never known about that better suits your own preference and interests from some other excursion vendor.

One other negative is that you are tied to the cruise line's schedule when you book an excursion through them. They will dictate when you are to proceed to your designated excursion area and sometimes their organization is a bit lacking which means you may be late getting started and have less time at whatever you were planning on seeing or doing. For example, we had booked an excursion in Cozumel Mexico through Royal Caribbean. It was going to be a full day on a private island with lunch included. The cruise line had overbooked the excursion and neglected to tell the local tour guide in advance which meant that he had to scramble to find additional transportation to the actual excursion location. That put us off schedule by almost 2 hours which then shortened our time on the private island. Smaller, private tour companies are not reliant on what a cruise line does at the last minute and are more prone to being on time.

So in summary, if you are new to cruising, you might want to book your first excursion through the cruise line so you can get a feel of how it all works etc. But on your next cruise, feel free to look around for other alternatives and you will be pleasantly surprised to see how easy they can be to book and how reliable they are when it comes to picking you up and getting you back to the ship on time.

If you need information for some private excursion companies, please send me a message or leave on comment on this blog.

Travel Tip of the Week #5

Here is another edition of my "Travel Tip of the Week." This week is devoted to a question I often get concerning cruise excursions. Please let me know if you have any particular question you would like addressed in the near future. Thanks for visiting my site.

On-Site of Off-Site? That is the Question

In my previous post (the travel tip of the week), I touched on some things that a person needs to consider when deciding whether or not to stay on Disney property or off Disney property when visiting Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida.

I want to be more detailed in this post and look at some of the pros and cons of each side of the question.

First, let's look at the pros of staying off-site or off Disney property. Naturally cost is the largest pro for this decision. You will pay less per night when you stay off Disney property, no question about it. The amount you save will vary naturally by the level of off-site accommodations that you choose. Some like to stay in a nice 4-star hotel which would be the equivalent of staying maybe at one of Disney's Deluxe Resorts (which I will touch on in a bit) and when you compare the 4-star to the Deluxe price, you will most likely see a savings, depending on the time of year. For example...the Gaylord Palms in Orlando is considered to be a 4-star resort hotel near Walt Disney World. If I compare its price to one of the Disney Deluxe Resorts (i.e. the Animal Kingdom Lodge) and pick a date range in late September, you will see that it is not really a savings for staying at the Gaylord Palms because it has a nightly rate of over $267 per night and the Animal Kingdom has a nightly rate of $244 per night. But if you then look at the Hilton Orlando Resort, which is a 4-star resort, you will see that you can save quite a bit if you are willing to reserve a non-refundable room at $99 per night. But again it is a preference thing. The Hilton Orlando Resort will not offer the same experience as the Gaylord Palms or Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge. If you are more concerned with price and less with what the hotel offers, then you will always save money by staying off-site when it comes to the hotel costs themselves.

Another pro for staying off-site would be food costs. Staying off Disney property does give you the flexibility of eating some of your meals away from the parks which will no doubt save money if you indeed do that. Again this can vary and is subject to preference. If Character Meals are not that important and if you are willing to leave the parks to go find a place to eat, then it can work and you can save money but you will sacrifice time in the parks to do that. This pro can be negated though if you are visiting Walt Disney World during a time that Disney has offered the free dining plan to its resort guests.

The other pro for staying off-site would be a rest of the senses. Some people like to have a break from everything that is Disney and staying off Disney property can give your senses a break. You are surrounded by Disney everywhere you look when you stay on-site and it can be a little much for some folks, especially during a longer stay.

