Cruising out of Florida? Travelzoo and Priceline are Your Friends

Ok, so whenever we cruise out of Florida there is one website I visit immediately: Travelzoo. This wonderful website shows several regional deals for hotels, entertainment, and even whole vacation packages. I love the hotel section. The benefit of checking out Travelzoo is they often have promo codes for hotels that you can use to book through the hotel's actual website. That way you can save money, AND score the hotel's loyalty points since you're booking direct. Love it!

I'm planning one precruise night in Fort Lauderdale for our cruise in October. I wanted to stay at the Hyatt Regency Pier 66 so we could watch our ship, the Allure, pull into port the morning of our cruise, plus catch the Water Taxi right from our hotel. We wanted a Tower Room since reviews say they're a little nicer, with balconies; a suite would be the icing on the cake. Looking on the Hyatt website, the rack rate for a Tower Room is $199. The Tower Junior Suite is $239. My AAA discount doesn't even affect those room rates. 

Going to Travelzoo, I found a fantastic deal. The package includes a Tower Junior Suite with a King Bed, two free cocktails (I'll enjoy a Shirley Temple lol),  free parking (don't need that but it's nice anyway), two all-day Water Taxi tickets ($40 value), and early check-in for just $129. Yes, you read correctly- $129! A fantastic deal!

Now if there's nothing that strikes my fancy on Travelzoo, I head to Priceline to bid on our hotels using the 'Name Your Own Price' feature. Check out BetterBidding to discover the techniques you should use, as well as see actual bidding results from other users. Use Tripadvisor and Yelp to read reviews on the hotels you're likely to win before bidding, to make sure you're comfortable with any result you may receive. I've won beachfront resorts in Puerto Rico for $90 a night, as well as beautiful properties in Boston and Philadelphia for prices in that range. 

Use these tools and do some research. Does it take some time? Sure it does, but if you want your money to go far when traveling, you should invest some time into tools that will help you do just that. You'll save some money and get excellent value for your travel dollars. 

Happy travels!
~Chrystal

A HUGE 'Thank You' to Royal Caribbean- We're Customers for Life!

I just wanted to write about the wonderful customer service we received this weekend from Royal Caribbean. We had a rough weekend and Royal was a pleasure to work with, and very accommodating.

DH and I were supposed to sail the Allure of the Seas, leaving today (9/23). This trip was to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary, and our baby-moon. We just found out on Thursday that we have a little boy on the way, and we couldn't be more excited. As of today I am 20 weeks along, and you can sail pregnant up to 24 weeks.

We landed in Florida on Friday, and arrived at our hotel in South Beach (Z Ocean on Collins Ave- fabulous place by the way). We had lunch, and were finally settling into our suite when we received a phone call from my husband's sister. Our grandmother (my husband's maternal grandmother) passed away that evening. We were devastated. Our family is very close, and she was truly the most warm, loving, and sweet woman I've had the privilege of knowing. She had an incredible faith and strength, and she made you feel so special every time you were with her. In any event, we knew we couldn't board that ship knowing our family needed us, and the services were going to occur later in the week.

It was late that night when we found out, so I waited until the following morning to start making arrangements to return home. Fortunately we had travel insurance, so I wasn't that concerned about cancelling the trip (from a financial perspective). We wanted to get home, but we also wondered if it would be possible to push the trip back by two weeks.

So I called my travel agency. I have used this agency for most of our Royal sailings, mostly for the OBC. It was a larger agency, and we have been fine with the service since I watch my own travel plans like a hawk and had no trouble calling them to make changes when I needed to. The plan was to start making our own bookings after this cruise, since we would be Platinum with Royal and could use the balcony discount, booking next cruises onboard for OBC. I normally book our own flights, hotel, etc. I'm so type-A that I would much rather handle all the moving parts of our vacations myself.

Being a Saturday, the agency wasn't open. I left a message and said we had an emergency and needed to speak with someone immediately. (Still haven't heard from them by the way). I'm not surprised since they did mention on the VM that they were closed on weekends. So, I did the next best thing I could think of.

I decided to call Royal Caribbean myself in the hopes that they would try to help me even though the agency was in control of our booking. I calmly explained our situation to the customer service rep. I let him know that since the sailing was tomorrow, and we had a death in the family, AND my travel agency was closed, I simply didn't know what to do. We really wanted to be able to keep our vacation if at all possible, pushing it back by two weeks. He gave me his condolences and let me know he was passing me along to a Resolutions Specialist at Royal's headquarters. Mind you, this is much more progress than I expected, and he acknowledged that while they would normally refer me back to my TA, this was an extraordinary circumstance, and they would do their best to help me.

