Inside Travel Talk
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Inside Travel Talk
Caribbean Charms: Belize Deals, Alaska Cruises and Cruise Delicacies
Experience the thrill of top-notch travel discoveries in this latest episode of Inside Travel Talk! Join us as we share the details of an unforgettable adventure on Brightline's Florida train, complete with luxurious accommodations and an exclusive Taylor Swift sing-along event in October. We'll also highlight Belize as our Hot Travel Deal of the Week and discuss how Aruba's new $20 sustainability fee aims to enhance the island's infrastructure. Plus, get the inside scoop on Delta's potential introduction of a basic first-class fare to counter rising operating expenses and recent contract negotiations.
Dive deep into the world of cruise ship inspections and discover the importance of cleanliness and safety onboard. Learn about the CDC's rigorous evaluation process and celebrate the perfect scores achieved by ships like MSC Seashore, Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas, and Norwegian Sky. And don’t miss our mouthwatering comparison of cruise ship pizzas, featuring MSC Seashore's delectable offerings and Princess Cruises' collaboration with celebrity pizza chef Tony Giamatti. This episode is brimming with essential travel insights, from hygiene standards to gourmet delights at sea!
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:Oh, my goodness, it is another Saturday morning. This is the Inside Travel Talk podcast, a radio show. Good morning, I hope you're having a terrific Saturday morning. My name is Patrick Wiscombe. Mark Faldmo is on the other end of this connection and we have a terrific travel show for listeners today. One of my favorite memories is actually with Mark when he and I were down. Was that a couple months ago, mark, when you and I were in Florida? Yeah, a couple months ago in Florida, man, one of the best things that we did was we took a Brightline train. Where do we go to? Was it Fort Lauderdale? To Palm Beach, fort Lauderdale?
Mark Faldmo:to West Palm Beach. West Palm yeah.
Patrick Wiscombe:We have a Brightline train story and if you are a Taylor Swift fan, you may just want to go to Florida to do this. We'll get to that story here in just a second. In this segment, we've got the hot travel deal of the week, regardless of the location. Where are we going? This week?
Mark Faldmo:We're going to Belize oh we are. You know, a lot of people wouldn't think about Belize, but it's a pretty interesting destination that we have.
Patrick Wiscombe:That's coming up in this segment, the Hot Travel Deal of the Week. But let's first start off with the travel news of the week, and I've already alluded to it because I am a Taylor Swift fan. Well, I'm fan-ish. I don't know that I could go for a three and a half hour Eras tour. That's a long concert. I kind of start peeking out at about 90 minutes. I'm like, okay, let's wrap this thing up, and then she still plays for another two hours.
Mark Faldmo:This will add even another three hours to that.
Patrick Wiscombe:So Brightline, the trains on the East Coast, and we've mentioned this in a previous episode of the show, that Brightline is creating a spur from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and I think they only had four stops. That sounds right. So this is on the East Coast, this is the Florida and it goes all the way from Orlando to Miami and if you've always just wanted to go experience Brightline, I think it's worth it. It was such a great train experience and it's not Amtrak, but it was really really nice accommodations it was.
Mark Faldmo:They have nice stations. I was really pleasantly surprised with the stations and the train service. On that, Brightline and iHeartRadio are partnering on a Taylor Swift sing-along concert train. They're calling it a takeover, spelled T-A-Y a takeover of a Brightline train. She has concerts at Hard Rock Stadium there in Fort Lauderdale. Okay, on October 18th and 20th they're doing this takeover sing along train from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale. It also includes bus transfers from the train station to hard rock stadium. But they have some local DJs in Orlando that are going to go do a fully DJed Taylor Swift themed train down to the concert, which is about little over two and a half hours two hours 45 minutes to get from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale.
Patrick Wiscombe:I think Brightline is a company that everyone should be looking at right now. I think they've got a real future. When is the concert again in Florida?
Mark Faldmo:It's October 18th or October 20th.
Patrick Wiscombe:Aruba is going to start charging air travelers a sustainability fee. What's that about?
