cruise vacations Archives - Page 15 of 36

Articles tagged “cruise vacations”

Easy summer travel safety tips and cheap security products

by Chris Owen on Jul 1, 2011

Master Lock is the world’s largest manufacturer of padlocks and related security products providing insecurity solutions for home, automotive, campus, power sports, bike and storage security needs for consumers and contractors alike.

Who better to know about security and safety on an affordable level for travelers?

Before you head out on that road trip, hop on a plane or cast off on that cruise, Master Lock has developed a series of travel tips to ensure your vacation is an ideal time spent making lasting memories.

“Vacations can serve as a wonderful respite from everyday life and allow family members to reconnect,” said Rebecca Smith, vice president, marketing for Master Lock. “Taking the proper security precautions before and during a trip allows families to relax and enjoy their time away.”

To help avoid stress and frustration before, during or after a trip, Master Lock offers these five guidelines:

1. Secure all points of entry to your home, including dead bolting doors, windows, sliding glass doors and garage/shed doors to bolster your home’s security. If you have an alarm system in place, be sure it is activated before departing. Leaving just one of these areas open or unlocked can lead to theft.

2. Keep your home active. Whether you’ve hired a dog walker or a neighbor is headed over to water plants and pick up deliveries, ensuring your home still appears to have people coming and going regularly can deter thieves. Store your house key in a key safe such as the Master Lock 5400D Key Safe ($38.11) to allow these individuals to easily enter and exit your home, locking it up as they leave. If you do not have anyone visiting your property while you’re away, consider placing lights on a timer and stopping your mail delivery by visiting www.usps.com .

3. Lock up your luggage. Airports are full of people and distractions. Items can be easily stolen from bags while awaiting your flight’s departure, or before you pick up checked luggage from the baggage claim area. A TSA-accepted lock like the Master Lock 4688D ($9.21) luggage lock will help keep your possessions safe while in transit and allow you to move through security lines with ease.

4. Secure important items in your room. Whether you’re staying in a hotel, cabin or resort, it’s important to lock up valuables when not in your room. A secure document storage or cash box will help ensure your passport, traveler’s checks, cash and jewelry safe while you and your family enjoy the sights and sounds of your destination. If you’re taking your small valuables out and about with you, consider a Master Lock 5900D Safe Space ($19.99) to keep your belongings secure while you’re on the go.

5. Create an emergency plan. It’s no doubt you will have several activities planned throughout the course of your vacation. In the event that a member of your family becomes separated from your group while out and about, each individual should have a list of important numbers as well as a plan detailing how to reconnect with the group.

Flickr photo by breahn

Floatels: not your mother’s cruise ship

by Chris Owen on May 31, 2011

Cruise ships have so many onboard amenities that they have been called “floating hotels” by some. Carrying over 3000 guests along with fine restaurants, health spas and more, that’s probably not totally inaccurate. A new concept called “Floatels” launched recently and involves renting luxury houseboats that remain securely docked.

“Floatels are an ideal choice for families, multi-generational groups, gatherings of friends or couples seeking lake accommodations and an introduction to the houseboating experience,” says Forever Resorts in a press release.

Each 67-foot Floatel sleeps ten guests, is climate controlled, includes a living area, fully equipped kitchen, four bedrooms, a sleeper sofa, TV/DVD player, outdoor barbecue grill and a top-level sun deck featuring a wet bar and hot tub.

They make it sound good too and far from a cruise ship experience. “Houseboat vacations are all about charting your own course. Your schedule is quickly reduced to the calm quiet of sunrise, and the colorful sunset over the lake. Days again become your own. Night skies return to the way we all remember them away from the cities – glittering with stars and inky black

Introductory prices for Floatel rentals start at $190 per night for the first four passengers.
Additional passengers are $20 per person up to 10 total passengers. Pets are welcome; a $10 per night pet fee will apply. Contact Echo Bay Marina at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area’s for more information.

Bingo not available.

