Inside Travel Talk
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Inside Travel Talk
Voyages and Views: Kona Escapes, and European Cruises
Ready to unlock exclusive travel insights and unbeatable deals? Join us on Inside Travel Talk as we reveal this week's hottest travel bargain and dive into the unique MSC cruise experience. Get the inside scoop on how the looming hurricane season might affect your travel plans to popular destinations like Costa Maya and Cozumel, and learn why Fiji Airways' partnership with American Airlines is a game-changer for frequent flyers.
Salt Lake City residents, rejoice! A brand-new passport agency is opening in your city, making it easier than ever to secure your travel documents, even in a pinch. We also have updates for other cities like Kansas City, Orlando, and more. Plus, discover the exciting developments in Hawaii, including a new Duke's restaurant set to open at the Outrigger Kona Resort. Don't miss our top travel deal to Kona, with packages starting at just $1,099, including round-trip airfare from Salt Lake City.
Ever wondered what it's like to witness a SpaceX launch and then cruise to paradise? We recount our thrilling journey to Port Canaveral and unforgettable MSC cruise, complete with tips for a quieter onboard experience. We discuss the latest travel news, including Princess Cruises' new best price guarantee and enticing European cruise deals. Finally, dream of river cruising along Europe's iconic rivers with AMA Waterways. Then we discuss two Europe cruise options in Northern Europe and the Mediterranean with Princess Cruises—contact Blue Planet Vacations to make this dream a reality. Tune in for all these travel treasures and more!
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:Happy birthday, America. Happy Independence Day. A couple days after Independence Day, what a great country we have the privilege to live in. We're still the envy of the world. Welcome 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. I called you from the boat via WhatsApp. Nikki and I are back in port. It's great to be back and it's good to talk to you.
Mark Faldmo:Yep, it is great to do this show. It's been one of the funnest projects I've worked on and love to talk travel.
Patrick Wiscombe:Coming up in this edition of the show. We have the hot travel deal of the week. That's regardless of the destination. That's always in this segment. We're not going to make you wait for it. Hot travel deal of the week is coming up. And then, of course, next segment is the just cruising segment and we're going to talk about my MSC cruise, but I just because it's going on right now. Nikki and I missed this, but there is a hurricane that is bearing down on Costa Maya, Mexico, Cozumel, right where we were a week ago, and it is really starting to create some havoc. We're going to talk about cruising during the hurricane season and probably what's taking place on MSC seashore this week, because they were headed back there the Inside Travel Talk podcast and I'm not sure why that happened. Let's get to the travel news of the week. I saw this story that Fiji Airways is joining American Airlines Advantage Reward Program. What do we know about the Fiji Airways story? So at some point.
Mark Faldmo:Next year Fiji Airways will make American Airlines Advantage Loyalty Program their loyalty program. That means when you fly on Fiji Airways if you have status with American, you'll have that same status as you would flying Fiji. So they have reciprocal benefits and they are just making the Advantage program their loyalty system. So that opens up Fiji to the whole American Airlines system. Now you've always been able to earn American miles on Fiji on certain fares, but now, since it's their system, you'll be able to earn flights towards a Fiji vacation whenever and wherever you fly on American.
Patrick Wiscombe:Obviously a good business move on the part of Fiji Airways.
Mark Faldmo:It is. They're a smaller airline and obviously people that live in Fiji are pretty loyal to Fiji Airways because it's their only option. Fiji are pretty loyal to Fiji Airways because it's their only option, but 90% of the people that fly on Fiji Airways are from outside of that Fiji area, so you know it is a very good business move on their part.
Patrick Wiscombe:Salt Lake City is going to get a passport agency.
Mark Faldmo:And that's great for us here in the Salt Lake City area. They haven't announced where it will be. Most of the passport agencies are somewhere in a downtown office area, so but it could be out at the airport, but they haven't announced that yet. This is good because the closest one to us has been Denver, more particularly Aurora. Colorado is where the passport agency is. That's been closest. So if you need an emergency appointment to get a passport issued or something like that, I've had people that fly out a day or two before a trip to Denver to get their passport so they can go on international trips. So you know now we do have that option. They still require appointments and things like that to do the passport in person, but that'll make it a lot easier for people to get a passport in the Salt Lake City area. And you know, along with this they also did announce new passport agencies. Kansas City, Orlando, charlotte and San Antonio and Cincinnati are also getting passport offices in this same announcement, so they are expanding those passport consular services.
