Cruise,Travel,Family Ship Vacations,Real Estate

Archive for July, 2009

UK football legend Bobby Robson has died. The 76-year-old football manager has lost his fight with cancer. He played for Fulham and West Brom during the 1950s and 1960s, and later went on to manage Fulham, Ipswich, PSV, Sporting Lisbon, Porto, Barcelona and the club he supported as a boy, Newcastle.

The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation was launched in March 2008. The foundation has raised more than £1.3 million to fight cancer.

“Sir Bobby’s funeral will be private and for family members only.

I’ve been dating Chad for two weeks and I’m so falling for him.  I would not say that I “love” love him, but I’m definitely going in that direction.  I don’t want to get too personal, but I can’t help thinking about him every second.  I’m not sure if it’s his cologne, the jeans he wears, or even his custom racing shoes, but I know it’s something.

Speaking of shoes, he’s the only one in our school that wears Piloti Driving Shoes.  I think it’s because he has a Corvette that his parents paid for?  He told me that not only does he think the shoes look good and are cool (I think so to) but they say they help him shift better.  Boy and their stupid toys.

Anyway, because I want to be like him I went to www.mypiloti.com to buy pair and it appears that they’re not making any female version of the shoes.  Of course if you’re a fan of this blog you know that I’m actually a man and what I’m writting here is fairly gay, but I’m not going to hide it.  Chad said that he doesn’t want me also wearing piloti shoes because he’s afraid that a huge can of Milwaukee’s best will fall from the sky like those commercials.  Every time I’m in a relationship I try to copy my partner or my piloti.  I wish I could find a guy that copies me.

Ever watch a football game and think to yourself that you could better manage the team yourself .Well, after months of watching managers make one mess after the other as well as following the movements of football players during transfer season I have decided that I want to have a go at this football coach / manager thing.

I then came across fantasy football which is a game where you can assemble an imaginary team of real life players and score points based on those players’ actual statistical performance or their perceived contribution on the field.  In my opinion the best fantasy football so far is from Metro. They have recently re-launched their offer and to top it off there are tons of great prizes to be won.

It’s based around the Premier League and FA cup and to improve on last year’s game =, you can now be in control of your substitute so you can really maximize your chances of scoring big points. You’ll also be able to choose from 5 formations which you can switch between during the season.

I’ve signed up and can’t say that I am disappointed. This is tons of fun and what’s best is I can actually win some extra dosh at the same time.

I usually don’t write too many blogs specifically about a product because I like to focus on the concept or company.  In this case the concept is the company.  MagicJack digital phone rip off, is a company that appears to have absolutely no infrastructure judging by both their lack of customer service, magicjack problems, and the fact that they take your computer hostage with spy-ware.  Over and above all of that mess they’ve been putting advertisements on my computer.

This product is sometimes the equivelent of trying to call someone with a stone out of your back yard.  Magicjack is worthless.  I have uploaded the magicjack upgrade from http://www.magicjackugrade.com that’s suppost to fix the problems.  I’m done with it.  They got me and now I’m going to throw it away.  I should send it to blend dot com to see if “it will blend”  I’d rather have a solid blender instead of a piece of junk digital phone all day long brother.

If you really need to get a digital phone go with vonage, lingo, or PiVical

Metro Breaking News – A ‘secret’ lovechild of Michael Jackson is to undergo DNA testing to prove that he is indeed the lost lovechild of the iconic pop star.
Norwegian Omer Bhatti is alledged to be the fourth child of the superstar born out of an alleged on night stand in 1984.
Speculation that the 25-year-old is Jacko’s fourth child was raised after Jackson dancer Bhatti sat on the front row of the singer’s memorial in LA along with the other Jackson siblings. Bhatti is a would be hip-hop star, who performs under the name of O-Bee.

<a href=”http://www.metro.co.uk/news” target=”_blank”>UK News</a> – A school has started a new scheme to keep kids from skipping school by <a href=”http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Curry_bribes_to_stop_kids_playing_truant&amp;in_article_id=706882&amp;in_page_id=34″ target=”_blank”>bribing their parents with Curry.</a> Masala is one of England&rsquo;s national foods proving to be a highly  desired reward for parents whose kids have an attendance rate of 95 per  cent or better. <br>
The scheme has so far proved successful with truancy rates cut by more than half since its launch.<br>
However, the reward system has been criticised by teaching unions who  claim it is a ‘legal requirement’ for parents to make sure their  children attend school.

