Packed and (Almost) Ready

♫ I've got Euros, I've got tickets, I've got stuff packed - who could ask for anything more? ♫

I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait!

Off to a River Cruise

In just two more days I'm off to do a river cruise on the Danube from Nuremberg to Budapest!  This opportunity only came about two weeks ago, so I've been in kind of a whirlwind ever since.  Got to make sure my groups are all up to date, my outstanding payments are made, and all clients are as well taken care of as possible before I go.  You just can't leave a business when you are the one and only chick in charge.

I've wanted to do this cruise for at least five years.  Especially during the Christmas Markets which are supposed to be wonderful - guess I'll find that out for myself.  I LOVE Christmas.  Love giving.  Love the spirit of kindness and sharing, love families coming together, love the sights and sounds, the anticipation.  And I buy gifts all year ... I see something in July that I think "oh, my brother will love that" and I buy it when I'm thinking of it.  Then in December I go through the box of stuff in my closet and see what I've already bought and for whom.  One year I had to dust off my presents because I wrapped them so early.

I'm sailing with Viking River Cruises, which sent me a very nice document package including a great travel wallet that will come in very handy once I'm exploring. Things keep disappearing while I try to decide what to pack.  I've lost my camera at least five times in the last week alone (where the he** does it disappear to?).  Just had it this morning when I hooked it up to my new computer (bought a lightweight notebook - much better for traveling than the old trusty dinosaur I've dragged through at least six countries).  Still looking for the cord that connects my flipcam to my computer.  I was going to do a video on packing for a cruise, but not much point if I can't post it.  At least I will print out the packing list that's on my website so I don't forget my toothbrush.  I'm a little discombobulated.

My goal this trip is to become an expert on Christmas Market cruises.  I don't want to miss ANYTHING!  Viking River Cruises even has Cultural Courses on board.  For example:

• Hands-on demonstrations in cuckoo clock-making, wooden shoe-carving or glassblowing
• Classes in cooking specialties like apple strudel and Alsatian flammkuchen
• Traditional performances of folk music and dance, or waltzes by Strauss
• Tastings of local cheeses, coffees, liqueurs and other delicacies 

I ordered several books on Germany, Austria and Hungary from Amazon.com, but of course will not have time to read them all before I go.  Am halfway through the first of four - at least I'm trying.

Okay, you get it.  I'm excited.  I've got to buckle down to real work now.  Keep an eye on my blog for the sights and don't forget to look for the weird souvenir of the day.  Maybe you'll win it!

CruiseWorld 2011 - What a Show!

Wow! I just returned from an information packed 4-days at CruiseWorld 2011 in Ft. Lauderdale.  It was so tempting to keep driving past FLL to Key Biscayne, my home of 40 years (I moved to Jacksonville, FL last week), but in a heretofore undiscovered burst of discipline, I headed to the Broward County Convention Center instead.

The Convention Center is enormous (600,000 square feet) and Cruise World only took up part of it, but I know I walked several miles in my gray suede pumps on day one.  I'll  spare you any gory pictures, but the first day blisters were enormous and painful.  A heartfelt thank you goes out to Joanie Ogg for the blister bandages!  By the end of the day I felt like there were nails being pounded into my little toes with every step.  I limped home to my brother's house, my head full of new ideas, but suffering from "de agony of de feet".

With Diane Churchy-Horan of AMAWaterways

In addition to gathering tons of information and about 40 lbs of new brochures, I also made some great contacts at the convention.  Here I am with Diane Churchy-Horan of AMA Waterways, one of the premier river cruise lines in Europe.  Having determined to increase my focus on river cruises in the coming year I was really glad to finally meet Diane and hope to get to know her well. AMA Waterways sails the rivers of Europe, Russia, Vietnam, Cambodia and beginning in June 2012... Africa!   Imagine taking an African Safari & Wildlife Cruise ... this really sounds over-the-top!  Check out the MS Zambizi Queen - what more could one ask?

I also got to know Eric Molina of Viking River Cruises, probably the best known and most sailed river cruise ships in the world.  Like AMA Waterways, Viking River Cruises offers classical Danube, Rhine & Volga river cruises, but they also have cruises in China & SE Asia; not to mention the great cruises down the Nile in Egypt.  My clients who have sailed with Viking River Cruises have invariably come back to me with rave reviews, I wish I could have recorded them for you to hear.

With Eric Molina - Viking River Cruises

BUT ... speaking of recording testimonials so that other people can listen to them, apparently there is a free program on the internet that allows you to do just that and add it to your web site (one of the amazing internet offerings that various seminars revealed to me this week).  It's going to take awhile to figure out all the new technology I heard about - it seriously has my head swimming - but I'm going to stop blogging now and get started on one or two of the new items on my three page "To Do & To Learn" list!