Patrick Wiscombe:TSA is reporting an all-time record air travel day. What day did that happen?
Mark Faldmo:So that happened on June 23rd and they screened nearly 3 million travelers on June 23rd oh my word. And they reported that between June 27th and July 8th so the 4th of July holiday week they're expecting to screen 32 million individual passengers between that time. So travel is definitely picking up. That nearly 3 million that they did on June 23rd, that beats any pre-COVID time. So you know, 2019 was a record and this beats any of those. A lot of people are flying, going through the TSA checkpoints at airports.
Patrick Wiscombe:I know that you are a big fan of Duke's the restaurant. Good news in this regard there's a Duke's restaurant coming to the Big Island in Hawaii. Do we know where it is yet?
Mark Faldmo:Yeah, we do, and this actually leads into our hot travel deal of the week. But yeah, duke's is going to open sometime in late 2025 at the Outrigger Kona Resort on the Big Island. So now there will be a Duke's on all of the four main islands. The Big Island is the only one that didn't have a Duke. It's going on Kauai, Maui, Oahu and now, soon, the Big Island.
Patrick Wiscombe:Let's get to the hot travel deal of the week, and you've already said that we're going to Kona. What dates do we have and what kind of prices are we looking at?
Mark Faldmo:So I am looking in October October 10th to the 15th. So this is five nights hotel, round trip airfare from Salt Lake City and then a couple of resorts to go through. Probably one of my favorite hotels to stay is the Royal Kona Hotel. Now it's a three and a half star hotel. It did just go through a major renovation. They have beautiful rooms. It probably is a four star hotel, except the building is fairly old. So when you pull up it looks like an old building, but the rooms are amazing. That five-night package with airfare from Salt Lake City starts at $1,099 per person.
Patrick Wiscombe:There's one advantage of having an older building, and I saw this firsthand. Nikki and I stayed at the Orlando.
Mark Faldmo:Hyatt here in the hotel. It's right there in the main lobby of the airport.
Patrick Wiscombe:You can tell that it's an older building. The rooms were fantastic. Old hotels have pretty big rooms?
Mark Faldmo:They do, yeah, and the Royal Kona does have larger rooms, and I love the location of the Royal Kona. One of my favorite things there is Don's Mai Tai Bar. It is, hands down, the best place to watch the sunset on the big island of Hawaii. This hotel, royal Kona, has an outdoor lobby, so there's no doors to it. Don's Mai Tai Bar is just out there and it's covered, but it's out there in the open. It's just a great setting and you're close to the town of Kona, where you can walk to the other shops and restaurants, which is nice. A lot of the other hotels on the big island are further away from that concentration of shops and restaurants.
Patrick Wiscombe:So the Royal Kona is, I'll just call it, $1,100 a person. And is that on Delta? Who do you fly over there?
Mark Faldmo:That one was on Delta Airlines, which had the best price on this particular date.
Patrick Wiscombe:What other hotels are participating in the hot travel deal of the week?
Mark Faldmo:Moving on the Outrigger Kona, which is where the new Dukes will be. That's a solid four-star hotel. Starts at $1399 per person. A solid four-star hotel Starts at $1399 per person. And then, probably my favorite place to stay is the Hilton Waikoloa Village. It's a four and a half star. Starts at $1599 per person. I like the Royal Kona that we talked about earlier because it's smaller. The Hilton Waikoloa is a pretty large hotel. They have different towers and you take a boat or a train to get to the different towers.
Mark Faldmo:it's unique but it's a big hotel and then if you want to stay on probably the best beach in Hawaii, the Westin Hapuna Beach Resort, it's a four and a half star hotel. That price starts at two thousand ninety nine dollars per person man, that is a.
Patrick Wiscombe:I'm just looking at the white village different options there so man, Waikoloa Hilton village that I'm looking at it right now. That's a beautiful property. So we've got hotels, depending on your taste and budget, from 1100 a person to about 2100 person, and your favorite is the Hilton Waikoloa Village at $1,599 a person At $1,599 per person. Let's briefly talk about what you can do on the Big Island when you're there.
Mark Faldmo:My favorite thing to do there is Volcano National Park. I have a drive and I think we did this on one of our early early broadcasts what to do to drive around the island. But I love Akaka Falls and also Rainbow Falls, which are on the other side of the island, but they're easy to get to and don't involve a lot.