Mark Faldmo:A lot of destinations around the world have started doing this, and so Aruba, if you arrive by air, is charging a $20 sustainability fee prior to arrival, so it's something that you'll have to show the airline before they allow you to check in or board the flight. This is going to upgrade existing infrastructure. Aruba is expected to grow quite a bit, and so this is mainly going to upgrade the existing water treatment plants and to also build a new one to handle the future demand. Aruba is mostly a tourism country, and so they have to fund these projects through tourism. That is how they plan on doing that.
Patrick Wiscombe:Delta is teasing the unbundling of business and first class fares.
Mark Faldmo:I think this is funny because they say give passengers more flexibility and make your experience even greater is how they talked about this. It's not official yet. They said you'll have to wait till our investor day to hear more about this. But they are thinking about adding a basic first class fare, which means that fare would be like the basic economy so no seat assignments, non-refundable, no bags. If you do bags, you have to pay extra for bags.
Mark Faldmo:They are trying to unbundle this and when they did this with basic economy, it actually boosted their revenue. There's a lot less seats because people went with the basic economy and then figured oh, but we really want all that, so they paid more for it than if they would have bought the main cabin. And that's what often happens with the basic economy. And here's what I think They've been having record profits. They've had a 5% increase for the second quarter. Their June report was $1.3 billion in total net income, which was actually down from last year, which was $1.8 billion. They've negotiated all these new contracts with pilots and flight attendants. Their operating expenses have actually increased 10%. So I think they're trying to find ways to make back up that 10%.
Patrick Wiscombe:Well, and you can also.
Mark Faldmo:There's not enough seats in first class to do that, but it'll be interesting. Let's say, a business traveler that is just going for a day meeting, fly out in the morning and back in the evening. That might work. No bags In first class, you really don't care about seats. It's a window and an aisle, for the most part on the at least domestic. So you're going to get a good seat, not be stuck in a middle seat somewhere. So for some that may work. I think it's a little bit cheapening of the product myself.
Patrick Wiscombe:Let's get to the hot travel deal of the week. We are headed to Belize and what do we have for listeners this week? I think?
Mark Faldmo:this is an interesting one. Belize is not a destination that a lot of people think about. This would be a more laid back vacation. It's not like Cancun, where there's zip lines and all of these tourist things. This would be, and especially where we're going to Belize, we're going to Ambergris Cay, which is an island off of the mainland. It's just a relaxed vacation.
Patrick Wiscombe:If people don't know where Belize is, is it south of Tulum, meaning Mexico, Cancun? Is it that east coast of Mexico?
Mark Faldmo:Yeah, it's east coast, south of Mexico. If you're in Tulum, you would get there in probably two or three hours. You'd get to the border of Yucatan Peninsula and Belize.
Patrick Wiscombe:Okay, so it's kind of northeast of Guatemala and definitely north of Honduras, so you're down there a little bit Central. Is that Central America? Yeah, I guess that is kind of Central America.
Mark Faldmo:Yeah, it's actually directly east of Guatemala. Oh, it is. There's kind of a carve out there and that's actually one of the things you can do from this. This is Five Nights Hotel, round-trip airfare from Salt Lake City, From other cities just give us a call and we can get other cities and it includes airport transfers, which are flight transfers, Because you land at the main airport and then you fly to the island of Ambergris Key, to the town of San Pedro. The price starts at $1399 per person and this is staying at the five-star Margaritaville Beach and Villa Resort. That's relatively new. It's been open for about 18 months.
Mark Faldmo:I believe We've talked about Margaritaville Resorts before. It kind of has that Jimmy Buffett laid back vibe. This is not an all-inclusive, but the town of San Pedro and the island just have some fabulous eating spots, so just kind of go find a local beachfront restaurant and have a great meal. Most people go there to snorkel, scuba and fish. In fact, it has one of the most famous scuba places that you can get to from here, called the Blue Hole. If you look that up online, it's just I don't know what it is. It might be a volcano that kind of started popping up and then. So there's all this light turquoise blue waters around it, and then there's just this perfectly round place where you snorkel in do?
Patrick Wiscombe:they have many Mayan ruins down there?
Mark Faldmo:they do. They're on the mainland, but you can take a day tour to Mayan ruins. You can go to Lamani which we've talked about, as I think that was in one of my top 10 shore excursions where you can get there from here, which is you take a speedboat up a river and then you get to this place. That's not accessible by road, it's only accessible by river. So it's pretty interesting and then, if you wanted to add to your vacation, you could actually go to Tikal in Guatemala. It's just across the border in Belize, there in Guatemala. You could do that as well if you wanted to get to Tikal.
