Travel Maven blog

Familiar turf on the new Ruby Princess

Some cruise lines build ships with an ever-increasing wow factor, touting the latest innovations such as rock wall climbing, ice skating or riding artificial waves.

Princess Cruises, which has introduced an average of one new ship a year since 1998, aims less for innovation, more for familiarity, so returning passengers know when they come aboard the name of their favorite bars and how to find the main dining room.

For 10 years, since the debut of the Grand Princess -- the first cruise ship with a dedicated wedding chapel and marriages at sea -- new Princess ships look and feel much the same as the last one. 

If you were with me on the first cruise of the Grand Princess out of Istanbul in May 1998, you would recognize the basic design of the new Ruby Princess, right, now on its inaugural cruises  out of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 

In 1998, the Grand Princess, at 109,000 tons and 2,600 passengers, was the largest cruise ship in the world. Now, other cruise lines sail ships that are half again as big.  The Ruby is 113,000 tons and about 3,000 passengers.

Designs have evolved

Princess has made some positive changes. Gone is the long, thin disco high above the rear end -- sort of like a spoiler on the trunk of a car -- that set the profile on the Grand, the Golden (2001), the Star (2002) and the Caribbean (2004).

The Caribbean (2004) launched Movies Under the Stars on the pool deck, where, at night, a   giant outdoor screen shines down on popcorn-munching passengers snuggled in blankets. Since the debuts of the Crown (2006), Emerald (2007) and Ruby (2008), passengers have found Sabatini’s, an alternative restaurant that is one of the best at sea, high above the stern, instead of on deck 7. Princess also has added the Sanctuary, an adults only retreat with a $15 fee. And on the newest ships, a piazza has become a popular gathering spot with street performers and live music. The piazza, and a new restaurant Crown Grill, both are slowly being added to the older ships during dry dock repairs.

But mostly, what you see today on the Ruby is familiar, including the Wheelhouse Bar, which now serves a pub lunch on sea days with such fare as fish and chips, bangers and mash, and soon, says Princess, a selection of English and Irish beers. Pub lunches will not carry an additional fee. Crown Grill, an alternative restaurant specializing in steaks and seafood, charges an extra $25 per person. Sabatini's Italian multi-course meal costs $20 per person.

New on Ruby are private breakfasts at Sabatini’s for passengers staying in suites. That follows a trend among cruise lines that are adding special attractions available only to passengers in the highest priced cabins.  Princess also has improved its cell phone and wireless Internet reception, allowing passengers to get online easier -- an area where Princess has lagged behind other cruise lines.

With its fine woods, fabrics and art collection, the Ruby offers an environment that is above the means of most passengers at home, but is also a comfortable vacation retreat with intimate places for relaxing, reading, meeting friends. The Ruby felt familiar to me, because I spent two weeks on her sister, the Emerald Princess, during a trans-Atlantic voyage in 2007. Many times last week I couldn't tell the difference between the two ships.

Romance is the theme

Princess Cruises has always played to the love theme. The sleek old -- and much smaller -- Pacific Princess was the featured ship on the television show, “Love Boat.” One of the show’s stars, Gavin MacLeod, 78, who played Captain Stubing, often returns for naming ceremonies, as he did in Fort Lauderdale Nov. 6 on the Ruby. MacLeod is one of those rare television and movie stars who gives you the impression he feels lucky to be included in the show. 

Official namers of the Ruby Princess were more recent television stars, Trista and Ryan Sutter, who met on ABC's reality series "The Bachelorette" six years ago. They're the only couple from "The Bachelor" and "Bachelorette" franchises who married. The Sutters wed in 2003 in an elaborate television ceremony watched by 26 million viewers. They have a son Max and live in Vail, Colo. He is a firefighter. She has designed a new diaper bag line, Trista Baby.

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Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net. CLICK for articles on cruising, golf, Florida, Europe, adventure and travel gear and gadgets.

Cruise prices drop

With bookings falling since September, cruise lines are cutting prices.

They see a tough year ahead, which means bargain rates for at least the near future. Most cruise lines want their ships to leave port at 100 percent of capacity. If beds are empty, on-board revenue, such as gambling and drinking alcohol, suffers. Tips go down, reducing income of employees.

