Travel Memory and No Croatia, for Me!

A Facebook memory popped up this morning. At this time two years ago, I was enjoying a wonderful expedition voyage with Hurtigruten. This week I was supposed to be in Croatia, but thanks to covid, I'm NOT. I miss traveling and hope it can resume soon. There's so much to see and experience in this beautiful world of ours.

During Covid, travel plans have become a bit tough to navigate!

I understand that during this time of ever-changing information about coronavirus, your travel plans have become a bit tough to navigate. I am staying up-to-date with travel advisories, cancellation/postponement policies and procedures, and reviewing all the latest updates that relate directly to your travel plans. I know that the choice to postpone a vacation can be disheartening, but in that case, having something else to look forward to is certainly a great “Plan B.” I am here for you, for all your travel needs and concerns.

 

Cancelations, Changes, & Rebooking for the Future

This past week saw many dominos fall thanks to the voluntary suspension of travel by so many vendors, and all but two of my business' departures over the next four weeks have been canceled. The week ahead is already full of rebooking for future dates as 95% of my guests have chosen to still go, just at a later date. Travel and tourism, and all those of us in the industry absolutely need you in the months ahead! Don't stop traveling after this covid mess ends.

#travel #tourism #changethedate #wewillgetbeyondcovid #seetheworld #takethetrip

NOW More Than Ever, Your local Travel Agent Needs Your Business

To All My Friends, you know I work in the Travel Industry. You’ve seen so many posts about my travel experiences and the importance of booking with a travel agent. NOW more than ever, your local agent needs your business.

Did you know that in 2019, the US travel industry accounted for $2.5 trillion in economic activity, and supported 15.7 million American jobs? Plus it drives economies around the globe when Americans travel. Dire consequences come when the travel stops.

These past few weeks have been horrific for the travel industry, and last night we were dealt a bigger blow with new travel bans & restrictions. I so appreciate all of my friends, clients, and family member’s calls and acts of support. Please, continue to support your local travel professionals including locally owned hotels, tour companies, restauranteurs, taxi companies, and travel agents as travel rebounds, which will, but certainly faster with your help. When you book locally (vs with Expedia, Costco, Orbitz, VRBO, etc), you’re truly helping ensure their family’s viability, and that’s huge right now, particularly as many of us watch our earned commissions vanish (a GIANT thanks goes out to the suppliers who are going above and beyond right now, including guaranteeing commissions). We don't get paid until our guests travel...so when you cancel, all the work we've done leading up to your trip is for naught and no payday comes. Verbally thanking us might seem like a nice thing to do, but verbal thank you's don't pay our bills. These are dark times for us all, and I’m personally feeling the pressure. (To my clients, I appreciate everyone’s patience, as I know there have been long hold times, and I’m doing my best to get to everyone.)

Please don’t stop traveling after we’re all able to once again! We need to see life around the globe to better appreciate our own place in this giant world of ours, and better relate to the other inhabitants. Like so many other crises before, this too WILL pass, but the economic impact will be devastating for so many across this land and around the world if people don't start traveling once again.

Turn to your local travel professionals for assistance when you're ready to travel again. I understand you think you know what you’re doing, you found a better rate, it’s easier online, etc., etc., I’ve heard it all. Travel agents need your support. They not only need your business now, but they want it. So please do think about your local travel agent when you’re asking your Facebook friends to support small and local businesses. Expedia, Costco, Orbitz, VRBO, etc, will do just fine. But your small, local travel agency - well, they need your support. So when you post “support small business”, please do just that. I treat every trip as if it were for my own family, and care about your travel plans. The big boxes and online sites treat you merely like any other transaction - you're just a number to them. With the recent events we are all facing right now, those big box stores & online sites (i.e. Expedia, Orbitz, Costco, et al) - well they won't be there to help you through this rough patch. I am here, 24/7 if need be, to help you work through cancellations, rebookings, etc.

If you are booked for something in the next few weeks - I'm closely monitoring and working on your travel plans to re-accommodate, change, or transfer to another time as works best for you. But if you are booked for something later this summer or fall and are considering canceling - PLEASE - hold off, have some patience, and let's get through this rough patch together. This too will pass. The worst may be coming shortly, but with so many measures being put in place to slow the spread, it will not last for long. Don't throw in the towel out of fear. Be strong, and let us get beyond it and then make a measured decision at a more appropriate time.

#TravelisGood #StoptheHype #TravelAgentsNeedYou #FactsNotFear #MeasuredPatience #ThisTooWillPass

Iditarod 48

Iditarod48 has kicked off with the ceremonial opening! The 50th running is in two years... Who'd like to experience it? I'd love to come back!

Magical Mondays - Making it Easier

Did you know that not only can I help you with your cruise plans, your Disney vacations, and other exciting destinations - but thanks to the strong travel network resources provided through Cruise Planners, I can also provide Air, Car, Hotel & Vacation Home Rentals?   Sure enough!  Take a look at my website, and you’ll see how.  

This convenient booking tool offers you state of the art technology to research and book your Air, Car, Hotel, and Vacation Home Rentals, and will make your travel planning, with or without a cruise, much easier, and if you require additional service or help with the reservations, I’m just a phone call away.

This technology includes over 100,000 hotels worldwide, many of which offer specially negotiated rates.  Plus this will include Trip Advisor, the most popular and largest travel community in the world, with more than 32 million unique monthly visitors.  I encourage you to take a look at this powerful tool to book all your traveling needs.

