Inside Travel Talk
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Inside Travel Talk
Nostalgic Getaways: Swiss Scenic Train Tours, and Cruise Adventures Unveiled
Ever wondered how the closure of iconic hotels like the Mirage in Las Vegas impacts travel nostalgia? Join us as we chat with Mark Faldmo, fresh from his trip to Washington, DC, about his stay at the charming Gaylord National Harbor Hotel. We also dive into a heartfelt discussion about collecting Hard Rock memorabilia and the bittersweet anticipation of the Mirage being replaced by a new Hard Rock guitar-shaped hotel.
Tune in as we break down the Department of Transportation's new aviation consumer protection dashboard, designed to help you navigate family seating policies and cancellation headaches. We also explore the picturesque Swiss village of Lauterbrunnen, which is grappling with an influx of tourists, and highlight the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland as the travel deal of the week. Don't miss the latest cruise industry updates, including MSC's new ship, World America, and Juneau, Alaska's decision to limit cruise ship numbers. Plus, we uncover an incredible 25-day cruise deal from Holland America, taking you through New England, Canada, Greenland, and Iceland!
The Inside Travel Talk podcast and radio show presented by BluePlanetVacations. com contains travel deals, promotions and offers that may be time-sensitive. All offers and information were accurate when the show aired. Travel deals and offers change constantly and are capacity-controlled and subject to change without notice.
Show Voice:Explore your world. It's the inside travel talk podcast and radio show presented by blue planet vacations. com. Call or text the show now 801-649-3700, 801-649-3700 and check out the podcast at inside travel talk. com. And now here are your hosts, Patrick Wiscombe and Mark Faldmo.
Patrick Wiscombe:It is another Saturday morning. Welcome to the Inside Travel Talk podcast and radio show. Good morning, my name is Patrick Wiscombe. My friend Mark Faldmo and owner of blueplanetvacations. com joins me for the show, and you are back from Washington DC. I guess you've been home of what? About 10 days or so? About 10 days, yep. How was DC Just, generally speaking, about 10 days? How was DC just?
Mark Faldmo:generally speaking, well, it was really nice, although I didn't really leave the hotel. I had 8 to 12 hours of meetings every day, oh wow. So it was a meeting for travel agents, where we met with suppliers and cruise lines and did a little bit of learning on different aspects of the business.
Patrick Wiscombe:So you were really there to network and find out what travel stuff you can sell for the business.
Mark Faldmo:Yeah, that, and new technologies. It's an ever world changing in the travel industry, as it is in other industries with technology. So learning how to use the new tools, learning what new tools are out there. It was a very interesting conference, although I was pretty tired at the end of every day.
Patrick Wiscombe:Well, yeah, eight to 12 hours.
Mark Faldmo:It was at the Gaylord National Harbor Hotel. Have you ever stayed at a Gaylord Hotel?
Patrick Wiscombe:They're very nice. No, never have.
Mark Faldmo:They're very nice. They all have kind of a little theme based on where they're at. So this one had a big enclosed atrium and the middle of the atrium had kind of like a little colonial village, little colonial villages built around it, and so very interesting feel. To the Gaylord. I've stayed at the Nashville one, which was pretty interesting, home of the Grand Old Opry, oh really Okay, an activity I actually really enjoyed. I'm usually not that much of a country music fan, but the Grand Old Opry was a very fun thing to go to. If you ever get a chance, go to the Grand Ole Opry, okay, I will. Across the street from the Gaylord Hotel is the Dukes of Hazzard Museum, which I really liked.
Patrick Wiscombe:So Now we're talking the same language. Wait, the Dukes of Hazzard is in DC, or did we?
Mark Faldmo:No, that was in Nashville, the Gaylord Hotel in Nashville. Oh, I switched up locations up on you. I was like Gaylord.
Patrick Wiscombe:Hotel in Nashville. I switched up locations up on you. I was like I don't remember the Grand Ole Opry being in DC. I remember beating in Nashville you know what? My son, Nathan, is there now he's in Nashville. He should look up that museum.
Mark Faldmo:I'll send him a text during the show the Dukes of Hazzard Museum, and in the back of it is Daisy Dukes Boutique. There we go. So this sells all sorts of dukes of hazard merchandise.