Photo: Forever Resorts

When in Pisa, do as the Asians do

by Chris Owen on May 9, 2011

We stopped in Pisa, Italy this week on a tour of the Mediterranean to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In contrast to lots of other landmarks and places of interest that we had seen in Italy, the tower and surrounding attractions were surprisingly well kept. Beautiful actually. I guess I had expected it to look like other things we had seen on our journey, which, over time, had become respectfully known, to us as “more old stuff”. Apparently we were not alone.

I saw this coming early on in our 9-day tour on Carnival Cruise Line’s new Carnival Magic and thought “I wonder how long it will be until we start saying dismissively: “Oh, more old stuff” but continued shooting photos, more than 1200 so far, to record what we had seen.

Recording our time at major landmarks with historical significance required that we be in the shot. Otherwise we could simply Google it and choose from a number of other photos, most of which would be better than mine. So off to what I thought was the good side of the tower, the one professional photographers would have chosen, to take our personalized photo we went. The plan was to be really inventive and use trick photography to make it look like I was holding up the tower. It’s really technical, I came to find out.

Before I had visited the tower I thought getting a shot like this would be relatively easy. The tower is not going anywhere so that leaves the subject (me) and the photographer (my wife Lisa) as the variables that can move to make it all work. Visualizing what this would look like through the lens, I positioned myself at an optimal place and instructed Lisa where to go. I figured a few tweaks here and there and this should be a wrap quickly then we would go find a nice wine bar to park at for the rest of the day.

Today I learned that it is difficult to tell “the photographer” what to do as they are the ones that are actually looking through the camera lens. When that photographer is your wife who has a new, well-deserved camera and takes some fabulous shots without your input, the moon and the stars align to make for a situation that can go sour really fast.

Such was the case as I tried to direct this scene with the sun at my back.

All I got out of that was the looming meltdown that has to happen on every journey, just to get over the regular life vs. travel life tension in the air. One blow-up and we are propelled into the next dimension, the one that allows us to move along and enjoy traveling.

Suddenly I found myself wishing I had paid more attention/tattooed on my body the helpful photo tips of Gadling’s Dana Murph which I had read but was having difficulty recalling right now in the heat of battle.

Moving to the other side of the tower, the side where the light was good, it was obvious that this was where we needed to be to take this photo.

I wanted one of the photos you may have seen before. One with the tower being held up, pushed over, or coming out of the pants or heart of somebody.

I was not alone.

Apparently the desire to be attached to the Leaning Tower Of Pisa is a universal one that transcends all ages, races, colors or creeds.

It did look like Asians are big on showing themselves pushing the tower over while other peoples of the world seem to want to hold it up and/or have expressions of horror on their faces as they attempt to make it look like the tower is falling on them.

I’m not sure if that means anything. If I had more time I might have polled these people with a battery of qualifying questions but we had just one day here.

I settled for a photo of my open hand holding up/stroking the tower, the open hand being universally accepted as a non-threatening symbol of friendship.

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Sicily in a day

by Chris Owen on May 6, 2011

We have just one day in Messina, Italy to see what we can. The plan is basically the same as our last stop of Dubrovnik, Croatia on what we call our “sampling of the Med” tour that started in Venice, Italy and will end nine days later in Barcelona. We know we can’t see everything and would rather spend some quality time with something or someone of interest. Here the plan was to go to Taormina perched high above on Mount Tauro, which dates back to the 3rd century B.C. Again, flexible plans allow for a rich travel experience.

You could accurately say that Messina in the Sicily region of Italy is barely 100 years old. A massive earthquake pretty much leveled the place in 1908. That’s a sharp contrast from Dubrovnik which I will remember as the place that built a wall around it to keep away enemies, a veritable fortress against harm. Messina opens up right out to the ocean with few visible relics of a time when oceanfront defenses were a necessity.

To make the 45 minute drive we took a shore excursion offered by Carnival Cruise Line’s Carnival Magic that we are sailing on and reporting from this week. The excursion is basically a prepaid bus ride that will be sure you make it back to the ship on time. That’s important because ships leave at a pre-determined time, with or without you. Recent news of a pending strike by a transportation-related union in Italy caused concern. The cruise line had done its homework though and assured us that strike or no strike, their drivers would be operating.