If the economy stays flat or gets worse, and future cruise bookings continue to fall, expect prices to drop further.

Cruise Week, a newsletter for the travel industry, recently found bargain special promos.  Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) was hawking Europe cruises for $45 per day. Cunard was touting eight-day Caribbean cruises for $499 on the Queen Mary 2

Royal Caribbean launched a new brand campaign last week, asking "Why Not?" perhaps in response to the consumer mindset of "Not now," reported Cruise Week.

Royal Caribbean was offering an inside stateroom on a 10-night sailing in Europe for $429 and a balcony stateroom on a 12-night sailing in the Mediterranean for $799, reported USA Today. Check with your travel agent who specializes in cruises.

A Sensible choice, not an indulgence

While most businesses are scrambling to make a profit in these uneasy economic times, people who sell expensive vacations, such as cruises, are changing their marketing approach. Until the Dow Jones  begins rolling upward again, you may hear more about sensible, economic vacation choices instead of offers to travel for ultra luxury and indulgence.

That’s what travel agents were told last week on the new Ruby Princess, which is on its inaugural cruise in the Caribbean out of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
 
People who can afford a cruise still want a vacation even in bad times, said Princess executives. All consumers are assessing choices, trying to persuade themselves to take a vacation.

So, expect to be told that a cruise vacation is a need for an escape, rather than a splurge.

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Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net. CLICK for articles on cruising, golf, Florida, Europe, adventure and travel gear and gadgets.

 

Quirky Houston flaunts cars, scars, and beer cans

Every big city has its quirky places. Nooks and crannies with a whiff of weird. New Orleans and San Francisco for instance. On a recent Texas trip, I found Houston's share of the quirky, enough for a morning tour of cars, scars, and beer cans.

Pave the backyard and pop open a brew

Next time I'm guzzling beer from a can, my first toast goes to John Milkovisch (1912-1988). He worked as an upholsterer for the Southern Pacific Railroad. In his spare time, he drank beer, six to eight cans a day, which he saved, pressed flat and attached to his house.

Plastered is the word that comes to mind, both for Milkovisch and the outside of his house, at right, which is covered with the carcasses of more than 40,000 flattened beer cans and surrounded by a curtain of strung beer can tops.

Marks Hinton, a beer drinking friend of Milkovisch, said the upholsterer and his buddies consumed the contents of every can, many of them in the backyard of the house at 222 Malone. The backyard is paved in concrete, decorated with marbles, so John would not waste his drinking time mowing grass.

"My favorite beer," John Milkovisch told his friends, "is whatever is on sale." Tour groups often include the Beer Can House. If you come alone, the fee for looking around is $5.

When a scar is a tale

We are all scarred by our pasts. At the Museum of the Weird, Houston artist Dolan Smith has built a room for visitors to tell their stories about their body scars, from deep slashes to hundreds of scratches.

Smith has toured Texas in his Scar Car. Travelers who stop at 834 W. 24th Street, can read about pain and/or leave their own scar stories, above, on small blocks of wood ("Well, there was this wood-chipper" or  "I went to get my ear pierced and I passed out. I cut myself on the way down."). Smith believes that if you draft a message you will leave some of your own pain behind as well.

The house also has a perverse side, so don't include this weird museum on your personal tour if you would be insulted by a room that looks like a stage for a sex show. No doubt, some scars there, too.

A house for arty automobiles

For me, a car is a thing to turn on when I need to go somewhere. Some folks are turned on by turning their car into a piece of art, an opportunity to express themselves on four wheels as they glide down public streets and capture ahhhs in local parades.

The Art Car Museum is a house in Houston Heights, which is kind of a joke in Houston because the Heights are about 25 feet above sea level.

The cars seem kind of funny, too, including a 1972 Eldorado, above, with enough tea cups outside to party with the Mad Hatter, and a 1984 Dodge Power Ram truck, at right, with seductive eyes and ready molars. The museum is at 140 Heights Boulevard.

Some art, some arty cars, some scars and 40,000 beer cans -- all on a Sunday morning.

For planning a trip to Houston, go to Visit Houston Texas

Worth clicking:

Writer June Naylor looks at Houston as a cruise port for the web site, CruiseCritic.