Next up - touring the Norwegian Epic!

This was sent to me by my brother, it's too intriguing not to share!

Salt Mine – An Astounding Subterranean Salt Cathedral Deep underground in Poland lies something remarkable but little known outside Eastern Europe. For centuries, miners have extracted salt there, but left behind things quite startling and unique. Take a look at the most unusual salt mine in the world. From the outside, Wieliczka Salt Mine doesn’t look extraordinary. It looks extremely well kept for a place that hasn’t mined any salt for over ten years but apart from that it looks ordinary. However, over two hundred meters below ground it holds an astonishing secret. This is the salt mine that became an art gallery, cathedral and underground lake. Situated in the Krakow area, Wieliczka is a small town of close to twenty thousand inhabitants. It was founded in the twelfth century by a local Duke to mine the rich deposits of salt that lie beneath. Until 1996 it did just that but the generations of miners did more than just extract. They left behind them a breathtaking record of their time underground in the shape of statues of mythic, historical and religious figures. They even created their own chapels in which to pray. Perhaps their most astonishing legacy is the huge underground cathedral they left behind for posterity. It may feel like you are in the middle of a Jules Verne adventure as you descend in to the depths of the world. After a one hundred and fifty meter climb down wooden stairs the visitor to the salt mine will see some amazing sites. About the most astounding in terms of its sheer size and audacity is the Chapel of Saint Kinga. The Polish people have for many centuries been devout Catholics and this was more than just a long term hobby to relieve the boredom of being underground. This was an act of worship. Amazingly, even the chandeliers in the cathedral are made of salt. It was not simply hewn from the ground and then thrown together; however, the process is rather more painstaking for the lighting. After extraction the rock salt was first of all dissolved. It was then reconstituted with the impurities taken out so that it achieved a glass-like finish. The chandeliers are what many visitors think the rest of thecavernous mine will be like as they have a picture in their minds of salt as they would sprinkle on their meals! However, the rock salt occurs naturally in different shades of grey (something like you would expect granite to look like). Still, that doesn’t stop well over one million visitors (mainly from Poland and its eastern European neighbors) from visiting the mine to see, amongst other things, how salt was mined in the past. For safety reasons less than one percent of the mine is open to visitors, but even that is still almost four kilometers in length – more than enough to weary the average tourist after an hour or two. The mine was closed for two reasons – the low price of salt on the world market made it too expensive to extract here. Also, the mine was slowly flooding – another reason why visitors are restricted to certain areas only. The religious carvings are, in reality, what draw many to this mine – as much for their amazing verisimilitude as for their Christian aesthetics. One remarkable carving is a take on The Last Supper. The work and patience that must have gone in to the creation of these sculptures is extraordinary. One wonders what the miners would have thought of their work going on general display? They came to be quite used to it, in fact, even during the mine’s busiest period in the nineteenth century. The cream of Europe’s thinkers visited the site – you can still see many of their names in the old visitor’sbooks on display. These reliefs are perhaps among some of the most iconographic works of Christian folk art in the world and really do deserve to be shown. It comes as little surprise to learn that the mine was placed on the original list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites back in 1978. Not all of the work is relief-based. There are many life sized statues that must have taken a considerable amount of time – months, perhaps even years – to create. Within the confines of the mine there is also much to be learned about the miners from the machinery and tools that they used – many of which are on display and are centuries old. A catastrophic flood in 1992 dealt the last blow to commercial salt mining in the area and now the mine functions purely as a tourist attraction. Brine is, however, still extracted from the mine – and then evaporated to produce some salt, but hardly on the ancient scale. If this was not done, then the mines would soon become flooded once again. Not all of the statues have a religious or symbolic imagery attached to them. The miners had a sense of humor, after all! Here can be seen their own take on the legend of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. The intricately carved dwarves must have seemed to some of the miners a kind of ironic depiction of their own work. The miners even threw in a dragon for good measure! Certainly, they may have whistled while they did it but the conditions in the salt mine were far from comfortable and the hours were long – the fact that it was subterranean could hardly have added to the excitement of going to work each morning. To cap it all there is even an underground lake, lit by subdued electricity and candles. This is perhaps where the old legends of lakes to the underworld and Catholic imagery of the saints work together to best leave a lasting impression of the mine. How different a few minutes reflection here must have been to the noise and sweat of everyday working life in the mine.

