Cruise Vacation Shore Excursions: A Better Value With New Service

by Chris Owen on

Cruise vacations may have an all-inclusive nature but, as anyone who has sailed knows, the cruise fare paid far from covers everything. Incidental, but nearly mandatory, expenses like gratuities, soft drinks or alcoholic beverages and transfer services to and from the ship can add up fast. One part of it all that can make or break a cruise vacation experience is shore excursions — what we do off the ship. A new service now offers remarkable savings on the same or better tours than those offered by the cruise line.

Going live this week, Viator Shore Excursions offers more than 500 shore excursions in over 80 of the most popular ports around the globe, including new destinations Juneau, Monaco and Mykonos.

“The new Viator Shore Excursion platform builds on the increasing popularity of independent shore excursion bookings on Viator.com,” Barrie Seidenberg, CEO and president of Viator told Gadling. “We’ve taken our great inventory and added innovative technology to create the new user experience and give cruise passengers direct access to the best excursions in their ports of call to help them make the most of their time and money in every port.”Commonly thought of as the safe way to go, tours offered from the cruise line are often priced much higher than when bought from independent operators. Those tour companies are often the same people that provide the service to cruise lines. Now, our friends at Viator, a leading resource for researching and booking tours and activities around the world, unveiled a new website specifically designed to help cruise passengers find and book shore excursions with savings up to 60 percent off typical rates offered by cruise lines.

“For far too long cruise passengers have been beholden to the cruise lines for shore excursions that are often overpriced, over crowded and represent only a fraction of what’s available locally,” added Seidenberg.

The site has been designed for the complex nature of shore excursion bookings and will offer only relevant tours and activities based on the specific itinerary of the most major cruise lines.

Passengers select the cruise line, ship name and departure date, and Viator instantly loads the cruise ship’s itinerary and then shows only those excursions that can specifically work for each port of call based on arrival and departure times and availability.

Comparing Viator tours to similar tours offered by cruise lines, Viator comes out on top often with savings of up to 60 percent on tours we compared to cruise line prices.

Still, one of the big concerns passengers have with using third-party sources is missing the ship if the tour runs late. Viator has that covered too with their service “Viator’s Worry-Free Bookings.” If a passenger misses the ship because of a Viator excursion, Viator will transport them to the next port of call at no cost to the traveler.

On top of that, budget-conscious travelers will enjoy their Low Price Guarantee that really nails down their pricing as the best.

“Viator’s Low Price Guarantee also protects you two ways. First, if you find a lower price for the same tour or activity offered by the same operator (priced in the same currency) within 72 hours of booking, send us the details and we’ll refund the price difference. No gimmicks, no exceptions,” says Viator on its website. “Second, we also protect you against arriving at a destination and finding the same tour or activity offered at a lower price from our operator. If you do happen to find a lower price direct from our operator, simply send us the details and we’ll refund the price difference. It’s that easy.”

Low price, good availability and the worry-free policy make the new Viator Shore Excursions a great tool to consider when planning a cruise vacation. We suggest a simple comparison test. Open two screens on your computer — one with the ship’s offerings and one with Viator’s shore excursions for that same itinerary.

Going port by port it looks like Viator’s savings could be considerable.



[Images via Flickr user JorgeBRAZIL]

Journey To Secret Beach in Austin, Texas

by Elizabeth Seward on

I walk through the open gate and into a dusty backyard BBQ party. I offer the contents of a grocery bag to the men manning the grill. The afternoon sun on July 4 in Texas isn’t subtle. Dozens of friends are gathered here and sweating in unison. I find a place to relax in the shade — a slice of watermelon in one hand and a cold beer in the other. I think of my puppy, Fiona, at home. I’ve just left her alone for the first time. Once an hour has quickly passed, I excuse myself on behalf of Fiona’s assumed despair. I think of her barricaded in my kitchen, all eight pounds of her. Before I leave, I’m invited to rejoin my friends later at a purported “secret” beach, appropriately and memorably called Secret Beach. I’m given specific directions that are promised to take me there, but I never go. I open the front door to my house to find Fiona hiding under the couch in the living room. How she managed to jump over the 4-foot-tall stacked plastic storage bins that closed off the kitchen without budging them whatsoever is a mystery. Clearly distraught from her first home alone experience, I instead decide to take her with me to a friend’s pool, where she’s allowed to be but not to swim. I could have taken her with me to Secret Beach, but I didn’t know that at the time. I emailed a friend a few days later to get the directions to Secret Beach in writing. I saved the email knowing I’d want those directions sooner or later.