So the Resolutions Specialist Geree got on the line, and asked me what happened. We talked a little bit about our grandmother, she asked how we were doing and sounded very concerned about our situation. I further explained that I totally understood that they didn't have to do anything for us, I was just wondering what our options were. I also explained that we love to cruise, and were taking this last big cruise since we had a baby on the way and wouldn't be able to cruise for a little while. I basically had 4 weeks left to cruise for quite some time, and really wanted to keep our booking.

So, she asked me when we wanted to sail, and said that it was possible for them to make an exception and move the sail date for us. We had until about 2 PM EST to make the change (it was about 9:45 by then). We did some calls back and forth for a few hours to be able to make the changes since there were a lot of moving parts in changing the reservation. In the meantime, I changed our flights to the following morning (Sunday). Jetblue was a pleasure to work with as well. Fortunately our travel insurance will reimburse us for the flight change fees.

Geree called me around 1 PM, and was able to move our booking back by two weeks. I couldn't even begin to explain how grateful we were to her. She said she completely understood what it was like to have such a short window to be able to cruise again, as well as know how therapeutic a cruise could be after such a loss. Within minutes yesterday, I logged on and saw our new booking number. We got a balcony guarantee since it was closest in price to our previous booking. We didn't have to pay anything extra, and we didn't get any money back, which was fine. We were just happy to be able to push the cruise back. Just before we boarded the plane this morning, I logged into 'My Cruises' and saw our actual cabin assignment.

Though we have some rough days ahead, my husband and I are very grateful to Royal for being so sympathetic, understanding, and accommodating during a very difficult time. Every person we spoke with was so kind. We're looking forward to our cruise in October. In us, they have customers for life. Thanks, Royal!

~Chrystal

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Well I haven't done a very good job of keeping up with my blog this summer, have I? The summer has been a whirlwind, and it is absolutely time for a vacation! Luckily, my husband and I are headed on a cruise in a little while.  We're spending some time in South Beach before sailing the incredible Allure of the Seas. I can't wait!

So, what's happened since my last post? A LOT! Some I won't divulge until my cruise review, but we have done a road trip and found a lovely restaurant that I'm sure we'll frequent....well, perhaps we'll visit once a year!

First, my husband and I took my parents to Virginia Beach for a weekend trip. We had a really nice time. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Virginia Beach Town Center. Loved this hotel! It was within walking distance of some good shopping and restaurants, and Virginia Beach Blvd was right around the corner, which is the main drag that takes you straight to Virginia Beach's wonderful oceanfront. Service at the hotel was friendly, and the hotel and rooms were very clean. We had one slight issue when housekeeping was in our room when we arrived back from our trip to the beach (thought they would have been finished earlier than that), but that was the only snafu. The hot breakfast offered at the hotel was great! Made to order omelets, waffles, hot scrambled eggs, grits, corned beef hash, and lots of cold items too. I think we only paid about $11 each for the breakfast buffet. A great value. We would stay here again.

Hotel Lobby

Breakfast

Breakfast Area

Delicious fresh omelet, complete with a flower garnish

Indoor pool at the hotel- a hot tub was behind me

In Virginia, we had to visit our favorite buffet as a family- Captain George's! If you love crab legs, this is a place that you simply have to try. It's crowded and always packed, for good reason. It's worth the wait for piles of freshly steamed crab legs, as well as fish, clams, mussels, prime rib, pasta...just about anything you could want. My parents brought me here every year when I was a little girl, since VA Beach was our vacation spot. Try and see for yourself why we keep coming back!

My husband and I also had a double-date with some of our best friends. We chose the Liberty House Restaurant, in Jersey City. What a find! We had an incredible view from our table of the NYC skyline, just across the Hudson. At night, plenty of candlelight and strings of lights are sprinkled around the property, and they have live music playing on the pavilion outside. Such a romantic atmosphere. And the food was great! Be sure to check this place out. Worth it in my eyes.

That's about it so far! We're unpacking from our move, and packing for our vacation. I can't wait to sit on the beach with my shades and a good book. That's the life to me! 

Happy Travels!
~Chrystal