Hello, and welcome to my travel blog! I’ll be updating this blog on a regular basis–I’ll be posting travel ideas, specials, travel tips, interviews, etc. I’m also planning to use this as somewhat of a travel journal as well. I hope that you learn something from what I post, or get ideas about future vacations — (that hopefully I’ll be booking for you!) — or just have a bit of escapism fun!
I just got back from CruiseWorld in Fort Lauderdale, which was my first travel trade show. It reminded me a lot of days spent at the Atlanta Gift Mart, purchasing inventory for my store. CruiseWorld had a lot of educational experiences to offer, and we took advantage of as many as we could! I attended seminars on group travel, marketing, expeditions to the polar waters with Hurtigruten, The Galapagos Islands with Celebrity Cruises, more marketing, making a business plan, we also attended a Think Tank for travel agents. We had some really good food, and Norwegian Cruise Line brought in PitBull for an hour long concert one night. I had California Pizza Kitchen for the first time, and loved it so much, we went back the next night! 
The highlight of the event, for me, was getting to tour two cruise ships. From the list of available ships to choose from, I wanted to tour Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas and Princess Cruises’ Caribbean Princess.
The Harmony of the Seas was big. She was the biggest ship I’ve ever been on before. It was unlike any ship that I’ve seen. There were more choices of things to do, that there just is no way to get to them all in a week! There was a car parked in the mall-like atrium, they had a carousel, a landscaped Central Park (with real trees & plants!!!) surfing simulators, rock climbing walls and a whole lot more. I’ve always wanted to go on one of the mega-ships! Harmony of the Seas did NOT disappoint!
The Caribbean Princess was beautiful. I’ll be sailing on my FIRST Princess Cruise on the Island Princess next week (November 20) from Ft. Lauderdale to San Francisco, going through the Panama Canal. Have you ever went to a new destination, resort, ship, or theme park, and just knew immediately that you made a good decision and that you were just in the right place? That’s exactly how I felt when stepping on the Caribbean Princess. I loved everything right from the start, and I cannot wait to get on the Island Princess on Tuesday. During our tour of the Caribbean Princess, we took a class on their Ocean Medallions. Princess is bringing this new technology to their ships, slowly but surely. It’s very similar to Walt Disney World’s MagicBand tech…it’s truly fascinating on what it can do. I’ll be posting more about this in a later updated.
These two ships were completely different from one another. COMPLETELY. Not only were they different sizes, offered different things to do on the ships, the “vibe” of the ship was vastly different. While I liked both ships very much, the Caribbean Princess “fit” me better than Harmony of the Seas. Would I sail on Harmony? Absolutely. Would I prefer Caribbean Princess? Probably. There are so many cruise lines to choose from…some are similar to each other, some are different. After touring the Caribbean Princess, I am probably more excited about my upcoming vacation than I’ve been for any vacation in a long time. (and, if you know me, you know I LOVE vacations!)
If you ever have the opportunity to sail with Princess Cruises, go seek out their cookies. The Double Chocolate were incredible. BUT, those Oatmeal Raisin cookies were life-changing good. I have never had such a good cookie. I can’t wait for more of them.
Hope you follow along on my journey! I’ll try and update regularly and will blog about my vacation on the Island Princess next week!
See ya real soon!
Kenneth
Cleared For Take-Off! 