Time 2 Cruise

November has been a roller coaster ride of emotions. The stock market hit new lows and highs within days of each other. And everyone started to talk about how "black Friday" was going to be a bust. Now just a few days later, as reports are coming in, it looks like this year is up over three percent from 2007 numbers for the day after Thanksgiving. Stores took big steps in luring in customers and it seemed to work. This same week, shortened by the holiday saw multiple days of increases in the stock market as well. Many vacation related companies like the cruise lines made gains on the low stock prices of late. As we head into December, the question is whether last weeks trend will continue or will the roller coaster hit another downswing. Only time will tell, and even the "experts" differ greatly on what to expect next which is not saying much with the track record of just the last 3 months alone. However, one thing is for certain. The bargain hunter can...

You may have heard that the Government is opening up more flight paths again this year which is a good thing. But will the airways be as packed as holidays past? Every airline has cut flights by as much as 10% this year. This means that flights are going to be full. not that this is a shock but with the new baggage fees it means those overhead bins are going to be full as well. If my recent flight on Continental is any indication, people in the first 5 or so rows behind first class are going to be hard pressed to even get any space in the overhead. Most all airlines have the same rules of one carry on and one "personal item". This personal item is supposed to fit under the seat in front of you. When we travel, we take a backpack that doubles as my laptop bag. On the recent flight I had to fight with a flight attendant over the fact that it would fit under a seat and that there was no way I was going to just give up my laptop bag when they neglected to enforce their o...

We just got back from our first cruise with Princess. Ok , we got back a week ago but after a vacation like this I needed time to relax. As the title of post states, it was the Southern Caribbean. We cruised out of San Juan, and only had one sea day making for a pretty busy week. The weather was very cooperative the entire week with very minor rain in the mornings that burned off quickly as the sun came up. The temps were in the high 80s. The Ship: The Caribbean Princess My wife fell in love with the "movies under the stars". Every night they played fairly recent (with a few exceptions like the night they ran the Rocky horror Picture Show) movies. A couple of which we had not seen yet ourselves. There are 2 decks in which you can watch the big screen from. Our recommendation is the lower deck of the 2 (which was Lido on this ship) for the best sound quality. There were 5 dining rooms on board ship. One for standard dining with assigned times, two for "anytime ...