Inside Travel Talk

The Inside Scoop: Globus Tours and Norwegian Cruise Line's Best Offers

• Mark Faldmo & Patrick Wiscombe • Season 3 • Episode 26

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Dive into a treasure trove of exceptional travel deals with Mark and Patrick as they unveil extraordinary savings opportunities perfect for your next adventure. The spotlight shines on Globus Tours' flash sale featuring their "Escape Tours" – off-season European journeys offering the dual benefits of 40-50% savings and blissfully uncrowded attractions. Picture yourself exploring Budapest, Vienna, and Prague for just $1,099 per person, or wandering through Scotland's magical landscapes for under $1,000 on a 7-day tour.

A fascinating travel insight emerges when discussing winter travel to the British Isles. While many assume harsh conditions, these northern destinations actually enjoy surprisingly temperate weather thanks to warm ocean currents flowing up from Africa. This creates the perfect opportunity to experience iconic sites without the summer crowds while still enjoying comfortable exploration conditions.

Norwegian Cruise Line steals the show with their remarkable promotion combining 35% savings with an impressive array of free perks: complimentary airfare for your second guest, shore excursion credits, Wi-Fi, unlimited bar package, and specialty dining. The standout offering? A 16-day repositioning cruise from Barcelona to the Dominican Republic starting at just $1,129 per person, featuring an exceptional itinerary with stops in Spain, Morocco, and the Caribbean that balances enriching port experiences with relaxing days at sea.

The hosts also highlight the growing trend of private shore excursions, where savvy travelers are discovering remarkable value in upgrading from large group tours to private experiences. For only slightly more than standard excursions, you can enjoy personalized attention, skip-the-line privileges, and a customized pace that transforms your time in port.

Ready to take advantage of these limited-time offers? Call 888-718-7717 to speak with expert travel advisors who can secure your spot before these deals disappear, or explore options yourself at BluePlanetVacations.com.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Time for the Inside Travel Talk podcast, a radio show Coming up. On today's show, mark and I will be talking about the flash sale going on with Globus Tours in Eastern Europe 35% off and free airfare with NCL, and we're also gonna give you the top three cruises with Norwegian Cruise Lines. Let's start the show. The Inside Travel Talk podcast, a 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 BluePlanetVacations. com. Call or text the show now 801-649-3700. 801-649-3700. And check out the podcast at InsideTravelTalk. com. And now here are your hosts, Patrick Wiscombe and Mark Faldmo.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Happy birthday, America. What a great country we live in and what a privilege it is to be an American. Welcome to the Inside Travel Talk podcast, a radio show. Hello there, I'm Patrick Wiscombe, alongside Mark Faldmo, coming up in this edition of the show. We will be talking about 35% off and free airfare with Norwegian Cruise Lines, and we're also going to give you the top three destinations. And if you've always wanted to go to Eastern Europe, we're going to tell you how to get there because Globus Tours, one of our suppliers, has an amazing offer for our listeners this week. The entire purpose of this radio show and podcast is to help you plan and book your next vacation, or just give you ideas of where you may want to consider going on vacation next, and we are presented by BluePlanetVacations. com, and thank you again for taking the time to stop and listen. Mark Faldmo, this is an abbreviated version of the show because you and I were actually recorded this week, because you and I are out celebrating America.

Mark Faldmo:

Where are you today? We are Yep. I'm just at home today getting ready to leave to head down south to visit some family.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Let's get right to the travel news headlines SkyWest. If people don't know what SkyWest is, is it a kind of a commuter airline, regional airline?

Mark Faldmo:

SkyWest is a regional carrier and they operate like Delta Connection. They also operate American Eagle, United Express and flights for Alaska Airlines. So they kind of contract with all the airlines to operate their shorter flights. And SkyWest is a company that's based right here in Utah.

Patrick Wiscombe:

SkyWest has ordered 60 Embraer E-175 planes. They've just ordered 60 more.

Mark Faldmo:

They ordered the 60 Embraer E-175 aircraft, which I am excited about. These are slated to replace the older CRJ-700, which I think is a good move. The Embraer E-175 is a much more comfortable aircraft to fly on than those CRJs.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Hyatt has completed their $2.6 billion acquisition of Playa. What do we know?