River Cruise & Safari in Africa

The mighty Zambezi river, a luxury cruise ship and a visit to Victoria Falls and/or an African Safari.  Hold on to your hats, AMAWaterways is introducing a new product that will blow you out of the water!  Photos and more info to come!

Putting Things Off

I'm a great procrastinator.  I can find a million things to do rather than make plans for myself ... one of the most difficult things for me to do is to make a decision about taking my own vacations (although they're usually "busman's holidays").  I've been wanting to do a "Christmas Markets Cruise" along the Danube for a couple of years now.  I have the air mileage on American Express, what keeps me from booking?  Indecision.  The inability to get out of my own way.

This weekend I had a "come to Jesus" moment.  At 10:30 on Saturday morning my neighbor started screaming for help (remember I live in Florida where windows and balcony doors are frequently open).  She was screaming like the building was on fire or someone was attacking her.  I rushed over in my nightgown...it was Saturday morning, I was kicking back and relaxing ... to find that her husband had fallen and hit his head.  He was face down on the floor of the balcony, bleeding heavily.  The neighbor handed me the phone and I dialed 911.  Long story short, our terrific Key Biscayne Fire & Rescue dept. was there in under five minutes (which seemed like hours) and he had the best treatment you could ask for.  He's fractured his neck in two places and has several stitches in his head.  Fortunately there is no paralysis. His prognosis is good - there was a lot of praying going on.

Moments before all had been as normal.  Now their lives - at least for awhile - are turned upside down.  It can happen just that quickly.  Fortunately they had recently returned from a long dreamed of vacation by motorcycle from Miami to Boise, Idaho, so that wasn't lost to them.

I have so many stories like this, the couple who planned to cruise to Hawaii after they retired (but he suddenly died from a heart attack), my Mom's planned trip to Australia which was cancelled when my brother passed away.  I could go on, but you get the idea.

I'm going to book that Christmas Markets cruise this week.  I hope some of you will come with me.  I think it will be special!

Yet Another Thing Not to Do On a Ship

Now this was a tour boat, not a cruise ship, but it's still horrifying - why do people do what they do?  The parenthetical comments are mine.

Tour boat passenger tosses boy into water to toughen him up
 

Horrified passengers looked on as a California father told his crying seven-year-old son to “toughen up” and ended up throwing him into the harbor on a tour boat, according to police. The former Marine sergeant Sloane Briles, 35, was arrested for child endangerment and resisting arrest. According to police "The father hit him several times and then threatened to throw him overboard if he didn't stop crying  The crowd on the boat became very angry at the father for hitting the kid and extremely angry when he threw him overboard."  (Where was the boat's captain during this abuse?) The father eventually jumped in after the boy—who was not an expert swimmer—but he had already been rescued. The father become so combative during his arrest that deputies claimed they had to tackle him to the ground.  The boy was released unharmed into the care of his mother, who divorced Briles in 2007. He was only “roughhousing” with the boy, she told the New York Daily News.   (Who does she think she's kidding?)

Don't Try This Yourself

Rick Ehlert is a 44 year old California man who owns a 50-ft yacht and has boating experience. Last November he was aboard the Holland America Ryndam, enjoying several cocktails.  In this frame of mind he stepped through a door that was clearly marked "Authorized Personnel Only" and found himself at the stern of the ship where the mechanism to raise and lower the 18-ton anchor is accessed.  Ehlert then spent the next 12 minutes going through an elaborate process that he knew would result in a free-fall for the anchor.  

Ehlert didn't know what was going to happen after the anchor dropped, but it could have been catastrophic. The anchor could have caught in hard ground on the ocean floor and caused the ship to turn suddenly - tipping radically and causing furniture, glassware, china and people to topple over throughout the ship. Or the ship's hull might have ripped open, flooding at least one compartment and doing millions of dollars in damage. The anchor could have destroyed miles of coral reefs, or it could have just reached the end of its chain and broken off.   

Everything Ehlert did was caught on a surveillance camera - and so there is no way for him to deny his actions. His only excuse is that he was drunk, but he knew what he was doing.  Now Ehlert has thrown himself upon the mercy of the court by agreeing to plead guilty to a felony charge of attempting to damage the ship. The plea agreement means that Ehlert could face as many as 20 years in prison and/or a fine of $250,000.  (How about some court mandated alcohol counseling?)

Fortunately there was no damage to the ship, which carries 1260 passengers and 560 crewmembers. Crewmembers were able to restore it to its proper position within a matter of minutes. 

Is being drunk an excuse for his actions? It took him 12 minutes to accomplish this deed. He wasn’t too drunk to protect himself with gloves, find a wrench and operate the system.  But he was drunk enough not to consider the possible catastrophic consequences, in terms of both lives and property, of his actions. 

