Humans are creatures of habit, and those habits have had to change quickly in the past month. 

March of 2020 will be always remembered as the month where all of us started out with our regular routines.  At some point during that month, our routines were interrupted.

Initially it felt more like how Thanksgiving or Christmas changes your routines (like jammies in the daytime, and wine at lunchtime).

At our house, we are now in our fourth week of lockdown (we got started early), and it now definitely feels like a new set of routines.

For us, it’s been a period of discovery.  Currently we are in the Pacific Northwest – a beautiful part of the world, but one in which we have not experienced a March day since 2007.  We normally live in Mexico at this time of year, and we are missing the warmer weather and latin music, but that has forced us to rediscover the early spring at this higher latitude. 

During the first dizzying round of travel rebooking a few weeks ago, Bob and I decided early that we had to prioritize our personal wellness before we could be of use to any of our clients.  For us, this has a few key elements:

• Exercise Daily (no matter how busy it gets).
• Eat ell – we’ve rediscovered how much satisfaction we get from cooking, and how easy it is to eat healthy when we eat at home
• Media Blackout – we turned off broadcast and print media about a month ago.  Sorry folks – don’t care what outlets are your favorite – you are being bombarded with sensationalized information that is not conducive to good mental health.  We go online and read the daily update from the Chief Medical Officer in our jurisdiction who gives us the relevant facts, and her recommendations.  I’m not particularly interested in what anybody else has to say about the situation.  We both agree we feel substantially better after making this decision.
• Dreaming – We all know this is going to end, and we want things to look forward to.  We were supposed to be in New Orleans this week for the gala reception launching Viking’s Mississippi River product.  That event was cancelled, but we’ve decided to book a trip The Big Easy in fall.  We’re still hopeful we can attend a special cruise industry meeting for three days at the end of May in San Francisco.  If that gets taken away, we will book something in its place for later in the summer.  We’ve also decided we need to make Tahiti a priority – we’ve been talking forever about heading down there to experience the over-water bungalows, and a small ship cruise.  We’ll get that scheduled before the end of this year. 

This whole situation has underscored some incredibly valuable life-lessons for us:

FIRST – it really is very important to do the things you want to do NOW.  For us travel has always been a priority (it’s how we ended up in this business).  This has affirmed the value we get from travel, and made us want to do more.

SECOND – the satisfaction we get from the little things has been greatly heightened.  A good cup of coffee with the sun on my face in the morning; our favorite musicians who we now listen to via FaceBook Live; a great meal with good company; the many incredible people in our lives, who we don’t get to see in person right now, but still remain connected. 

This crisis will pass, and we will have the opportunity to resume our old routines.  The challenge we’ve set for ourselves is to maintain the more positive aspects of these new temporary routines we’ve learned in the past few weeks, and when we get back to “normal”, that we retain what we’ve learned through all of this, and live better going forward.

Whenever you’re ready to start planning your next trip, we’re here for you. 

Click here to get in touch today.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sue Bradley

Last week we offered a little preview into our world as travel agents, in light of the cruise industry having ground to a halt the week before.

It sure feels like more than a week ago, doesn’t it?

We’re still very busy helping clients adjust their plans, but the pace has become manageable to the point where we can begin to form some new routines until the world returns to normal.

And it will return to normal – it will just take longer than most of us would like.

We’ve been struggling with how to best communicate with you.  We obviously don’t think this is the appropriate time to be sending out “sales” messages, but we don’t want to be silent either.

Earlier today, we were privileged to attend a (virtual) meeting with the top Executives from ten major Ocean Cruise Lines, and were reminded of few important things about this industry.

Perhaps most notably, the meeting reinforced how instructional the tag line for our business The Pampered Cruiser is at this time.  Remember, our tag line is “Dream.Travel.Share”.

During our meeting, we were reminded that travel has a ‘triple bottom line’.  When you plan a trip, there are three payoffs.  Travel brings joy:

• when you dream about it
• when you actually experience it, and
• when you remember it

When we travel, the one-or-two-week experience itself is really only one-third (or less) of the total value we get from the trip. 

Before we go away, we have the anticipation, planning and excitement of the trip (DREAM).  Interestingly, studies show that this is where we actually get the most value out of our trip.

When we return, we come back with memories and stories that last us a lifetime (SHARE). 

We aren’t really able to TRAVEL right now, but we can still DREAM and SHARE.

Some of us aren’t ready to DREAM yet.  The reality of what is happening in the world is still too raw. 

Many others are already actively dreaming about (and planning) the trips they want to take when this is over.  Almost all our clients who had their cruise cancelled in April have already re-booked.

This crisis, like all others, will eventually pass, and each of us has to decide when we’re ready to DREAM again.

