Budgeting tools turn travel dreams into reality, even cruises

by Chris Owen on
If the high price of air travel has you concerned about your upcoming summer vacation, its not without good reason. Prices are going up. If you worry about that vacation because of the incidental expenses, you are not alone. Those add up. Even if you’re heading out for a road trip, hiking or camping, unknown expenses are tough to budget. Still, there are some good resources you can turn to for relief.

People who are smart about money will tell you to have a budget and stick to it. They will also tell you that the answer to your budget worries lies in the answers to two questions:

How accurate is your budget? and Can you cover the total cost?

That’s easy enough for them to say, but how do you know how much things cost in places you have never been before?


BudgetYourTrip.com might just some answers for you. At this free online tool, users can sign up and create a budget. They enter their travel expenses by category and location, and can view charts and graphs of their budget too. Now here’s the good part; the expenses are then anonymously combined with expenses from other travelers. All of the expenses for each location are then computed using fancy math and statistics. Those numbers are then broken down by category and displayed for everyone to see as average daily costs for each city.

On a sample vacation, BudgetYourTrip showed us that a week in Tokyo could be done for $376.56 which works out to $75.31 per day. Not bad really.

A good budget for travel is one we have to get right, from the beginning, or we’re just fooling ourselves. An accurate picture of all expenses and an honest look at your available funds to pay for it are the foundation for any plans that follow.

Another good tool, reviewed by Gadling’s Amy Chen earlier this year is the Mint.com money-management tool.

“You can create plans for saving toward retirement and buying a house” Amy notes, adding “but I’ll be primarily using the site for its Travel Goals, which help you set — and stick to — realistic travel budgets”

Tools like these can help point us in the right direction when planning travel. Web-based social applications can help too. Getting to “know” others who have been there and done that will open doors to first-hand information that few tools can provide. A good example of how valuable that information can be is found in all-inclusive or nearly-all-inclusive vacations.

All-inclusive land vacations are easy, everything is included. Cruise vacations, on the other hand, have an all-inclusive nature to them as much is indeed included in the price. But while incidental cruise expenses can be tricky, they don’t have to sink the vacation.

Cruise lines have all the answers for what is and is not included in the price. There really are no hidden fees here but to say “It’s a great deal because everything is included in the price” is just wrong. Savvy cruise travelers know to stop by the CruiseCritic.com message boards for the very latest information. I made a bet once with a travel agent that I could find out the answer to a question faster than she could by simply logging on to CruiseCritic.com, asking the question in the right place and waiting a few minutes. I won that bet easily.

There are dedicated sites for all kinds of travel too that offer similar quick and accurate information. Twitter (#travel, #cruise), Facebook travel groups and other social tools can also provide similar real-time information.

Flickr photo by Public Domain Photos

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Adventure cruise line prepares for inaugural season

by Chris Owen on
Getting ready for opening day is a big job for any business. No matter how experienced, knowledgeable and prepared workers may be, there are always unexpected things that come up. If your business is active, adventure cruises in the wilderness of Alaska the unexpected could mean life-threatening emergencies far from the nearest emergency room.

InnerSea Discoveries (@InnerSeaD) is preparing for its sold-out inaugural season. Sailing active, adventure cruises in Alaska the small 5-ship line looks to be perfect for “the active, outdoor person who is more experiential based” InnerSea’s Dan Blanchard told Gadling recently. On a typical “un-cruise” the line hopes to “pull the curtain back on the natural world and let people see it” says Blanchard which means actively engaging the wilderness.


As opposed to a standard Alaska cruise which pretty much floats on by the best stuff, InnerSea Discoveries passengers get up close and personal with the land of the midnight sun. That exposure promises to add a delicious element of risk, the unknown and uncertainty as each voyage will surely take on a flavor of it’s own. It also bumps up the need for emergency training.

In addition to customary training and certification, InnerSea Discoveries’ crew members are getting Wilderness First Responder training this week in Seattle from the Wilderness Medicine Training Center. While crew members will become certified, the training is far from a typical classroom setting.

To get prepared, the line’s first mates, second mates, expedition leaders and expedition guides are taking part in the hands-on training that covers everything from trauma to wilderness CPR. All good stuff to know on a small ship that does not include a full-size medical center with operating rooms, doctors, nurses and suckers for the kids.

CEO Blanchard himself is prepared too. After sailing across the Pacific for two years in a 42-foot sailboat, Blanchard realized cruising is “a lot more than a port to port experience.” Passengers on Innersea Discoveries can engage in a variety of off-ship activities, most included in the price, or stay on board and do nothing but enjoy the majestic Alaskan scenery.

I doubt many will.

Flickr photo by leakytyr8

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Cruise ships on the move as traveler demand changes

by Chris Owen on

It was not all that long ago that cruise lines were boasting massive deployment to European waters for 2012 and into 2013. Now, it appears those waters across the pond might not be quite as attractive as at least one cruise line thought. Royal Caribbean is bringing one of their ships back to the U.S. On the other hand, some lines are expanding even beyond Europe as Celebrity Cruises heads to Australia and New Zealand and Carnival Cruise Lines hints at plans to court the UK cruise market. Let’s take a look.