What do you think? 

Here We Go Again - Hurricane Season

Okay, one more time... 

The official Atlantic hurricane season lasts from June 1 to November 30. Hurricane season is not a reason to cancel cruise plans or to slip into panic mode.  Here's why a cruise may be a better choice than an island destination during hurricane season:

Suppose you have chosen a lovely Eastern Caribbean island on which to vacation in say, September.  To your regret this lovely Eastern Caribbean island winds up in the direct path of a hurricane while you are enjoying your week in a tropical paradise.  Unfortunately, resorts and islands tend to remain fixed objects (at least prior to the hurricane) and can not pick up and move to a safer location.  Two things may, and probably will, occur: 

1.  You will be evacuated home - end of room service and frothy drinks with pineapple slices, umbrellas, fancy glasses, maraschino cherries and little plastic swords or
   
2. Your resort will batten down the hatches, usually the island will lose electricity, experience coastal flooding and sustain significant wind damage.You will enjoy the remainder of your vacation without air conditioning, hot meals, icy drinks and running water.  The roof of your room may leak. 

On the other hand, rather than limit your vacation to one island, for your vacation you choose to take a week long cruise to the Easter Caribbean, visiting several islands. Once again, that nasty old hurricane comes barreling towards the Eastern Caribbean, presenting an unsettling forecast for your itinerary.  In this case, ships having a tendency not to stay rooted where they are, the captain and cruise line will make a decision to change the itinerary to avoid the storm.  You'll still be on board a beautiful luxury cruise, the drinks will continue to pour, the a/c to work and wonderful meals will be served in the dining rooms. You will have top class entertainment, the casinos will remain open, shops will be selling souvenirs and sunblock and the ship will function as usual.  True, you may not get to visit the islands on your original itinerary, you may spend an additional day or two at sea rather than in port. But 99% of the time your vacation will not be cancelled, you will not be evacuated home and you will not spend the remainder of your holiday wearing a garbage bag that has been re-purposed as a rain slicker. 

Now let's say you've made your choice to cruise but you can't get to your cruise or island destination, (which it turns out was not in the way of the storm, but the storm is heading for your home state of New York or North Carolina) because your airline or cruise line stops offering service for at least 24 consecutive hours due to severe weather.  This is very similar to Newark Airport shutting down at Christmas because of a blizzard - but that was soooo last year.  THAT'S WHY YOU BUY INSURANCE WHEN YOU MAKE YOUR BOOKING.

To maximize vacation protection from storms and hurricanes, travelers should buy insurance when they make their travel plans and before a storm or hurricane is announced.  Once the National Weather Service issues a warning for a storm or hurricane, it is considered a foreseeable event. Policies purchased on or after the warning date do not cover losses related to that event.

So continue to book, continue to travel, take advantage of some extremely good pricing available RIGHT NOW for this fall, winter and even next spring.  Don't panic.  Don't hide in the closet. 

And if the above still doesn't reassure you, book a European River Cruise - the Danube is lovely this time of year!

Proving to Myself That Cruising is Still a GREAT Value

As cruise lines have begun to "unbundle" services and found ways to charge additional for some services that were pretty much included in the days of yore, I've gotten to be a bit cynical and wondered if passengers were still really getting great value for their money. 

Recently I went on a road trip from Jacksonville, FL to Syracuse, NY with my Mom to bring some family heirlooms to one of my nephews.  Think basic road trip with a geriatric parent in tow (well, actually I didn't tow her, I let her ride in the front seat).   Here are cost breakdowns for just the northbound leg of the trip (yes, I did bring her back too):

• Holiday Inn:  $95.15
• TownePlace Suites  $151.51
• Residence Inn $165.39
• Grand Total $412.05

Add in fuel costs (the automobile of choice we drove gets about 30 mpg) of $170.26 and it cost us $582.31 for the oh-so-fun experience of driving across America's interstates and listening to books-on tape.  Note I am not including meals, entertainment (well, books-on-tape were from the library) but I promise there were no showgirls, comedians, trapeze acts, room service, sexy legs contests or other activities.  I even had to make my own sofa bed in some of the above hotels (rather than share a King with Mom - where's my cabin steward?!).  Three days of driving with Mom essentially came to $206 per person.  Not including Diet Cokes and Cheetos.

So I think I can stick with the argument that cruising is still a very good value given that you can get three night cruises starting from $249 (depending on the season).   Sign me up for the next 3-night cruise to Syracuse (or Denver for that matter).