While I was recently perusing the labels of my vast collection of faux leather photo albums, I came across one identified as “Mexico 1990”. As I opened the cover and began viewing the photos, the first thing that struck me was how young and attractive my husband and I were 22 years ago. How time changes us! The second thing that sprung to mind was our encounter with a bat. Not the baseball kind, but the other kind - that nocturnal creature that flies in the night and inspires the likes of Dracul
If you have your heart set on a certain cabin in a particular location of the ship, be sure to tell the cruise line or your agent to mark it as a "no upgrade". For instance, you love those peaceful and ever-so-popular "Aft" balcony cabins at the very back of the ship that overlook the wake, and you've just gotta have one. So you book the cruise as early as possible in order to snatch one up before someone else does. Then one day the "upgrade fairy" pays you a visit. You get a notice from your ag
Sail with us as we take our first cruise with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines aboard the "Jewel of the Seas". If you have never sailed before, or never sailed with RCCL this may be an interesting cruise. I will be posting as often as possible (as connections allow) and you may even find me in the Live Chatroom for streaming Q&A's!! If you are online on the CruiseCrazies site anytime between May 2nd and May 6th, pop into the "LIVE CHAT ROOM" and you may see me there!!! All you have to do is high
Hello all! I'm not dead. I promise. I greatly appreciate the inquiries about where I've gone. I've been insanely busy with preparation for my new book, Rumble Yell. This will be released this summer, but before that there is a big ol' project that I'm launching with Kickstarter to get it into my fan's lovingly greedy little hands sooner. So with all necessary apologies for this blog not being about ships, I would like to share with you an adventure I had, which led to surely my funniest book.
Don't pay $4.00 for that bottle of water the crew will try to sell you at the gangway to your awaiting excursion. Even worse, don't be an environmental hog and bring a huge case of water from home, like I've seen some people do. It's wasteful, and those bottles are bad for the environment. Instead, go green! Pack a reusable water bottle and fill it in your stateroom sink before you head out for the day. Don't worry. The ship's water supply is purified, perfectly safe to drink, and tastes as good
Hey, everyone! I hope you all are doing well and have been enjoying life! I haven't blogged in about a month and I want to just get on and give a cruisetacular hello! I am okay and all is well - I promise!
I'm currently on a personal break from all things cruise, but promise to return hopefully sometime in late May. Be sure to enjoy all the content that's currently out there and I'll be back with more new cruisetastic stuff FYA (for your amusement)!
Keep smiling, let your laughter erup
First of all, welcome! Over the past years of cruise and land travel, I have had many "if-only" moments. If only I had reserved that excursion ahead of time, or if only I remembered to pack my water shoes. I have also gathered many helpful hints and much welcomed advice from experienced cruisers I've met over the years. I thought it would be great to have a blog or column just to share some of these morsels of knowledge with my fellow travelers.
Some of the travel tips I share here will see
These days, when it comes to travel, I am a planner. I don’t like surprises. So in order to make an informed decision, every vacation begins with consuming every review and article on every cruise ship and destination, reserving hotels and tours months in advance, and creating a spreadsheet itinerary containing every detail of the trip, reduced to a handy pocket-size guide to refer to when the need arises. I used to create a huge binder with obscene amounts of paper, but thankfully with the adve
The Grand Princess ... our floating paradise for 10 days this summer ... has now been repositioned to it's new home port of San Francisco for it's spring and summer itineraries. It would be so cool to drive there to meet our ship. However, let's be realistic. We live on the East Coast. Since a leisurely cross-country drive to the ship is quite out of the question, we'll have to fly.
We have two choices - book our preferred flights on our own, independently, or choose a cruise air package wi
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's the media doing what they do best and that's stirring the pot. Alright, so if y'all have been following our trusted media sources here in the States, then you've been well aware that Carnival Cruise Line is back in the spotlight yet again. Here's the spark notes version:
Carnival Dream, Carnival Legend and Carnival Elation were all reported to have somewhat similar issues with propulsion systems on their respective ships. This comes to light after the fiasco with C
Just in case you missed it last week, here is Part 1 to this segmented blog post. Okay, now that everyone is caught up, let me share what else I'd like to see on a cruise ship! Y'all ready? Here we go...
#5: A Skydiving Simulator!
Nothing like flying while sailing 15 knots, right?