Whenever you’re ready, we’re here for you. 

We can also SHARE while we wait this thing out. 

Bob and I are working furiously right now to re-edit some of our video clips from our previous river cruises, and will have something to SHARE shortly.

Here’s a hint:  We’re going to take a Viking River Cruise on the Danube, and we’ll invite all of you along.  We’ll post this on Facebook, so if you’re not connected with us already, here’s the link: https://www.facebook.com/PamperedCruiser

If you’ve already done this cruise, we’d love you to weigh in with Facebook comments about your own experiences on this trip.  If this trip is on your bucket list, this is a great chance to get a preview.  If you were going to do this trip in the next few weeks, and had that option taken away from you – well, it won’t be as good as if you actually got to go, but perhaps this will be a bit of fun until you get to do it yourself.

We’ll send out a note once we’re ready to begin “broadcasting” on Facebook.  We’ll visit a different port every day, and discuss our experience there.

If you want to SHARE a different itinerary, we’ve documented a number of our other cruises on our YouTube Channel.  Here’s the link:   www.YouTube.com/ThePamperedCruiser

For Bob and me, this process has been quite cathartic.  Rather than being exclusively focused on cancelling and rebooking clients’ cruise plans, we are looking forward to being able to DREAM along with them again.

In the next few weeks as we walk this tightrope between being sensitive to the very real crisis happening in the world, and DREAMING for when it’s over, please excuse us if we err too much on one side or the other. 

Warm regards,

Sue Bradley

It’s been a wild ride these past two weeks for anyone involved in the travel industry.

When this situation first started to unfold, we were honestly preparing ourselves for the worst – an overwhelming number of phone calls and emails from panicked clients needing instant answers about their travel plans.

To be sure, it has been very busy, and we expect it to be so for a while yet.  However the tone of people’s communication with us has been far from panicked.  The overwhelming majority of our clients have not only been extremely patient, but have also expressed their genuine concern for how we’re coping through this madness.

You cannot possibly imagine how meaningful this is for us.  Many times, a simple message of encouragement has ‘made’ our day.

In contrast, many of our less fortunate travel agent colleagues have described scenarios even worse than our initial fears.  It shows that we have a very special group of clients.

Another pleasant surprise is that amongst our clients, over 90% who were scheduled to travel in March and April (who ended up having their plans cancelled by the cruise line), are choosing to simply postpone their trip.  It seems our people have an underlying calm about the whole situation and understand that this craziness will pass. 

An equally high number of clients travelling in May and June are very much in “wait and see” mode.  They want to take their trips – and they are ready to see what happens in the next few weeks before making any decisions.  They are not in denial, or being naïve, they are just keeping things in perspective.

It certainly helps that the cruise lines are making it easy for guests to ‘wait and see’.  They’ve provided relaxed cancellation policies, and also rewarded guests who hang in there.  Guests are being treated more than fairly.

We respect such a rational approach by clients to a situation that is necessarily highly emotive. 

I’m not sure what “magic lever” we pulled to end up surrounded by this extraordinary group of people, but we sure feel lucky.

We got a little preview of this special community when we hosted a cruise on Seabourn in Alaska last summer, and several of our clients were on board.  We don’t often get a chance to meet our clients in person, so you can imagine how delighted we were when it turned out that OUR CLIENTS were the ones we enjoyed spending time with the most on that trip!

For many of us, the decision to cruise is a leisure choice, one we are privileged to make.  For many cruise line employees that we interface with on the ship: your room steward, the waiter, the bartender or the tour guide – these circumstances are far more consequential.  Almost all of these people, who do such a good job of taking care of us, come from emerging economies and they rely on their salaries, and the tips we provide them, to send money back home to their families. The tourism industry is far from perfect, but it does redistribute wealth from the rich countries like ours to others that are developing.

So, thank you for being part of this special community of travellers.  Bob and I want you to know that we genuinely appreciate you and never take you for granted. 

It is said that people’s true nature is exposed in times of crisis.  This situation certainly qualifies as a crisis, and the response we have seen from all of you is a glowing testament to the quality of this community.

Planning a Cruise?  I’d love to help!  Click here to get in touch today.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sue Bradley

I suppose every situation has a silver lining, and I’ve been waiting to see what opportunities might present themselves as a result of the fallout from the coronavirus.

I didn’t have to wait long.

Every cruise line has had to adjust, and some of the them have redeployed their ships and brought them a bit closer to home. So it is with Viking Ocean Cruises. 

The Viking Orion was originally scheduled to arrive in Alaska in early June, but now she’ll be arriving early.  As a result, Viking needs to fill four extra sailings in Alaska, and they are making it very easy for you to get on board.

