Posted by David Porter on October 2, 2017 · 1 Comment
Record: 90 New Ocean Cruise Ships on Order
According to the folks at Cruise Industry News, October opens with a record 90 new ocean ships on order.
Holy good time to be in the shipbuilding business Batman, that’s a lot of ships!
You might ask, “who the heck is going on all of these cruises”?
Well, there’s the 80,000,000 baby boomer travelers. And then families are beginning to recognize the value of an ocean cruise vacation. And lastly, the growth opportunities in the Far East are staggering with billions of Chinese entering the middle-class and beginning to travel the world.
According to the Cruise Industry News’ Cruise Ship Orderbook, there is a steady stream of new cruise ships being delivered way out into 2026. However, let’s just take a peek at the arrivals this year and out into 2019.
2017 Cruise Ship Deliveries
Of note to luxury boomer cruisers, Viking Ocean Cruises took delivery of two ships and Silversea took delivery of their new Silver Muse.
2018 Cruise Ship Deliveries
In 2018, the pace quickens from 10 ships in 2017 to 16 new ships being delivered.
One that catches my eye is the Flying Clipper. The Flying Clipper will be the biggest and the most ambitious of the Star Clipper’s fleet to date, carrying 300 passengers, measuring 8770 tons GRT and powered by 35 sails totaling more than 6.350 m2.
It is a near replica of the dramatic France II ordered in 1911 at La Gironde shipyard Bordeaux, which was the largest square rig sailing ship ever built. SPV Flying Clipper will be the world’s largest square rigger and the largest ship of its kind afloat today.
Viking Ocean Cruises has the new Viking Spirit coming out which will be assigned to the Pacific offering sailings to Alaska, the Far East, Australia, and New Zealand. To learn more about these sailings, click here.
Also, the folks from Scenic River Cruises will be making their first foray into ocean cruising with their new Eclipse expedition ship. And further, luxury boomer cruisers are certain to enjoy the new offerings from Seabourn and Ponant.
2019 Cruise Ship Deliveries
But, take a look at this. There are 23 new ocean cruise ships being delivered in 2019! Viking Ocean Cruises scores again, Ponant brings two more ships to the seas, and did you notice that Ritz-Carlton’s first ocean liner is being delivered? Also of note, Crystal Cruises will be coming out with its first new-build in over two decades. That should be fun!
Expedition Cruise Ships
Another noteworthy fact to consider is that 20 of the 90 cruise ships on order are expedition ships. As most cruisers have done the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, Alaska, and other well trodden destinations, these ships will take luxury ocean cruisers to places like the Antarctic, the Galapagos, and other far-reaching adventure destinations.
Booking Ocean Cruises
As you can see, the ocean cruise industry is busting at the seams with growth as they work to meet the coming demand.
So, this begs the question, which of these cruises can we help you get booked?
As a member of the $22 billion/year Virtuoso Travel Network, we’ve got complimentary perks for you on top of the cruise lines’ best offers.
To inquire about our services, or to book a fun cruise, call Roaming Boomers Travel Services at (480) 550-1235 or use our convenient online information request (click here) and we’ll reach out to you.
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Posted by David Porter on October 1, 2017 · Leave a Comment
National September 11 Memorial & Museum: Eric Fischl’s “Tumbling Woman”
Note: click image for larger view. ©2017, David A. Porter
When I was 19 years old, I visited the Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany on a month-long travel study program in Europe. Coming from a small, sheltered mid-Western town in Michigan, I had read of the horrors of the Nazi Concentration Camps, but to physically stand in one of these camps was an experience I was simply not prepared to see. Seeing the mass graves, standing inside the gas chambers, and viewing photograph after photograph of emaciated Jews, I found myself fighting hard to hold back convulsions of sorrow.
No, I’m not talking about a tear on the cheek. I’m talking about holding back such strong emotions that I thought I might fall into convulsions from the horror of man’s inhumanity to man.
I’ll never forget that experience, and I’m happy to say that I’ve never been that grief-stricken until early in the decade when I walked by the massive hole in NYC where the Twin Towers used to stand. It took all of my strength not to fall to the ground in sobs of sheer anguish for here, once again, I was standing on hallowed ground where over 3,000 innocents lost their lives to barbarous acts of evil.