Each year, many vacationers make the decision to take a cruise. Many of them who are parents are reluctant to include their children.

At first many parents believe that cruise ships are not designed for children. However, on modern cruise ships that is simply not true. A cruise ship is a great family friendly place to have your next vacation. Once informed of the facilities that many cruise ships have on-board designed especially for children parents who would initially choose to take a cruise alone often reconsider and plan a family vacation.

If you are the parent of a young child under the age of twelve, you may still wonder if they should accompany you on your next cruise. If you are able to afford additional tickets, you should consider bringing your kids along. A cruise will be memorable to your children as well as exciting. That is because a large number of cruise lines have tailored their cruise ships to children of all ages and there will be many fun activities for your children to participate in.

If you have yet to book your cruise ship reservations, you are encouraged to keep cruise ship activities in mind. The activities for children will vary from ship to ship. That is why it is important that you examine what each ship offers before making a final decision. Despite the fact that activities will vary from ship to ship there are many activities geared towards children which can be found on almost all cruise ships.

One of the many popular activities found aboard a cruise ship is gaming. Arcade rooms are common on most cruise ships. They offer children a safe place to have fun and to be a child. Many cruise ship arcade rooms are staffed with cruise ship employees, but you should still keep an eye on your child. Before leaving them alone in an arcade room, you are encouraged to use your best judgment.

Another fun activity for children of all ages includes swimming. All vacation cruise ships are equipped with a swimming pool. In addition to an adult sized swimming pool, wading pools can often be found aboard a number of popular family themed cruises. As with the arcade room, you are encouraged to use your best judgment when allowing your children to swim unattended. Lifeguards will be on duty; however, they cannot guarantee the safety of your child.

In addition to a swimming pool and an arcade room, most cruise ships have an on board movie theater and a live performance stage. A large number of cruise lines offer family friendly movies, plays, and other performances. Children will likely find these performances and movie showings fun and exciting. To determine what ages these performances are targeted to you should check a cruise ship’s itinerary. A ship’s itinerary can be viewed without booked reservations.

Cruise ship restaurants and other dining facilities are likely to cater to children under the age of twelve. Many restaurants offer children’s menus. These menus are likely to include tasty kid sized meals. Most cruise ships offer discounts on meals for children under the age of twelve.

Cruise ship childcare centers are facilities that benefit both parents and their children. Even while on a family vacation parents need a break. For free or a small fee, you should be able to leave your children in the care of a trained and experienced childcare worker. Since a cruise ship is likely to have child passengers of different ages, usually childcare facilities are geared to different age groups of children.

As with other services, you will find that a cruise ship’s childcare policy will vary from ship to ship but most cruises do consider the needs and care of children and some make a big deal of their facilities aimed for the entertainment and care of young passengers.

The above mentioned activities and facilities are just a few of the many that are targeted to children. You may want to consider scheduling your next family vacation aboard a cruise ship once you are satisfied with a ship’s facilities for children and the thought of a family vacation in a care free fun setting appeals to you.

A cruise ship is one of the best values for your vacation money so why not let the young ones join in the fun? You will enjoy seeing them living it up in a fun cruise ship environment.

There are many Lines that include excursions to the Caribbean. These include Out Island Cruise as well as the first combined air-sea program that combined low cost air fares with the cruise and the company also developed new ports in the Caribbean like Ocho Rios in Jamaica.

One can escape to the delightful Caribbean islands and snorkel in the Caymans as well as swim with dolphins with different cruises. There are a numerous cruises that each has different itineraries as well as costs and durations. There are tempting holiday packages to Great Stirrup Cay where one may snorkel to one’s heart’s delight, and be fascinated at the variety of tropical fish, colorful sponges as well as corals that are sprinkled around the crystal-clear waters of Bertram’s Cove.