Mark Faldmo:

Hyatt wanted to get into the all-inclusive business, but they didn't want to jump in full force, and so they contracted out with Playa Resorts to open. What are the Hyatt Ziva resorts?

Mark Faldmo:

which are some of my favorite resorts. A little bit later on Hyatt wanted more and so they bought a company called AM Resorts which has Secrets Dreams, a lot of the really famous all-inclusives. So Hyatt kind of had these two different companies operating their hotels so it made sense for them just to purchase Hyatt. So now all of the Hyett's are under one brand, one ownership. Players Arts also operated several other. They operated some Wyndham all-inclusives which are being sold off. They operated some Hilton all-inclusives which are being incorporated into the Hyatt brand. Some of those are going to be like dreams and secrets, some of those old Hilton properties. So this does add an additional 15 hotels to the Hyatt portfolio in Mexico and the Caribbean.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Because this is an abbreviated show, because of the July 4th holiday. And again, happy birthday America. I love living in this great country and I know you do too, mark.

Mark Faldmo:

I do.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Yeah, we're just going to jump right to the hot travel deal of the week. This was something that really caught my eye. You told me before the show hey, I really have a good promotion this week for the hot travel deal of the week, and this is the Globus Travel Flash Sale, where you can save up to $500 per person on escape tours. But my first question is and I can hear the listeners saying well, what are escape tours? It's not like an escape room.

Mark Faldmo:

No, an escape tour for Globus is an off season tour, so these are tours that operate November through March, which gives you several advantages. First is the price. These are very good prices less crowds which is always a good thing. One of my favorite places to go is Antwerp in Belgium. There's a main square there that's always so crowded. I had the opportunity a few years back to go there in March and we were on the walking tour through the city and came out to this main square. I have a picture of myself and I am the only person you can see in the whole picture in front of the main fountain. It's so nice to travel when there are fewer crowds, especially when you're going into the museums, some of the different attractions.

Mark Faldmo:

These escape tours are designed purely around that Less crowds and a lower price. They're typically 40 to 50% lower than a similar tour is in the summertime. So big savings, a big savings. Okay. So where are we going? Let's start with Imperial Escape, which is in Central Europe. This is a seven-day tour that goes from Budapest to Prague, and the other stop in that is Vienna.

Ad Voice:

So you spend a few nights in.

Mark Faldmo:

Budapest, a few nights in Vienna and a few nights in Prague, and this is not a cruise, this is a land tour.

Patrick Wiscombe:

This is a land tour. Yeah Wow, a really good tour. Yeah Wow.

Mark Faldmo:

A really good tour for that central Europe. The best part of it is the price, so that Imperial Escape again a seven-day tour starts at $1,099 per person. Wow, so that's your hotel, your transportation, you're with a professional guide, admissions to all of the places you visit. You know tours every day. That is a very good tour. We'll move on to Scotland.

Patrick Wiscombe:

I'm personally interested in this one.

Mark Faldmo:

This one starts in Edinburgh and ends in Glasgow, or vice versa. I think this is the best itinerary, so let's do the one that starts in Glasgow, or vice versa. I think this is the best itinerary, so let's do the one that starts in Glasgow, so you'll go up to Fort Williams, which is by where the Harry Potter train is, at Loch Ness, Coldenmore, which is in the Highlands, and then to Inverness, Scotland. Then you come down and you spend a night in Inverness, and then you come down, stop in St Andrews famous golf course.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Oh yeah.

Mark Faldmo:

And then you finish the tour with a few nights in Edinburgh. Oh wow, and this one again. Seven days is less than $1,000 per person. It's $959 per person.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Wow.

Mark Faldmo:

So if you've ever wanted to see Scotland and you know the one thing that's interesting about Ireland and Scotland, they're a further North latitude, so a lot of people say it's going to be cold and snowy, but they get the warm ocean current up from Africa, so the British Isles are fairly temperate compared to us here at lower latitude than there.

Mark Faldmo:

So you know, I remember south coast of Ireland. I was surprised because there are palm trees, because the coconuts, whatever come up in that current and there's just palm trees on the south coast of Ireland.

Patrick Wiscombe:

So oh, wow.