%Gallery-152063%The summer in Austin is oppressive. It’s my first summer in Texas, but the record-breaking drought and heat aren’t making the transition easy. Locals commiserate. “I’ve been in Austin all my life and this is, by far, the worst summer ever. I’m so sorry it’s your first”, they tell me, attempting to reassure me that the hard time I’m having isn’t because I’m a newcomer. But my instincts tell me that no matter what they say, the brutality of this summer is weighing more heavily on me, a recent transplant from the north. Everyone is feeling exhausted and visibly so. Beat down by the relentless heat, which has been in the triple digits for over 70 days now, I receive the pitying facial expressions of air-conditioned drivers paused at stoplights as I walk Fiona. Walking her isn’t easy to do — her paws are too soft and raw for the burning asphalt. A friend tells me he can only walk his 6-year-old Samoyed when it’s dark. This gives me the idea to become nocturnal.

I succeed in living by night for a month or so. But between raising a new puppy, totaling a car, shopping for a new car and planning my upcoming wedding, the inconvenience of a nocturnal lifestyle isn’t suiting me. I return to the daylight in the weeks before my October wedding, slowly readjusting to societal normalcy. My wedding is blessed with rain; a beacon of hope that graces the multi-day outdoor event with cool breezes. With a marriage license signed, an elaborate wedding set-up and torn down, and the weight off my chest from entertaining over a hundred mostly out-of-town guests, I find myself able to kick my feet up at my own home. But my feet are on boxes. Boxes filled with vintage lace, plates and glasses, and bins filled with silverware and candles. I lay my head on a collection of solar-powered camping showers strewn across my couch. The opportunity to depart from the wedding immediately following the ceremony for a honeymoon wasn’t an option. Perhaps I could have planned better, asked more of our family members and friends, but I didn’t. Instead, my husband and I work during the week following the wedding. We work in 12-hour chunks scrubbing the floors of the cabin on the property we rented, Austin Heaven. We are washing dishes so that they might be sold, and we are making back-to-back trips between the property and our house in Austin — a 30-minute commute without any traffic. And there’s always traffic.

Eight days after the wedding, two out-of-town friends remain in our home. One friend is an optimistic, ukulele-playing young lady. She has decided to extend her stay permanently and will be looking for a place of her own soon (she eventually moves into an actual closet). The other flies back home tomorrow to Germany, where he works as a physicist, which I find both fascinating and intimidating. With a flea market-looking, post-wedding home yielding not a single interior space for our guests or selves to relax, I have an idea.

“Do you guys want to go to Secret Beach today?” I ask in a tone that I hope conveys to our guests that I, for one, am getting out of the house and into the water regardless of what they choose. They think this sounds “awesome” and I do too. Perhaps more importantly, Fiona hasn’t had any exercise whatsoever since running around the wedding property eight days ago. She sees her leash and rejoices; her paws stretched out and pressed against the door as far up as she can reach them. She is ebullient. We put on our swimsuits, spray on sunblock and I pack a few towels. When we arrive to the end of the road on Austin’s southeast side, I’m not sure where to go next.

“Let’s just park and walk,” I say, hoping the path down to the water isn’t too inconspicuous. We see the white building that was referenced in the directions as a landmark, but we don’t know where the referenced trail nearby is. I debate calling the friend who gave me the directions, but part of the adventure is finding the path on your own.

In the parking lot next to the white building, a man is wet and ushering his dripping dog into the back trunk of his station wagon.

“Do you know where Secret Beach is?” I ask him, certain that he does.

“Secret Beach?” He responds. “It’s not so much of a secret anymore. Back when I discovered it, well, actually, my dog here discovered it, ten years ago, nobody knew about this beach but us. He just went nosing around down there one day and I followed him, I wanted to see where he’d take me. And he took me to Secret Beach. Nobody was down there but us; we founded it. Been comin’ here ever since then, but more and more people seem to show up every time.”

“Wow, you discovered it,” I say, catering to his “I Found It; It’s Mine” gasconading bravado. “Well, I hear it’s beautiful. Can you tell us where it is?” I continue.

