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

Part of any experience to Europe involves wine. Even for those who don’t drink wine, it is always a treat to visit the estate wineries while on a river cruise.

For some, the wine experience is as important as the cultural and historical sites when they visit Europe. Luckily, there are more and more options for those who want to immerse themselves in the grapes when on a river cruise.

AMA Waterways has set itself apart in this regard. They offer several wine-themed cruises every year in all different parts of Europe. In both 2020 and 2021, they have wine-themed itineraries in these areas:

• Bordeaux – in Southwest France
• Seine River – between Paris and the Normandy coast
• Provence – in Eastern France between Lyon and Avignon
• Douro – in Portugal and Spain
• Danube – between Bavaria and Budapest
• Rhine – between Amsterdam and Basel, Switzerland

A wine-themed cruise includes a number of trips to wineries along the route, as well wine tastings and lectures on board the ship that are all INCLUDED in your fare.

A wine expert – usually a winery owner or sommelier – sails with you for the entire cruise acting as your host and wine expert. 

If you’re anything like me, you probably like wine (in my case a lot) but might not be particularly expert at any aspect of the wine industry. I don’t really feel the need to become a collector or true connoisseur of wine, but I do look forward to opportunities to learn more about wine, and to visit the wineries.

Here’s one wine-themed cruise that really caught my eye for later this year:  it’s a 1-week cruise on the Rhine with Ama Waterways, departing Basel on November 16, 2020 and finishing 7 days later in Amsterdam.

This is a wine-themed cruise, but it’s even better than that.

Our agency has a host on board, and you’ll be part of a small, exclusive group receiving extra benefits during the cruise. You’ll be invited to a private cocktail reception, and you’ll be included (at no extra charge) in a very special shore experience along the Alsace Wine route in Strasbourg, ONLY for our guests who are part of our exclusive group.

If you’ve ever wanted to join a wine-themed cruise, this is a great time to try it.

Right now, availability on that cruise looks good. Here’s the pricing by cabin type:
• Window rooms: $2199 per person
• French Balcony rooms: $2898 per person
• Veranda rooms: $3698

If those particular dates or the itinerary doesn’t work for you, AMA has plenty of other wine-themed itineraries in 2020 and 2021. Here’s the link:
https://www.amawaterways.com/destination/wine-cruises/2020

The other thing I like about sailing with AMA is their focus on physical activity and wellness (could come in handy if I spend a lot of time at the wine tastings). There are bicycles on board for you to borrow at any time, and they arrange shore excursions on those bikes as well.

They also have a dedicated Wellness Coordinator on board all their ships. This person conducts the more active shore excursions, and also offers classes on yoga, Pilates, or general fitness.

After all, you need to do something to offset all the incredible food and wine!

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

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sue Bradley