Travel Question: What are "transfers?"

A very common question keeps coming up so I felt I should do my best to explain what is meant when I or any travel agent includes “transfers” in their vacation package quote.

Whether it is a cruise vacation or a trip to South America or Europe, unless you plan on renting a car while at your destination or driving to the cruise port, you will need a transfer. A transfer is the round trip transportation from your hotel to the port or the airport to your hotel etc. They are a part of the true costs of any trip that has to be factored in and can vary widely in cost.

For example...if you were to be spending the night in Miami the night before your cruise, you could arrange what they call a “shared van transfer” which could cost as little as $10 per person each way. The cost is low due to you sharing that shuttle van with several other people. The benefit is really just the cost. Some shared vans make multiple stops and you may be the first stop out of 4 on its way to the port which means that you may be on the van a while and it can get quite crowded. Shared vans or shuttles also dictate to you when you need to be ready to be picked up at your hotel so you are less in control of your schedule.

Or you could choose to take a “private transfer” which can run as high as $40 or more per person each way depending on the distance. The benefits are that you are more in control of when you want to be picked up and the vehicles tend to be nicer and more comfortable.

Those same classifications of transfers are the same no matter if you are leaving your hotel for your cruise or flying into Mexico or Honolulu or any other land-based destination. You will be able to choose between shared or private transfers. When taking a land-based vacation, something you should consider is whether the shared transfers will make several stops at various resorts along the way to yours. For example...in Cancun, if you are staying down in the Riviera Maya area, your shared shuttle may stop again at 5 resorts and yours may be the very last stop. When that happens, your transfer time can be as long as 45 minutes to an hour once you are in the van. But if you opt for a private transfer, your shuttle time could be as short as 20-30 minutes and much more comfortable. If you are like me, when you arrive at your destination, you are just ready to get there and get your vacation started so you might consider a private transfer the next time you book a vacation.

I hope this short answer helps you better understand what is meant when your travel agent discusses the various “transfer options” that might be available to you. As always, please feel free to ask any question or leave a comment. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Disney's "Give a Day, Get a Day" Promo

Several months ago I had conducted a short survey to see what travelers thought about Disney's latest promotion, "Give a Day, Get a Day." Disney had announced that you could receive 1 free day in one of their parks if you were able to volunteer at one of their sanctioned events held around the Country.

I was curious to see how many actually would take advantage of that promotion. My initial reaction, personally, was that it was a great customer relations promo for Disney, but that the average traveler would not be able to take advantage of getting their "one day free" due to their distance from a park or the cost in getting to the park just to get one day free.

The results were as I thought. Over 69% said that the promo would not increase their chances of visiting a Disney park in 2010. 85% of the responders said that they would not travel to Walt Disney World just for one day free in a park.

So now that we are half way into 2010...I am still curious to see how many might have participated in the "Give a Day, Get a Day" promo. I am curious to see if the numbers might have been better than expected and you were able to volunteer and go to one of the parks to take advantage of a day free. Please take the short poll aimed at gathering that information.

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

What are your thoughts now concerning this promo? Great for Disney and their guests? Or maybe great for Disney, but not as great as you thought it might be for guests? Let me know your opinion..

Following the Dream (Conclusion)

So there I sat in the office of my local travel agent hearing options for various vacation ideas before finally settling on the idea of taking our first Caribbean cruise. We were excited. We had never been on a cruise before and the more I researched the ship and its itinerary, the more I watched the clock hoping time would go by quicker and quicker.

But something else was happening as we planned for this trip. The light bulb of destiny started to shine a little brighter. It was becoming clear again that I was doing most of the research. I may not have mentioned this, but one of the reasons I also chose to get into real estate was that we had a bad experience when we bought our first home and we were not informed or educated about the process of home buying by our Realtor. The Realtor we used back so many years ago was more interested in getting her commission than she was helping us through the process. I sensed that and I knew that I could be different and make sure clients never had to feel the way we felt. Well...the same sort of thing was happening with our first experience with a travel agent. She got the booking and we were left feeling somewhat on our own. I had to initiate all contact even though she knew quite well that we had never taken a cruise before in our life. I knew things could be different.