For a free subscription to Travel Maven, type your email address in the box at right or add an RSS feed, upper right.

Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net. CLICK for articles on cruising, golf, Florida, Europe, adventure and travel gear and gadgets.

Best of travel journalism

Los Angeles Times travel blogger Jen Leo has collected some of the story links to the winning entries from the 2008 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition. Winner Catharine Hamm, L.A. Times Travel editor, described the awards as “our Pulitzer.”

You'll find some great reads, from the Boston Globe's revealing article about Alice Brock, of "Alice's Restaurant" fame in the 1966 Arlo Guthrie anti-war song, to an investigative story on "The Long Trail to Jail" in Backpacker Magazine. 

For links, CLICK

The Lowell Thomas contest awards nearly $20,000 annually to North American journalists, overseen by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation. Contributions to the non-profit Foundation's endowment fund for the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition are welcome at the Web site or contact administrator Mary Lu Abbott, MaryLuA@satwf.com.

Transparency note: David Molyneaux is president of the SATW Foundation. 

Check out the Travel auction

From weekend getaways to cruising the Nile or brousing through the art cities of Flanders, travel packages with bargain possibilities are Up For Auction at a Website managed by the Society of American Travel Writers.

Each year, SATW, an association of travel journalists and public relations people in the travel business, invites the public to bid on a selection of trips and destinations donated to SATW.

You'll find choices from five star hotels and resorts to gift baskets. Values of the donated items range from $50 to $5,422.
 
The auction works similar to Ebay and other online auctions. Browsers and bidders will log on to SATWAuction. With a specially created ID and password, you may bid as often as you want. The auction will be updated in real time. Bidding closes at midnight EDT on Nov. 20.

From weekend getaways to cruising the Nile or brousing through the art cities of Flanders, travel packages with bargain possibilities are Up For Auction at a Website managed by the Society of American Travel Writers.

Each year, SATW, an association of travel journalists and public relations people in the travel business, invites the public to bid on a selection of trips and destinations donated to SATW.

You'll find choices from five star hotels and resorts to gift baskets. Values of the donated items range from $50 to $5,422.
 
The auction works similar to Ebay and other online auctions. Browsers and bidders will log on to SATWAuction. With a specially created ID and password, you may bid as often as you want. The auction will be updated in real time. Bidding closes at midnight EDT on Nov. 20.

Talking travel and turkey in Houston

I am in Houston for the annual convention of the Society of American Travel Writers.

SATW is a group of writers, editors, photographers, and audio and video folks who travel the world, relaying  their reports to other travelers, as well as many readers and viewers who seldom leave their armchairs. I have been writing about travel for more than 25 years, a nice gig, but it doesn't pay much.

Once a year, travel journalists meet with public relations people representing destinations and businesses that concentrate on leisure travel. It's my opportunity to listen and to learn about changes and trends that will impact vacationers. I will pass on some of those gleanings after the convention.

Thanks for a tiny turkey sandwich

I flew to Houston last week from Cleveland, Ohio, where, because of traffic I didn't have time to grab a lunch to go before getting on the plane.

Not to worry, because Continental Airlines is one of the few carriers that provides food at mealtime. On my 12:40 p.m. flight, we coach class passengers got a small turkey sandwich, a bag of Fritos and small chocolate bar. With a cup of tomato juice, that was a better lunch than I have overpaid for in some restaurants.

Don't know whether anyone else tells Continental thanks for a small deli turkey sandwich, but I did.

For a free subscription to Travel Maven, type your email address in the box at right or add an RSS feed, upper right.

Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net. CLICK for articles on cruising, golf, Florida, Europe, adventure and travel gear and gadgets.

National Geographic Adventure tops Lowell Thomas Awards

Houston, Texas

National Geographic Adventure magazine ran away with top honors today at the presentation of the 24th annual Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition.

National Geographic Adventure is well-edited and well-researched, which impressed the judges, as the magazine gathered 10 awards, including Best Travel Magazine.

Among newspapers -- a dying breed in travel journalism -- the Boston Globe won five awards, including the gold for Online Travel Journalism and the gold for Special Projects, combining traditional print journalism with high-quality video, sound and photojournalism on the Web.

