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

One of the cruise industry executives commented to us recently how much she appreciated our “media presence”.  This was a sincere compliment, and I tried to accept it graciously, but I was taken off-guard by the term “media presence”.

We are literally a mom & pop shoppe.  There is just Bob and me, and we have some admin support.  We certainly don’t have a PR department or a media section.

For those of us who grew up in the 60s and70s, the idea of “media” was about large newspapers, periodicals and broadcast television.  In the 21^st Century, this is about regular blogging, posting on social media, and contributing on YouTube.

We do a reasonable job of trying to connect with our clients and readers once a week.  Occasionally we get busy and miss a deadline, but we’re generally pretty consistent. 

For the record, there are lots of media services out there that offer to write our stuff for us, and distribute it via multiple media channels. We don’t like this idea, so everything we post is written by Bob and me. 

We post regularly on our Facebook page, and if you use Facebook and are not already connected with us, we’d love for you to join us!

We are certainly not on all the social channels, and we get regular feedback that we need to be more active on Instagram and Twitter so that we can attract more Millennials to our business.  We’ll probably work on improving our presence on these channels at some point.

However our focus on the moment is on Facebook and YouTube, because we really like dealing with people who are similar to us in age and interests:  55 – 75+ year-olds who are curious about the world, and want to get out and explore it as much as they can, for as long as they can.

The one media channel we have been working on improving our presence is YouTube.  We personally do many of the trips that we book our clients on, and we try to document these trips with short videos.  We now have 47 videos posted, and will continue to add stuff regularly.

If you’re looking for the flashy, highly-produced videos, I would refer to you the individual cruise lines’ websites.  On the other hand, if you want to know what these trips are like from the perspective of normal people (not the models on the professional videos), and taken with an iPhone, then our videos might be of interest.

Here’s a link to our YouTube homepage.  There is a “subscribe” button (top right) there if you want to be notified when we post new videos.  If you click on “Playlists”, you can see the series of videos from various trips we’ve taken. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeRk0RaMl2AGV-bsA-j_6eA

One video I would draw your attention to (because it just doesn’t translate as well to the written word), is the plane ride we took a couple of months ago on the Crystal Skye.  It was a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to travel on the world’s largest private plane (a Boeing 777-LR), with only 88-seats, as well as a cocktail lounge and restaurant area.  It’s the only time I’ve had a buffet breakfast on a plane… or seen an ice sculpture while in the air.  Here’s the link:

This plane is available for private charter, either in connection with a Crystal cruise or for any other purpose.  If you need further information just let me know (serious requests only please). It would be a good choice for a large-ish group of people who all want to fly business class together, because it’s difficult or impossible to get a large number of business class seats all together on the same flights.

So, we’ll continue to blog regularly with original content written by us, and document our trips as they occur via YouTube.

I guess we do have a “media presence”.

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

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sue Bradley