Luxury vacations now within reach through new travel service

by Chris Owen on

For many travelers, a luxury vacation is a thing for which to save, splurge on for a special occasion, or hope to do some day. Adventure travelers often do not even have luxury vacations on their radar and are more apt to grab the backpack than to hit the road. But luxury vacations do not have to be for just the rich and famous. An online source for discounts on luxury is bringing that world within reach.

Luxury Link is an online destination for deals on luxury vacations at desirable destinations like Fiji, Hawaii or Tahiti as well as the cultural capitals of Europe or cities in Asia.

Luxury Link packages vacations then offers two ways to buy, sort of like eBay or Priceline, via auctions or offers to “Book Now.”

One significant difference when comparing Luxury Link to eBay, Priceline, or other similar options, is in the offerings. Luxury Link partners with upscale hotels, resorts, villas and cruise lines, to offer deals, many of which we don’t find anywhere other than on their own websites.

Luxury link boasts savings of up to 65%, “often including complimentary extras, amenities and activities for the best value available anywhere,” says the Luxury Link website. That’s just sales talk to catch our attention. All online travel sellers do it. Most buyers who frequent sites to research travel probably do not pay a lot of attention to those claims, nor should they.

But also differentiating Luxury Link is the notion that top-shelf hotels, resorts, cruise lines and others want to entice luxury travelers to their product, but often have a hard time making contact with them. Partnering with Luxury Link to create unique vacation products, they are offering something not available elsewhere.

That can be good and bad.The good part is that the move suggests the operators of those vacation options are looking to establish a long-term business relationship with luxury travelers. In other words, they are not in it to fill up some hotel rooms at the last minute where any warm body will do. We don’t see that a lot with online sellers of travel.

The potentially bad part is that those uniquely created vacation packages are difficult to compare with other deals causing buyers to not have a sense about the value being offered. They simply do not exist from any other source.

Still, Luxury Link does have some outstanding values, including a clean report from the Better Business Bureau, and might very well enable luxury travel dreams.


Flickr photo by Andy_Mitchell_UK

Luxury cruise line adds rock star experience

by Chris Owen on

Crystal Cruises is an upscale, luxury cruise line that is known for pampering passengers with top-of-the-line amenities and onboard services. Now, the line is extending its highbrow experience to passengers before they even get on the ship.

“Security lines, long hikes, uncomfortable chairs, cumbersome luggage – the modern-day airport experience has lost the ease that flying once provided,” says Vice President of Land & Port Operations John Stoll. As he explained to the Sacramento Bee, “Whether one prefers to travel discreetly, or just minimize inconvenience, this service ushers you into the refined gentility of a Crystal experience from the moment your vacation really begins: when you leave home.”

The personalized, 24/7 luxury service, available for purchase internationally by all Crystal cruisers, utilizes worldwide airport resources to facilitate a hassle-free airport experience for guests traveling to and from their Crystal ship.

Speeding through airports in rock star fashion, Crystal passengers bypass much of the customary stress associated with flying. Door-to-gate porter and escort services, fast-track processes, and access to VIP/Business Class Lounges, where available, are all part of the new Crystal VIP Airport Service, the first of its kind offered by a cruise line.Services include: greeting passengers upon airport arrival on all legs of their flight schedule; handling luggage from home to the ship; assistance with delayed or cancelled flights and related lodging, transportation, and meals.

Packages are available for up to four people in hubs around the globe from New York and LA to Rio and Hong Kong. Prices vary depending on location and the services selected with amenity menu subject to local laws, regulations, and/or airline/airport policies.

For those who must carry their own luggage, there are tips for getting through security checkpoints.




Photo: Crystal Cruises

Venice to cruise ships: Get out please

by Chris Owen on

Venice is proud of its heritage. Home to beautiful architecture, canals, bridges, gondolas, the annual Venice Film Festival, the Basilica and many other churches along with museums like the Guggenheim, its probably no surprise that cruise ships are not on the top of their list of things to add to the mix. In the wake of the Concordia grounding, considering the threat of accidents, air and water pollution, and an additional 2 million more visitors a year into a city already maxed out with tourists, Venice has a plan to keep cruise ships away.

The city does not want cruise ships in their lagoon at all but as a first step to keep them away, wants to reroute ships arriving in Venice so they stay farther from St. Mark’s and other prominent monuments as a possible step toward keeping them out of the lagoon altogether.

“This is one of the hypotheses we’re working on,” Environmental Minister Corrado Clini told the Associated Press. “In the meantime we should take precautionary measures to progressively reduce risk.”

The Venice Port Authority opposes moves against cruise traffic saying the cruise industry employs thousands of Venetians and believes Venice is not a candidate for cruise ships to run aground like the Concordia did last month, not all that far away.

In addition, a team of 25 cruise ship captains work around the clock as pilots of a sort, assigned to board cruise ships outside the lagoon and oversee their passage through Venice, accompanied by a pair of tug boats.

To deal with the air pollution, the port is exploring a system that would let ships plug in to shore side power when docked, similar to how ships plug in to U.S. West coast ports, allowing them to turn off their engines. Like U.S. systems, a green shore side power system will be costly and seems to have stalled for that reason.