Travel Journalist of the Year is Christopher Baker, a freelance writer and photographer who specializes in articles and guidebooks on the Caribbean, with a concentration on Cuba and Costa Rica. Baker will receive $1,500. In the grand-award category, the silver went to Jane Wooldridge, travel editor of the Miami Herald. The bronze was awarded to freelance journalist Sarah Wildman.

New categories this year included broadcast, won by Paul Lasley and Elizabeth Harryman for their work on XM Satellite Radio, and video, won by Joseph Rosendo for shows on PBS TV stations.

The contest is overseen by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation (www.satwfoundation.org) and was judged by the faculty at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Travelers are reading on the Internet

I am president of the SATW Foundation. Our goal is to recognize and reward the best of travel journalism in all its forms, including print, the Internet, audio and video. Each year, travelers explore farther, beyond traditional places, for information, expertise and authenticity in the journals of fellow travelers. And each year, journalists find new ways to provide insights, reviews and good reads to the traveling public.

Total prize money for individual winners this year was nearly $20,000. Among the winners:

Newspapers: The Chicago Tribune and  Seattle Times won multiple awards. The Los Angeles Times earned the gold for Best Newspaper Travel Section with a circulation of at least 500,000; the Houston Chronicle won silver, the Boston Globe bronze. In the circulation class of 350,000 to 499,999, the Globe and Mail in Toronto took gold, the St. Petersburg Times silver, the Miami Herald bronze and the Cleveland Plain Dealer honorable mention. For circulation under 350,000, The New Orleans Times-Picayune earned gold, California’s Orange County Register silver, Fort Worth Star-Telegram bronze and Ottawa Citizen honorable mention.

Travel magazines: National Geographic Traveler, Departures and Budget Travel each won multiple awards. Travel + Leisure, Brides Magazine, and Coastal Living won awards.

Online Travel Journalism Sites: BudgetTravel.com, from Budget Travel, won silver. Southernliving.com/southernbyways, from Southern Living, won bronze.

Travel books: The gold winner for best travel book was “Encounters with the Middle East,” Nesreen Khashan and Jim Bowman, editors, published by Travelers’ Tales/Solas House. The gold winner for best guidebook was “Secret Hotels,” by Erik Torkells and the editors of Budget Travel, Stewart, Tabori & Chang

The competition is open to all North American journalists. First-place gold winners in individual categories each receive $500. Silver and bronze winners are awarded $250 and $150, respectively. The awards are named for Lowell Thomas, acclaimed broadcast journalist, prolific author and world explorer during five decades in travel journalism.

A list of the winners and the judges’ comments are available on the Foundation Web site, www.satwfoundation.org, or from the Foundation administrator, Mary Lu Abbott, at MaryLuA@satwf.com. For information about the contest or the Foundation, visit the Web site. For information about SATW, visit the organization’s Web site, www.satw.org.

For a free subscription to Travel Maven, type your email address in the box at right or add an RSS feed, upper right.

Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net. CLICK for articles on cruising, golf, Florida, Europe, adventure and travel gear and gadgets.

Cruise steak option: Stick a fork in it

The nickle and diming of passengers aboard cruise ships continues.

Royal Caribbean is asking cruisers whether they would be willing to spend an extra $14.95 for a good steak dinner in the main dining rooms. The cruise line is testing the idea on two ships,  Freedom of the Seas and Majesty of the Seas.

At issue is a 10-ounce, corn-fed New York strip steak.

"It is an all natural organic cut," spokesperson Harrison Liu told the web site, CruiseCritic, where readers have responded with both positive and negative views. "We are testing to see if there is any interest among our guests for paying a little more for the option of an organically raised cut of beef."

This special cut of beef may well be worth an extra $15, which is less than diners pay in a steakhouse ashore.

Problem is,  most people expect a fine dinner and service when they plunk down $100-$200 a day, each, for a vacation at sea. Part of the appeal of a cruise is that it includes your cabin and all meals, with the exception of the alternative restaurants where you could choose to pay extra on a special occasion.

Royal Caribbean, which is not noted for its outstanding meals in the main dining rooms, seems to be telling us that if we want a good steak diner we have to pay an extra $14.95.

