Travel Quotes

Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” Maya Angelou
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....................."One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching." Unknown..................

I would like to welcome new readers to my travel blog. If you are reading this for the first time, then I suggest you first read my introduction which I wrote last November when I started this. It explains why I am writing this and it gives you a little about my background. And most importantly it explains about my list and how it works. To go to that post, click on the following link - http://havelistwilltravel.blogspot.com/2011/11/have-list-will-travel-introduction.html


2005 FAM cruise to Belize and Mexico

In April 2005 I was sent on a FAM trip. For those who are not familiar with the term, FAM stands for familiarization, and it is a trip put on by a tour or cruise line, and given to travel agents to familiarize them with their product. This FAM trip was being put on by Carnival Cruise Line, and it was for AAA travel agents only. My boss came to me one day and said she was sending me on a cruise to Belize. I was happy to go. It wasn't using up my vacation time, as I would be technically “working” that week. Not only did I get my regular pay, I got overtime for my travel days, because I went over the 8 hour work day, plus they had me working 8 days straight, so I got overtime for the 3 extra days. Not a bad deal, and I got to go on a cruise to Belize. It's a tough job, but someones got to do it!

So I flew from San Diego to Orlando. I spent the night in a hotel by the airport in Orlando, and had dinner there, all at AAA's expense. Then the next day I took the transfer to Port Canaveral and boarded the Carnival Glory. There were 16 travel agents in total, all from AAA. I was assigned a room-mate, her name was Nancy and she was from the AAA in Portland, Maine. We all were on the top floor of the ship and we had balcony rooms, after all, they wanted us to experience the best so that we would sell the best when we got home.

Carnival Glory
The ship sailed out to sea, we had dinner on board and all got to know each other. It was a fun group. We were assigned a rep from Carnival who would be with us for the trip. She told us that we would meet each morning, and she would have assignments for us. But the evenings were ours, to do what we wanted on the ship.

The next morning we had our first meeting. It was only about an hour. Our Carnival rep told us that we should spend our days on board exploring the ship and becoming as familiar with it as we could. With that in mind, she passed out a paper that had a list of things we needed to complete by the end of the trip. It was like a treasure hunt. It was 20 questions, all a little unusual, about the ship. We had the week to complete it though. Then she explained that while we were in port we had 2 choices. We could book an excursion, and Carnival would pay for one excursion per person – any other excursions we were on our own. Our other option, if we did not do an excursion, then we were required to go to the hotels in that port and do hotel inspections – that way we were actually learning about the destination so that we would be familiar with that destination to book it for our clients. She also told us that while the ship was at sea, we should plan on doing one thing each day that we would not normally do if we were a passenger on the ship, and that we should also do one thing each day that we really wanted to do.

Our tram tour of Key West
So, when we pulled into port in Key West, which was our first stop, I booked the tram tour that explored the town of Key West. I had actually been to Key West before, but I had been there for a thing called “The Meeting of the Minds” which is a huge event every year for fans of Jimmy Buffet. It tends to be a wild and crazy event, with a huge concert in the street, etc. So when I had been there before I hadn't necessarily seen all the sights. It was fun to get all the history and see everything. After the tour we had free time to explore on our own, and to do a little shopping.

The next day was an “at sea” day. We had the day to explore on board. I have to admit that 6 of us formed a group and split the list up and each took a section to answer. I still feel like I explored the ship and saw everything, but it made it quicker to answer the questions. Here is a sampling of things that were on the list:

  • There are colored tiles on the floor that circle the entire atrium. If you go toe-to-toe around this circle, how many footsteps does it take?
  • There is a mosaic on the 11th floor near the entrance to the pool. Describe it.
  • Go to the dining room and ask the chef how many eggs he uses on a 7 day cruise.
  • How many TV's are there in the disco lounge
  • Find out what kind of activities are provided for kids to do in the Camp Carnival area.
That was just a few of them, I can't remember all of them, but they covered the entire ship. I was given the first one, where I had to walk toe-to-toe around the entire atrium area. I found out that it could only really be done in the middle of the night, as the atrium is always busy. I tried it the first time in the evening, and as I was counting people kept coming up to me to ask me what I was doing. Most of the people who were asking were slightly inebriated, it seemed. Anyway, I kept losing track, so had to do it when no one was around. It was several hundred footsteps. I didn't have the job of counting the tv's, but that was also several hundred.