In my grief, my mind flashed back to Psalm 137 where the psalmist laments, ” By the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept for Zion.” I didn’t sit and weep, but I could have.
Now, fast-forward to 2017, and I’m standing in the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in front of this sculpture. I clearly remember the early hours of the attack. Before the media decided to censure the video of the event, I remember witnessing innocents jumping from the Twin Towers rather than die a horrific death by fire.
While controversial (see this article), this sculpture represents one of the women who made the unspeakable decision to jump to her death over burning to death in the fire blazing 110 stories in the sky.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum is full of memorabilia about the architecture destroyed that dreadful day, and many areas giving remembrance to the fallen, but this sculpture smacks you in the face and reminds you that far more than buildings were lost that day. As this sculpture portrays, 3,000 innocent lives were taken and murdered by cowards who prey on the innocent.
So, while it is well and good to visit the memorial and consider the vastness of the devastation on that day, when we look into the face of this tumbling woman, we’re reminded that these 3,000 were our brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, cousins, neighbors, friends and fellow citizens.
So, by the streams of the memorial fountains, we weep for the innocents who lost their lives on September 11th, 2001. And no, we will never forget.
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Posted by David Porter on September 13, 2017 · 3 Comments
How to use your smartphone overseas with Verizon Wireless
As fairly frequent overseas travelers, Carol and I have been rather frustrated with the $500+ Verizon Wireless phone bills we come home to after each trip. As we are luxury travel bloggers as well as travel agency owners, we use quite a bit of data when we’re traveling.
In the past, I’d pay Verizon $40 (times two phones) to turn on my international usage for a month and then we’d pay them $25/mb of data. And because I’m tweeting during the day, depending on where we are, it was nothing for us to consume $25 and many times $50/day in data usage. Hence the $500+ phone bills.
I know, I could always wait until the evening and use WiFi, but if you’re on a cruise ship, WiFi is currently nearly worthless. With that said, however, as river cruise ships are inland, we’ve found fabulous cellular and WiFi service on these ships.
Enter the New Verizon Wireless TravelPass
Competition is a wonderful thing, and it would seem that competition has forced the large legacy carriers to become more competitive in their wireless plan pricing.
Now, with our Verizon Wireless Travel Pass, we pay $5/day in Canda/Mexico and $10/day in Europe. And, the feature only activates when/if we use it. And further, this daily fee brings our U.S. wireless plan with us.
Therefore, if we’re in Europe for two weeks, I’ll be spending $140/phone to have cellular and data service on Europe’s 4G networks with our 4Gig plan available to us.
Nice, that will cut our cellular bill in half when traveling to Europe.
Now, Enter KeepGo
In my never-ending quest to save money when traveling overseas, and have access to high-speed data networks, I have recently become acquainted with a company called KeepGo.
KeepGo can connect you to wireless networks around the world with either a Sim Card for your phone or a Mobile WIFI Hotspot device. Here are a few screenshots from their website to make you a little more familiar with their service.
The nice folks at KeepGo just sent Carol and me one of their Hotspot devices to test and share with you. The device we have sells for $129 and come preloaded with 1Gig of data available nearly anywhere in the world. Then, after you use your Gig, you can fill it up again with 3Gigs costing only $85. Sweet. Right?
We’ll use it on our next journey outside of the United States and report back to you on our findings. Stay tuned. 😀
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Posted by David Porter on September 12, 2017 · Leave a Comment
Western Spirit: Scottdale’s Museum of the West
On Labor Day, Carol and I spent a delightful few hours visiting Scottsdale’s Museum of the West.
As most folks were headed to cooler destinations for the holiday, we thought this might make a wonderful time for a visit. We were right, no crowds!
Opened in January of 2015, Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West celebrates the art, history, culture and unique stories of the Greater Western region.
So while you will find quite a number of artifacts and paintings having to do with the Southwest, as the museum’s focus is on the “Greater Western” region, you will find interesting exhibits telling the story of the birth of the whole of the West.
We always recommend docent-led tours when visiting museums, and here you will find three docent-led museum tours regularly offered at 11:15 a.m., 12:15 p.m. and 1:15 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. All docent-led tours are included with museum admission and are free to members.
Courage & Crossroads and Confluence of Cultures Tour (1:15 p.m.)
This is the tour we decided to explore.