“Look,” he says pointing. “Now you follow that path right there all the way until you see another dirt path to your right, take that one, the one to the RIGHT, don’t miss it. Follow that path down and around all the way and I don’t know what you’re going to do, little lady, wearing sandals like those. It’s not easy to get down that hill without slipping. But once you’re down the hill, walk through the trees and then BAM! You’ll hit the sand and the water.”

As the man leaves, another man arrives wearing swim trunks and guiding his Boxer puppy in the direction that had been pointed out to us. Fiona chases after the puppy as we journey down to the sandy beach, finally arriving beneath the late afternoon sun. Beams of light shoot through the canopying trees and hit the water like kaleidoscopic images. Fiona and the Boxer puppy hit the water like exploding cannonballs. With gnashing teeth and splashing water, the two dogs share their first swim. Letting the cool water move through me as it travels farther east, I am unencumbered. I soak in the feeling of having a low-populated and beautiful retreat this close to home.

Autumn is beginning to set in and it looks good on the drought-stricken land — a shoe that finally fits. We cycle in and out several times from the water to our outspread towels. There are only a handful of other people here on this Sunday afternoon. The beach sand is soft and the shells that are scattered alongside the Colorado River are plentiful. Our shoes are behind us in a haphazard pile. We’re a group of unapologetic nelipots.

Once we feel fully depleted, I stuff everything into a large tote bag and we climb the steep hill back up to the dirt path that leads to the parking lot by the white building. Secret Beach isn’t exactly secret enough to warrant the mysterious title these days. But it is still a place I like to go; I am reprieved here from the overcrowded swimming holes in and around Austin. If you want to find it, you won’t have a hard time. Research it or ask a local. I’d tell you myself, but I don’t want the blood of sharing semi-secrets on my hands.

Start Your Travel Fund With The Change In Your Pocket (But Good Luck Finding A Bank To Count Your Coins)

by Dave Seminara on

Six gallon-size jugs of coins once bought me a one-way ticket to Cairo. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but I’ve long had a curious little ritual before leaving the country that I’m very fond of. I’m a coin accumulator. You know those people who take several minutes to scrounge around for pennies while you are waiting impatiently behind them in line? That’s not me. If my bill comes to $1.01, I give the cashier $2, even if I have the penny in my pocket.

Why? Almost twenty years ago, I read about this change accumulation tactic and decided it would be an effortless way to start a travel fund. It’s hard to save money but it’s easy to accumulate coins. At the time I started my first coin collection, I was stuck in an office job in Chicago that I loathed. It felt good to accumulate coins and then dump them in big jugs in my room when I got home.

It made me feel a bit like a prisoner trying to gradually chip his way out of Alcatraz through some loose molding. I was plotting my escape and the growing coin collection was a measure of my progress.

After about two years of saving, I was ready to quit my job and take off for a four-month overland trip from Cairo to Shanghai. I had about $8,000 in savings in the six aforementioned jugs of coins. When I lugged all the coins to a local bank their coin counting machine made these loud, gurgling noises that were music to my ears. I was astonished when the clerk told me I was due $436. It was thirty bucks more than I needed to book a one-way ticket to Cairo.

Since that epic trip, I’ve continued to accumulate coins, though at a much slower rate of late because I like to use my credit cards to accumulate frequent flyer miles. Still, I relish going out to trade in my coins right before an international trip. I bring the cash I get back with me and it feels like extra money that I can blow on whatever I want.

But over the years, it’s become harder and harder to find coin counting machines that don’t charge a commission. And the tellers greet you and your coins about as warmly as Mullah Omar might be received at a Ground Zero commemoration event.You can use the machine at your grocery store, but you’ll lose 9 percent — not a very good way to start a trip. Five years ago, prior to a trip to Newfoundland, I spent more than an hour lugging two huge, heavy jars of coins around downtown Washington, D.C., looking for a bank that would count my coins.

At least half dozen banks insisted that I roll the coins into paper sleeves — a task that would have taken hours — until I finally found a place that had a no-commission machine. But the most embarrassing part was walking through a park that was filled with homeless people begging. What do you say to a guy who asks for spare change when you’re carrying about $200 worth of it? Ummm, sorry, you see, I’m going to Newfoundland, and….

