Mary Lis Travel Blog

Here is a very cool website that I just found. It’s called Farecast and you can tell it where you want to go and when and it will give you advice on whether to buy your ticket now or wait to see if prices go down. Of course I have no idea how accurate it is, but it’s kind of fun to play with. It doesn’t work for all cities and your trip has to be between 2 and 8 nights in order for it to make a prediction. It also shows you the fares for most of the airlines and provides information about what times are the least expensive to fly and what sort of frequent flyer rewards the airline offers.

In the past I have used Expedia to get general information about what airlines fly where, but I think I’ll experiment a bit with this web site. We fly a lot on Southwest and I like that Farecast includes Southwest in its search results. It doesn’t include the prices from Southwest, but does let you know that Southwest flies the particular route you are searching for.

Congress recently delayed the implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative passport requirements for cruise passengers. What this means is that if you are cruising to the Caribbean, Mexico, Canada or Bermuda and you are leaving from a U.S. port, you will not need a passport until June 1, 2009. However, if you are travelling by air to these regions you will need a passport by January 8, 2007.

Caribbean tourism officials are very concerned about the effect this will have on the region as it gives an unfair advantage to cruise ship companies over land-based tourism.

When you visit a country on a cruise ship, that country or region benefits from port taxes but in general cruise ship passengers eat all their meals on board and don’t spend a lot of money in ports. These places have to deal with huge numbers of tourists who overrun a destination for four or five hours and then are gone. The hope of the local tourism officials is that you will fall in love with a place and come back for a land vacation which will more directly benefit the economy.

The Jamaica Gleaner reports that “among the nine Caribbean destinations that may be impacted, the biggest effect could be felt in Jamaica, where 80 per cent of U.S. visitors to the island do not use passports.

“When the numbers were translated into direct and indirect employment, some 114,000 jobs in Jamaica were said to be on the line.”

You can read the very interesting, full article here.

My advice: get a passport anyway, as soon as possible. And if you visit a place on a cruise that you really like, go back and spend some time there.

A while back I posted a question from one of our users: “I was wondering if anyone else out there has cruised with a child? Is there any special embarkation documentation required for children with two mommies?” Though we didn’t have any answers for her, she has returned from her cruise and here is her report:

“We just returned from our cruise and I wanted to share our experience with traveling with our son. Prior to the cruise, we applied for his passport. In order to get a passport, both parents (and child) need to be present and you need to submit an authorized copy of the birth certificate. We applied at a local post office and luckily for us, an old classmate of my partner’s happened to be handling the passport applications. No need to fuss about our relationship to one another. Our son’s passport arrived at our house in about 2 weeks (we had to expedite it due to the timing in which we applied).

“On embarkation day we were armed with his passport, his birth certificate and a letter from the cryobank that we used. They only looked at his passport and did not ask for any other proof of parentage. Happily, it turned out to be anticlimatic as I was ready to do battle.

“I should mention that my partner and I are legally wed in our home state of Massachusetts and are both listed on his original birth certificate. Also, just today, we completed his adoption. Something we think is absurd but in order for us to be fully recognized *outside* of Massachusetts as his legal parents is a necessity.

Hope this helps the future cruisers out there with a little one.”

I will add that when Mary and I applied for our passports a couple of years ago in preparation for a Caribbean cruise we stood in the post office for some time trying to figure out how to mark our marital status. We are legally married in British Columbia but were afraid that marking ourselves as married might bring up some homophobia at the passport office – and our passports would be delayed. In the end we decided to be brave and deal with the consequences, of which there were none. We received our passports on time and they don’t even say anything about marital status on them. So I’m sure somewhere we’re on some big black list in the Bush Administration, but we have our passports and are free to travel the world.

You may have noticed that the majority of the group cruises that we have posted are on luxury cruise lines. There’s a reason for that: we both love the luxury cruises, and I, Lis, love luxury everything. You might say that LezCruise was born many, many years ago when I was sitting with my Dad talking about an ad I’d seen in some magazine for Four Seasons Hotels. I asked him if they were really that great and he told me that yes, they were really wonderful. The best. I decided that someday I wanted to stay in a Four Seasons hotel.

