What's Wrong With Their Home?

That's the question people might ask if they took a look at our travel schedule in 2017! Luckily, we love our home...but we also like to explore the world.  We especially love to explore it with people we love and meet new friends all over the globe. Travel is all about connecting with people all over the world, and we feel very fortunate to have met and traveled with so many incredible people. We are grateful to all the people who followed our adventures and those who shared their corner of the world with us! We especially want to thank the folks who shared THEIR trips with us in our GoSeeIt People interviews. (You can find the interviews here)  We love hearing about your travels too! THANK YOU! We hope you have many safe travels in 2018 and wish the very best in the coming year!

Over the last year here are some of the places we've been able to explore.  Click on any link to see more photos in our posts and learn more about each destination! (Next week, we will share where we are headed next!)

What A Year! 

Shanghai, China

Happy New Year in China!

Savannah

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Savannah, and why it's an ideal Girlfriend Getaway location (the lad's might like it for the same reason!

Florida

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Winter sends lots of people south to Florida, our travels took us to the west coast, including Tampa.  See all our Florida posts here. 

Spring Break Cruise to Honduras, Belize and Cozumel

Some of the most fun we had all year, was acting like kids with the college kids aboard Rhapsody of the Seas.  After years of hearing how grownups should avoid "Spring Break", we went tubing, zip lining, and dancing with the Spring Breakers and had a great time!

The rest of our posts from Honduras and Belize, including our Pack for a Purpose school supplies delivery to Roatan click here!

Vermont

A sugaring season visit to Vermont, late enough that most of the tourists had gone home and we got to enjoy and Easter egg hunt with all the local children!

NY Finger Lakes Region

Statuary in the Orchid House at the Sonnenberg Gardens

NYC

A trip to visit our daughter in NYC took us to some of the less visited places in NYC...Flatbush, Harlem, DUMBO. See our trip report here! And about the more popular places in NYC here and here.

White Mountains in New Hampshire

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Venice

Exploring Venice from the water

Slovenia

This small country offers environment from coastal to alpine, as is seen here at Lake Bled, as well as one of the prettiest little European capitals, Ljubljana. 

Croatia

Gentlemen outside a cafe in Cavtat

Montenegro

The gorges leading to the port of Kotor in Montenegro. 

Corfu

Candles outside of the St Spyridon's Orthodox Church in Corfu, Greece

Malta

A Maltese balcony on Republic Street flies the EU and Matlese flags. 

Sicily/Mt Etna

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An incredible day hike up Mt Etna with 3 mountaineers, wine and homemamde parmigiana!

Amalfi

A local character in Nocello greets visitors who hike The Path of the Gods on the Amalfi Coast

Rome

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Bernini Old Boat Fountain at the Spanish Steps in Rome

Montreal

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Montreal put on a warm welcome before the Christmas holidays. 

Hiking, and Tubing, and Ziplining...You Better "Belize" It!

We arrived in Belize early and had a ships shore excursion planned to do cave tubing, hiking and ziplining with what turned out to be 20 college kids about half our age!  We managed to keep up with them and lived to tell about it! You can see all the details and photos in the next chapter of on going trip report. 

Part 4 of Rhapsody of the Seas Cruise can be seen click here

This turned out to be one of the very best shore excursion we've ever taken!  Our guide, Peter, made all the bad "Belize', but was one of the best guides we've had in terms of guest management, providing cultural context and being fun...the metrics I use to determine what makes a great guide! Finding a good guide is step one in finding a good excursion while cruising.  What follows is a break down of the pros and cons of different offerings of cruise shore excursions and how to find the best excursion for you!

Types of Shore Excursions:

 

Ship's excursions -

Most cruise lines offer shore excursions. These are often available on line before sailing, or can be purchased at the Shore Excursion Desk on board.

Pros - 

• You can charge them on your cruise card or use your credit card before sailing, you can often be the first off the ship for an early excursion.
•  You'll be given a full refund if the ship doesn't make the port, you are guaranteed to be returned to the ship on time or caught up to it at the cruise line's expense in the case of emergency.
• The excursion has generally been vetted for basic safety and insurance.
• Priority disembarkation, first off the ship in port

Cons - 

• You'll usually pay more than an independent excursion, as the cruise line will be taking their cut.
• You'll usually be with a larger group, although generally the more active the excursion (biking, snorkeling, kayaking) will usually have fewer participants than coach tours.  
• Sometimes we've found the guides are not the same quality as those who people who run their own local businesses and rely on word of mouth to sustain their business, and although some cruise lines offer reviews on their sites, it's often hard to find reviews of these excursions on popular travel review sites. 

 

 

Private excursions with local guides -

If you research the port, you can usually find reviews online of private local guides who will take you and your party or a small group of strangers on tour. 

Dora in Cartagena was the owner and an expert in Cartagena's history.  Her small group independent tour made our visit to the city extra special! 