Once there, the tour group headed off to see the impressive Greek Theater and we headed the opposite direction to whatever might lie ahead. At this point we had about two hours before the tour group would make it back to the rendezvous point so off we went.

Granted, two hours is not a lot of time but it is amazing how immersed one can get in a culture just parking at a busy intersection of any given town. Such was the case for us today in Taormina.

Tourists who came off of three different cruise ships dominated the town square but local residents went about their business as they might any other day. Old ladies met for a glass of wine like they may have for years. Merchants chatted with customers in their stores and cursed those outside taking photos then moving on. (Apparently that is frowned upon) Neighbors, an occasional car, dogs and visitors came and went while we sat at the Mocambo Bar, drinking it all in.

The short amount of time we had did not allow any extensive adventures but our time was well spent as we looked out across the beautiful vistas that surrounded the area. The drive back to the Carnival Magic took us into Messina and a different kind of action, that of a modern world with all the noise, honking, and organized chaos of a modern city.

Back on the ship it took me a while to get it, what we had just seen up in the mountains. We had just walked on streets that has been there for hundreds of years, saw and talked to people who’s ancestors had walked those streets and sat watching it all happen much the way it might have back then.

As I looked back at Messina from the balcony of our cruise ship cabin and snapped a few last photos, I realized that the images I was taking were from an angle and elevation not possible when this city was first built. Ten-story-high cruise ships did not stop by back then.

But between volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and the sometimes angry weather that being by an ocean brings, here was an area that survived all that to flourish in today’s world. There’s got to be some lessons there, ones I hope to explore as we continue sampling ports of the Mediterranean.

Carnival Magic debuts with familiar new features

by Chris Owen on May 2, 2011

Carnival Cruise Lines latest ship, Carnival Magic, debuted Sunday in Venice, Italy. The sold-out inaugural event will visit six Mediterranean ports on its nine-night first sailing. But this story is more than just the latest launch of the latest big floating hotel from the latest cruise line currently in the spotlight. Carnival Magic was built on an evolving foundation of success that will carry her well into the future.

On board to christen the ship was unlikely Godmother Lindsey Wilkerson, cancer-survivor-turned-spokesperson for St Jude’s Children’s Hospital. Diagnosed, treated, then into remission at an early age, Wilkerson’s inspirational story had been circulated by the cruise line extensively prior to the event. But the story took on profound new meaning when veteran cruise director John Heald had Wilkerson’s family join her on stage at the ship’s christening event.

In a moment that defined Carnival’s clear commitment to family, values and the future of the cruise industry, Wilkerson’s adorable daughter (who might not have been) took the stage, bringing tears to the eyes of many in the audience.

3,690-passenger Carnival Magic also happens to be the 100^th ship built by parent Carnival Corporation so opening festivities included a good measure of tradition that is reflected in on board offerings.

New features include Cucina Del Capitano, an Italian eatery celebrating the line’s Italian lineage, the Red Frog Pub, a Caribbean-inspired bar with it’s own micro-brew, and SportSquare, an outdoor recreation area that continues an industry-wide focus on fitness and health.

For fans of cruise vacations, there is nothing quite like sailing on the inaugural voyage of a shiny new ship. Cruise lines introduce the latest features and inaugural events bring global attention. Records are broken, memories are made and the mood is festive. This one looks to be all that. More importantly, onboard programming builds upon Carnival’s clear understanding of its trademark “Fun” element.

Placing even more emphasis on signature features like an expanded adults-only Serenity area and Waterworks aqua park, Carnival proves once again how well they know their customers.

What Carnival does not talk about is their ability to seamlessly integrate all the ingredients they offer in their recipe for a great travel experience. That recipe, when fully embraced, allows guests to leave behind their cares, relax and refresh then move forward, renewed with a clarity difficult to emulate with other travel options.

That’s probably for the best.

A good magician never tells how the trick is done.

Chris is being sponsored by Carnival Cruise Lines on this sailing but free to report on any and all aspects of the experience. Chris is available to answer any questions you may have during the voyage that concludes in Barcelona May 10.