Patrick Wiscombe:Katherine Bach baby yeah, let's reset so we can get back to the uh, the travel portion. Oh, I guess it was travel related. That's kind of travel related. End of an era, really. And if you really stop and think about it, this is one of the original hotels in lot, not the original hotel, but kind of the hotel that changed. Las Vegas, the mirage hotel casino is going to permanently close here in what about nine days or so nine days, yep anyway, that's a big deal.
Patrick Wiscombe:I've stayed there once In fact. I have just a very quick story. So it was me, N nikki, Brandon and Nathan. They were much younger. We were there with my in-laws and let's just say that the Wiscombe family and the Weaver family didn't really match the environment there and security actually stopped us because I think they thought that we were hotel hopping. Here was this family and then it was a big raging party out at the pool. I think they stopped us because we were just so out of place there compared to everyone else. So they actually stopped us and I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on just a second, no, we're staying here. Anyway, it's going to close and be here in about nine days, which is a big deal, and I think it opened in November 26th 1989. It had three wings, white with gold windows, three wings kind of tall. I don't remember how tall it was.
Mark Faldmo:And the volcano out front. It was actually purchased by the Hard Rock Corporation in 2001. So they're going to tear down the hotel and build their iconic guitar-shaped hotel, Patrick. We saw their one in Fort Lauderdale, in Hollywood, Florida the guitar. So they're going to build a guitar-shaped hotel right on the Las Vegas Strip and you'll probably end up going there shaped hotel right on the Las Vegas strip and you'll probably end up going there Knowing you.
Mark Faldmo:I see, I love hard rock. I love hard rock properties. I like hard rock. Ever since I was a young child, I've collected hard rock glasses.
Patrick Wiscombe:They're.
Mark Faldmo:Pilsner or hurricane glasses? Yep, I think I've got 201 of them. I've got glasses at hard rock cafes that don't exist anymore. My whole front room. I've just got a whole display of all of the hard rock glasses from all around the world. How many t-shirts do you have? I will definitely go there when it opens. I just have one t-shirt. Okay, yeah, I've never been a t-shirt guy.
Patrick Wiscombe:Is the hard rock café still in Honolulu? Because that was the one t-shirt that I had, yeah, it is yeah.
Mark Faldmo:Okay, there's one in Honolulu still. They've gone through some different owners in recent years, so some have come and gone, but a lot of those more iconic places there are hard rocks there.
Patrick Wiscombe:In case listeners are wondering how we got onto this, this is kind of the travel news of the week right here. I just didn't say that. Here comes the travel news. There was story one. Here's story two Airline customer service dashboard. You found this story. I thought it was story one. Here's story two Airline customer service dashboard. You found this story. I thought it was pretty interesting.
Mark Faldmo:Yeah, it is. So the Department of Transportation has put up a dashboard. If you go to transportation. gov and then just search for aviation consumer protection, they have a dashboard that's listed into a couple different categories. Have a dashboard that's listed into a couple different categories. One is family seating dashboard and then a cancellation and delay dashboard, and then another one support our troops dashboard. So if you go to that, for instance, click on the family seating dashboard, it will tell you which airlines guarantee adjacent seats for children 13 and under accompanied by an adult at no extra cost, so you can go in and see which ones will guarantee that. Or, for instance, on the cancellation and delay dashboard, it'll tell you which airlines will rebook you, if needed, on the same airline at no additional cost, which airlines will book on a partner airline which will rebook you on another airline if needed, if they provide complimentary hotel accommodations for cancellations and delays, and there's about six other categories on that. So it's a really good dashboard to see what airlines are offering.
Mark Faldmo:The story we talked about a few weeks ago about the new rule that they have to provide compensation for flights delayed more than three hours Interesting on this dashboard. It has all red check boxes. No airlines have agreed to that yet. Once it goes into law, I'm sure they will agree to it, so it's just a good again. Transportation. gov it's a dashboard by the Department of Transportation about what airlines will give in way of compensation or commitments for different things.
Patrick Wiscombe:And we can put that in the podcast notes as well.
Mark Faldmo:We'll put the link in the podcast notes.