This opportunity is unique for a number of reasons:

• Viking Ocean is normally sold out a year in advance for Alaska.  The additional four sailings has opened up availability considerably.
• The 11-day itinerary between Vancouver and Anchorage normally has base pricing of $5799 per person.  The extra four sailings in April and May are less than half that price, with fares starting at just $2799 per person. There appears to be reasonable availability in that price range at this point, although I suspect this will change quickly.
• Viking’s newly relaxed cancellation policy enables you to cancel your booking as late as 24 hours prior to departure without any risk.  If you don’t go, they’ll give you 100% of what you paid in a future cruise credit.  None of us know what’s going to happen with coronavirus, so this relaxed cancellation policy removes ALL the risk
• The airfare to/from Vancouver and Anchorage is either included or deeply discounted. 

Here are the details about the four new sailings:

• Two departures from Vancouver, on April 26 and May 16, 2020. Two departures from Anchorage, on May 6 and May 26, 2020.
• As mentioned above, flights are either included, or available for a small add-on ($100 – $300)
• All Viking staterooms are Verandas and they start at $2799 per person.  There are currently lots of cabins available for less than $3500 per person.  This is less than half the regular price!  On a per-day basis, this is actually less than the cost of Alaska on one of the mega-ships, with far better food, service and amenities.
• Viking Ocean includes an excursion in every port, beer & wine with meals, all port taxes and fees, wifi, specialty dining, specialty coffee, tea, juice and bottled water, and airport transfers.  Transfers are not big deal in Vancouver, but the port in Anchorage is over 2 hours from the airport.
• The ports of call are Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, Icy Strait Point, and Valdez.  There is also a glacier-cruising day.
• If travel conditions worsen, you can cancel at short notice without penalty (see above).

This is incredible value, and we haven’t seen anything on Viking Ocean like this before.  If you’ve been thinking about trying Viking, or a luxury small-ship experience, I don’t think you’ll find a better opportunity than this. 

To secure a reservation on one of these cruises, please call me immediately: 1-800-876-0168. I will add extra onboard credits that you would not receive by booking directly with Viking.

Click here to get in touch today.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sue Bradley

Princess is going to announce next week that they are changing their pricing structure so that passengers have the option to include drinks, WiFi, and gratuities in the fare (the Best.Sale.Ever was so popular that they decided to make it a permanent fixture).

So this got me to thinking “is it worth it to pay for your own amenities”?

First a bit of background. 

When you go on a cruise there are three main elements of your price:  the actual fare, the taxes and port fees, and the goodies.  The goodies are things like beverage packages, shore excursions, or pretty much anything else you pay for either as an addition to the fare ahead of time, or charged to your ship board account.

The cruise lines differentiate themselves on how these things are included (or not).  If you sail on many of the mass-market ships to the Caribbean, normally nothing is included.  The good news is you’re getting on board for cheap.  The bad news is your onboard charges will often exceed the cruise fare you paid in the first place.

At the other end of the spectrum are lines like Regent Seven Seas.  The fare on Regent includes everything:  your drinks, gratuities, shore excursions, and just about every thing else.  This works great for the person who is going to use all those amenities.  However, if you don’t drink, for example, you end up paying for something you’re not going to use.

Other lines, like Celebrity and Oceania, have two pricing structures:  a lower “cruise only” fare, and secondary fare structure that give you a choice of extra goodies.  It appears as though Princess is going this way as well (although we’ll have to wait to see their announcement next week). 

The criticism of such pricing structures is that you end up paying for your own benefits.  However, I think it is great to have the choice. 

We don’t yet know the difference between the Princess Saver Fares (cruise only) and the Princess Plus Fares (includes drinks, wifi, gratuities), but a tiny bit of math will make it clear very quickly which one is best for you.

The gratuities are $13 per day, and if you buy an all-inclusive beverage package it will be about $60 per day.  However, the beverage package is really only worth what you think you would consume.  So you’ll need to guess how many beer (@ $6), mixed drinks (@ $8) and/or wine (@ $10) you’ll drink every day.  That is the value of the beverage package. 

WiFi is also something that will have a different value for different guests.  For me WiFi is worth $0.  On most cruise ships it is painfully slow, and I end up using my cell phone when I’m in port, and paying the roaming charges to connect my computer.  However others will place some value on WiFi, and if we’re talking specifically about Princess, then their upgraded WiFi might be worth it.

So if you’ve been waiting your entire life for that one situation to use the skills your 6^th Grade math teacher tried to impart to you through word problems, now’s your big chance. 

It is quite possible that paying for your own amenities could be great value for you.  Conversely, you might be better off buying a cruise-only fare, and paying as you go for certain amenities.

You gotta do the math.

Planning a Cruise?  I’d love to help!  Click here to get in touch today.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sue Bradley