Then, about three years ago, it became legal for us to marry in British Columbia. We decided to go there and get married on our anniversary. This would be our second wedding as we had a wedding ceremony with friends and family in 2002. We planned our British Columbia wedding a year ahead. We would go back to the Counting Sheep Inn in Mission, B.C. where we had honeymooned in 2002. We purchased a wedding package from Virginia, the proprieter, and I talked Mary into spending three nights previous to the wedding at the Four Seasons in Vancouver. At that time, our money went far in Canada and it was also the off-season, so it was less than $200 a night for us to stay there.

Now, just to complicate things because it has nothing to do with this story, our Canada wedding was set for April and then in March it suddenly (and briefly) became legal for us to marry in Multnomah County, Oregon. We decided to do that also. For awhile we had a plan to get married every year on our anniversary in some place that would allow us to do so. But logistically that became difficult, so we have only been married three times

So, in April 2004 we spent three nights at the Four Seasons in Vancouver. When we first saw our room, which was small and ordinary, I immediately said to Mary, “Well thank you for humoring me in this. I don’t see what’s so special about this, but at least now we know.” Ah, so little we knew. It’s the little touches that made our stay so perfect. (Except when we left the hotel. We managed to get in a fight every time we left the hotel, so the next time we visited we tried to stay in the hotel as much as possible. We only left to eat meals and buy chocolate.)

In the bathroom of the Four Seasons I was introduced to L’Occitane. These are the most divine bath products. I smell them and I am calm and in a happier, better place. There was shampoo and conditioner and lotion and two kinds of soap. When we got home I discovered that we have a L’Occitane store in Portland and though a 10 oz. bottle of shampoo is $16.00 !!!! I occasionally buy one because it is a lot less expensive than going to the Four Seasons and it makes me so happy when I am washing my hair with it. It smells that good! Also in the bathroom was an amazing magnifying mirror and q-tips and cotton balls. The towels were thick and large. When the maid cleaned our room she laid out our toiletries on washcloths. Hard to explain but it made us both so happy to see the care the maid had taken in making our bathroom look lovely and not messy.

Our first night we ordered room service dinner. Now it was the best steak we had ever had, but what was really great was the presentation. The room service guy wheeled in this cart which then turned into a table with a white tablecloth, fresh flowers and beautiful china. Our room was suddenly a beautiful restaurant, yet we got to eat in our Four Seasons bathrobes. He told us to call when we were done and they would come get the cart. When Mary called she was asked if she would like some coffee, so she said yes. They brought up enough coffee for four people in a beautiful silver carafe with another flower and an artistic cookie layout. It cost $16.00!!! and if she’d known that she probably wouldn’t have ordered it, but it was the prettiest coffee service she’d ever had.

We had a choice of about 4 different newspapers for the morning – there were two plastic cards to hang on the door. Each side of the card listed a different newspaper and each night we chose which card to hang on the door. In the morning the newspaper was delivered in a plastic bag. On the plastic bag was a sticker with the day’s weather forecast on it. There was also an option to put out our shoes in the evening for a complimentary shoeshine. We each did that and it was like opening a present in the morning, unwrapping our shiny black shoes – Mary’s were tennis shoes and boy did they make them look lovely.

After we woke up, we went to the health club. Each of the cardio machines had its own tv screen and there were headphones that we could borrow to listen to the tv while working out. After I had been working out about 15 minutes, an attendant brought me a glass of water. I felt so pampered! When I finished working out I noticed that there were about 5 different pitchers of water. Each had a different type of fruit in it so there was lemon water, and raspberry and orange, etc. The pool was indoor outdoor and we spent some time playing in the pool and then we went into the locker room where there were stacks of towels and everything you could ask for – hair spray, mouth wash, lotion, q-tips… one day I forgot my comb and a woman in the locker room said, “Oh just ask the attendant for a comb. They’ll give you one.” And indeed they did. The locker room floor was always dry and clean no matter how many people had just tracked water in. An attendant would come in and dry it immediately. There was also a sauna in the locker room and I discovered it was lovely to shower and then sit in the sauna for just a few minutes so I didn’t have to towel dry. Outside the locker room was a machine to wring all the water out of our bathing suits and then there were plastic bags to put our suits in. It was like I didn’t have to think of anything and everything was taken care of for me.