Pool area on the Glory
 Anyway, doing the sheet was kind of fun, but I was glad that we had divided it up. It gave us more free time to do the 2 things we were suppose to do each day. One day at sea I decided the one thing I would really like to do was to spend the day at the pool, reading a book and soaking up the sun. And the one thing I would never do was to go to the “Hairy chest contest”, which just happened to be at the pool – I didn't even have to move, as I could see it from my deck chair. That worked out well. One of the other days at sea I chose to go gambling for a half hour – something I really don't ever do as I don't find it fun unless I win, and the thing I wanted to do that day was have a full spa treatment. The spa treatment was at my expense, but well worth it, and what the heck – I was getting overtime by being on the cruise, might as well splurge a little.

Beach area in Cozumel
Our second port of call was Cozumel, Mexico. The 6 of us that had formed our alliance decided to not take a tour but to do the hotel inspections. We took the list of hotels that we were required to go to and split them up. We went by 2's each covering 2 hotels. We made notes and took pictures as quickly as we could. Then we met at the Chankanaab park. I had been to Cozumel several years ago with my husband and knew that this was a place where we could rent snorkel gear and go snorkeling, and that the water was clear and beautiful there, so I had suggested it. We had a great day swimming, snorkeling, and drinking frozen concoctions on the beach.

Snorkeling - Belize
Our next port of call was Belize. I really wanted to go snorkeling there. I was told by our rep that snorkeling was considered dangerous and that because of that it was not an authorized activity. I didn't tell her we had already gone snorkeling in Cozumel. She told me that if I went snorkeling that I would have to do it at my own expense, and that if I was hurt that Carnival was not responsible. I had no problem with that, I don't consider it dangerous. But Belize is known for its Great Barrier Reef, so I had to go. One of the other agents came with me. We spent the afternoon out on a small boat, we went to several different spots and got in the water and snorkeled. One of the stops was with sting rays, which we were able to pet as they swam by us. Really cool!

Touring around Belize City
After the snorkeling trip we still had several hours and decided it would be a shame if we didn't see some of Belize City. So we found a taxi driver and asked him if he could give us a tour. He was delighted to do so. He took us all around the city, showing us the main sights. We told him we were starving and he drove down to the water to a little shack. He asked us if we liked chicken, and we said yes. He went into the shack and came out with 2 plates of food, piled high with chicken and rice and some fruit. He also had 2 glasses of watermelon juice. Everything was delicious and the juice very refreshing. He told us to eat it while he continued the tour.

Market area in Progreso
Our last port of call was Progreso, Mexico. Progreso is a small town on the coast of the Yucatan Penisnsula. The ship mostly stopped there so that people could take a tour of Chichen Itza. Most of our group opted not to go there, so I decided to stay with the group. Looking back on that, I regret not going. I have been to the Mayan ruins of Tulum and decided that they wouldn't be that different, but Chichen Itza is suppose to be quite fantastic, and in retrospect, I should have gone. Instead we took a double decker bus tour of the town of Progreso. That was really kind of a joke, because the top level of the bus was not really safe to be in, and that is, of course, where we all were. There are electrical lines strung across the streets of Progreso and as the bus approached those lines we all had to lay down on the floor of the bus, because the lines skimmed over the top of the double decker bus. So we spent most of our time getting down on the floor. We were all laughing about it, and it really was quite funny, so we were having a good time. We also walked through their market area and explored the town on foot. 

Our towel animal on our bed
As you can tell, there wasn't really much work on this working vacation. It was a lot of fun, with a fun group of people. In the evenings we had drinking parties on our balconies, and we certainly had a lot of fun both on board the ship and off.   I did learn about Carnival Cruises.  I had a preconceived idea that Carnival was more for the younger set.  I was worried that there would be kids running everywhere.  But I came away impressed.  The ship was very nice.  While there were young families with kids on board, the kids were so involved in their own activities that we rarely saw any.  And there were all ages on board, from very young to very old.  We had good service, and lots of activities to choose from.  And every night when we came back to our room there was a different towel animal on our bed.  One night it was a snake, then a swan, an elephant and a dog.  They were quite amusing.  So all in all it was a wonderful FAM trip, with lots of good memories.
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