Shout out to Disney Cruise Lines

Our family just returned from a fantastic vacation aboard Disney's Magic and I just have to give them a huge shout out. This was our 4th trip with them and the longest, 7 days. The weather wasn't great and we had to cancel Grand Cayman to visit Nassau instead, but there was always something to do on the Mickey ship as my boys refer to it.

But my shout out is to the way they handled the embarkation and debarkation procedures. Their cruise prices are worth just those two things. We arrived the evening before into the Orland airport and stayed on property at the Hyatt. At check-in there is this LARGE sign that says "Please tell us if you are on a Disney Cruise." We were told to leave our bags in our room the next morning, the bellman would pick them up, take them to the Disney shuttle bus and we wouldn't have to worry about them again until we got to our stateroom. Wow! We actually checked out, had breakfast and headed down to the Disney Departure area, all the while our bags were shuttled around for us.

Now if I had anything to complain about it would be the Disney Departure area in the Orlando Airport. Not all the employees are full trained on what the procedures are and several have power issues. Needless to say, we stood in one line to make sure we had all our forms filled out and signed. Then we proceeded to the next line, to give all of our forms to a lovely lady behind the desk that didn't speak English very well and we were quite sure she had never seen a computer before either. We were checked into the wrong cabin, and give key cards before she realized it and then stood there another 30 minutes while she figured it out. Finally we were handed our embarkation packet with our keys and a little blue card with "Stitch" on the front. Then we headed over to the waiting area, for the bus driver to call our character before loading us on all the coach to the port.

The shuttle to the port was very enjoyable with Disney music, original Disney cartoons and a great video discussing the Disney Cruise we were about to embark. We made it to the Port in less than 45 minutes and were able to immediately board the ship! We headed straight to the dining reservations area to make a Palo's reservation, then over to the Spa and finally stopped for lunch. It was all smooth sailing from that point on.

The debarkation was even easier! The night before the ship docked we were told to tag our bags and leave them outside the door for the steward to take down to the storage for us. Word to the wise, if you are flying out make sure you don't leave anything out that can't be checked through security! The next morning, we had breakfast one last time with our wonderful dining team, then said a sad good bye to the Mickey Ship.

Definitely take advantage of Disney's onboard airline check-in system. When we tagged our bags the night before, they were tagged all the way through to Denver. When we walked off the ship, down to customs, we didn't need to worry about trying to find our luggage, and schlep it through immigrations. The immigration official didn't even ask to see our Passports, so we walked over to the buses and rode back to the airport. We already had our boarding passes, so we stood in line at security and went out to our gate. It was so simple!!!

Thank you Disney!

Great Group and Meeting Incentives

Fiesta Americana is offering several great group promotions for Mexico. You can receive up to 35% off on Food and Beverage and 25% off rooms & spa services.

Palace Properties has fantastic group promotions based on the number of rooms you block you can received free unlimited promotions.

Curacao Tourist Board just announced its newest property: the Hyatt Regency Golf, Spa and Marina Resort. Groups can save up to 20% on their master bill including meeting facilities, guestrooms and catering/banquet. The group must block at least 10 rooms and events can be held between now and December 20th.

Las Vegas and Spiritual Tourism?

Like most people, I rarely like to admit my faults but I must confess I am immensely behind in reading my plethora of travel industry publications. Seriously, as much as I love the industry you would think I would devour each one as soon as it arrived on my doorstep. Unfortunately, not so much and I'm blaming the holidays.

So I just finished Travel Weekly dated November 9, 2009 and there was a very interesting article urging Las Vegas to consider the financial impact of catering to the spiritual tourism market. Hmmm, I must say that's an interesting proposition.

Given the economic conditions of 2009, I understand that industries will try anything to make money. But honestly, I can't exactly see my grandmother's church group hitting Sin City. I'm almost positive that her church friends are probably praying for all the sins of those of us that hit that town on a regular basis.

Royal Caribbean's Decision to Continue stops in Haiti

Kudos to Royal Caribbean for being proactive in trying to assist with the recovery in Haiti. RCCL's CEO has come under fire during the last week for his decision to allow the fleet to continue calling on the port of Labadee, Haiti which is the company's private island. His reasoning is because the ships will assist with economic recovery and relief efforts by bringing much needed supplies to the island. While I applaud the companies efforts to aid Haiti, I'm just not sure how my clients or I would feel about the port call.