Patrick Wiscombe:One more travel news story before we get to the hot travel deal of the week, which is always in segment one. This story is in the vein of curbing tourism. So we've had it in Venice, we've had it a few other places, but there is a Swiss village and I think you've been here I hope I'm saying this right, because I have not been there Lauterbrunnen. Yeah, L lauterbrunnen.
Mark Faldmo:Oh, brunnen, excuse me, that's how I pronounce it as well. Brunnen, yeah, yeah, it's a small village in the Swiss Alps. It has 2,500 people that live there, so pretty small, and it has the classic Swiss chalet houses. There are 72 different waterfalls in the area, probably one of the most picturesque settings in all of Europe. But on busy days they can get up to 10,000 people through that small village and a lot of the residents say they feel like they're employed at an amusement park because there's so many people there. So they're looking at a tourist tax or limiting the number of tour buses, just trying to find ways to make it more enjoyable for the residents while still allowing for those that visit that want to visit to see it.
Patrick Wiscombe:But that does lead into our hot travel deal of the week. In case you are brand new to the show, segment one is always the hot travel deal of the week, regardless of where it is in the week. In case you are brand new to the show, segment one is always the hot travel deal of the week, regardless of where it is in the world. The one that you found was actually regarding not this particular Swiss village, but it is the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland. What are the details?
Mark Faldmo:Yeah, so we just talked about a story about a village that doesn't want tourists. Now we're going to talk about a story to get people to see that town.
Patrick Wiscombe:Oh, so it is that town.
Mark Faldmo:No, yeah, I haven't looked at the full itinerary on this. I'm sure it goes there or somewhere near. Okay, this is actually something I learned about at that conference we were talking about earlier. It's the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland. There are a few different ways you can do this. You can buy just the train passes. You can buy the train passes in conjunction with curated hotels along the route. Or you can buy a fully escorted version of this tour. It's 11 days and seven different trains. That sounds amazing For the price I'm just going to give that middle one.
Mark Faldmo:So this is train and hotel, so it's not fully escorted. So the train and hotel starts at $35.15 per person. You start and end in Zurich and you kind of crisscross Switzerland on different things. It includes the famous Glacier Express train includes Lake Lucerne, which is one of my favorite places. It includes Zermatt. Lugano actually has a train that kind of goes across northern Italy there, so you go to Torino. I think this would be a tour that is at the top of my bucket list I enjoy trains and I think the scenery of this you know.
Mark Faldmo:Just looking at what this offers, it's all train. They're one or two shorter motor coach segments that you need to take to make some of the trains work.
Patrick Wiscombe:And this is 11 days, 10 nights on seven trains. Am I understanding that right, yep? Seven different trains and $3515 per person for the train and hotel For the train and hotel, the famous trains which.
Mark Faldmo:These are kind of the chorus trains. So it has the Bernier Express, the glacier express, the golden pass line and the Goddard panorama express. So those are, you know, mainly chorus type trains that you'll go see that. And then it includes other swiss rail passes to get to and from these places.
Patrick Wiscombe:I would do that in a second. If you are interested in taking the grand train tour of Switzerland 11 days, 10 nights, seven different trains, train and hotel call Mark in his office, 888-718-7717, 888-718-7717. You can also go to blueplanetvacations. com when we come back. Segment two is always the Just Cruising segment. We've got the cruise news of the week, which includes a brand new ship from MSC. We'll detail that and we'll also talk about the Holland America legendary voyages. That is next. You will not want to miss these particular ones. If you're fond of New England, you've always wanted to be there during the fall, mark. Is that true? Is that during the fall? During the fall? If you're fond of New England or you've always wanted to be there during the fall, do not miss this next segment. You are listening to the Inside Travel Talk podcast and radio show. Alongside Mark Faldmo, my name is Patrick Wiscombe. Thank you so much for allowing us to be part of your Saturday morning, mark, and I will be right back, mark and I will be right back.
Show Voice:Taking you to destinations around the world. The Inside Travel Talk podcast and radio show is presented by BluePlanetVacations. com, America's best travel advisors. Call or text the show now 801-649-3700 801-649-3700.
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Show Voice:Now back to the Inside Travel Talk podcast and radio show presented by blueplanetvacations. com, America's best travel advisors. Call or text the show right now 801-649-3700. 801-649-3700. And check out the podcast at InsideTravelTalk. com. Here's Patrick.