Patrick Wiscombe:What's the city on the other side? Kona's the Southwest, and then I can't think of Then Hilo, oh Hilo, that's what it was yeah, Hilo on the other side, yeah.
Mark Faldmo:And then, you know, volcano National Park is fascinating. There's some pretty good snorkeling. I like a company called Captain Cook Snorkeling and they actually go over to the Captain Cook Monument and that is where Captain Cook was killed by the natives. So there's a monument there. And then right in that area also is a place I can never say the natural Hawaiian name, but it's the place of refuge, which is a historical and sacred place for Hawaiians. But they have museums and you know, if you want to get some Hawaiian culture, you can go to that place of refuge. Or if you want to try and say the Hawaiian name, it's like 20 letters long. So but there's lots to do on the big island. Some of the beaches mentioned Hapuna Beach. There is a public portion of Hapuna Beach and then that Weston is on another section of the beach, which is just amazing.
Patrick Wiscombe:Kona was different than I thought it was going to be. So, Nikki and I, when we went on NCL's Pride of America cruise the first day, we were in Hilo and we actually rented a car and we went up and over the volcanoes. It was about how long is that drive?
Patrick Wiscombe:About 90 minutes from side to side that was one of the most spectacular drives I've ever been on and it was kind of weird because you ascend and then you're kind of in the clouds and you're in this, this desolate, almost moonscape of all of this volcanic rock, and then you kind of a I won't say a steep descent, but it is. It's quite a descent from the top and then you're over on the Southwest side, in Kona, and a plan on rain for sure.
Mark Faldmo:Yeah, Hilo is a pretty wet place, and up there by the volcano you can be in the clouds. So that's what I like about the big island it's so diverse, oh it is.
Mark Faldmo:Beaches, mountains. You can actually ski on the big island by the observatory. They get enough snow that you can ski up there. So I didn't know that you have. Several of the different climatic zones of the world are on the big island. I think you just don't have Arctic and tundra, but you have every other zone on there. So you know it's a diverse island, lots to do and see.
Patrick Wiscombe:I couldn't believe, at least in my head, that the islands were so different. You're in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. How different could it be? Those islands are different. In Hilo, on the east side, they've got the Black Lava Rock Beach, so if you've ever wanted to see a black beach, that was pretty amazing. Just visually it was amazing.
Mark Faldmo:And also in one of the more remote places. They also have a pink and green sand beach on the big island.
Patrick Wiscombe:How did I miss that?
Mark Faldmo:That sounds like something you would have done, it would have take, you would have missed the ship to do that, so that's probably why it's.
Patrick Wiscombe:They're pretty remote, but yeah all right, we need to take a break here when we come back. We've got the just cruising segment, but if you are interested in taking markup on the hot travel deal of the week this is October 10th through the 15th Let me just briefly ask as we go to break here is five days enough or can people extend? I'm assuming they can extend you can extend.
Mark Faldmo:Yeah, that just seems to be the optimal. Most people want to go five to seven days. So for pricing, usually choose five days to get you know a little bit better pricing on that.
Patrick Wiscombe:Call Mark in his office, 888-718-7717, 888-718-7717. When we come back, the Just Cruising segment and we've got the cruise deal of the week. Thank you so much for allowing us to be part of your Saturday morning, 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. 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 in to the Inside Travel Talk podcast and radio show. My name is Patrick Wiscombe. Mark Faldmo is on the other end of this connection. We are doing the show live here in Salt Lake City, coming up in this segment, the Just Cruising segment, the cruise deal of the week, and I want to say that we're going to Europe.
Mark Faldmo:Is that right? We are going to Europe. There's been such a demand for Europe that we're gonna go to that region of the world and explore it that's coming up in this segment.
Patrick Wiscombe:Don't go anyway. So if you want to go to Europe on a cruise, listen up, get to that here in just a second. But some additional travel news of the week. Where should we start? Should we go? MSC the seashore. Do you want to talk about the hurricane season?
Mark Faldmo:since hurricane barrel is barreling down no pun intended in the Caribbean, let's talk about your cruise first, and then we'll get to the other thing a little bit later, okay.