Then an event happened that I will never forget as long as I live. One sunny summer day, a friend and myself were enjoying a visit. He and I were discussing our jobs versus our career dreams. We both had good jobs, myself still in real estate and he was an insurance claims processor. We were making good livings but we both realized that they were simply jobs to us now. They were not what we dreamed of doing. So he simply asked me the question..."what is your dream career?" Without hesitation I said..."travel agent." I had never said that out loud before. But then I said what I had always felt..."but I don't think I could make a living at it." Well...to make a long story short, he questioned me on why I felt that way and talked about my travels and where I was raised and my experiences helping others with their trip plans and he could tell that there was some passion in my voice. I also listened to myself and how I was answering. I never said nor would I say today that I got into the travel business because I like to go on vacation just like I never said that I got into real estate because "I like looking at new homes" which some new real estate agents unfortunately had vocalized.

Traveling and the desire to learn about people and cultures and the desire to help people achieve their vacation goals all combined in my answer to why I had always wanted to get into the travel field. So that day, that afternoon even, I went home and started a search into what it would take to get involved in the travel industry. I researched...I studied...I trained...and here I am today. Now I am at the point that clients trust my experiences and knowledge which in turn makes me referable to their friends and family. I continue to achieve the necessary certifications that distinguish me from those who simply like to go on vacation and then tell others that they are "travel professionals." I am following the dream that I had so many years ago. I now feel that I am on my path and my career is no longer just another job. I feel it was what I was meant to do all these years, but had been afraid to try. I am now on my path and my wife and I travel as frequently as we can so I can continue to gain first hand knowledge of various destinations and experiences which better equips me to serve my clients.

So I am thankful for that friend who challenged my thinking and encouraged me to follow my dream and I encourage all of you to do the same.

Following the Dream (Part 4)

As I stated in my previous post...sometimes life throws you a curve ball just to see if you are paying attention. My wife and I have learned that tomorrow really is not a given. Her battle with cancer was a wake up call. Here we were and here I was on a path that I thought I would be on for years to come. But only during those difficult months did we realize that we had not been truly living. We were in “career mode.” We were becoming successful at our careers, but losing sight of what made life truly enjoyable. Up until that point, I had only thought of travel as a business necessity. My wife had tried and tried to get me to agree to go on a true vacation, but I had always balked and used work as an excuse. I decided we would finally take a trip, but even that trip was built around a real estate training event which meant that it really was not a vacation.

Well...after her chemo was completed...I broke down and agreed that we needed a getaway. Life had been pummeling us for a while and you can feel when you are nearing some form of breaking point so we made it official and I booked us a trip out west to the sleepy seaside town of La Jolla. My real estate career took a very positive turn a few months before this trip and I had made it a point that no career was more important than quality time with someone you love so I agreed to not check voice mail and I would not be checking e-mails during this getaway.

It was as if a HUGE lightbulb finally went off in my head. Here I was living in the moment or in the “present” as Spencer Johnson so eloquently wrote about. I was seeing everything more clearly. We were truly vacating during that trip. Everything slowed down and things were perfect. So there I now sat on the plane coming home skimming magazines and trying to find our next vacation destination. It was now in my blood, but in a different way. I was hooked on real travel, the kind where you are open to experiences and places that are different from your normal way of life. The kind of travel that you are excited about months before the trip actually gets here.

So one of the first things I did when I got home was go to see a local travel agent for help with a much more exotic location and little did I know that I would be taking my first step upon my new path... (to be continued)

Following the Dream (Part 3)

So if you have read parts 1 and 2, you are probably trying to now make the connection between going into real estate and following my destiny into the realm of travel. Life is like a big puzzle and the full picture never really appears until more and more pieces are connected. So follow along now as I reveal more of my puzzle.

I decided on real estate because I felt I was a good fit. I had a marketing and sales background coming out of college. I studied buyer behavior as well as developed skills in customer service throughout my corporate career. I also knew real estate would provide a great chance for me to learn the ropes of entrepreneurship and self-employment. I knew that, to succeed as a business owner, you had to commit 100% of your time which is why I knew I needed to quit my full-time corporate job and jump all the way into the pool...so to speak.