Mark Faldmo:

So it's cool. You'll definitely need a jacket or a coat, but it's not weather like you know we have. So, see, I would have never guessed that. Yeah, so to go during that November through March timeframe to save the crowds. This is a great tour. Yeah, it is.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Okay, what other tours do we?

Mark Faldmo:

have English escape tour. Again, these are all seven-day tours and this one starts in London. A few nights in London, then you go up to Oxford, then spend the night in Stratford-upon-Avon, which is Shakespeare country, and then go up to York, which is one of my favorite places. I love York, going to the York Minster. They have what's called the Shambles there, which is the narrow streets with glass paned shops Just a wonderful place to walk through. And then over the last few nights in Manchester with some visits to like Liverpool and other places like that. Most expensive one of the trips we've talked about so far it is 1269 dollars per person, but again, for the tour that's an amazing price yeah, November to March, so we're looking November 2025 to march 2026 to save this kind of money yeah, to save this kind of money.

Mark Faldmo:

And then we'll just highlight one more, because this is one that's on my bucket list, the place that I want to go to, Northern Africa. So this tour starts and ends in Casablanca, goes to Casablanca, Rabat spends two nights in Fez, two nights in Marrakesh and then back for a few nights in Casablanca. On the end, Morocco. It's just always intrigued me. My dad got back from Morocco a few weeks ago and just said it was an amazing trip Because you have the Spanish influence, the Moorish influence, just a whole bunch of different cultures merged into that country, which make it fascinating.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Did he say that it was better than what he had expected? He did. Yeah, mm. Yeah, your dad is well-traveled, well so are you, who has more miles? You or your dad? You have 4 million miles, or nearly 4 million miles, traveled. What does he have?

Mark Faldmo:

I probably have a little bit more because I've tracked mine more. He got laid into the kind of frequent flyer game. I'm sure if you look at it in a lifetime he has many more miles than I have. But if you look at the frequent flyer accounts I do.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Look at the evidence. Who has more miles? It's you.

Mark Faldmo:

Yeah.

Patrick Wiscombe:

What a great experience. I like what you said november 2025 to march 2026 40 to 50 off what would be the normal price for these exact same tours, and I thought it was interesting how you said the it's more temperate because of the the warmer weather coming up from africa, if I got that right.

Mark Faldmo:

Yeah.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Wow, all right, take advantage of that offer. That is an exclusive for our listeners from Globus. This is their flash sale. Call Mark in his office, 888-718-7717. 888-718-7717. And he'll also post this on blueplanetvacations. com when we come back. It is time for the infamous Just Cruising segment, where it's only about the cruise news and it's only about cruise deals. That is next when the Inside Travel Talk podcast or radio show continues Alongside Mark Faldmo. My name is Patrick Wiscombe. Thank you so much for listening. 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.

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We'll be right back waterways, from castles and capitals to vistas and villages. Visit some of Europe's most remarkable sites and cities To set out on your own river cruise journey. Contact Blue Planet Vacations at 888-718-7717 or blueplanetvacations. com.

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:

Happy birthday to America, a beautiful country, a great country. We're still the envy of the world and it is a privilege to be called an American and I know that I speak for mark. He has no idea that I'm going to say this but what an amazing opportunity to go out and see the world and then come home and just go. You know what America's awesome. We are blessed to live here. Coming up in this segment of this abbreviated edition of the Inside Travel Talk podcast or a radio show, we will be talking about 35% off savings, plus free airfare for a second guest, plus free excursion credits, free Wi-Fi, also unlimited bar and free specialty dining. This is the infamous just cruising segment, done a little bit earlier than we normally do it. Normally we do it at the bottom of the hour, but since Mark and I are on holiday right now because of the holiday, we're doing an abbreviated version of the show Mark. Let's get right to the cruise news headlines. Cruise guests are increasingly asking for private premier shore excursions. I love this idea.

Mark Faldmo:

This was two groups that kind of do third party shore excursions. One is Shore Excursions Group, which is who I recommend and who I use all the time. They're just saying their demand for private shore excursions has about tripled in the last few years.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Can I make an important distinction here? So there's cruise ship excursions that you pay for, but this is actually a should I call them a private company called Shore Excursions Group.