Photo Credit: The Sims Zone, UK
Now this would be freaking cool, right? Why can I see Royal Caribbean hoping all over this one? But I give Disney and NCL room for this as well because
You've no doubt seen them. The optional transfers and pre or post-cruise hotel add-ons, promising the ultimate in convenience. All cruise lines eagerly offer them with your booking. But are they worth it? Purchase transfers, and a cruise rep will meet you at the airport and whisk you and your belongings safely away to your awaiting cruise ship and, likewise, shuttle you back to the airport when you return. Even better - add a hotel to that transfer, and spend a night or three in your port of emb
Hey, y'all! Sorry I missed posting part 2 on Monday. Over the weekend I had a host of events happen. My lovely mother celebrated her birthday but I also lost my pal Zoe. She was truly the sweetest thing walking on four legs and I'll always love and miss her! She was my partner in crime on a few blog posts and she always be!
I mean what can a single guy say? Zoe was THE best chick-grabbing magnet... I mean woman meeting pal ever! Now what is a guy to do? We had some great times and I'll alw
Funny how nobody wants to hear my wisdom gained from years working at sea. No, the biggest response I’ve gotten was from my most embarrassing moment! Being blackmailed into performing a strip-tease was indeed embarrassing, though assuaged by a kiss from a pretty lady. The following moment, however, was embarrassing front-to-back. It involved singing.
I had only been aboard as a manager-in-training a very short time when Legend scored a mighty 98 out of 100 on its USPH health inspection. Thi
Many of the places on our newly created bucket list involve land destinations, and I recently came to realize this could have serious implications on our quest to see the world before we die from the deck of a cruise ship. We may have to choose one or the other from time to time, dividing our time between land and sea, in order to fit everything in.
So I thought I would use this opportunity to stage a different kind of comparison of cruise vacation vs. land vacation - a boxing match of sort
Welcome back!! First off, allow me to extend my sympathies to the passengers of the failed Carnival Triumph cruise. I sincerely hope that with time, you will take advantage of the discount you have received from Carnival and venture to the open seas once again. There has been enough coverage from the media and aboard the Cruisecrazies site so that's all I'm going to mention about the Triumph incident.
Now that we have covered the most important aspect of your cruise planning, Finances, let’
In a recent interview I did with CruiseLine.com, I was asked if there were some features I'd like to put on a cruise ship in the near future. Not only did I have one or two things, but four came to mind. Since my interview with them last month a few others have come to mind and I thought I'd share them with ya to see if you'd like to join my demand team in hopes that one cruise line out there will hear our cry and supply the innovative goods! I mean it seems 'impossible' is no longer a word for
People can be annoying. When on vacation—especially on a cruise ship—they can be even more annoying. Perhaps some people figure anonymity makes rude behavior OK. Perhaps some people are just so relaxed, or so centered on their hard-earned focus on self, they let little things slide. Perhaps some people are just assholes. (just being honest)
Sometimes guests misbehaving is small. The most annoying thing I recall from my four years working on cruise ships was quite small. I think that’s why i
Carnival Triumph re-entering U.S. waters in Mobile, Alabama.
Photo Credit: gCaptain
What happened was truly unfortunate. The conditions on-board I can't even begin to fathom -- from having no air conditioning, to the exposure many had to bodily waste, and having to use bags as lavatories truly could evoke testing times... but let's look put things in perspective. This was an incident that falls back on Carnival Cruise Line 100%, no doubting that. But Carnival handled this like th
y
An engine fire ... a cruise ship dead in the sea without the power to provide the basic of needs. A pleasant ocean escape to the Caribbean becomes a bad cruise to nowhere. Such was the picture on board the Carnival Triumph on its 4-day sailing last week.
The unpleasant details of life on board that cruise need not be repeated here. We've all seen the video footage and heard the news reports. When the disabled ship finally reached the dock in Mobile, Alabama, greeted by 200 Carnival p
The Carnival Triumph safely returned to port after an ordeal at sea. I’m happy to say that, during the intense media coverage on CNN and other networks—which I was corralled into—passengers unanimously praised the tireless hard work and positive attitude of the crew. There were many horror stories about poor sanitation on the crippled ship. Alas, these are not always relegated to disaster. Allow me to share a particularly gross ship I worked on for months. We crew endure this for you, dear passe
Do you like my inflatable Norwegian Epic? I don't know why I brought it along on my last cruise, but I figured it would be great for pics like this one. So... yeah. That's the story behind the blow-up cruise ship. By the way, they're super cheap on Amazon if you want to get one! Happy Monday, y'all! Did ya survive that crazy Nemo storm? Man, did we get hammered here on the East Coast, but I'm happy to report that CM3K is alive, well and back to my old cruistacular troublesome ways.
Last we
What's my motto? If I can't get there by cruise ship, then I don't want to go. That's not entirely true, though, because Grand Canyon has long been high on our trip bucket list. Obviously, land travel will have to be involved.
A trip to Vegas nearly brought us to the Canyon several years ago. As a side trip from the city glitter and hypnotic slots machines, we pondered over a day trip to either Hoover Dam or the Grand Canyon's west rim. Since we felt that traveling all that way to catch jus
