Princess Cruises 2012-13 salings to open with a bang

by Chris Owen on

Normally, cruise line ship deployment for upcoming seasons is a mysterious event that unfolds over time. Experienced travelers want to book as far in advance as possible but are often kept waiting this time of the year for next year’s deployment schedule to come out. This year, Princess Cruises, for the first time ever, is releasing all sailings for Summer 2012 through Spring 2013 at one time.

All sailings will be available to book starting March 17, 2011 at 3PM Eastern time. That is of particular interest to undecided travelers, trying to weigh options on where and when they might sail. Before, small pieces of the deployment puzzle would be doled out a little at a time over a period of months. Waiting for all options to consider might have meant losing out on the best stateroom selection or pricing.
Princess has good reason for this mass deployment schedule too. In the 2012-13 season, the line will have it’s biggest deployment ever in Europe with more than 125 voyages to the most popular places.

In addition, Princess will sail seven ships to Alaska with 21 cruisetour options. Normally we have to wait until the current season is almost over before knowing what will be offered for the next season. That’s huge and only Princess is doing it. That is a real testament to their commitment to the Alaska market that buyers should not forget when making a buying decision. No “wait and see what happens” attitude here, they’re ready to go right now. This is consistent with many reasons why Princess is the line to see Alaska with.

Earlier we reported that Crown Princess would be returning to Galveston….yes, Galveston, the home port with the fog problems but a hungry cruise audience. They have not sailed from there in years but join sister-line Carnival Cruise Lines who will debut shiny new Carnival Magic in the U.S. from the Texas port.

“We’ve received a great deal of feedback from cruisers interested in sailing from Galveston again,” said Jan Swartz, Princess Cruises executive vice president. “So we’re excited to be returning in 2012 to bring our Western Caribbean sailings back to Texas.”

There must be some good things happening in Galveston for these two cruise titans to put such fabulous hardware in a location that has been considered secondary to traditional Florida homeports, let alone debut ports.

Continuing their “we sail more ships to more places than anyone else” thing, Princess has more voyages than ever to South America, the exotic Amazon, Asia, Canada & New England, the Panama Canal, Tahiti, the South Pacific and even epic cruises around the whole world.

If that’s not enough, Princess also has special Launch Savings of up to $200 per couple for members of their Captains Circle past guest club and the line has sweetened the deal for groups too, offering some of the most generous benefits of all cruise lines.

There is a lot going on at Princess Cruises these days for sure. Your travel agent can sort through all the options and help you find the best values for you. Be it your first cruise or your 100th, Princess has set themselves up for a record year of great values like no other line.

Airline profits hit by high oil prices, rise in fares possible

by Chris Owen on

High oil prices cost us at the pump, play into the prices of most consumer goods and will cut 2011 airline profits in half in spite of the recent growth in air travel says a new forecast out today.

In a revised profit forecast, International Air Transport Association said it was downgrading its airline industry profit outlook for 2011 to $8.6 billion from the $9.1 billion it had estimated just last December.

“This is a 46 percent fall in net profits compared to the US$16 billion earned by the industry in 2010,” IATA said in a statement.

The new forecasts were based on oil priced at a average of $96 per barrel of Brent crude over the year, compared to $84 a barrel used in the December forecast. The price of oil spiked to $115 today, shy of last weeks high of $120.In February, responding to unrest in Egypt, American Airlines added fuel surcharges of as much as $5 each way on many routes with United Continental Holdings Inc. adding a $3 each-way surcharge. At the time, British Airways said they would increase the fuel surcharge they already have in place.

Now, with this latest announcement signaling an approaching hit on profits, airline shareholders are already in pain. The 2008 spike in oil prices sent airlines into a 2-year profit tailspin.

Flickr photo by L.C.Nottaasen

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Travel agents: The dinosaur you just might need

by Chris Owen on


A long time ago, in a travel world far away, you needed a printed ticket to get on an airplane and you probably got it from a travel agent. Now you buy online and there is no ticket, just a number. Not all that long ago, you needed special printed travel documents to go on a extended land or cruise vacation and you picked them up at your travel agent’s office. Now you don’t need those either and you probably don’t visit your travel agent’s office very often, if you even have one. Then, traveling meant being prepared with a trip to the library, book store and travel agency office for information . Now we click our way to expert status without leaving home.

We can easily book most travel options without a travel agent. That’s a fact. The big question though is: Should we?

