3 tips to catch the best cruise price

by Chris Owen on

Wave Season has begun. It’s the time of the year when many travelers book cruises and usually runs through about tax time. Here are 3 simple but critical rules of the road to get your best value.

  1. Don’t wait, Book right now– Prices are predicted to go up early in the year. You could wait until they go down later, and they will, but availability of cabins will never be as good as it is right now. That’s important so you don’t get one of the lousy cabins located right under the fitness center that translate to no sleeping in for you.
  2. Use a Travel Agent– Never before has there been more reason to use a good travel agent. With all sorts of changes coming up in the way cruise lines do business, you need a pro on your side. Click around on line to get an idea of what you want, but contact your travel agent. The golden rule of cruise reservations: The Internet is for looking, Travel Agents are for booking. Don’t have a travel agent? We have tips on how to get one ranging from testing a potential agent to qualities you should look for in one. See the video below for more.
  3. Keep looking– as the cruise industry rapidly evolves, other ships, sailings and choices will become available. A cruise booking should be a fluid work in progress all the way up to final payment as far as planning goes and all the way until it’s over and beyond as far as your travel agent is concerned. Down the road, that budget-busting balcony you wanted might come down in price, special offers not available when you booked might pop up or an entirely different ship and sailing might interest you more.

Harry Potter park serves up 1 millionth Butterbeer

by Leigh Caldwell on

It’s not just a beverage, it’s an experience. That’s the word from Universal Orlando Resort, which said today that the company has sold 1 million Butterbeers in its Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

The creamy-smooth concoction is a favorite drink in the Harry Potter books and movies, and it’s also a favorite at the theme park, where guests will wait in ride-sized lines to buy a cup. Last year, a fourth location selling the drink was added to the theme park to alleviate some of the lines.

There’s no alcohol in Butterbeer. It’s a sweet drink, which Universal says tastes of shortbread and butterscotch. I liken it to a cream soda. You can get both cold and frozen versions at Universal’s Islands of Adventure theme park where the Wizarding World is located.

There are lots of do-it-yourself Butterbeer recipes out there online, but Universal’s is secret. In fact, the company says it has put special security procedures in place to keep it that way.

To celebrate the 1 millionth Butterbeer, Universal passed out 1,000 free ones on the streets of the Wizarding World.

Mass animal deaths… what’s going on?

by Elizabeth Seward on

Thousands of red-winged blackbirds were reported dead in Beebe, Arkansas. They fell from the sky on New Year’s Eve and residents stepped outside on the first day of 2011 to find their bodies scattered everywhere. Roads and yards were littered with the carcasses and the unanswered question of ‘How did these birds die?’ locked the town in an ominous still.

The internet, as expected, was right behind the citizens of Beebe. Articles and videos and Facebook statuses started referencing this shocking occurrence and the buzz went a little haywire when… 100,000 drum fish were found dead in Arkansas days later. The fish were washed ashore along a 20-mile expanse of the Arkansas River, over 100 miles away from Beebe, but still too close for comfort.

The bird deaths and the fish deaths are said to be unrelated, and they probably are, but this whole thing has people everywhere paying more attention to the mass deaths in wildlife being witnessed all over the world.

These are just a few instances of mass animal deaths across the globe in recent news. So what’s going on? Creating a correlation between these deaths has sparked (of course) apocalyptic theories all over the internet. Some say it’s 2012, some say the Bible’s rapture is nearing, and meanwhile, scientists are clamoring, saying these are all unrelated.

Are they really unrelated? Has the internet given us too much ability to connect unconnected dots and spin fear mongering predictions?

No matter the reason, protecting our wildlife is an integral component of fructifying travel, so lets discuss.

And if you want to read more before offering your opinion, read about the Top 10 Strange Mass Animal Deaths at Time.

[photo by Elizabeth Seward]

A couple things you do not want to do on a cruise

by Chris Owen on

Cruise lines want you to have a good time and offer lots of activities and events to make that happen. They talk a lot about how this is “your cruise” and want you to do whatever you want to in order to enjoy it.

There are limits though.

Don’t just go visit the bridge: It was New Years Eve when Alex Sokolov, a passenger on Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas supposedly wandered on to the bridge, a restricted high security area and ended up being thrown off the ship. “He was accused of violating safety rules, and for that he was held for days in detention in the cabin, and then left on the shore in the Athenian harbor of Piraeus.” reports the Royal Caribbean blog Bridge tours can be arranged and are often a part of special celebration packages. Just stopping by? Not so much.

Don’t do it in the hot tub: Surveillance cameras cover pretty much all public areas of the ship, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Need I say more?

Flickr photo by Bruce Tuten

Outdoor athlete skis and climbs 2 million vertical feet in one year

by Kraig Becker on

Outdoor athlete Greg Hill finished off a vary busy 2010 last Thursday by completing his quest to climb and ski 2 million vertical feet in a single calendar year. The final run came on the slopes of Revelstoke Mountain, located in British Columbia, Canada, not far from where Hill calls home, while a group of friends and family looked on.

Hill’s grand ski adventure got underway on January 1st of last year when he started his quest to hit the magical 2 million feet mark. That quest would take him all over the world as he scrambled to ski as many days as possible over the course of a 365 day period. In order to reach his lofty goal, Hill would need to ski, and climb, an average of roughly 5480 feet each and every day of the year.

It turns out he actually hit the slopes about 270 days of the year instead, which is a big increase from his previous high of 145 days in a single year. Over those 270 days, he averaged about 7400 feet of climbing and skiing in all kinds of weather including howling winds and blowing snow

. His biggest day on the slopes was a 12-hour marathon that saw him cover 23,000 feet both up and down. Hill also made 8 first descents, which in skiing vernacular means he became the first person to ski down a mountain face. Along the way, He also summited 71 different mountains, which is an impressive number in and of itself.

It is difficult to put into perspective exactly what Hill accomplished in his year-long adventure. It takes a tremendous amount of dedication and stamina to climb and ski 2 million feet in such a relatively short time, but it requires a bit of luck as well. One wrong turn on the skis or a slip and a fall while climbing, and the entire thing could have been over. Still, none of that happened, and Hill stayed healthy and focused throughout the year, even when it looked like he was falling well off the pace. In the end, he not only reached his goal, but he did it with one day to spare.

Just in time to enjoy the arrival of a new year and some much deserved rest. Knowing Greg, he probably went skiing instead.

[Photo credit: Tommy Chandler/Backcountry.com]