Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Summer Heat Wave in January!

While Woodinville/Redmond is sweltering under more than 100 degrees of summertime heat, some folk are already looking to finding warm weather in the middle of next winter.

Places like Mexico, the Caribbean, Hawaii are mainstays for those great winter vacations, but new candidates are putting in an appearance for those with a little more of an adventurous spirit.

Cruises around South America have become very popular with several cruise lines offering a range of options from week-long to month long itineraries. Some South America trips offer forays into the chilly waters of Antarctica, or outward to the mysterious Easter Island and its monolithic stone statue heads, or to the Galapagos Islands with its amazing array of wildlife.

Cities like Rio, or Buenos Aires, Santiago have become magnets for visitors with their multi-cultural populations and attractions. Whether it’s a visit to the Recoleta cemetery and the grave of Eva Peron, or a vineyard featuring fine Chilean wines of world-class standards, or an adventure of capturing the majesty of Iguassu Falls, South America has something for nearly everybody who enjoys great travel experiences.

And, if Australia and New Zealand sound intriguing, it’s high season for cruising in that part of the world as well. At least four different cruise lines including Holland America Line, Celebrity and Royal Caribbean will feature Australia/new Zealand in the winter of 2009/10. Some cruises can include places like Tahiti, Fiji and other South Pacific islands while making their way to the land down under.

With new air choices available from the U.S., Australia has become more affordable than ever.

The good news is that cruise lines, airline and tour companies have lowered prices to cope with the worldwide recession. This makes the consumer the winner—just give us a call, or e-mail, or tweet or whatever.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Recession - Good Time to Vacation

Recessions Come and Go, But Life Still Goes On
Recently the MSNBC website had a feature on “10 Reasons Why People should Travel Now.” They included all the traditional reasons such as celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, milestone life events, family reunions and the like.
The bottom line is that they were encouraging travel as a demonstration that life shouldn’t be postponed because statistically, nine out of ten of us has a job and most of us are doing quite well.
We observed that in the middle of last year many of our customers were putting travel and vacation plans on hold because they were being bombarded with news media reports that the sky was falling and the coming recession/depression might be cataclysmic. But, many of our savvy customers watched the cruise lines, airlines and land destinations lower prices to re-energize their marketplace. They saw that prices were falling to levels unseen for more than a decade, and they jumped on cruise and travel deals like never before.
This summer Alaska was slower booking than any time in the past 25 years. So great prices were available right up to the start of the season. Now, because of many sales and promotions by the cruise lines, the inventory of staterooms is dwindling and prices are starting to rise slightly. In fact, triples and quad staterooms are hard to find at whatever price! The same can be said for Europe, with the exception of Fall dates in the Mediterranean where great rates and availability still exists.
The cruise lines and land vacation destinations are now shifting to Fall and Winter promotions. Holiday specials can still be found, but are showing signs of starting to go away as more folks book these deals. Big new ship capacity in Southern California will keep prices low for the rest of 2009 and 2010 winter season.
No one can guarantee what the future might bring, but this is a great time to take advantage of lifetime travel and vacation opportunities.
Rich Skinner