I gave away a bit but still felt cheap. But not as cheap as I felt today, as I was bounced around nearly every bank in my town and found none that would count my coins without a commission. I’m about to leave for Europe on Tuesday and I had a modest coin collection that I needed to dissolve — but how?

There are seven banks I pass on the way from my children’s preschool to my home. Burke & Herbert, BB & T, Sun Trust and Wells Fargo all had no machine.

“You should roll your coins,” said one annoying teller.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll take that suggestion under consideration” (perhaps when I’m retired or incapacitated).

Then I went into a second, larger BB & T branch and thought I’d hit pay dirt when I saw a coin machine in the corner. But alas, they have a 6% commission unless you open an account. I considered paying the commission but remembered that there were still two more banks I’d pass on my way home.

I struck out at Bank of America, where the teller looked at me and my bag of coins as though we were contagious, but then I saw something promising outside a bank I’d never heard of before across from a bakery with the preposterous name “Panaderia de Paris.”

T.D. Bank’s sign said, “America’s Most Convenient Bank.”

Surely the most convenient bank in the land of the free and the home of the brave would offer a commission-free coin counting machine, right?

“It’s 6% commission unless you open an account,” said the over-officious teller.

A sympathetic man in dreadlocks shook his head and chimed in.

“Man, that ain’t right!” he said. “Why does it cost money to count money?”

I was delighted to have found a like-minded soul and I immediately wanted to invite him to Europe. But instead I inquired about opening an account with an initial deposit of $1.

“You can open an account,” the teller said suspiciously. “But if it falls below the minimum balance of $100, then you’ll be assessed fees.”

“That’s OK,” I said. “You can take them out of my $1 and when it gets to zero you can just dissolve the account.”

“But you’ll be sent to a collection agent,” she said.

That didn’t sound very convenient, so I grudgingly shuffled over to the machine and hit the start button on the touch screen.

An animated image of a cute freckled little girl in bib overalls and pigtails appeared on my screen.

“My name is Penny Arcade!” she chirped. “I’m here to count your coins, are you ready?”

I dumped my coins down Penny’s machine and then the charming lass popped back up on the screen again.

“Do you want to guess how much money you’ve inserted?” she asked. “If you guess within $1.99 of the correct amount you’ll win a prize!”

I asked the teller if there was a fee for guessing.

“Oh no, that’s free,” she said, reassuringly.

I mostly use credit cards these days, and my coin collection is only about a year old, so I guessed $46. A slot-machine-like image popped up on the screen showing six digits with the numbers scrolling very fast, giving one the impression that, who knows, maybe you might win a jackpot. Now this was entertainment clearly worth at least a few bucks.

My depressing total was a paltry $32.44. Less the commission it came to $30.50 — perhaps enough for a meal in an inexpensive trattoria or perhaps a seat on Ryan Air. In an age of plastic and frequent flyer miles, clearly my best coin accumulating days are behind me. How sad.

After handing me the receipt the teller had one last pitch.

“Are you sure you don’t want to open an account?” she asked.

[Photos via Mukumbura, Mapless in Seattle and Jason Rogers on Flickr.]

Dying To Cruise? New Website Spreads The Excitement, And Ashes

by Chris Owen on

Rabidly loyal fans of cruise vacations would be reluctant to cancel their trips, even with news of Norovirus outbreaks among passengers. Stories of ships tragically grounded or on fire do not even make them blink. These travelers are going to cruise no matter what, skipping other travel options to feed their addiction. With these travelers in mind, a new service is available to assist with even more luxurious cruise reservations — in the afterlife.

My Final Cruise handles the spreading of ashes at sea, complying with all environmental laws and allowing a great deal of input from their clients in a pre-need sort of way. Clients can choose to plan their own final cruise catering to their needs whether they want an accompanied service with friends and family in attendance or would prefer that their ashes be delivered and placed by the ship’s senior officers.

Those with a vision for what kind of service they might want can specify if they would like a meal following the service, a specific prayer or a poem to be read, a function in a private bar or to have those in attendance participate in a favorite activity they previously enjoyed.My Final Cruise also has a world map online that will record and display that final resting place at sea. In addition to the longitude and latitude, clients may add photos, a memorial and even a short video to share with others. The map is public, allowing government agencies to verify the exact location.

With a selection of biodegradable urns priced from $149.95, My Final Cruise caters to eco-concerned cruise travelers who can be sure their carbon footprint is low, even on that final cruise.