Patrick Wiscombe:So Nikki and I just returned from a 10-day cruise on MSC's Seashore that's the name of the ship. We did 10 days. We flew from Salt Lake City to Orlando, stayed in the Orlando Hyatt, which is literally just at the airport. You don't even transfer, you walk out of the airport and you're in the hotel literally, and it's a nice hotel too. I would recommend staying there if you're just looking for a place to stay. And then the next day we took a car down to Port Canaveral and then we got on the ship and one of the fun things that happened I don't know that I told you this we were down there for SpaceX's launch. I've always wanted to see a launch of the space shuttle, but we actually saw the launch of SpaceX off the starboard side while we were in port. It was awesome to watch and could not believe how loud it was, but it took about 30, 45 seconds for the sound to reach us. Did I tell you that? Well, that's pretty cool?
Mark Faldmo:No, you didn't. I've always wanted to do that. When I was in Orlando, there was a launch scheduled for that day, when I was on MSC as well, but it got delayed and pushed back a few days. I've been in Miami for a space shuttle launch and just saw a sliver of it, but nothing like being right there by Kennedy Space Center.
Patrick Wiscombe:It was close enough, you could just watch it go up in the clouds. It was amazing to watch, it was special experience, and didn't even know we were going to do that. That wasn't even on the agenda, so, anyway, we took off. We leave port, that's after the first three days, and then on day four we went to MSC's private island called Ocean Key or CAY, and it was amazing. If you don't like heat and you don't like humidity, June, the summer months, is not the time to go to Florida or the Caribbean at all. No, not even close.
Mark Faldmo:No, it's pretty hot and humid.
Patrick Wiscombe:Average temperatures were, you know, about 85 to 90 ish. You know somewhere between about 83 and 90 degrees with about 80 to 90 percent humidity, so if that gives you any idea. But Ocean Key was spectacular. Key was spectacular White powder, sugar, sand, beaches. Nikki and I consumed enough piña coladas, without alcohol, by the way. The bartenders were always asking are you sure you don't want alcohol? And I said no, no, I don't want any alcohol. I probably had 20 piña coladas, and so did Nikki, and it was a special, special experience. And then, of course, we cruised to Costa Maya. We did sail right off the coast of Cuba. We were, I think we were, 13 miles off the coast of Cuba. You could see it. You could see the island. I was looking for the Russians while I was down there.
Mark Faldmo:I didn't see anybody yeah, they might have left by now.
Patrick Wiscombe:That was two weeks ago they were there or were they gone, yeah, and then Costa Maya Cozumel, and then we came back.
Show Voice:Back to the inside travel talk. I don't know what's going on today.
Patrick Wiscombe:Things are just firing randomly today, yeah, anyway. So it's a couple days at sea, and then we came back to Port Canaveral. What were your?
Mark Faldmo:impressions of MSC as a whole.
Patrick Wiscombe:It was a beautiful ship. The rear of the ship is where you want to hang out. If you're an adult, much quieter back there. A pro tip stay on the aft of the ship and use the elevator. That is seldom gets used. That's the way to go up and down. Don't stay in the middle of the ship unless you get seasick. The back elevators were the lifesaver.
Mark Faldmo:That's actually a tip. On a lot of cruise lines. There's usually one elevator shaft that does not get used as much as the other, so if you can find that, it's either on the front or back of the ship, depending on how the ship is laid out.
Patrick Wiscombe:On deck 16, that's where the buffet area was. But there's a, there was a section, there was a bar, there was kind of a I won't say a beach area. That's, that's the wrong word.
Patrick Wiscombe:A deck, it's just a deck I was surprised that there wasn't a lot of covered seating. Well, there was none, really, unless you were at the bar. But they have the bridge on the aft. It's called the bridge of size, as in s-i-g-h-s like oh oh, it's a glass bottom and it is terrifying to walk across because you realize just how high up on the ship and how far you could fall if one of those panels broke. Now, obviously, they're not going to break, but uh, if you have a fear of heights, don't look down. Yeah, beautiful ship though.
Mark Faldmo:Like I mentioned on my MSC cruise I love MSC. I think they do a great job. The clientele is different on board the ship because it is so European, yes, and so you do have to be prepared for that. There's lots of languages spoken by guests, which is different.
Patrick Wiscombe:English was almost the minority. A lot of Spanish, a lot of Portuguese, a lot of Italian.
Mark Faldmo:Yeah, sometimes for some people that's a little bit of a turnoff to have all those languages. For me I think it's fascinating. But it was fascinating. That is something that's a little bit different when compared to your real Caribbean Carnival Norwegian. There's not that concentration of foreign speaking guests.
Patrick Wiscombe:Food wise if you love pizza. Pizza was some of the best pizza I've ever had in my entire life.
Mark Faldmo:That's one thing on my review that I said. I still think Princess has the best pizza, but MSC is pretty much tied with Princess.