What’s wrong with the free 7-ounce sirloin steak they serve now?  Kind of tough? My recommendation is for Royal Caribbean to improve the steak that’s  included and save the special cuts for the alternative restaurants.

CRUISE SITES WORTH CLICKING:
CruiseCritic looks at the new Celebrity Solstice, due to debut in November

USA Today previews the new Celebrity Solstice.

David Molyneaux is editor of Travel Mavens.net. Click for CRUISE VACATIONS and NEW SHIPS

Dips, drops, delights in Port Townsend, Washington

For anyone living east of the Mississippi, Port Townsend is a long way to go for ice cream.

This laid back seaside community on Washington's Olympic Peninsula -- a ferry ride and a 75-minute drive from Seattle -- is a popular vacation and retirement area for folks who like their lives casual and outdoors.

The town, sprinkled with crafts stores and art galleries, bed and breakfasts,  and small restaurants, is surrounded by seawater and mountains that show snow in the summer.

Bring jackets, not neckties, to Port Townsend, where the ground never  freezes, but the air seldom suggests suntan lotion.

The air journey to get here is crowded in August, when planes to Seattle are packed with vacationers headed toward cruises to Alaska (And did you know that American Airlines has found a way to shoehorn a row of seats into the aisle that leads to the door where you board the airplane on a 757? So if you are assigned to those two seats you stand while everyone boards, then you sit after the door has been sealed. At least, you’re the first passengers out when the plane lands).

Floating across Puget Sound

From the airport, the route to Port Townsend is much more fun.

A scheduled bus ($1.50) to downtown Seattle  stopped five blocks from the ferry terminal. I paid $6.70 for a roundtrip to Bainbridge Island, and settled into a seat on the outside deck for a breezy 30-minute ride across Puget Sound.

Mountains, boaters and casually clad travelers – all with a backpack -- welcomed me to the Northwest.  My 75-minute drive from Bainbridge Island to Port Townsend was eased by the largess of my younger  brother  John,  who picked me up at the ferry (saving me from the bus).

We ate from cones and cups at a shop called Elevated Ice Cream, where, according to a sign, the Travel Channel had been there and rated Elevated as one of the best ice cream parlors in the country.

Sounds right to me. In my few Port Townsend days I sampled enough of the homemade stuff to agree.

I tried ice creams from Blind Love, Expresso Chip and Ginger, to non-dairy Italian ices, Marionberry, Triple Citrus and Chocolate.  The shop, on Water St., was an easy walk from my bed and breakfast, Holly Hill House (360-385-5619), where $119 a night included 9 a.m. elegant servings of fruit, eggs and baked concoctions such as bread pudding cooked like French toast.

Love between the raindrops

But of course, my Chicago brother and I did not meet in Port Townsend for the breakfasts or the ice cream.

We came for the wedding of John’s son, local chef Scott Molyneaux, who had planned an outdoor ceremony outside of town on a bluff overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Scott married Laura on a Port Townsend day, which began in mist and continued as an overcast, cool August morning. The sun broke through by noon, was gone by 3 p.m., back by 4 p.m.

Predicted rain beat the 5 p.m. wedding by about 15 minutes, and the radar on a Blackberry showed evil skies on the way. So, we stood in a tent with clear plastic sides while the minister and groom considered alternatives, which the groom declined, saying he intended to be married on the bluff.

The bride and her two attendants stayed mostly dry under the roof of a nearby shelter while we waited for a weather break that Scott, and probably Scott alone, believed was coming.

At 5:22, the drizzle became more of a mist, and at 5:24 the rain stopped.  We grabbed towels, rushed for the folding chairs, as the bride began her walk, brisker than planned, across the field. We assembled, some sitting, some standing, and a guest held an umbrella over the head of a saxophone player, as the bride and her parents strolled down the path between the chairs.

At 5:35, the minister began his message. At 5:45, the sun arrived.

Ominous clouds moved elsewhere, and the evening provided semi-clear skies for music and congratulations, toasts and conversations.

Dessert was peach cobbler.  With ice cream.

For a free subscription to Travel Maven, type your email address in the box at right or add an RSS feed, upper right.

Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net. CLICK for articles on cruising, golf, Florida, Europe, adventure and travel gear and gadgets.