[Flickr photo via Official U.S. Navy Imagery]



Got Geoduck? An Epic Clam Dig On The Olympic Peninsula

by Laurel Miller on

It’s a drizzly late March morning at Hood Canal, a fjord-like arm of Washington State’s Puget Sound two hours west of Seattle. The air is briny and pungent. Douglas-fir trees and fog-shrouded inlets dot the shoreline. Bald eagles soar overhead while dozens of harbor seals bob in the water.

Armed with a shovel, a hand trowel and a five-gallon bucket, I’m attired in hip waders and neoprene. I slosh through the shallow water — stumbling over oyster shells, tufts of eel grass and starfish — searching for telltale, two-inch, oval holes in the sand from which the tip of a mollusk siphon may protrude (a visual cue known as a “show”).

The elusive creature I seek is Panopea generosa (a Latin name that will seem far more hilarious when you check out the gallery below), the geoduck clam. At first glance, the geoduck is unarguably, hideously, phallic — there’s no polite way…ahem….around it.

Possessed of a leathery neck, or siphon, that stretches up to three feet in length, the world’s largest burrowing clam tends to freak Americans out. In Asia, it’s revered as a delicacy and aphrodisiac, yet it’s native to the waters of the Pacific Northwestern U.S.

[Photo credits: Langdon Cook]

%Gallery-151127%I, too, found geoduck disturbing, until I moved to Seattle, and found a small pile of it on my plate while dining at Spring Hill, award-winning chef Mark Fuller’s restaurant (recently rechristened Ma’ono). Dressed with a tart lemon peel relish, the meat was slightly sweet and briny, with a subtle, satisfying crunch. Fuller loves geoduck for its ease of preparation, and “mild, clean flavor and snappy texture.” He prefers to serve it raw, with some citrus, olive oil and a bit of coarse sea salt. The “king” clam is also used as sashimi, sautéed or hot-smoked.

Seattle forager, author (Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21th Century Forager, Skipstone Press), food blogger, and back-to-the-land Renaissance man Langdon Cook prefers geoduck in an Asian-inspired ceviche, marinated with lime juice, a touch of fish sauce and brown sugar, and diced red onion, Serrano chile and shredded, green (unripe) papaya or mango.

Since I love tracing food to its source, I asked Lang to take me ‘duck hunting. After catching the ferry to Bainbridge Island, we drove to the eastern side of the Olympic Peninsula; Hood Canal has a number of state parks with wild geoduck. While not seasonal, March is when mandatory harvest licenses are issued; you can obtain them here through the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife. Low tides in July and August are ideal for geoduck harvest, because it stays light late, and the weather is at its best.

At Dosewallips Tide Flat (part of a lovely state park), we discovered the water higher than anticipated, but fortunately, we had Taylor Shellfish Farms manager John Adams to provide his considerable expertise. Instead of digging in sand, we’d be shoveling against the clock in heavy, sticky substrate. Despite this setback and even in drizzling rain, the aesthetics were spellbinding.

When I finally spotted a show, after much difficulty and with the help of my geoduck-senseis, we laboriously dug a three-foot-deep pit adjacent to the clam in the gloppy, shell-laden substrate. Since it was my story, I had the glory of actually winnowing the recalcitrant little bastard out of its burrow.

Immersed to the shoulder, sodden and stinking of tidal effluence, I finally manage to extract the clam. I triumphantly fist-pumped my three-pound prize in the air, while its leathery siphon drooped to the side like a dehydrated tongue. We capped off the day by collecting a bucket of littleneck clams from the beach, and then Lang took me to his home in Seattle for a tutorial on removing the “gut ball” from a geoduck. Unsurprisingly, gut ball soup is also a delicacy in Asia, but I can safely say this particular food trend won’t be catching on in mainstream America. You can quote me on that.

I went home with my siphon (I generously left Lang with the shell and gut ball; he did, after all, do most of the digging), and made sashimi. You know what? It tasted damn good. So did the clam linguine that followed.

Puget Sound’s Taylor Shellfish, a fifth-generation, sustainable mariculture farm, is the world’s largest producer of farmed geoduck. They’re sold live at Taylor’s retail shop in Capitol Hill in Seattle or online, $24.95 per pound (minimum two pounds). To order, click here. The site also features a video on how to clean and prepare geoduck.