Patrick Wiscombe:Wiscombe and Mark Faldmo. Welcome back into the Inside Travel Talk podcast and radio show. It doesn't get any more inside travel than this Because, unlike Mark, who was in DC about 10 days ago, I am doing the broadcast aboard the MSC seashore. Nikki and I are in the Bahamas this very minute and we are docked at Ocean Key. And I know that you were here. What about a month ago? No, it wasn't even a month ago, it was like three weeks ago.
Mark Faldmo:About three weeks ago.
Patrick Wiscombe:Yeah, this place is beyond spectacular. I mean just the visuals alone, where you have the turquoise water. It's one of those postcards seen your entire life. The skies are dodger blue, few clouds, not too many. Today it's actually really really quite hot, but anyway. So I'm actually doing the show from just inside our stateroom because it's the quietest place on the ship and the internet connection was really good. We've only been on the ship for about two days and so I'll give you the full review when we get back. And next Saturday show the 29th, I'll be doing the show from Mexico next week, probably just on the ship, just so we have a good, stable internet connection. So this week and then next week we'll also do from the MSC seashore and then I'll give you my full review when we get back.
Patrick Wiscombe:Coming up in this segment, the Just Cruising segment, we're going to talk about MSC and they have a new ship coming out. We're also going to talk about Juneau, alaska, and then, of course, we always have the cruise deal of the week. Just before we got here, there was a massive, massive downpour of rain and it has been stormy while we were in Orlando, port Canaveral. As we're cruising past Key West, a place which you and I have been to. I thought it was kind of funny that the Russians have 30 miles off the coast of Key West. The Russians got their nuclear submarines here in the Western Hemisphere. And Nikki goes are we going to be OK? And I said, yeah, I mean they're not going to take down a cruise ship. A little geopolitical sportsmanship going on while we're cruising through here.
Mark Faldmo:Right there in the Strait of Florida. You'll be headed through in probably two days, I think, yep.
Patrick Wiscombe:There was a story out that MSC is introducing a new ship and I think it's called the World America. What details do we have about the ship?
Mark Faldmo:They've announced that they're going to have seven distinct districts on the ship. With Royal Caribbean's new ships they kind of did this and Royal Caribbean calls them neighborhoods, oh okay, and so they're really unique areas of the ship that cater towards one thing. One of the districts is the MSC Yacht Club, which they've had that before, so that's a keyed access area just for those cruising and yacht club. And then they're going to have the family Avenue, which is where the games are. I don't know, they've haven't announced things. On the ship I was on they had a bowling alley, the 3d games, things a family would enjoy, and then they have an aqua deck, you know, which is the pool deck, a zen area, so that will be an adult only area just to go relax away from kids, and then a galleria area which is kind of the heart of the ship, where shops, restaurants, bars, lounges, live music, all sorts of things, kind of the heart of the ship. Do we know when the ship is going to come out? It comes out in April of next year.
Patrick Wiscombe:Do we know where they're going to be cruising yet?
Mark Faldmo:Miami. It's been for sale for about a year but they are going to sell. I believe it was Eastern and Western Caribbean sailings out of Miami.
Patrick Wiscombe:One more travel news story and then we'll get to the cruise deal of the week. But I thought it was interesting that Juneau, alaska, is setting limits on cruise ships.
Mark Faldmo:This is similar to our previous story about the village in Switzerland. So many ships show up in Juneau it kind of overruns the town. A while back they passed a limit that no more than five big cruise ships can be there at a time. They actually have docking space for four ships, so I've been there when there's actually been six ships there and two ships are tendering in. You know, Juno can get anywhere. On a busy day they can get 21,000 people on cruise ships in the city. That is so many people. So all in a relatively small downtown area.
Patrick Wiscombe:Segment two of the show is always the cruise deal of the week.
Mark Faldmo:A few weeks ago we talked about Holland America's legendary voyages, and these are longer voyages that are round trip from US ports. So one that we talked about a few weeks ago was the Arctic Circle and Summer Solstice cruise from Seattle. Today we're going to talk about another one of those legendary voyages. I think this is a fantastic sailing. It's a 25-day New England, Canada, Greenland and Iceland cruise and it's a round-trip Boston. So for those of you that don't want to fly, you can visit Iceland. Well, you'll have to fly to Boston or you could train or drive. Not a long flight. This, I think, is just one of the most fantastic sailings. I've seen.