Mark Faldmo:

Yes, okay, that's correct. So they're a third party shore excursion provider, so they often take a lot of the tours that you find on board a cruise ship, do them in a little bit smaller groups for a better price, and so that's what shore excursion group is known for. But now they're really starting to add these private shore excursions. I think a private shore excursion is much better than the group shore excursions. Sometimes they're a little bit more expensive. But I do have an example here. I have a family going on a Mediterranean cruise over Christmas and we were looking for short excursions for them and they wanted to go in Barcelona, up to Montserrat, to the monastery, and so the cruise line short excursion was $105 per person, so that's with a group of 30 or 40. And I was looking at short excursions group and they have a private shore excursion, so up to eight people it was $140 per person. It's not a whole lot more than what the cruise line was offering.

Patrick Wiscombe:

No.

Mark Faldmo:

But you're in your own vehicle, with your own guide and your own driver.

Patrick Wiscombe:

And that's the difference right there.

Mark Faldmo:

Yeah, and so these private shore excursions, I think, are the way to go, and actually probably the last three or four months I've sold more of these private shore excursions in three months than I've probably sold in my whole career oh wow, it's a great way to do this, especially like in Europe, Like if you're in Rome, for instance. You know those are long days, those are 10 to 12 hours long shore excursions. The same family now this is not on a shore excursion because they're spending a day in Rome, but this can be done as a private shore excursion from the port. They had a family of seven and they did a full day tour for about $1,800 of Rome. It includes the entrance to the Sistine Chapel, entrance to the Colosseum, all of the sites, and so to do that one as a private shore excursion just makes a lot of sense.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Do you cut to the front of the line?

Mark Faldmo:

You do. Most of these have the skip the line entrances at a lot of the places.

Patrick Wiscombe:

I would rather pay a little bit more to get a better experience than to just stand in line all day.

Mark Faldmo:

For those that are interested in just looking at these, on the Blue Planet Vacations website there's a tab for shore excursions. You can look at that or just in the cruise booking engine down at the very bottom it says cruise shore excursions. If you click on that it'll take you to this and you can look at all of the private shore excursions or just all of the shore excursions in general.

Patrick Wiscombe:

I didn't know that was on the website, so I'm glad you brought that up. Always in the infamous just cruising segment is the cruise deal of the week. This is what we're famous for, and we've got Norwegian cruise lines. It's 35% off savings plus free airfare for a second guest, free excursion credit, free Wi-Fi, also unlimited bar and free specialty dining. That's a lot of free. And what promotions do we have? Well, you know what. My first question is, mark, how does free airfare work with this promotion?

Mark Faldmo:

So you know this is a promotion that Norwegians had for a while, but it is very good. So it is free airfare for the second person. So the first person pays whatever Norwegian's rate is for that and then the second person goes free. And sometimes this is a very good deal and it literally is almost 50% off the regular price. So we've talked about the Hawaii to Tahiti cruise. When I had a group that did that, the first person paid about $1,200 and the second person was free. So that was basically $600 a person, when you average it all out, to go fly to Hawaii and fly home from Tahiti. So sometimes you can find that this is a great way to go.

Mark Faldmo:

Now the drawback with doing the cruise line air and this is true of almost every cruise line is you don't have any say in the airline or flight schedule when you buy their airfare. They put you on whatever fits within their contracts. So it's a great way to save money. But you do have to understand that you don't have a say in what airline or what flight schedule you're on. But other parts of this promotion the free shore excursion credit so you get a shore excursion credit in each port which helps you save money the free Wi-Fi package, which is also it's like 75 or 120 minutes free. You know something like that. So this is a really good, solid promotion by Norwegian.

Patrick Wiscombe:

What are the destinations? Let's start there.

Mark Faldmo:

I just picked what I think are the three best cruise promotions cruise departures for Norwegian. Interesting how I found this On the Blue Planet Vacations website. You can go in to the cruise search but you could just put in a date and look at all cruise lines and find the best prices for a certain month. So this one I just put in a date and look at all cruise lines and find the best prices for a certain month. So this one I just put in Norwegian Cruise Line, put in January to see what their best prices were, and I pulled up every single sailing of Norwegian in January so I could search through all of the best prices.

