If you haven’t seen last Saturday’s Saturday Night Live and you love to travel as much as we do, you will love this sketch. It is just so true. If you have a few minutes, you can watch it on YouTube by clicking here. Let me know if you don’t nod your head over and over again saying, “Wow, that’s so true.” And you laugh.
Not sure if you, my faithful readers, remember that I wrote a little diatribe about Costco a few weeks back. The company I love to shop but hate when they try and sell travel. If you missed, it you can CLICK HERE to read it
Now that you are back, I want to tell you how good yesterday felt. This all started two weeks ago when some friends from out of town who we had sailed with before (let’s call them Couple A) asked us to book a nice verandah stateroom for them. It’s on a cruise we are going on as well (Fort Lauderdale to Mardi Gras and the Western Caribbean in February 2020—want to come?).
We booked Couple A in a very nice 1A stateroom with two free perks (free gratuities and free WiFi) at a very good price. Then we invited some other folks we (us and Couple A) had both sailed with before. (Let’s call them Couple B.) They decided they wanted to go but informed me that they usually booked with Costco but would like me to get them a quote on pricing and perks. I did that for a few days but the pricing had changed since we booked Couple A. There had been an Expedia Group that we had been able to price Couple A into and it was at a great price with two perks. But it was full.
Since it was late in April at this point, I told them some of the specials were expiring and that the pricing might be better in May. On Wednesday evening when we were in East Wenatchee visiting the kids, Couple B sent me an e-mail saying, “Don’t bother, we bought our cruise from Costco. We got a great deal.”
The next morning I got an e-mail from Couple A asking, “How much did we pay for our cruise? I lost the receipt you sent me. And did we get any free perks?” My first thought was, “Oh, no! They are going to cancel and book with Costco. Our mutual friends must have gotten a great deal.” I e-mailed them back and said as soon as I was back in the office on Saturday, I would send them all of that info. Which I did yesterday.
About 20 minutes after I sent them their pricing and perks, I got a call from the female half of Couple A. She told me that the female half of Couple B had been in contact and that she was kind of bragging about the “great price I got from Costco. They gave her two perks and a $1000 Costco gift card.” Our friends (Couple A) said they were pleasantly surprised to see that they had the same two perks, $50 onboard credit from our office and were paying almost $3000 less than Couple B got from Costco!
I was elated. After losing sleep the night before worrying that they were cancelling, we (me, Kathleen and that Expedia CruiseShipCenters group we put couple A into) had beaten Costco hands down. And I truly loved that after we had discussed it on the phone I got a text from her as well saying, “Thanks again for all the help!!! You’ve made it easy!” That made my day! That’s why I am here. To make it easy. Found them the stateroom they wanted at a great price with great perks. It felt so good—to finally beat Costco.
The average American knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Don’t be average.”—my favorite quote. Not sure who said it but I have loved it since I first heard it. I think from the greatest motivational speaker ever, Zig Ziglar.
We are about to take a big trip. I am sure you will hear much more about it in the next month and a half but it’s part of the reason I have been so bad at posting on a regular basis. I have been trying to get everything done I need to get done before we leave on May 20 when we will fly off to Edinburgh to start an almost month-long trip through the British Isles and a cruise to Iceland. Today I got into my favorite pre-travel app on my iPad.
We all have all kinds of apps for our iPhones and iPads that we love to use for travel, (I have more than 30 on my iPhone) but I have one I have been using pretty steadily for more than 10 years and I truly love it. Every time I use it religiously it works. If I forget to use it religiously, I forget things (like on our last cruise). My favorite pre-travel app is called Packing Pro.
Packing Pro is a super app that does more than remind of you what to take, but reminds you of all the things you need to take care of before you leave. Here’s a screen shot of the app with my favorite category open for our upcoming Scotland/England/Ireland/Iceland trip. As you can see it starts way before your trip with things like “Book cruise” and “Buy airline tickets.” When you are done with them, you can check them off. But the ones I love are the ones you don’t think about that often, like “Turn off the water to the washing machine” or “E-mail your neighbors (in our case Jayesh and Lisa).”
Another thing I love about the app is that when we are going to take a new trip, I can just clone a previous trip and start over. You just go in and change your quantities and categories based on the climate and duration. For instance on our Panama Canal Cruise on Infinity, I took a lot of shorts. On this upcoming trip, probably no shorts at all other than ones to workout and walk in.
They also give you some great categories to work with and you can add more if you like. The screen shot below are the ones that I use on a regular basis.
So if you are looking for a great app to get you ready to travel whether it be a cruise, a land trip or just a short business excursion, Packing Pro is a great choice. When I went to get the link above I found that it was for sale today only for 99¢. That’s a great bargain because I am sure I paid at least $5.00 for it. And you can get it for your iPad, your iPhone and sync them as well as with your partner’s devices as well. And as Mr. Powell notes below, you can check with the app when you get back.
When you get back from a trip, make a note of what you didn’t wear. This will avoid packing it unnecessarily next time. —Robert Powell
This travel business is strange. At least compared to the other side of my business life. In the yearbook world, things ebb and flow through the school year and after 38 years in the business, I knew exactly what to expect at any given time of the year.
In travel, you just never know. And so much of it just happens with no rhyme or reason. Two weeks ago I spent the week in the office and had a few people actually looking for travel. Then last week, really nothing to do until all of a sudden Thursday hit and a client/friend from South Carolina called and he and his wife have now booked for this summer to Alaska. Then one of my favorite local clients called and wanted me to do some research for him into cruises that go up the Amazon river. This is something I hadn’t done before and was really pleasantly surprised to find so many options for them.
Around the same time our a friend’s sister-in-law sent me a request for a Norwegian cruise to the Western Caribbean in January and a good friend/client we met on Celebrity Summit last fall who lives in Minnesota e-mailed for a travel insurance quote—which we got set up for him. So the last few days have been crazy busy. That’s how this business seems to go for me. One minute calm with nothing to do and the next minute, totally crazy.
One thing that did come from this whole thing is how full ships are right now. Especially in prime season. The example I can use is this summer going to Alaska. If you want to take your family to Alaska on a cruise ship, there aren’t too many great options out there for this summer. Your best bet is to book now for next summer. Keep that in mind. I have said it before and I will say it again, BOOK EARLY!
The truth is you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed. —Eminem
Think you can do that? Visit every country in the world? Do you even know (without Googling it) how many countries there are in the world? I will save you some time—there’s 193. Late last week I was checking my Twitter feed and I saw a post from Conde Nast Traveler’s website about a guy (Sal Lavallo—that’s him at right) who actually visited every single country in the world. All 193 of them. WOW! (I want his frequent flyer miles!)
So I checked out the article. It was great. Instead of a typical travel log or interview, Conde Nast Traveler asked this great guy 193 questions. One for every country he visited. I read every one of them and I loved them. Sal is the is the kind of guy who I would love to meet and I would love to travel with. The article that you can read by clicking here is worth a look. And the best part is, it reads fast.
You can find out all about his life and his journey in bits and pieces by reading just a few of the 193 questions. You can learn some cool stuff like, which country has the best tap water or what was his worst mistake. Or the most unusual place he slept and the hardest country to get into. I am betting if you start, you will finish. It’s that good.
Were you ever bored? There was always something new to see and learn.—Sal Lavallo, the man who visited all 193 countries of the world.