Mark Faldmo:This again a 25-day cruise, round trip Boston. It goes to Eastport, Maine, then it goes to Sydney, nova Scotia. It goes to Corner Brook that's in Nova Scotia, and then it goes to Red Bay, newfoundland, an old whaler's village. You know probably some pretty interesting history there. And then it goes I can't ever say this. It goes to Quaggertoke, which is in Greenland, and then from Greenland it heads to Iceland and hits four or five ports in Iceland Is Reykjavik one of them Reykjavik.
Mark Faldmo:Oh see, I would go there for that.
Mark Faldmo:After Reykjavik, it heads back to Greenland, has another stop in Greenland and then hits more Canadian and New England ports on the way back, including St John, newfoundland, which is one of my favorite ports. I cruised there a few years back with my father. We took a London to New York cruise and we stopped in St John's, newfoundland. It's not St John, there's a St John and there's a St John's. So this is St John's, newfoundland. It's not St John, there's a St John and there's a St John's. Yep, so this is St John's, and then Halifax and Portland, Maine, and back to Boston. The thing I like about this 25 days and it only has six days at sea.
Patrick Wiscombe:So 19 days of you know port touring, so to speak, and then six sea days yeah, dude, that's amazing.
Mark Faldmo:And then six sea days and the date that I looked at it's a 2025 date. I looked at July 12th. There is one of these that leaves later in the fall if you want to try and catch fall colors, but when you get in much past mid-September you start getting bad weather in Greenland and Iceland. I chose J uly 12th date. The price starts at $ 46 99 per person for an inside cabin. Balcony cabins start at about eight thousand dollars, but they're already waitlisted already because, on this cruise is you.
Mark Faldmo:you know balcony is what everybody wants, so those sold pretty fast. They do have a suite that starts at $10,500 per person.
Patrick Wiscombe:Is that?
Mark Faldmo:on Holland America. That's Holland America and they have several of these legendary voyages which we'll highlight over the next few weeks. We'll just pick out some of the more interesting ones, which and I think that's an interesting concept Longer cruises from the US Hawaii, Tahiti, S south Pacific cruises that are round-trip Los Angeles Been selling those for years. Those have been pretty popular and now they've kind of ranched out. There's one from Miami that we'll highlight that goes down to South America.
Patrick Wiscombe:And is it only Holland America that does these legendary cruises, or is there a few cruise companies?
Mark Faldmo:There are some that do one-off things, but it's pretty much only Holland America that I've seen that does the round trip from a US port to see different spots on the world.
Patrick Wiscombe:We're up against a break, so we do need to go right now. If you are interested in booking any of these vacations in segment number one, it was the hot travel deal of the week the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland 11 days, 10 nights, 7 trains, so it's a train and hotel package. Or you want to do the Holland America Legendary Voyages, the 25-day New England, Canada, Greenland, Iceland round trip out of Boston, call Mark in his office, 888-718-7717, 888-718-7717. And if you just have your own idea of what you want to go on, you don't have to book one of these. We just bring these to you. But if you have your own itinerary, call Mark, 888-718-7717. And lastly, before we take off, if you would subscribe to the podcast, you can listen to us on inside travel talk. com, inside travel talk. com, and that website will point you to all of the major podcast platforms where you can subscribe and leave us a review. That's it, mark. What do you got on tap? I'm headed to the Cabana as soon as we check out. Well, have fun. Any upcoming travel.
Mark Faldmo:No upcoming travel. Okay Well, towards the end of July. I do Nothing imminent.
Patrick Wiscombe:Okay, all right, so nothing in, basically, the next 30 days until you go. Okay, okay, well, have a terrific week everyone. Thank you so much for allowing this to be part of your Saturday morning. Be sure to book the vacation with Mark at one more time 888-718-7717. Have a terrific Saturday. We'll talk to you next week.
Show Voice:That's it. That's the end of the show You've been listening to the Inside Travel Talk podcast and radio show with Patrick Wiscombe and Mark Faldmo, presented by BluePlanetVacations. com. Book your adventure right now. Call 888-718-7717. That's 888-718-7717. Thanks for listening. Have a great week.
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