Escape To a Number of Different Locations in the Caribbean

For example, Caribbean cruises on the Norwegian Cruise lines offer grand service and one can expect to be met at the airport by their representatives who will help facilitate passengers through luggage claims as well as help them board shuttle buses. Once you arrive at the port, the check-in process is effortless and a real breeze with no queues. There’s a waitress serving ice cold water to welcome passengers at the check-in room.

There are many packages available. One can join eleven day cruise to southern ports of St. John’s Antigua for a beach for each day of the year as well as a coastline dotted with safe harbors as well as an almost unbroken protective wall of coral reef. One can also explore Bridgetown, Barbados where the ambience reflects sophistication as well as languid pace, and an exciting tour of Harrison’s Cave would very likely be on the cards of most holiday makers as they have underground streams, massive waterfalls as well as stalactites and stalagmites.

One could dip in any of the two pools or soak in the four hot tubs on the top deck. Most Caribbean cruises will take you to ports at Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Costa Maya and Cozumel. One can also expect to travel aboard the Norwegian cruise liners in pristine clean cabins and the cruise ship itself is well adorned with bars and other entertainment spots including discos and casinos.

You should seriously consider different Cruise Lines as your cruise company of choice if you are considering a cruise. You are free to do whatever you choose on a Cruise. No highly structures schedule here! Their motto is “Freestyle Cruising” and they do whatever they can to make sure their passengers have the freedom to spend their vacation though they wish. To the experienced traveler the Caribbean Cruise Line’s motto of “Lifestyle Cruising” can be a little confusing. What does it represent? Many Cruise Lines pride them on being innovative with their cruises. Passengers can decide or plan each minute of their trip ahead of time, or go with their feels each day of the trip. .

You can eat at the a lot of restaurants on board whenever you choose as there are no schedule times for meal on these ships. And, they provide so many restaurants on every ship that you can spend your whole trip without repeating a meal or restaurant. You choose when you want to eat, and what you want to eat! There is no dining dress code, unless you want it to be. Now that’s what I call cruise freedom.

Another way you have choices with different Caribbean Cruise Lines is through your accommodation choices. You can select to stay in conventional staterooms, or if you are cruising with your family, you can select a family suite. If you want an sea view, you can have it. Or for the ultimate experience in luxury, think about the Owner’s Suite, where you have access to your very own entertainment and movie library, a private butler, and chocolates on your pillow every night!

Off Ship Trips

No cruise is complete without a few trips off the ship, and many Cruise Lines are no different. There are multitudes of things to explore, see, and do when your cruise ship is docked whether you are exploring the shores of distant Spain, or catching some rays on a Caribbean beach. And, similar to everything aboard a Caribbean Cruise, you make the option as to what you desire to do when you get off the ship. You’re sure to take pleasure in the cruise experience.

One of the most obvious changes in the international holiday market of late is the boom in the numbers of cruise passengers. An increasing aversion to flying; the growth in personal wealth from rising property values; a greying population; all are factors that have helped to fill newspapers’ travel pages with adverts for cruises.

Cruise lines now have about 40 new ships under construction and ready to come into service by 2012. Many of the new ships are bigger and better than anything that has ever floated before. But is the boom about to go bust with this extra capacity arriving just as the worldwide recession has hit travellers
‘ finances and confidence?

The biggest operator is Carnival Corporation. Their chairman says soaring fuel and steel costs, combined with a weak dollar, have made it virtually impossible to put together a new ship building project beyond 2012 for any of the corporation’s North American cruise brands Carnival Cruise Lines, Princess, and Holland America Line. This gloomy prophecy was made, ironically, at a press conference for the launch of Carnival’s latest ship, Carnival Splendor.

Carnival’s biggest competitor, Royal Caribbean International, appears more optimistic. The company, which includes Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara, has placed orders for the largest, most expensive ships ever to be built. Yet it’s hard to imagine that cruise bosses are as positive now as they were when they placed the orders.

Judging by the cut-price offers now being made to entice passengers aboard, over-capacity may already be a big issue. It remains to be seen how long the current economic woes will continue and how deep the recession will become. How will cruise passengers react to all the economic bad news? Will those with money to spare stick with their newly acquired enthusiasm for cruising? Or has much of the recent growth been fuelled by credit that’s running dry?

