2024 started out to be a normal year but towards the end of September the lives of so many people in the Tampa Bay region were turned upside down. Although Hurricane Helene did not make landfall in the area, it was just offshore. The massive storm surge absolutely devastated tens of thousands of people. One […]
2024 Donation Report Read More »
Black Friday through Travel Tuesday can be a great time to book travel as there are tons of sales from cruises to hotels to travel accessories. However, not every sale is really a sale. All of the sales on this page are presented as they are advertised. If you really want to know if something
2024 Black Friday, Cyber Monday & Travel Tuesday Deals Read More »
Alaska is one of my favorite places to visit especially on a cruise. If you do it right, you will take a one-way cruise usually from Alaska to Vancouver or from Vancouver to Alaska. Roundtrip cruises usually don’t include a glacier visit because there’s not enough time unless its longer than 7 days. These one-way
Exploring Alaska before or after your cruise Read More »
It has been quite a while but Virgin Voyages has finally released some more cruises that can be booked with points. Just about all of you should have Amex MR’s or Chase UR’s and both of them transfer to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. From there, you can transfer your points to Virgin Red. Why they
Redeem points to take a Virgin Voyages Cruise Read More »
Virgin Voyages didn’t just create a regular cruise line for adults only. In fact, you can say that they took the rule book and threw it out the window…or overboard in this case. You’re either going to love or hate this new approach to cruising. We recently completed our first Virgin Voyages cruise and we
Virgin Voyages trip report and review – is this unique cruise line right for you? Read More »
Hyatt Zilara Cap Cana, Dominican Republic, March 2024 We booked this for our anniversary trip in March of 2023 with World of Hyatt points transferred from Chase. That was right before the big 2023 deval which pretty much doubled the amount of points needed to say here along with many other all inclusive hotels. We
Hyatt Zilara Cap Cana March 2024 Trip Report Read More »
Travel hackers have been hit with a one-two punch in 2024 already. First we learned the SLH is leaving Hyatt and not too long after that, Hyatt announced what seems to be their annual revaluation (which is mostly a devaluation). While this is all bad news, the good news is that travel hackers have some
Travel hackers need to consider booking these hotels immediately Read More »
Day 1 We stayed at a hotel near LAX the night before. The drive to the port was uneventful until we got to the pier itself. Then it took about 45 minutes to drive about a mile. I’ve heard from other TA’s that this is not common at all. A few people on our cruise
Carnival Panorama February 2024 cRUISE rEPORT Read More »
Excuse the length of this trip report but I’m combining two separate aspects of the trip into one report. I’ll use headings so you can jump around if you’d rather not read everything. How and why I booked the trip I took the California Zephry from San Francisco (technically Emeryville) to Denver about 7 years
Amtrak and Hot Springs trip report Read More »
We’ve always wanted to visit Egypt but to be honest, I had some reservations about visiting. I didn’t really know much about the people or the culture and how they treat Americans. I just knew that it was very foreign to me despite having visited dozens of countries. Once the war in Gaza broke out,
Egypt is a safe place to visit, even now Read More »