These days about the only place you’ll find an airline ticket is on American Idol when when hopefuls get sent along to Hollywood. Travel agents still issue them but now it is mostly as a courtesy to clients too busy to do it on their own or as part of a package. Today, we can select the airline we want, when we want to fly and even a seat assignment, all online. Other types of travel as well, from land vacations to cruises, have been made available to click-and-book.

Where travel agents have the most visible value is being there for travelers when something goes wrong. But that does not happen all that much so those who are comfortable with the click-and-book method accept the risk.

More commonly, travel agents can offer great value that travelers could not get on their own.

That value may translate to lower prices, complementary upgrades, bonus amenities when traveling and other good things down the line, after booking. That “after booking” part is the unknown, difficult-to-measure factor that eludes many travelers.

Odds are up-front pricing on many elements of a travel purchase will be the similar or the same from one source or agent to another. Even compared to the service provider, be that an airline, car rental agency, tour company or cruise line, pricing is similar.

Or so it seems.

That similarity in price may be misleading and causes those with even a minimal online booking comfort level to think or say “What do I need this middleman for? I can do this myself.”

True, today we can do it ourselves. Do we save money? In the long run, probably not. Anything we can find online, travel agents can find too. They can also monitor pricing, economic, social or weather-related concerns that might affect your travel.

The big advantage of a travel agent today is very much like it was years ago, it just comes in different forms.

Your good travel agent will have all the information you need to make the most of your vacation. That may be as simple as sending along links to critical websites, basic but required literature on destinations or merely making sure all the T’s are crossed and the I’s dotted.

More importantly, your travel agent considers the act of booking the beginning of the transaction, not the end like the result of click-to-book methods. Once you have paid, you are done with the click-to-book way. Now all you have to do is make it to the airport on time for that flight and that is the end of it.

In today’s world, prices, availability and even the nature of travel are changing at a rapid pace. Websites update pricing and availability but offer little or no hope of passing new benefits available after the sale along to travelers. Click-to-book methods are pretty much done with you after payment is made.

Travel agents work on building or maintaining an ongoing business relationship with you and are easily accessible. Try emailing, tweeting or calling your click-to-book website.

Should your plans change, should you have questions or should you want to know more about where you are traveling and how you are getting there, your agent is just a phone call, email or tweet away.

A travel agent is “your friend” in the travel business. They are your friend who knows what is going on in the travel industry. They can put that information together with their knowledge of you for a winning combination that will reap huge rewards in the long run.

Need to book a quick business flight and be done with it? Click-to-book. Doing any actual traveling where memories, experiences, sights and sounds might be important? See a travel agent.

Flickr photo by Ivan Walsh

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Black Tomato launches Epic Tomato, an ambitious new adventure offshoot

by Alex Robertson Textor on


For years Black Tomato has delighted old travel hands with its inventive, bespoke itineraries to various corners of the globe. The company is especially good at showcasing beautiful destinations not yet well-known to most travelers beyond the surrounding region. Among others, Belgrade, the Carpathian foothills, the Kuronian Spit, and Bhutan have all been embraced by the company.

This morning, Black Tomato launched Epic Tomato, which showcases a selection of hardcore adventure experiences to very hard-to-reach places. These adventures are scheduled for lengths of between four to 21 days, and are grouped into five categories: Polar, Desert, Jungle, Mountain, and River. They are all led by serious expert guides, some with SAS (British special service) military backgrounds.

Bolivia’s Apolobamba mountain range, Mali’s Dogon region, the Star Mountains of Papua New Guinea (see above), the Mosquito Coast of Honduras, and East Greenland are just a few of the destinations reached by Epic Tomato tours.

Epic Tomato’s frankly epic experiences don’t come cheap. At the bottom end of the scale, three adventures come in at £5995 ($9660): 14 days in Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain and Duke of York Islands; a 21-day trek in Tibet and Nepal; and eight days in Chilean Patagonia. At the very high end: 12 days on Canada’s Ellesmere Island for £67,495 ($108,720).

Video: Saudi King Abdullah’s arrival procession–it’s grand

by Elizabeth Seward on

Saudi Arabia‘s King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz returned to Saudi Arabia Wednesday after a 3 month stint abroad for medical treatment. Hundreds of men in white performed a traditional Bedouin sword dance on carpets laid out at the airport. With uprisings against government occurring throughout the Middle East, Abdullah is home just in the nick of time it seems. He greeted Saudis with plans for improvement and national stability.

What amazes me about this video: the large scale of his arrival procession. Just take a minute to soak in the grandeur of this event. And while you’re taking in the event’s grandeur, have fun grooving to the accompanying music.