As you know, we love to travel.  For this month, my posts are going to be about how we plan the day to day details of our upcoming cruise.

These are some great tips from Samantha Brown to do before you leave for that great vacation.  This way you will come back to a relaxed home (and maybe have a few more hours of vacation) before you jump back into your life.

As you know, we love to travel.  For this month, my posts are going to be about how we plan the day to day details of our upcoming cruise.

There is so much to do in the days before you leave on vacation.  Here is a check list of what has to be done before we leave:

1. Place a mail hold with the Post Office – we stop it one day before we leave just to make sure it’s done correctly. This typically can be done up to 30 days in advance.
2. Stop the newspaper while you are away – we can automate a vacation stop with one call.
3. Notify your neighbors and police – one quick call to each, so that your home can be watched.  Our local police department will take your information and keep an eye out.
4. Pay your bills ahead or schedule them to be paid from your account while you are traveling.  You don’t want a missed payment or worse a late fee.  Start the month before and make a note of the due date of each bill, keep a list so that a bill doesn’t get forgotten.
5. Contact your debit and credit card companies and notify them that you are traveling to …. and on what dates.  They will approve your charges especially if you are traveling internationally.  Note this is not a prefect process.  Have a back up plan just in case.
6. For international travel, make sure to have some foreign currency with you ahead of time.  We will have three separate currencies to deal with, so we typically get some of each before we leave.  Make sure to get some small bills and coins as you will need these.
7. For international travel, you can notify the State Department’s STEP program (Smart Traveler Enrollment Program).  This service for US Citizens notifies the nearest embassies of your travel plans and contact information.  They will contact you if necessary about events you need to know about.

Happy Travels!

As you know, we love to travel.  For this month, my posts are going to be about how we plan the day to day details of our upcoming cruise.

Should you buy travel insurance for your upcoming trip?  That’s not an easy question to answer, there are many questions to answer so that you can decide for yourself.

According to Wallet Hub, 1 in 6 Americans have an illness or natural disaster happen to them. Are you covered so that you don’t lose you hard earned money? Of these 1 in 6, only 22% have insurance to cover their travel costs and expenses.

Some credit cards offer you coverage for lost or delayed luggage, missed connections, trip cancellations and even death sometimes. All credit cards are different and you need to check your individual card for what your offers you. If you are covered, they offer you reimbursements. That means that you pay upfront. Do you have that money? And they come with restrictions. Remember my Microsoft Surface Pro experience from last fall?

We have one credit card that we always use to rent a car. It gives us coverage so that we can decline the optional rental car company insurances and feel comfortable. We have another credit card that gives us the travel protection of lost or delayed luggage, missed connections, etc. We have done the research for us and you should too.

You should think about what you may need and find out if you are covered with the credit card you already have. Typically, if you don’t charge the trip to that specific credit card, you don’t have the coverage. Then check with your personal insurance, such as auto insurance for rental car coverage, home owners / renter’s for loss of property, etc. Then look into travel insurance, if you need or want more or additional coverage.

You should do this process for your health insurance as well. Most insurance policies don’t cover you when you travel outside the US. All of this pre-planning could offer you the needed assistance in your time of need. So do your research and make the choices that are right for you.

As you know, we love to travel.  For this month, my posts are going to be about how we plan the day to day details of our upcoming cruise.

You need to pack what you need for the vacation and stay within the limits of your airline.

First find out the dimension and weight of allowable luggage – both checked and carry on.  You don’t want any surprise fees when you arrive at the airport.  We are always allowed one free checked bag each because that is one of the benefits of the airline credit card.

Next, we use a packing list so we don’t forget anything.  There are different things to pack in addition to clothing – such as towel clips for a beach vacation, lanyards for a cruise, umbrella / windbreaker for unexpected weather and more.  Create a master packing list and stick to it.

I select three colors for clothing – that way I know that I can mix and match to create more outfits and pack less.  Packing cubes help keep everything organized.

A few extras that we do:

1. Take a photo on our phone of our luggage.  If it’s lost or delayed, it helps with the claims process.
2. Make copies of what’s in your wallet (including credit cards).  If yours in lost or stolen you have the information needed to cancel everything.  Also, leave a copy with a trusted person back home.  You may have to ask them to do this for you.
3. We take different credit cards.  If one person’s cards are lost or stolen, you still have the other’s perspn’s top use.
4. Just in case, have a copy of your passport with you.  If will be easier to have it replaced if the need arises.

Have a safe trip.

As you know, we love to travel.  For this month, my posts are going to be about how we plan the day to day details of our upcoming cruise.