In mid-2008, the body that represents the leading cruise companies in Britain, the Passenger Shipping Association, forecast around 1.5 million Britons would take a cruise that year. They expect over 2 million British passengers to be cruising by 2012 and point to an increasing number of affluent older people as the key reason for the growth. Those figures may well have to be revised.

The sheer number of cruise passengers has been causing problems in some ports with large cruise ships arriving at the same time, swamping the facilities. Cruise visitors to Barcelona have virtually doubled in the past five years. Figures from MedCruise show a rise from 398,948 in 2002 to 789,409 in 2007. Fortunately, Barcelona, the second most popular Mediterranean port after Naples, is much better placed to deal with the growth, being a large city with good port facilities.

In contrast, the Venice Port Authority has announced plans for a new cruise ship berth costing £75 million. It is needed to accommodate 1,000 foot monsters such as Genesis, operated by Royal Caribbean, which can carry 6,000 passengers.

Ship numbers and sheer ship size, have brought other problems. Local businesses often do not benefit as passengers have less time to roam around thanks to the longer time spent disembarking and re-embarking. In addition many passengers now go on organised pre-booked tours which means less chance of local shopping and fewer meals taken at local restaurants.

Over the next year or so these are the type of concerns that cruise operators would probably love to be dealing with. But filling these monster ships in a recession might be a much bigger problem. There could be some real bargains on the market very soon.

Going on a cruise was once an easy thing to arrange. All you had to do was go to your travel agent and look at a few brochures. But as the industry has grown it has become an overwhelming mix of itineraries, cruise packages, choices add-ons and prices. So how do you look through and search for all the available information to find the best cruise deal? The following tips will help you find the best cruise and save you money.

1. The busiest season has always been January through March. This is when the cruise industry books the most cruises. Cruise lines usually make about 38 percent of their yearly sales at this time. This is the best time to find many hot or last minute deals because they offer a lot of incentives.

2. Make sure to start well ahead of your vacation or holiday time if you can unless you want a last minute cruise deal. First of all you should call the cruise line you are most interested in and ask for the cruise line rep about any of their cruises and the staterooms. You can ask about handicapped-equipped staterooms then if this is a special need. You can always do this later after you do some research too.

Find out what specials they have running and make sure to tell them how old you are and what state you live in or if you’re traveling with a group of people or another couple or have cruised with their cruise line in the past. Does it include your airfare? Do you need a family deal? This is because your specific situation may entitle you for big discounts. Take whatever the quote given to you by the cruise line rep as your starting price point.

3. Next check out the Sunday newspaper ads in the travel section and look for cruise bargains. The bigger city newspapers and the newspapers located in or near cruise embarkation cities are great for finding good or cheap cruise deals. You can go to your local library to view the ads if they carry those news papers. Some daily newspapers even have there travel ads online.

4. Take a look at the cruise booking Web sites. There are cruise discount agencies that may have the cheapest cruise rates to be found anywhere, whether you want a luxury cruise or budget cruise. Huge travel Web sites such as Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity usually have great deals too. You can also find last-minute cruise deals too. The cruise Web sites’ prices are usually fairly similar. And the travel sites are usually similar but somewhat higher. Make sure to ask about any additional, secret or hidden fees, such as cancellation penalties. These can cost between $40 and $85.

5. Make sure to check with your cruise travel agent. Some people prefer to work with a travel agent or are not savvy about researching online. Find out if they charge a consulting fee before you meet. Some fees are usually refundable if they book your cruise. When you get together with the travel agent, say exactly what you want and that you’re comparing prices. Your local travel agent can be very helpful if you have disabilities, health problems, special needs or need visas or other documents.

6. Think about placing a “cruise wanted” ad on Craigslist online. Be specific and detailed about what you want. Then sit back and wait for replies.

7. Once you have a number of cruise line or cruise package quotes compare them and try to negotiate a lower price, extra discounts or some onboard extras.

Note that if you’re getting the same quote from your travel agent that you’re getting from the cruise line then you need to continue shopping for the best quote – your travel agent isn’t saving you any money. The best cruise deal is out there that is just right for you and will save you money on your vacation too regardless if you’re going to Alaska, Mexico, the Caribbean, Hawaii, the Bahamas, or Bermuda. You just need to do a little research and don’t take the first deal you see.