Ok...that pretty much covers the pros of staying off-site. Now let's examine the cons. Transportation as a whole can be classified as a con for staying off-site. Here is what I mean by that. When you stay off Disney property, you will have to arrange your own transportation from the airport to the hotel which can cost anywhere from $30 to $60 each way depending on the distance that your hotel is from either Orlando International or Orlando's Sanford Airport. This also means that you will be in charge of getting your luggage and carrying it with you to the transportation area of the airport (I will explain why that is a con later on). Assuming you have not rented a car, you will also have to deal with off-site transportation round trip from your off-site resort to the parks. This can be a substantial time constraint for some. Off-site buses do not run as frequently to the Disney Parks which means the time spent waiting for a bus is greatly increased or at least can be. That equates to potentially less time in the parks and more time standing and waiting for the next bus. If you doubt that, please read the comment in my previous post from a traveler who has experience with off-site transportation.

If you rent a car, you have to factor that in to the overall cost of the trip when you are comparing the cost of off-site versus on-site. Depending on the size of the vehicle, a car rental can cost an additional $250-$350 for a week's stay in Orlando. You also have to add in parking costs at the parks. Those staying off Disney property have to pay an additional $10 per day for parking at the parks. Again...that has to be factored in. A week's stay can cost an additional $50-60 just for parking.

We touched on the idea of less time in the parks because of off-site transportation, but we also need to point out that non-Disney resort guests do not have access to Disney's "Extra Magic Hours." Each day one of Disney's parks will open an hour early or stay open a few hours later than normal park hours and only Disney resort guests have access to the attractions during those hours. Disney Cast Members will check to see if you have a Disney resort room key before they will let you in line during evening extra magic hours and they will not allow you entrance into the park during morning extra magic hours. During peak crowd seasons, extra magic hours provide Disney resort guests a great opportunity to ride the more popular rides during less crowded periods which is benefit that is hard to put a dollar figure on. Another con is that you have a harder time getting reservations at some of Disney's more popular restaurants. Resort guests can make an advance dinner reservation up to 10 days out from their scheduled arrival day at 90 days out. This means that resort guests will have access to reservations earlier than a non-resort guest potentially and will also mean that the popular restaurants may be booked up by the time you are able to make your reservation as an off-site guest.

For the sake of space and attention span, I will quickly move to the pros of staying on Disney property. Some of these are obvious since they correlate to the cons of staying off-site so I will just mention some of them again. There is the pro of getting access to extra magic hours and the pro of having a better chance at getting your desired on-site restaurant reservations. There is the pro of having access to the Disney transportation system throughout the Disney property. Buses run every 20-30 minutes from the resorts to the parks.

Then there is the pro of Disney's Magical Express which is free for all Disney resort guests who fly into Orlando's International Airport. You have the ease of letting a Disney representative get your bags at baggage claim and delivering them to your resort room. All you have to do is check-in with the Magical Express desk, board your bus and head for your resort.

Then there is the pro for staying on-site of being surrounded every day by the magic that is Disney. Disney Cast Members are trained to make sure you have the best Disney experience possible and while there are exceptions at times, they truly know how to make you feel like you are truly at the "happiest place on earth."

Another pro would be that you can buy souvenirs at any of the park gift shops or at Downtown Disney and have your packages delivered back to your room at no additional cost.

Again...the real negative for staying on-site is the costs as it relates to resort room costs and food costs. But when comparing the 2, you need to make sure you calculate the costs for each like what we have discussed to see what the real differences are before making the determination that off-site is going to save you and your family any money.

I have helped clients look at both scenarios and book both scenarios. No one can tell you what is best for you unless they know what is the most important part of your trip (i.e. cost, time in the parks, relaxation, food etc).

I hope this has helped shed some additional light on the question and please leave comments, experiences etc and let me know if there are any other questions you might have.

Video Tip of the Week (Disney Related)

Here is this weeks edition of my "Travel Tip of the Week." I am making this one related to Walt Disney World and will be posting further info in much more detail related to the topic of staying off-site versus on-site at Walt Disney World.

For the Cruise Enthusiasts

Cruising is a passion for so many of you as it is for my wife and I. I wanted to share the latest video of mine further documenting our last cruise on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas. This particular video will show some of the benefits of like amazing sunsets, shopping in exotic locations and much more. I hope you enjoy.