Yes, we are arriving a few days early for this cruise.  We try never to arrive the morning of the cruise.  You never know if you run into a delay and miss the ship.

In my opinion it all comes down to planning ahead.  I spend time online and reading travel books to determine what we want to do, see and experience.  With this in mind, we plan out our time, research admissions, tickets, etc – sometimes there is a discount to purchasing in advance / online vs buying (it definitely saves you the time of waiting on line to purchase entry).

For our upcoming cruise, we determined what things we wanted to do and have been making the advanced purchases as our budget allows – that way much is pre-paid and we’ll have minimal expenses on the trip.

Because it’s peak flower season, we needed to make a reservation in advance.  This will probably sell out if we didn’t. We also have let our friends know our travel plans as we try to meet up with them when we are in town.

As you know, we love to travel.  For this month, my posts are going to be about how we plan the day to day details of our upcoming cruise.

We have our airfare, hotel and cruise all purchased.  Now it’s time to do the research on the cruise itinerary.  Personally, I create a sheet with the date, city, information and money columns.

This is what my sheet looks like – date (Monday, January 1), the city – this includes the time in port (Miami 7 to 8). The information section- this is all the details on what we are planning to do and that can be anything as simple as walking around to a tour and all the information including a confirmation number and contact info) and the money column – is it paid or what do we need to pay and in what currency.

This is not something that is compiled in one day – this takes us more than a month.  We do our research on the area:

What do we want to see or do?

How can we do that – on our own, a tour, does it need to be reserved in advance, what is the cancellation policy – are some of the information we need to make a decision.

From the simplest – use the shore excursion from the cruise line.

But what if the cruise line doesn’t offer what you want to do?  That’s where the research starts.  Here are some of my favorite trip planning websites:

Guide books for the area you’ll be visiting

TripAdvisor / Viator websites and the companies that are recommended in their information

Cruise Critic to register for the board for your specific cruise (cruise line, ship and sailing date). You can chat with other cruisers on your cruise to make plans.  We have done many things both on board (lunch dates, sail away party, cabin crawls and more) as well as shared taxi service and tours.  We have made some great friendships through here.

We typically do a mixture of exploring on our own, cruise line shore excursions and private excursions.  But all this take research and time to make our choices and then find the best deal.  Remember that if you tour on your own or with an outside company, you need to make sure you arrive back at the ship in plenty of time so the ship doesn’t sail without you.  Look for a cruise guarantee policy.

We are still in the middle of our research.  As we find what we want to do, we reserve and purchase these so that they are paid in advance as we have the cash.  That way we don’t have a big bill at the end of the vacation waiting for us.

As you know, we love to travel.  For this month, my posts are going to be about how we plan the day to day details of our upcoming cruise.

Now that we know the exact dates we’ll be traveling, it’s time to look at hotels.

For us, we are a member of three different hotel loyalty programs, so that’s what we look at first.  We always fly in early, so as not to miss the ship.

Here are some tips to figure out where you want to stay:

Does the city have easily accessible public transportation?

Can we get from the airport to the city easily?

Can we get around to do the things we want to do?

If the answer is “yes” to all three, then we look for a central location that has access to all.  In this case, we wanted to be by the train station.  This was our central point.  We could get to the airport, the cruise pier and all areas we wanted to visit from this train station area.

Next, what hotels are located there?  That’s the question.  We settled on one in one of our loyalty programs.  we didn’t have enough points for a free night, but we could combine our points with cash to reduce the cost.  we chose an executive room (that includes breakfast, non-alcoholic beverages, early evening light fare with drinks).  This was our choice.

With the executive room, we save substantially on meals and the loyalty rewards program gives us free early check in and late check out as well as WiFi.  Great choice for this trip

As you know, we love to travel.  For this month, my posts are going to be about how we plan the day to day details of our upcoming cruise.

I spend a lot of time in the details ahead of the trip to get the best. That’s everything from airfare, hotel, attraction admissions, tours and more.

Once we decide on a vacation, then come the major components – airfare and hotel.  Today, I’ll talk about airfare.  I do my research and check airfares.  For this trip, it means looking at direct flights and connecting flights over a series of weeks (sometimes months) to find the best flight (route, day of the week and price).  Typically, I find the best day to book the flight is a Tuesday.

That’s the day we actually made the purchase and made the reservation to fly out one day earlier than we planned because the price was that good.

Don’t forget to use the best credit card for the perks.  We use our airline credit card, so that checked luggage is free and we get priority boarding – all this by choosing the best credit card.  And we earn additional miles for the purchase too.