Patrick Wiscombe:

So this is customer facing, meaning whoever's listening could literally go to BluePlanetVacations. com and do what you're doing. It's not something they have to call you for.

Mark Faldmo:

Correct. Yeah, they could go and do the research on the cruise they want. They can book it online or they can call us to book their cruise. So the first itinerary I looked at was just a seven day Mexican Riviera itinerary in January. This was a January 18th date. The price is $599 per person but a balcony is $879 per person.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Oh wow.

Mark Faldmo:

So for a mid-January date this is pretty good, and that's just the standard Mexican Riviera Cabo, Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, and then you get that promotion that we talked about.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Is that on the Bliss?

Mark Faldmo:

That's on the Bliss. Okay, we'll move on to the Caribbean. This is a round trip from New Orleans. Its ports are Cozumel, harvest Cay, Roatan and Costa Maya. Before it gets back to New Orleans, this is several January dates that are about the same. Starts at $659 per person. Balcony cabins are $889 per person, so a great way to get out of the cold. Roatan, one of my favorites. Also, costa Maya, one of my favorites.

Patrick Wiscombe:

So out of the seven days you have four port days, Four port days.

Mark Faldmo:

Wow, okay, what's the last one? The last one is a repositioning cruise. I think this one is interesting. It's December, it's the first part of December, leaves December 6th and it is Barcelona to La Ramona in the Dominican Republic. Now, this one would be a perfect itinerary on Norwegian to look at. That second person flies free. Oh yeah, it would, because I'm sure the airfare rate on this would be fantastic.

Patrick Wiscombe:

How many days is this?

Mark Faldmo:

one. So this one is a 16-day cruise, leaves from Barcelona, goes to Malaga in Spain, Cadiz, Casablanca that we were just talking about in Morocco, goes to one other port in Morocco, and then it goes to Porto Grande, which is a port off of Africa, and then sails across to St Martin Tortola and then ends in La Romana.

Patrick Wiscombe:

You go to Phillipsburg on this one, you do. Oh, if you go to Phillipsburg, st Martin, go to Maho Beach, and that's the famous place where you can go to the beach and the planes fly over your head. One of the best experiences I've ever had in my life.

Mark Faldmo:

I love that activity too One of the best experiences I've ever had in my life. I love that activity too. There's a bar there that has kind of a deck that just looks out over that. So I just go and have lunch there and watch the planes land and watch the people get blown over by the planes.

Patrick Wiscombe:

So I was behind one of those jet blasts, wear eye protection yes. You'll get a face full of sand. What ship is this on Mark for the 16-day repositioning cruise?

Mark Faldmo:

This is on the Norwegian Sky, which is one of the Norwegian's smaller vessels. It's about 92,000 gross tons, so it actually is the smallest in their fleet right now. The best part of this is the price. 16 days inside cabin starts at $1129 per person Wow and the balcony starts at $2814. The price is the best part, but probably that itinerary. That is one of the more interesting repositioning itineraries that I've seen. It has more ports than most itinerary and less know less days at sea, so it the longest it has is four days at sea. Most of those would have five to seven days at sea, so so you are breaking up days at sea on this itinerary take advantage of that.

Patrick Wiscombe:

That is a tremendous offer and that starts January 2026. That 16-day repositioning cruise did you say it was December? What?

Patrick Wiscombe:

6 2025, somewhere in there December 6 through December 22nd oh, man, take advantage of those offers 888-718-7717, 888-771-7, and you can also go to blueplanetvacations. com. Well, that's it for this abbreviated version of the Inside Travel Talk podcast and radio show. You can listen to this very show again tomorrow morning, Sunday, at 11 am, right here on this radio station and, of course, around the country. Plus, you can stream, download and subscribe to the podcast at InsideTravelTalk. com. We're on all of the major podcast platforms and you can just stream the show right on the website. Now it's your turn to get out and explore the world while you can, because you never know what curveballs life is going to throw at you. Live your life deliberately. Live your life intentionally. Thanks for listening. Happy birthday, America. We'll talk to you next Saturday and Sunday. Have a great 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. Thanks for listening. Have a great week.