Patrick Wiscombe:All right, we'll take a break here when we come back. We've got the Just Cruising segment, but before we get to that, let me just recap what Mark said. Go to Belize five nights, hotel, round trip airfare and airport transfers, $1,399 per person and you're staying at the almost brand new five-star Margaritaville Beach and Villa Resort. They are really investing in Margaritaville right now and it is definitely worth considering. If you've always wanted to go to, uh, central America, call mark in his office at the break here or just during the week 888-718-7717 888-718-7717. Or you can also book that on blueplanetvacations. com. When we come back the infamous just cruising segment we're going to Alaska because the demand for Alaska is just unreal. We'll talk about that next. We've got some last minute cruise deals to Alaska. Thank you so much for allowing us to be part of your Saturday morning. You are listening to the Inside Travel Talk podcast and radio show. I'm Patrick Wiscombe, he is Mark Faldmo. We 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. Thanks for listening. We'll be right back.
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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 Wiscombe and Mark Faldmo.
Patrick Wiscombe:I know I speak for Mark when I say we love doing this show every single Saturday morning 10 am. We love doing this show every single Saturday morning 10 am. It's actually one of the highlights of my entire week to wake up early, prep for the show, do the show and then let listeners be here in the studio. Call or text us 801-649-3700. 801-649-3700. That's how you get a hold of the show Coming up in this segment always the second segment of the show, the Just Cruising segment. This time we are talking about the last minute Alaska cruises. We don't talk about last minute stuff very often. We are going to do so this time, but let's first go over the cruise news of the week. Where do you want to start? Do we want to talk pizza or do we want to do the ship inspection?
Mark Faldmo:Let's do the ship inspection, the CDC ship inspection, all right. I think that's interesting to people. A lot of people don't know that this even exists.
Patrick Wiscombe:We're talking about Centers for Disease Control right, correct.
Mark Faldmo:So the CDC has a ship inspection and I think it's just a pass-fail, is that right? They give them a score of up to 100. Anything below 85 is considered failing, and so every ship that enters US waters is required to be inspected by the CDC at least twice a year.
Patrick Wiscombe:And that could take a while. I mean just based on how big the ships are.
Mark Faldmo:It can take six to eight hours. Ships are judged on eight different areas, from food handling to food storage, to crew cleanliness of public areas. Eight different areas. A pretty rigid inspection that is done.
Patrick Wiscombe:Well, I guess it would take place when they're in port. Then I mean, obviously they're not going to helicopter to the boat and do it while they're in transit.
Mark Faldmo:Correct, although I do think they stay on board because they judge public areas, swimming pools I did see one cruise line got docked because the pool areas were too crowded. So they'd have to be there, when people are there to make that assessment or judgment. But I'm actually not sure on that, but I think they do keep them on there for a while. Some good news for the crews you just got off of.
Mark Faldmo:Yeah, if you've recently sailed on MSC see Seashore, royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas or Norwegian Sky in the past month. You're on the cleanest ships in the industry. They received a perfect score of 100. I think this is a good program that the CDC does to let people know, so if you are taking a cruise you can just do a Google search for CDC green sheet is what it's called. There are several ships that have scored a perfect 100, but inspections are not done on every ship every month, so those three that we mentioned were last month's perfect scores.
Mark Faldmo:Most ships range from 90 to 98-ish is where most ships are. There are a few in the 80s. I'm just looking through this current sheet to see if there are any that do not have a passing grade. It looks like every ship on the sheet does have a passing grade, so that's good. I know in the past I've seen stories of ships getting in the 60s before, which would be just disastrous. If a ship fails the inspection, I'm not sure what the recourse is, how long they have to make it up and be re-inspected, but I'm sure that's probably pretty quick. As of right now I don't even see a ship in the 80s on their sheet, so everything is 90 or above. All right, let's talk pizza.
Patrick Wiscombe:The best pizza I've ever had in my life was the MSC Seashore pizza, regular crust. It was mild. It was so savory I didn't know pizza could be that good.