After our workout, we went to breakfast. We had breakfast in the hotel all three mornings and by the second morning they were treating us like they had always known us. There were a hot and a cold buffet each with a set price, in addition to regular items on the menu. The hot buffet included waffles and eggs cooked to order and bacon and sausage and everything in the cold buffet and I don’t really know what else because I didn’t have it. The cold buffet had all sorts of fruit – mangoes, blueberries, strawberries, pineapple, grapes, papayas, raspberries, blackberries … in addition to all sorts of pastries and muffins and cold cereals. I don’t remember the prices for the buffets, but they weren’t inexpensive. They also had a fruit bowl which cost less then either of the buffets and what I really wanted was a fruit bowl that I could fill myself at the buffet. When I asked if this was possible, the waiter said, “Of course, of course,” and sent me on my way. Each morning he exhorted me to go back for seconds and thirds even though I wasn’t paying for the buffet.

On our second trip to the Four Seasons we were on our way to a conference and were really tired and all I wanted was a couple of hard boiled eggs and some juice. I could have gone down to the mall for that and it would have cost me 4 or 5 bucks. But we were both so tired and thought it would be lovely just to sit down there in their courtyard restaurant and have breakfast. (Another feature of the breakfast was that there were about 5 or 6 different newspapers at the entrance to the dining room and we were welcome to take any of them, gratis, and read them at our table. I loved to sit at the table and read the newspaper of my choice.) I think my two hard-boiled
eggs and glass of juice were something like $14 but I’m telling you those were the BEST hard-boiled eggs I have ever had.

So we had this amazing stay at the Four Seasons and when we got home we kept remembering fondly our room service dinner and the wonderful breakfast buffet and the amazing service and Mary decided that what she wanted to do was some sort of all-inclusive vacation where we could eat like that but not worry about what everything cost. And that’s when she decided to go on a cruise. You’ll notice I said SHE decided. That’s because she basically told me that she had to go on a cruise and she was going with me or without me. In my next blog entry on this topic I will tell you how that led to our first cruise.

Mary and I are on a little jaunt to the Oregon Coast. Our trip began last Thursday when we joined my family at the White Rock Resort in Smith River, CA, which is about 5 miles south of Brookings, Oregon. On Sunday we finished our family visit and moved on to the business portion of our trip, which is teaching a class in Port Orford, Oregon. Port Orford is such a small town that we could not find a place to stay that had both a refrigerator and an internet connection, so we are 25 miles north, in Bandon, at the Table Rock Motel. When the class is over, we were planning to treat ourselves to two nights at our favorite, top secret motel in Lincoln City, but we both got sick on Sunday, me only a little, Mary miserably so. So now we’re thinking we’ll just spend one night in Newport at the Sylvia Beach Hotel and then go home.

No fun travelling when you’re sick. Unless, of course, you’re on a cruise ship, where you just order whatever you want from room service and lie about. Mary says being sick on a cruise ship is better than being sick at home. I quote: “A cruise ship is the best place to be sick, in my experience.” She says then Home, then Motel on the Oregon Coast. Which means she’s not a happy camper right now. Especially since we’re watching LA just about to eliminate Seattle from the WNBA Playoffs.

Now for my reviews of our lodgings:

White Rock Resort: Well, I’d say calling this place a resort is stretching it a bit. My mother read about this place in a book about Northern California cottages and cabins. It sounded very luxurious and their web site also makes it sound that way. The cabins are actually park models. I’d never heard of a park model, but according to my very knowledgeable girlfriend, these are RVs that are made to stay put in a park. They were cute park models, but park models all the same. Here is a quote from their web site: “At night, the sound of the waves will lull you to sleep in our comfortable beds.” The problem is that I was really looking forward to the sound of the waves and you can not hear the waves from the ocean view models. So now, in addition to my yearning to be on a cruise, RIGHT NOW, which set in about a week or so ago, I am also yearning for the sound of the waves that I was promised by the White Rock “Resort.” In general, they overhyped what this place really was. Mary, who had read none of the hype, was quite happy. My family, including me, all felt a bit ripped off – we had read the hype.

I have also never stayed in a place with so many rules. There were rules everywhere and locks on some of the cabinets with signs that said we would be prosecuted if we tried to open the cabinets. In our unit there was a laminated list of “Helpful Hints” which were actually all rules. The poor girl working at the front desk had to listen to a lecture from my mother about how she didn’t think they were very welcoming. I felt sorry for the girl, but my mother was right.