Pros-

• Private guides can take you on a longer more inclusive tour for the same money as the ships 1/2 day tours, or do a 1/2 day for less.
• The group can be as small or as large as you like, we've often done private tours for the same cost as a ships excursion, or added a few fellow passengers to go with and saved money over a much larger ships excursion. You can find people share excursions by posting online on Cruise Critic on your ship's "roll call" of other passengers traveling the same time as you are. 
• The guides themselves usually have a high level of hustle, since they are usually the owner or family of the owner, and rely on word of mouth (ie Trip Advisor) for good reviews to grow or sustain their business.
• The best ones will let you book ahead and are quick to communicate via email or messaging and are happy to customize your tour. (as we found with Channin Boddin in Roatan)

Cons-

• Because these guides aren't cruise line vetted, their equipment may not meet stringent safety standards the ship imposes. This can be good or bad...we wanted our 15 yo to be able to ride a Segway in St Martin, and with a private tour, she could, even though the ships tour had a 16 year old min.age restriction.
• If a small operator has a problem with a broken down car or boat, there are no guarantees you will get back on time or fleet of other vehicles to get you back in time.  If you miss the ship, you are on your own. That said in more than 20 years of cruising and using private guides on cruises, we have never once come close to missing the ship!
• If the ship is late or misses port, you could lose your deposit or the tour could leave without you.  My recommendation is look for private guides who work with ship passengers frequently, they will often not charge should you not make the port, and will monitor the ships arrival to make changes for pick up times without even having to contact them.   

 

 

 

Shore excursion companies

Excursion Companies offering tours for cruisers are a relatively new phenomenon, these are often the large tour companies that offer online excursions all over the world. Some companies that do this are Viatour and Context Tours (we have used Context Tours, read about our experiences here)  Royal Caribbean just announced today they are forming their own private shore excursion company, GoBe (click here)

Our Context guide provided excellent guiding, and we joined other travelers who had booked with Context to save money at the Louvre in Paris. 

Pros-

• You can often join a slightly larger group in port for cost savings, without having to do the leg work to form the group yourself
• They can cost less than ships excursions, and still be smaller groups or private.
• Because they are larger companies, they usually offer safety vetting, easy customer services and full refunds should the ship miss port. 

Cons-

• There is no assurance about the quality of the guiding, the guides are contractors, and can be hit or miss.  
• You can have the the same concerns for missing the ship apply for companies as for private guides. 

Hiring a taxi or driver in port -

Nearly every port has a taxi drivers waiting just outside the main gates of the ship's port area, and they will negotiate a price with you and take you on the "standard" tour of their island, or to any place you wish to go. 

Taxis at the taxi stand will take you on a tour of the island in St Martin...the quality of your "guide" is hit or miss. 

Pros-

• This can be the cheapest option, especially if you go in knowing what is standard and are willing to negotiate with the driver, and get them to compete over your business.
• The driver is almost always a local with good knowledge of the area and can customize your tour.
• Its easy to share with complete strangers at the taxi stand or new found friends you meet on board the ship.

Cons-

• You have no idea what kind of tour you'll get, whether your driver speaks English well, and if his car is safe. Also, if he's unimaginative, you'll be in a long string of taxis seeing all the same over crowded "sights". 
• Some of these drivers can steer you towards restaurants and stores run by their friends or relatives, even if you complain on line about the tour, there really isn't a "brand" to damage, so they just pick up another passenger on the next ship. It's hit or miss, sometimes you can get a great guide who is on his or her way to becoming a top notch guide or the BIL a better tour company fired because he's so awful!
• Be sure to agree on a price for the whole tour, out and return, make sure it's written down on a piece of note paper so there is no "lost in translation" moment when it's time to return to the ship. 

They Booked A Spring Break Cruise, and You Won't Believe What Happened!

This was our first "spring break " cruise. Mind you our own college kids weren't with us, they were invited, but one decided to do “Alternative Spring Break” for Meals on Wheel and the other, about to graduate, stayed on campus to finish her capstone project.  Clearly, when your kids prefer to do homework and community service than cruise with you, there’s a message being sent!

So we embarked alone- We'd heard things about “Spring Break Cruises”; dark tales of debauchery, drunkenness, buffets being razed like locust infested prairies.  What we discovered instead is groups of young adults whom someone thought were smart and trustworthy enough to invest 40 grand a year on their education and the students had clearly taken the responsibility seriously. These were smart, respectful, and generally fun loving (and after Cozumel, perhaps a little tipsy) young adults who came to have a good time and not ruin anyone else’s.  We never viewed any behavior we would call rude or dangerous. The ship's security kept close, but not overbearing watch, and overall it was less “girls gone wild” and more “mellow house party”. If you have no ability remember that you were once young, randy and foolish (maybe you still are!?) then you won't be able to relate, but overall, these young folks were having a great time, and we thought they brought a liveliness to the cruise that made our cruise even more fun! 

Rhapsody of the Seas

I'll be posting an ongoing trip report linked HERE over the next few weeks. It will be like a virtual cruise in installments! We will share photos and stories from our recent 7 day cruise from Tampa to Central America and Mexico on the mass market Royal Caribbean ship Rhapsody of the Seas.  In our Cruise Critic persona as FamilyGoBoston, we often review our cruises for readers who like to “follow along” on a virtual cruise.  Others like to bookmark information for upcoming sailings on the same ship or to the same ports. If that describes you…we hope you will follow along! Some disclaimers, we aren't paid to cruise, and I like to use some humor and hyperbole, but we are always honest, fair, and independent with our reviews. Embedded among the lame jokes will be lots of useful information we hope you can use. So prepare to set sail on your own virtual spring break cruise! Comments are always welcome, and we happily answer questions, reach out! 

Follow Along on a Virtual Cruise click here 

Check back each day for another day of cruising!