The big news is that Royal Caribbean will redeploy Navigator of the Seas, scheduled to cruise in the Mediterranean, to the Caribbean for the 2011-2012 cruise season and sail out of Port Everglades, Florida.

“We are responding to vacationers’ demand for more Caribbean options this coming winter (and) spring,” Royal Caribbean spokesman Harry Liu told USA Today.

That’s good news for the U.S. cruise market as Navigator of the Seas will offer a unique series of five- to nine-night Eastern and Western Caribbean itineraries between November 20, 2011 and April 14, 2012 when she goes back to Europe.Disney Cruise Line, who will complete the process of doubling it’s fleet soon, will move out of Vancouver after just one season. Sailing from Seattle next year, the line appears to be reacting to “the cost of flying” says the Regina Leader-Post who notes “Flying costs, especially with Disney’s high proportion of children, are important”.

Also, Celebrity Cruises plans to have six ships in the Caribbean during the winter of 2012-13, down from eight this coming winter. Celebrity is sending Celebrity Solstice to Australia and New Zealand and Celebrity Millennium will go to Asia for the first time calling in Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and Halong Bay.

Even All-American Carnival Cruise Lines which has had a minimal presence in Europe is looking to the UK market for new passenger sourcing.

“We have a desire to source more people from the UK because of the common language we share,” Carnival chief executive Gerry Cahill told TTGLive.

Indeed, with new Carnival Magic debuting on May 1, 2011 and next-up Carnival Breeze coming out next year, the line will have plenty of experience and hardware in the area. Still, no announcements have been made on exactly how the Funship line will go after UK passengers.

“The UK market is a key priority for us, but how we try to attract it will be decided at a later date,” Cahill said, adding “There are a lot of options, and basing a ship in the UK could be one of those options.”

Flickr photo by Heroiclife

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Taxi driver boycott of cruise ships a sign of the times

by Chris Owen on
In Victoria, B.C. Alaska cruise season has just begun but Victoria taxi companies did not exactly roll out the welcome mat for recently all-inclusive Crystal Symphony earlier this week. Seeking a reduction in the annual charge they pay to service the cruise lines, taxi drivers boycotted the ship, refusing to pick up passengers.

The Greater Victoria Taxi Association is at odds with the port authority over the $200 per cab annual fee and wants it reduced. The port authority says the fee is reasonable, every transportation company pays it and that collected fees go towards safety improvements. The taxi association says business is down and fewer ships coming this year means less income for them.

In a recovering, adjusting worldwide economy, things are changing from cruise lines re-deploying ships as demand changes right down on street-level and the taxi cab companies that service cruise ships.

While the $200 annual fee may seem reasonable, cab companies may be going after a reduction to make up for lost income elsewhere.

“In most markets, the average spending per passenger is probably down five to 10 per cent … from pre-recession levels. The recession has had the impact of reducing aggregate spending by cruise passengers” Andrew Moody, president of Pennsylvania-based Business Research and Economic Advisors (BREA) told the Vancouver Sun.

Earlier this month, taxi drivers in Thailand blocked two busloads of passengers from Silversea’s Silver Spirit. Headed out for tours from the Phuket deep sea port, four hours passed before taxi drivers agreed on a 50/50 split between taxi and bus transportation.

This ongoing dispute here finds it’s root with government officials who have failed to find a solution. In an effort to avoid confrontation, high fares and almost no regulation have taken control.

Regardless of the reason, having a cab available to pick up passengers has always been something taken for granted. Passengers get off the ship. Cabs are waiting. Off they go.

Cruise lines have a lot of different elements that go into creating a good travel experience for passengers. Some they have control over, others not so much. It will be interesting to see how other economic factors affect the cruise experience as we watch the cruise industry mature.

Flickr photo by Guwashi999

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How to pirate-proof a ship

by Chris Owen on

Razor wire, Gurkhas and sonic weapons are being routinely deployed on ships sailing in the pirate-infested waters off the Horn of Africa in an attempt to pirate-proof ships of all kinds. While ships try to go through the Suez Canal, pirate attacks on pretty much anything sailing off East Africa are rising and extra measures are being taken to protect the ships and their passengers.

A 25-nation naval presence is helping but earlier this year the Saga cruise ship Spirit Of Adventure was chased by and eventually outpaced pirates in the Indian Ocean.Shipping companies and cruise lines won’t say exactly what they are doing to deter pirates but Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth has been deploying razor wire to make boarding from the sea all but impossible. A Cunard spokesman told Express.co.uk “When we are in the at-risk area we deploy lookouts all around the ship to ensure that no boats are trying to get close. “On the stern, which is the pirates’ favoured point of access, we have used razor wire. The passengers can see it but it can’t harm them as it is fenced off.”

Cruise ships typically monitor the sea with radar and use speed of their ships and the height of their lower decks to thwart pirates. Sonic weapons are also being used that put out a debilitating sound that turns pirates away as are high-power water hoses to knock pirates back down to water level.

“Our ships are fast and have a lot of people on board – 2,000 passengers and 1,000 crew on the Queen Elizabeth – so the chances of pirates even attempting to tackle a ship like that are very low” Cunard said.

Flickr photo by expertinfantry

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