Table Rock Motel: Originally we were supposed to stay at the Mill Casino in Coos Bay, but when we both got sick we decided to try to find somewhere closer to Port Orford where I am teaching. We pulled in at a rest stop with wireless and while Mary grumbled, I went to my favorite web site, TripAdvisor. There I found this LOVELY Table Rock Motel. Our room is really quite beautiful, with hardwood floors, a king bed atop an Oriental rug, a kitchenette that really is a full kitchen except the refrigerator is not full-size, a big old flat screen tv and a dvd player. The bed has a pillow-top mattress and a pretty hand-made quilt. We don’t have a view of the ocean or the sound of it (though we do have the sound of the gulls and some sort of fog horn thing when the sliding glass door is open), but we do have a balcony and a view of lovely wind-blown coastal trees. Best of all, it is VERY QUIET. I just love this hotel and highly recommend it. And the beaches here are gorgeous. For dinner tonight, we did not agree, so Mary got take-out fish and chips from the Bandon Fish Market, which were divine. I think they were the best french fries I’ve ever had and the only place I’ve had better fish is Spinnaker’s Brew Pub in Victoria, BC. I had silver noodles from the Thai Restaurant, Thai Talay. Also divine.

Now the basketball game is over. We love you, Lauren Jackson. Sorry you couldn’t pull it off. Now it’s time for bed.

We had an excellent question in one of our forums and I do not have an answer, but I thought I’d write about it here too, just in case someone who might have an answer didn’t read it in the forums. The question is “has anyone else out there has cruised with a child? Is there any special embarkation documentation required for children with two mommies?” If you have an answer to this, please post here:

Link to Forum

Thanks!

Recently I posted about hotels that have become entirely non smoking. Now, in the spirit of fair coverage, I tell you about an article in USA Today. Entitled Despite trend, there’s room at many inns for smokers, the article reports that Extended Stay Hotels, Hilton, Hyatt, and Intercontinental Hotels Group will “continue to offer rooms for smokers.” Hyatt says 1% of their rooms are set aside for smokers. At Hilton it’s 15% and at InterContinental 25%. InterContinental also says they have 20 lodgings that are entirely smoke-free.

I’m not a smoker, and I’m fairly sensitive to cigarette smoke.  My partner accuses me of being obnoxious whenever anyone lights up nearby me (I think she’s referring to my crinkled up nose and my hand frantically attempting to wave the smoke away from me, and though I would never wish to use the word obnoxious as a descriptor of myself I provide this info as some sort of full disclosure or something.)

Anyway… here’s some news. If you’re a smoker you’ll want to avoid these hotels and if you’re not a smoker, you’ll love them: Marriott has just announced that starting in September all of its hotels in North America will be 100% smoke-free. This includes 10 different brand-names: Marriott, JW Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Renaissance, Courtyard, Residence Inn, SpringHill Suites, Fairfield Inn, TownePlace Suites and Marriott ExecuStay.  Under the policy, smoking will not be allowed in guest rooms, restaurants, lounges, meetings rooms, public space and employee work areas.

In January, Westin instituted a non-smoking policy at all of its properties in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean.  Sandals and Beaches resorts also went non-smoking in May.

Addendum – May 2007.  Comfort Suites are also now smoke-free.  For the full blog entry, click here.

Planet Out recently awarded Crystal the 2006 PlanetOut Travel Award for best cruise company.

Here’s the quote from Planet Out: “This top-rated ultra-premium cruise line boasts many loyal gay guests who keep returning to its three ships for the cocooning luxury and impeccable, gay-friendly service, bolstered by acclaimed gourmet cuisine and sophisticated onboard entertainment. Besides numerous specialized gay tour bookings, Crystal has also been active in the Human Rights Campaign, AIDS Assistance Program and Desert AIDS Project for the past several years”

Runners up were Carnival, NCL, Royal Caribbean, and our favorite Regent Seven Seas.

Earlier this week Travel & Leisure Magazine readers voted Crystal the “World’s Best Large-Ship Cruise Line”And

I promise you, we will sail on Crystal soon so I can give you my own extremely biased opinion!  I’ve been intrigued by this cruise line for some time.