So fast forward again with me...I am now in real estate. I have a good client base being built up. I am focusing on service which is also making me referable. Things are going well, so well that my wife and I start to plan a future as a mom and dad. Without going into a long history...we were childless due to medical complications associated with a brain tumor that my wife had survived right before we got married. We always knew that someday we may consider adoption so my new career was also going to be a good fit with being an adoptive parent since I could be home each day. So we started the process that one must go through to adopt through private agencies. Life was just moving along down the path that we thought we were going to be staying on for a while.

But then it happens. Life throws you a curve just to see how you can handle change and adversity. No one can really prepare you to hear those words spoken to the one you love. But there my wife and I were in the Dr’s office as he was letting my wife know in the most gentle way he knew how...she had cancer. (to be continued)

Following the Dream (Part 2)

As I continued down my road (not knowing or seeing yet how it would all someday be part of destiny), I found myself one day accepting a position at a company in rural Tennessee. Little did I realize that this job would mark the beginning step into my career in travel. Also little did I know that this new job would soon send me to the very place I dreamt about as a child...Japan. My first view out of the window of that jumbo jet was the rice fields and tiled roofs of the houses and farms surrounding Tokyo’s international airport. It made me acutely aware that I was now a foreigner in a strange Country and I had become the traveler I had wondered about so often as a child.

Those many trips overseas taught me a great deal about people, culture and life, but I was also learning the intricacies of how to travel abroad.

It is funny how the pieces of life seem to all start coming together. While I had begun to stress over the amount of time I was spending away from home, away from my wife during all of my business related trips, I was slowly looking inward to find out what I truly wanted to do and what gave me true fulfillment when it came to my career and work.

I knew I wanted to be in control of my own destiny. I learned that working hard in the corporate world did nothing to truly give you true peace and security. So I had made my decision to seek some form of self-employment where I felt more in control and where I could work while still spending more time at home.

So off I jumped...pulled my chute and trusted I would succeed in the world of...real estate. (to be continued)

Following the Dream (Part 1)

Many of you know me through the various social media outlets that I participate in while others know me from the old days where we connected while I was on a totally different career path. Some of you know me simply by what you read here on this blog. But I am not sure many really know or understand how I got here and really what I do on a day to day basis for a living.

This series of posts will give all of you more of a glimpse into who I am and how I ended up here; here as in writing and talking about travel related stories.

It seems sometimes that destiny has a path for all of us, but it is up to us to be flexible enough and sometimes brave enough to jump on that path and remain there so destiny can come to fruition. My destiny started very early on. Growing up in the State of California, I was privy to learning about different cultures and people at a very early age. My best friends in grade school were from all heritages and backgrounds; Spanish, Korean, Filipino, Japanese, Taiwanese etc. That early immersion started to give root to the desire to learn and see more of what was outside the mid-sized city that I was growing up in.

I can remember way back to the times that I would be driven over to the San Francisco International Airport with my parents to pick up friends and family. I would sit there in that airport and watch large jumbo jets take off and vanish out of site over the coastal mountain range that separated the airport from the Pacific Ocean; I would sit there and daydream about the far off land that the plane might be headed to. Were they going to Japan? Maybe they were headed to Australia or China. I would sit and watch and it seemed like time just stood still.

That curiosity never waned as I got older. I would still get in that airport even as a teen and young adult and walk over to the international terminal just to see the guests arriving from various foreign countries and just wonder who they were and where they were from and why were they here? I knew that someday I would be the one arriving through customs and it was just a matter of time.

Well..fast forward. I did travel domestically through my college years and on into my corporate careers after graduation. Since college and life took me away from my home state of California, I found myself being a tour guide for those friends of mine wanting to travel from the midwest out to the west coast. I found that I had a knack for arranging different aspects of trips for friends and co-workers so much so that many co-workers would come to me first for flight and hotel suggestions before they would eventually call our corporate travel agent to officially book their trip. The light bulb started to go off a bit when I found out that I was basically doing the travel agent’s job and all he/she was doing was taking the order. But I was not yet open to where destiny was trying to take me even though most of my co-workers jokingly would say...”you should be the travel agent for our company.”

The destiny bulb was starting to flicker, but not fully lighting up as of yet... (to be continued)