This tour illuminates the history of the early American West through artworks by both historic and contemporary artists. In Courage & Crossroads: A Visual Journey through the Early American West, view a collection that spans over a century and includes the work of western masters Frederic Remington and Charles Russell, Pueblo ceramics and other historic Native American objects, photographs by Edward S. Curtis, and the presentation style pipe tomahawk of Captain Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In Confluence of Cultures in the American West: A Selection of Contemporary Artists, see how contemporary western artists portray decidedly western themes such as trappers, settlement, exploration, and encounters between Native Americans and the first Euro-American explorers.
While there were quite a number of subjects and visuals we enjoyed on our tour, we both found ourselves fascinated with the rather extensive exhibit having to do with the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Note: click all photographs for larger views.
That was my favorite Lewis and Clark painting, but I also enjoyed this beautiful painting by Lee Teter entitled Blackfoot Migration.
The Rennard Strickland Collection of Western Film History (June 20, 2017 – September 30, 2018)
We also found this exhibit interesting as most baby boomers came to know of the West primarily through the movies we saw as children.
This inaugural exhibition features 118 western film posters and lobby cards dating from the 1890s to the mid-1980s, curated from one of the world’s largest—and most historically important and inclusive—collections of western film graphic arts. The first of many planned exhibitions featuring posters and objects from the collection, it celebrates the American West, cowboys, Native Americans, the history of the movie industry, and the power of the West’s cultural legacies. It also pays tribute to Rennard Strickland (Osage/Cherokee), whose collection of more than 5,000 items was acquired in late 2016 in an education and community partnership between Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West and the Arizona State University Foundation.
Here’s a photo of Carol strolling through the exhibit.
Well, I have a couple dozen more photographs I could share, but I suppose the best thing to do is to go visit for yourself. Here’s the address:
Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West
3830 N. Marshall Way
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Website: Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West
Have fun! Oh, this would be a wonderful experience to share with your grandchildren when they’re in town. 😀
Note: building exterior photograph courtesy of Scottsdale’s Museum of the West.
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Posted by David Porter on September 9, 2017 · Leave a Comment
Little Venice, Mykonos, Greek Isles
Note: click photo for larger view. ©2017, David A. Porter
I captured this photograph on July 7th, 2017 at 2:30 in the afternoon while sailing with Azamara Club Cruises in the Greek Isles. Behind me are the famous windmills of Mykonos which I’ll show you in another post.
One of the things that you’ll notice when you visit the Greek Isles is that all of the buildings are white, and many with blue trim.
According to an article in Quora, “the traditional white paint used in Greece is not actually “paint.” It’s called Whitewash and it’s very easy to make and quite inexpensive. You mix slaked lime (a white dust) with salt and water and slop it on. It washes easily off your hands and clothing. Slaked lime itself is easy to make at home too, as Juergen Nieveler points out. “To produce lime, you just have to burn clam shells… something easily available anywhere near coasts where people are likely eating clams/oysters. It can be tinted pink by adding iron oxide (rust); or other mineral colors can be added like ochre, for a yellowish tone. It is thought that the use of whitewash in Greece goes back to the classical period. Another advantage is that it is harmless to goats if they eat it, and it is detrimental to bugs. Whitewash was used in dairies all over Europe and North America to help keep them clean and sanitary. It is traditional in Greece to re-whitewash everything once a year just before Easter.”
I also learned in my reading that since 1974, all homes had to be painted white. Hence the iconic colors of the Greek Isles which can also be found in the Greek Flag.
Little Venice is a district located at the sea, famous for its picturesque medieval two and three-story houses, which stand like a wall above the sea, and their colorful wooden balconies. Little Venice is one of the most beautiful and romantic places in the whole of Mykonos and offers a fantastic sunset. A favorite activity is drinking a cocktail in one of the many bars and cafes while watching the sunset on the seashore. You will reach Little Venice walking from the windmills down the stairs (via Wikitravel).
Stay tuned for more photos and stories from our visit to Mykonos.
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The Roaming Boomers
One that catches my eye is the Flying Clipper. The Flying Clipper will be the biggest and the most ambitious of the Star Clipper’s fleet to date, carrying 300 passengers, measuring 8770 tons GRT and powered by 35 sails totaling more than 6.350 m2.