Mark Faldmo:We'll have to get you on a Princess ship so you can compare. I am fine with that. I think Princess edges out just a little bit, but they're very similar in quality. Just a little bit, but they're very similar in quality. Princess just announced a new partnership with a celebrity pizza chef who's won all sorts of pizza awards. His name is Tony Giamatti. He's the 13-time world pizza champion, so he's going to be consulting Princess on their pizzas in their pizza restaurant.
Mark Faldmo:Now, princess, a lot of ships have a pizza by the pool deck. That's the pizza that I like. Or they have an actual pizza restaurant on board which has all sorts of specialty pizzas, and he's created some premium pizzas that include soffrazzata, sausage, a hot honey pizza, agave pesto. So a couple of really interesting pizza flavors on board Princess. At their pizza parlor they have on board Ooh, a pesto. That's a unique one. Just as a side note, princess just set a world record for the most people eating pizza at the same time. On all of their ships. They had over 60,000 slices of pizza being eaten at one time. I don't know how Guinness Book of World Records did that They'd had to have a judge on every ship but they broke that world record.
Patrick Wiscombe:That's a lot of pizza. Yes, let's get to the cruise deal of the week. So just before we came on, the air, mark and I were discussing Alaska cruises and I said you know what, let's make that the cruise deal of the week. And we don't very, very rarely, in fact, we absolutely discourage it for sure, but we have last minute Alaskan cruises. What do we have for listeners?
Mark Faldmo:Yeah. So I've got two sailings. One is a seven-day princess northbound sailing which goes Vancouver to Whittier, which is Anchorage area. This is September 7th and the reason why I chose this one is because of the rate on the balcony cabin. So for an Alaska cruise the balcony cabin starts at $1,259 per person. That includes all taxes and fees. That's the end rate for at least the cruise portion of that. And looking at other cruises this time of year, the balconies were $2,000, $2,100, $2,200. This was a very good rate for a northbound Alaska cruise and its ports are Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, College, Fjord, which I think is one of the top glacier viewing areas, and then I forgot to mention Ketchikan. Ketchikan is on that as well.
Patrick Wiscombe:That's a good cruise right there. What's the other cruise deal?
Mark Faldmo:of the week. This is a nine-day round trip Seattle, so I chose this one because there aren't a lot of longer Alaska cruises and I think this has a pretty unique itinerary. September 18th starts from $1,079 per person for an inside cabin, the balconies starts at $2,449 per person. For an inside cabin, the balconies starts at $2449 per person. So by comparison you see the balcony cost on that other ship. Yeah, the previous itinerary is pretty good, but this itinerary again, round trip Seattle goes to Sitka, which has a lot of Russian history. There Goes to Glacier Bay, Skagway, Juneau and then Icy Strait, Ketchikan and Victoria, before ending back in Seattle.
Patrick Wiscombe:I can't encourage listeners enough. If you've always wanted to see Alaska or you've heard people talk about Alaska in endearing terms for a first cruise, you cannot go wrong. Well, really, any time. You can go multiple times and there's always something to see. You will not be disappointed at all, unless you don't like colder weather.
Mark Faldmo:I love Alaska the beauty, the wildlife, just the activities. It's different from any other cruise. It is special.
Patrick Wiscombe:How much was that one? Again the nine-day Seattle. Will you recap?
Mark Faldmo:that again Started at $1,079 per person for an inside cabin or $2449 for a balcony cabin.
Patrick Wiscombe:If you want to book that vacation, call Mark as soon as we hang up the air In his office, anytime, 888-718-7717. 888-718-7717. You will love going to Alaska. That's going to do it, Mark. We're done, man. That show went quick today. That went quick today. It was a good show. Thank you so much for allowing us to be part of your Saturday morning. Whether you're lounging at the house, working out on the treadmill, driving around, I want to give my personal thank you for allowing us to just be part of your Saturday. I know we talk about travel, but I'm going to expand it just a little bit. Go travel, if you can Travel. Don't wait. Live your life intentionally. Live your life deliberately. Don't wait. Don't put things off, because you never know if you're going to be able to do them later. Have a terrific Saturday. You've been listening to the Inside Travel Talk podcast and radio show. Alongside Mark Faldmo, I am Patrick Wiscombe. 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 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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