The CEO says the company is offering the ability to combine a vacation with relief efforts in the plagued nation. However, I didn't see them adjusting the shore trips to reflect any type of volunteerism or relief work in the area. The countries of Haiti and Dominican Republic are great vacation destinations, as is a Royal Caribbean cruise, and ones that I recommend on a daily basis. I would just be a bit reserved to actually send a vacationing client to a country that is struggling with this enormous natural disaster. Its definitely a hard line to walk to balance the need for aid with the idea that bringing wealthy vacationers to the island in hopes of boosting the economy... Would that be a kick in the face of the Haitian people?

Why not instead, offer the ships for use in the recovery efforts? Every client I know would gladly postpone their vacation knowing that RCCL was donating their ships to get supplies, volunteers and aid workers to Haiti. From a PR standpoint, I can't think of a better way to promote such a immense cultural volunteerism program for the company without any negative criticism that the company still wants its private destination to make money.

Unlimited Private Events with Palace Resorts

Whether its a family reunion, destination wedding or corporate meeting, Palace Resorts is offering several amazing promotions throughout 2010. There is the Palace Passports Promotion, Kids Free promotion and based on the number of rooms blocked you can get free unlimited private functions.

The Passport Promotion is valid on all bookings whether through a travel agency or a wholesaler and includes great discounts like: 30% off one round of golf with round trip transportation, 25% discount on Spa Treatments, a Buy One Get One Free Jungle Tour and a Buy One Get One Free Swim with the Dolphins. Vallarta Palace is offering unlimited tours per person and Riviera Nayarit is offering $15 off car rentals.

The Kids Free is a summer promotion valid for travel between June 1 - August 31, 2010. It does require a minimum 3 night stay and applies to children under age 12.

And lastly, one of the promos I'm most excited about is the group amenity offering. Book 10 paid rooms for 3 nights and you will receive a complimentary cocktail party. Book 20 paid rooms for 3 nights and you will receive an upgraded event instead of the cocktail party. But if you book 25 rooms with a minimum of 3 nights, you receive unlimited private functions.

The Palace resorts are a terrific all inclusive set of properties throughout the Cancun, Riviera Maya and Puerto Vallarta areas. I would recommend all of the properties!

Loving Southwest

Before you ask, yes I am touting my new found love interest: Southwest Airlines. I had the pleasure of flying Southwest from Denver to Vegas roundtrip this week for an industry grand opening event at City Center. My entire experience was terrific from curbside checkin to the gate agents, flight attendents and the pilot's continual updates on the Chargers playoff game, I couldn't have asked for more. Not to mention, its free to check your bags and there is no change fee. Granted I do still hate the cattle call lineup prior to boarding as well as the panic attack that strikes because I forgot to check in 24 hours prior to departure...please don't let me be in group C. But honestly, all can be forgiven after yesterday. The standard Southwest plane holds 133 passengers. Yesterday we had 148 passengers trying to get on the flight from Vegas to Denver. I'm guessing everyone did as bad at the tables as I did and were all trying to make a fast dash away from Sin City. But the gate agent handled it with calm and ease, offering a free roundtrip ticket, a $100 voucher and the reimbursement of your oneway ticket to Denver. And he even the mad dash to his counter didn't rattle him.

Airlines, Airlines, Airlines

Well, I was going to start off with my usual bemoaning of the airlines because we are only 13 days into the New Year and they have already announced increased fees. However, we also got some exciting news to report as well!

Southwest and United Airlines are offering a two for one sale for Colorado Customers. The United deal is this: 1) Tickets must be purchased by Feb 15th for travel by March 5th, 2) Travel must originate and end in Colorado and 3) It must be booked in a certain class of service meaning it may not be the cheapest flight out there. For Southwest you must purchase a Business Select fare in order for the two-fer promotion to be used.

In other good news, JetBlue has been offering a fantastic New Year promotion with $29one way fares. If you want to go somewhere, hurry up because you must book by 11:59pm tonight.

Ok,so now for the not so good news...both Continental and Delta have announced increased baggage fees. If you check in online 24 hours prior to your flight on their websites you can pay for your checked baggage in advance and it will be a discounted fee. And while Frontier did lower their change fee, it was conveniently offset by an increased baggage fee.