Patrick Wiscombe:Another highlight on deck eight of the ship, the Brooklyn Café, kind of a bar lounge area, also had more alcohol-free piña coladas with Nikki there. One of the highlights for me was listening to the Wave Jazz Quartet. If you've always wanted to go to a jazz club just amazing musicians, and if you like jazz music it was really well done Would I recommend it. Yes, don't go in June, during the summer months, if you just hate heat and humidity. If you love it, go. If you don't wait till January. Let's get to the other travel news. There was quite a bit of demand for AMA Waterways and they're going to open some what? New cruises starting now, but it's, they don't set sail till early 2026.
Mark Faldmo:Now, but they don't set sail till early 2026. They've opened up their 2026 schedule early, a few months earlier than normal, because the demand has been so high they are tracking about 30% higher this year than any year in their history at this point for booking so they decided to open 2026 AMA Waterways river cruises. They've also recently announced that they're going to start sailing on a new river, the Magdalena River in Colombia, so now they'll have cruises in Europe, which is what most people are familiar with. They also have them in Egypt, Asia, Africa and now Colombia.
Patrick Wiscombe:Those are some pretty interesting areas and now Columbia.
Mark Faldmo:Those are some pretty interesting areas With the popularity of river cruises. You do want to book these as early as possible.
Patrick Wiscombe:When you know you want to go, you should book them. What is now Hurricane Beryl was a tropical depression or a storm. It is really ramped up. As of now it's either a Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane and we were right in the path Costa Maya, Cozumel, some of the eastern Mexico ports. It was aimed right for us. We got out of there 48 hours before the projected path really kind of zeroed in on those areas. What do cruise lines do during hurricane season?
Mark Faldmo:First of all, hurricane season is June 1st to the end of November, so you have to keep that in mind when booking cruises. Now, typically September and October are your busiest hurricane months, where you get the most or the most powerful storms. Keep that in mind when planning anything to the Caribbean. Cruise lines will alter itineraries, like this past week most cruise lines canceled stops to Jamaica, grand Cayman, Belize, Cozumel because they just couldn't get there safely. They may have been able to get there but it would have been a miserable experience. Depending on where the hurricane's going, they'll replace ports, like this past week Carnival replaced a lot of the Cozumel Grand Cayman ports with stops in NASA. So, depending on where the hurricane is, they'll try and find alternate ports and they have agreements with ports based on hurricanes. If they have space to let the ships in, some may cancel ports altogether and just have days at sea. But they do try and get to a place before a hurricane or after a hurricane if they can. But they might alter the order of the stops. You might start somewhere where you were going to end and do the itinerary in reverse. They do their best.
Mark Faldmo:Obviously that's one of the issues when you are cruising in hurricane season you do have to keep that in mind, that your itinerary might change.
Mark Faldmo:Kind of going back to our discussion either last week or the week before about big ship, medium ship, small ship, some people choose the itinerary or some people choose it for the ship. So in hurricane season you may want to lean a little bit more towards choosing a cruise for the ship. So in hurricane season you may want to lean a little bit more towards choosing a cruise for the ship and not necessarily the itinerary, because there's a chance that it may get changed or altered based on the weather. A really good resource is the National Hurricane Center. So if you just do a Google search, a web search, for National Hurricane Center, it's the NOAA Hurricane Center. It gives you all sorts of statistics and hurricane tracking predictions. I actually have that bookmarked on my computer so I can go in and look at that and check it every other day just to see what's happening. And you can look at both Pacific and Atlantic hurricane seasons on that site.
Patrick Wiscombe:Last travel news story. And then let's get to the cruise deal of the week, because we got to go to break here. Princess is launching a new best price guarantee for 2025 and 2026.
Mark Faldmo:They are also seeing strong demand in their product and they're trying to get people away from this. I'll just wait till last minute to book my cruise because I'll get a better price Right. For years that really hasn't been the case with cruises, but occasionally it's there. So they've come out with this policy that if you book a cruise between July 1st and September 2nd of this year or any 2025 or 2026 departure, that if you find an active, publicly available rate that's lower than what you've booked prior to the final payment of your cruise, you can submit a claim and they will give you the value of 120% of the difference between what you paid and what you found online in a make good future cruise credit.
Patrick Wiscombe:Let's get to the cruise deal of the week, which is Princess Europe Cruises. What do we have for listeners this week?
