Technology has made land and cruise travel much easier for all of us. We can find a hotel at the last minute at hotelstonight.com, check out prices at priceline.com, others will check out flights, find a restaurant, other services and social media sites will offer up our own likes and dislikes.
Even with friends, food, fun, and sports on TV, the coming holidays can leave large gaps of sheer boredom.
Here鈥檚 a website to counter that:
Cruisetimetables.com has a raft of worldwide homeports with 2014 departures, enabling you to map routing and daily itineraries. It includes suggested prices but I would use your cruise travel agent or the cruise line for latest pricing.
Seatguru.com and gateguru.com are also musts for me. Before I hit the 鈥渇inish鈥� button, I always look for the best seat through seatguru.com 鈥� most aircraft types connected to your airline are there.
Flying on an Air sa国际传媒 777, as an example, you have several models with different seat configurations. Seatguru.com colour-codes the best and worst seats on planes, including the new enlarged economy seating where applicable, and lets you know preferred seats and whether they come with a fee.
Here is what PC Magazine had to say about this site:
鈥淕ateGuru is an app to pack. It will help you navigate airports, anticipate wait times, find the freshest food, and travel with greater confidence.鈥� On the con side: 鈥淭ips would be more useful if GateGuru added recommendations from established location-based social networking sites.鈥�
One thing I like is it lets me know what amenities are around my departure gate.
City Maps 2go is an app that costs $2.99. However, no roaming charges nor WiFi is required. Critics like it: 鈥淓ssential app for travellers鈥� 鈥� Time magazine; 鈥淥ne of the best offline maps apps鈥� 鈥� Wall Street Journal; 鈥淢aps without racking up roaming costs鈥� 鈥� Macworld; 鈥淭ravel app that will change your life鈥� 鈥� Cond茅 Nast.
Load it onto your smartphone or tablet and you鈥檙e ready to go.
An organizing app, Tripit, will sort and hold your itineraries in one spot offline on your phone. It will store reservations for flights, hotels, rental cars and more.
Here鈥檚 a few more 鈥�
My experience with Skype has for the most part been terrific 鈥� video chat, voice call to land lines or cells at affordable rates around the world or for free to other Skype users. XE.com (online or an app) offers a full range of currency conversions. Google will help translate any language, and an app called WiFi Finder locates free and pay connections around the world, on or offline鈥ery useful if you're using Skype.
Next week鈥檚 column will feature Oasis of the Seas, the world鈥檚 largest cruise ship. I was one of the first reporters on the revolutionary Oasis when it was launched four years ago. At the time, I thought the hype associated with the ship was almost overbearing. Was it? I鈥檓 travelling with 6,000 others and will let you know.
This week I鈥檝e been blogging daily on Oasis at portsandbows.com 鈥� lots of pictures and opinions, and thanks to the staff captain I was allowed on the bridge coming into port and docking, a rare pleasure.
听
Phil鈥檚 Pick of the Week
Since Dec. 25 is around the corner, I picked a cruise for next Christmas. It鈥檚 based on per person, double occupancy and prices were correct at time of writing.
While it鈥檚 expensive at Christmas, this is a great itinerary:
Dec. 21, 2014
Miami return: 14 days
Celebrity Eclipse
Ports: Aruba, Curacao, Grenada, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, St. Maarten
Starting price: $2,099
celebritycruises.com