Uniting travel bloggers of the world

As American newspapers continue to wither and to whimper that nobody loves them anymore, pity the poor newspaper reader who once could count on the Sunday Travel Section for a friendly and credible worldly review of distant people and places.

Yes, of course, the Sunday Travel Section pales in significance to serious investigative journalism by experienced, hard-nosed reporters whose trained eyes, critical analysis, and relentless chase for information has kept reluctant officials somewhere between honest and half a bubble out of plumb. You will find praise and concern for these essential folks elsewhere.

I am writing about softer noses -- the travel journalists. For their newspaper jobs, this blog is an obituary.

Hail to the lowly travel journalist

Less than a decade ago, American newspapers, especially those in big cities, covered the world of travel in thick Sunday Travel Sections.

They chronicled changes that brought welcomes all over the world to ordinary travelers from the United States. Dispatches from journalists heightened interest in tours, treks, and adventures. Their focus had a huge impact on the vacation habits of Americans who took advantage of decreasing air prices to explore far beyond U.S. borders.

If you wanted a fair and mostly unbiased consumer report or a review of the world's travel  destinations or cruise ships, big city newspapers were your best bet.

Reporting wasn’t perfect; it never is. But most big newspapers had a small, dedicated staff who wrote about the world of travel in a way that served newspaper readers, reviewing positives and negatives of destinations in balance that you would never see in an advertisement or brochure.

In return, newspapers were rewarded with millions of dollars in advertising -- from airlines to cruise lines -- that was far greater than the costs of publishing the Travel Section. This was a win-win situation for readers and newspapers, who spent their Sunday Travel Section profits on other parts of the newspaper that drew fewer ads.

Readers like travel, newspapers don't

Strangely, even in the best years of income and readership, top management at most newspapers, throughout the country, never had any idea how much their readers loved the Sunday Travel Section; myopic newspaper management consistently undervalued, underplayed and undermined the weekly travel report. There was always plenty of budget money for researching articles in the hard news sections about natural disasters and man's inhumanities to man, but little budget money for articles in Travel, which had direct impact on their reader's precious disposable time and income.

Meanwhile, the rest of the media paid little attention to travel reporting aimed at the consumer, which is time consuming and expensive. Outside the small group of serious newspapers, reports usually were penned by writers on a free vacation. Magazines were (and continue to be) mostly hype. Television seldom tries to present a well researched travel story.

Lately, as newspapers cut staffs to balance their losses of revenue, even the bigger papers have just about given up serving the worldly travelers among their readers. They have changed travel focus, if they have any left, into short trips on one tank of gas. Isn't that strange? Among the stalwarts of newspaper readers are the people who are most educated, most read, and most traveled, if only in their dreams.

Why newspapers decided to jettison serious journalism in their travel reports is beyond me.

But today, most of the newspaper travel journalists are gone, as reporters and editors who took their readers all over the world have lost their jobs at newspapers all over the country.

Some are retired, some chose other lines of work. And some are still writing. Friends may call on the Internet.

Searching the Internet for journalism

Why should you care? Because in a world filled with charlatans, every bit of serious reporting, with a concern for the consumer, is a precious commodity.

The great hunt for credible, reliable, consumer-oriented travel journalism on the Internet has begun.

Ironically, some of the best travel journalism comes from non journalists, who are reporting their experiences on useful and successful interactive websites such as TripAdvisor and CruiseCritic. 

Some experienced travel journalists are writing and blogging, which brings me to Blogistan, a new website. Joe Brancatelli, expert travel writer and editor of JoeSentMe.com, is attempting to find all of the important bloggers who comment about travel. His purpose is to link travel readers with travel voices.

One of those important voices, says Brancatelli, is this blog, Travel Maven. The blog grew from a website, TravelMavens.net, which is designed to link viewers with top travel journalism, especially about cruises, golf resorts, Florida, and travel gear and gadgets.

Take a look at Blogistan.

And tell us what you think.

You may reach me by emailing David at TravelMavens.net

You may reach Joe by emailing Joe at JoeSentMe.com

David Molyneaux was editor of the Travel section at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland for nearly 25 years. None of his criticism is directed at The Plain Dealer.