Mark Faldmo:Princess's sale right now is up to 40% off, and the third and fourth guests sell free and $99 deposits on the cruise. So I think that goes through the end of next week. So if you want to book these, you'll have to book them fairly soon. But I did. That goes through the end of next week, so if you want to book these, you'll have to book them fairly soon. But I did choose to go to Europe because it's been so popular this year. The demand for Europe is crazy, so I chose two cruises, all on Princess, and the first one is a Northern Europe cruise, which is a 12-day cruise departing May 22nd, and I think this one has a fascinating itinerary. You go to Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and France on this cruise, so and England it starts from the UK yeah.
Mark Faldmo:So you start in Southampton, so you plan to London for that, yeah, go to Southampton, and then it goes to Zeebrugge, which is in Belgium, Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, a day at sea. You go to Oslo and then go to Gothenburg, which is in Sweden, and then Copenhagen, another port in Denmark, Hamburg, Germany, and then La Havre, France, which is where you can go, do Normandy and D-Day stuff. So it has quite the fascinating and diverse itinerary. How much is that? One per person? So that one starts at $1788 per person for an inside cabin or $2888 for a balcony cabin. I also should say in this that a few weeks ago we talked about the new consumer pricing law that is in effect. Yeah, so those prices include all taxes and fees, that is, the. Everything that is mandatory to be paid is included in that. We are now using this new pricing. Before we used to say here's the cruise price plus taxes and fees, but now all the taxes and fees are included in that.
Patrick Wiscombe:So that's $1788 for the 12-day inside cabin. That's it.
Mark Faldmo:That's it, wow. Okay, now you have to pay for airfare to get there. But that is. Yeah, that's the. You know everything you would need to pay for.
Patrick Wiscombe:And what is it?
Mark Faldmo:Other things like Wi-Fi and gratuities you don't have to pay for. Should pay for some of them, but you don't have to. What else do we have? Let's just quickly move on to a Mediterranean cruise on Princess, again coming up in May. The way Princess does the Mediterranean, that's pretty interesting. They have a 14-day cruise that goes from Barcelona to Athens, Greece, but you can break it up into two seven-day segments, you can break it up into 10-day segments or you can do all 14 days of it. I actually chose one of the 10-day segments of that, which is Athens to Rome. I'm sold already. It does the Greek islands, it does Turkey. I chose this because it was the most interesting to me. From Rome, you go to Mykonos, famous island in Greece. Yep Goes to Rhodes, Greece. Goes to Crete, goes to Catalan in Greece, goes to Corfu, Greece, then Naples in Italy and ends in Rome. That one's a 10-day cruise starting at $1288 per person.
Mark Faldmo:But, I think this was the deal on that cruise the balcony cabins start at $1,561 on that. Wow, so that's only $300 more than an inside cabin. Oh, do that.
Patrick Wiscombe:That's worth it.
Mark Faldmo:I chose that because that balcony cabin was just such an eye-popping price for a 10-day cruise in a balcony cabin. Now, to be honest, that balcony cabin on that is probably a partially obstructed view cabin, so you may want to upgrade that to a higher category, but still just have the balcony where you can go out is nice on that so those are the cruise deals of the week.
Patrick Wiscombe:To book that those cruises. The cruise deal of the week 12 days to Northern Europe $1788 per person for an inside cabin. The Mediterranean 10-day departing on May 11th $1288 a person. That includes taxes and fees fees which, by the way, I like that new. Uh, I'm glad that taxes and fees now just have to be included, rather than you know an artificially low price, that that needed to happen.
Patrick Wiscombe:So yes, and call mark in his office for the hot travel deal of the week, which was five nights over to Kona. We've got various hotels ranging from $1099 a person to $2099 per person. And then, of course, the cruise deal of the week which I just mentioned. Call Mark in his office, 888-718-7717, 88-718-7717. I know I just got back and I know I'm a little jet, not jet lag, but I'm just tired because we covered about three, four, five miles a day just walking around the ship and doing all kinds of things. So I'm just physically tired. I think I could handle going to Europe. Who knew that this show was going to be about getting Patrick out in the world?
Mark Faldmo:In the world. Yeah Well, I think travel is one of the best experiences in life you can have.
Patrick Wiscombe:So I absolutely agree. Call Mark 888-718-7717. 888-718-7717. 888-718-7717. Make it a great week. Be intentional with your life, be deliberate with your life and go out and explore the world. We'll talk to you next Saturday morning.
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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