Unlike U.S. ports concerned about the impact of cruise ships though, Venice is a United Nations-protected UNESCO site and Francesco Bandarin, UNESCO’s assistant director-general for culture, a Venetian himself, said longer-term solutions are needed.

“The city is a very fragile city. This is a city that comes to us from the Middle Ages,” Bandarin told the AP. “It is not designed for having that kind of traffic. It is designed to have ships, and we will always have ships around Venice, but not these kind of ships.”


Flickr photo by jastrow75

Cruise tragedy calls for increased focus on safety

by Chris Owen on

On the heels of the Costa Concordia cruise tragedy, where a once-proud ocean going vessel now lay on its side off the coast of Italy, calls for increased safety standards and procedures are being made. While history will remember the Concordia event as more of a near-miss than a Titanic-like disaster as tabloids might have us believe, most experts agree: this can’t happen again.

As rescue workers still try to find 20-some missing passengers, blame has been placed squarely on the shoulders of the ship’s master, Captain Francesco Schettino. The ship was sailing a course approved by the cruise line, similar to an airline flight plan, when Captain Schettino chose to deviate from that plan, sailing too close to a nearby island in order to show the ship to locals.

“This route was put in correctly. The fact that it left from this course is due solely to a maneuver by the commander that was unapproved, unauthorized and unknown to Costa,” said Costa Chairman and CEO Pier Luigi Foschi in a live press conference via telephone from Italy yesterday.
Rogue move on the part of an out-of-control captain or not, it is clear that changes will have to be made in the way cruise lines do business to insure another event like this never happens again.

“The incident has many in the maritime industry and those contemplating a cruise questioning how something like this could happen” says cruise expert Paul Motter on FoxNews. “After all, the Costa Concordia, which was carrying 4,200 passengers and crew, was stocked with the state-of-the-art navigation equipment.”

Look for changes in the way cruise lines do business very soon. Maybe more focus on safety instructions, starting at embarkation. Perhaps more detail and a different way of handling safety drills and surely some sort of check system that requires more than just a Captain’s whim to change a ship’s course. But Motter urges passengers to take responsibility for their own safety with a number of suggestions.

“Choose a cruise line that specializes in your native language,” says Motter. During the Costa Concordia event, safety instructions being broadcast over the ship’s loudspeaker system were difficult to hear in any language, leaving those who did not speak the language being broadcast at a disadvantage. “Costa, MSC and other cruise lines offer cruises in as many as five languages simultaneously. Europeans are used to hearing announcements in five languages consecutively; Italian, French, German, Spanish and English. In a critical situation the idea of having to communicate in five languages is not just daunting, it can mean life or death.”

Another lesson to be learned from Costa Concordia is to avoid itineraries where passengers are allowed to embark from multiple ports. In the U.S., passengers embark and disembark at the same port in most cases. European sailings allow passengers to embark along the way.

“During a disaster, having people onboard who have not yet had a boat drill can really add to the chaos, ” says Motter, noting the International maritime law requirement that says a ship must hold its safety drill within 24 hours of sail-away. Many cruise lines have a safety drill before the ship begins to move. While procedures followed on Costa Concordia were in compliance with this rule, it left 600-some passengers who embarked the ship the day of the event, uninstructed on safety procedures, adding to the confusion of getting off the ship.

Cruise lines, appropriately, will wait until the final story is told about Costa Concordia. The ship’s “black box” of navigational data and other pertinent information was seized by local authorities in connection with their investigation of the captain. That may add information that will steer the direction the cruise industry takes.

Costa has placed priority appropriately. They still have 20-some unaccounted for passengers to find. Addressing potential environmental hazards caused by that ship laying on its side off the coast of Italy is also a priority right now. But look for changes to be coming soon, changes that will impact the on-board experience of a cruise vacation, hopefully in a safety-conscious way that will make for smooth sailing into the future.

Getty image/daylife



Cruise line murder case back on TV this week

by Chris Owen on

Roll back the clock and set those VCR‘s, the 2005 cruise line murder case of George Smith who went missing while on a Royal Caribbean cruise is back on network television. In an update on Dateline NBC this Friday (10PM Eastern), the news hounds go to the well one more time for an update on the tragic industry-changing case.

“Dennis Murphy tells the story of an active, ongoing investigation whereby FBI agents won’t talk on the record. However, the cruise line, Royal Caribbean has conducted its own internal investigation and ‘Dateline’ has the exclusive update about what happened aboard the ship in the early hours of July 5, 2005″ reports Greenwich-Post.com.

According to the preview at Dateline’s Website, Mr. Smith, a Greenwich, Connecticut resident, went missing from his honeymoon cruise. His family settled a lawsuit last year involving his estate. Royal Caribbean agreed to hand over its investigative file on Mr. Smith’s disappearance to the FBI as part of the agreement.

“This settlement brings us one step closer to achieving our objectives because Royal Caribbean has agreed to provide more extensive information from its investigation into George’s disappearance,” Maureen Smith, George’s mother had said, in a press release reported by the Post.

Checking in on Dateline’s Facebook page, this question and photo posted teases fans:

“Can you guess what happened here? Is it a crime scene or something else? Take your best guess on this photo clue for Friday’s all new Dateline…”