Available 24 hours a day 7 days a week, this one-stop shopping feature offers all the services other travel websites offer without the hassle of searching through them all.  This new tool includes special rates plus an easy-to-navigate format, making searching for multiple reservation deals effortless.

So, call me to book your next vacation, and be sure to visit my website for additional travel reservations beyond your cruises, Disney, Universal, or other exciting vacations.  Or, feel free to use this new technology for your non-cruise travel needs.  Your complete vacation is just a few easy clicks away.

A Little Down, a Little Up - Not Quite Certain What to Expect

As a youth you go to high school and do what's expected of you there.  Then traditionally comes college or some other form of post-high school educational or training experience such as the military, a trade school or something similar, and then you're on to whatever you have determined you want to do for the "rest of your life". Often times you've dreamt for years of doing one such special thing.  For me, as a small boy it was both architecture and medicine.  But I've never been a superstar when it comes to many forms of math - love geometry, can't stand algebra  (go figure I would end up spending nearly 11 years analyzing numbers for a living.)  Into my teen years dreams of traveling the world and opening a restaurant of my own started to formulate. But alas, neither of those things would take place as I moved on into the whole process of marriage and starting a family.


This whole thing called life can be so interesting - fun, frustrating and funny at times. You go through so many motions each and every day, whether they are family or social mores or not. Things like getting up, getting dressed, going to work for x number of hours, coming home, doing dinner, etc, etc. Do it over and over again for x number of years and it's just such a routine - that you can pretty much do it in your sleep... until something happens to disrupt the sameness of that routine.  Sometimes you expect the disruption - other times it comes right out of left field. Sometimes those youthful passions and dreams come true, while other times they either don't, or they simply get suppressed for a long period of time before they finally resurface.  


This year has marked a big change for me, as many regular readers already know. September brought about  my second job elimination during the past 20 years. I do consider myself fortunate, in that several people I know have experienced job eliminations many, many more times than I have - only twice in 20 years is pretty good, and filling those nearly 20 years with only two employers. I can't really complain.  But as I have spent the last few months working to replace the income stream with a new employment situation, some of those long ago dreams have resurfaced.  No, I'm not going back to school to try med school, but going back to school hasn't been ruled out either.  But for now the first big change is stepping out on my own to be my own boss.  It's a dream that I've had in the back of my mind for many years, but never really had the guts or gumption to attempt it. Until now.  With each passing week of working through the monstrously long job applications time and time and time and time and time and time (ad nasuem) again, I kept feeling God telling me it was time to do something else. I prayed about it a lot, and just felt that the time was right to make a really big change.  Time to get into something that could be flexible where I wouldn't have to be "chained" to a desk day in and day out.  Time to do something that would challenge and stretch me in new ways.  Time to do something that could involve my wife, while still allowing her to do her homeschooling thing with the kids.


In the spring of course I decided to take my extreme knowledge of the Disney universe of theme parks, destinations and the like and began the training process with Fairytale Journeys and the College of Disney Knowledge in order to be able to sell Disney vacations "on the side" - something that could just augment the existing job with some fun and a little bit of extra cash coming in. But as people kept coming to me asking about destinations beyond just Disney, I knew that I needed to expand further. So I started down a route of discovery looking for ways to be able to expand my side business' offerings, and possibly parlay it into something that could become that replacement income. Thus was born the decision to purchase a franchise with CRUISE PLANNERS AMERICAN EXPRESS.  Cruise Planners has been in the industry for nearly 20 years, and is recognized as one of the largest sellers of cruises in the world, but is so much more than simply cruises.  The Cruise Planners portal literally opens up thousands of new destinations, and hundreds of ports around the globe, plus there is functionality for reserving airfare, cars, hotels & vacation homes as well.  It truly is a well-rounded travel agency, and I am enjoying being a part of it.


I spent a week of training in Ft. Lauderdale, FL recently, and am very excited about the possibilities that this new venture holds. During that training we learned all kinds of information regarding the industry, received top notch presentations from all of the major cruise lines including an awesome presentation from Disney; and got to conduct two different ship inspections (on board the Oasis of the Seas and the Ruby Princess). All of us who were in the training class (other franchisees like myself, their spouses or associates working for franchisees) spent a lot of time together and as a result many bonded, and friendships were formed. We have an awesome support team at the company's home office, with a LOT of resources at our fingertips. The I.T. support is terrific, as well as the marketing machine working behind the scenes.  In addition to my original website (www.neverlandadventurestravel.com), I do have a second site now ---> www.neverlandadventurescruises.com.   The first remains my primary site for Disney vacations, and is still maintained by me, while the new one is primarily for cruising and is maintained by Cruise Planners.  In 2012 the cruising site will be receiving a huge new facelift... I am so very excited about those changes coming in the next few weeks (we saw what it will look like while in Ft. Lauderdale - and it looks GREAT!).  It will look and feel so much better, and I honestly can't wait for it to be rolled out.  But over time I will be making the two even more interconnected than they already are.


I'm hopeful that this new venture will go well, but like many entrepreneurs, I'm no longer just satisfied with doing one thing at a time, as I did for nearly 20 years.  I have a couple of other avenues that I am currently pursuing as well, and hope to talk about at least one of those in the next month or two.  Until then - thanks for continuing to follow along and read these posts, and I wish you all a blessed holiday season.