Vermont Tour Group

I recently returned home from escourting a group of 24 to Vermont. It was a successful trip and I feel that everyone had a great time and is looking forward to the next trip. We flew into NYC and then to Burlington, VT. Our bus picked us up at the airport and we were off to a new adventure. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express for the 4 nights that we were in Vermont. Great service, nice breakfast, enclosed spa and swimming pool.

Each day was a new adventure for us. The first day was a CiderMill, Stowe,Vermont, Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream(if you go make sure that your visit the grave yard where all the discountued flavors are resting). We had a buffet dinner at a country club. The next day was the Vermont Teddy Bear factory, Shelbourne Museum (outdoor museum with a lighthouse, covered bridge, train, ship, circus experience, tiffany glass, quilts, etc.), Christmas Loft, and a dinner cruise.
Thursday we visited a granite quarry, the state capitol and a maple farm. Dinner was a buffet with the rest of the Diamond Tour groups in the area.

If you are in Vermont, make sure that you stop at these sites for a real picture of how Vermonters live.


Chris

Last year my family decided to hang up the pot holders and go away for Thanksgiving. We went to Monterey and it was one of the best Holiday's we have ever had. No cooking or cleaning, just all day and night to visit, relax and site-see. My Brother is incredibly cheap and picked a substandard hotel a few miles from the Wharf. It was clean, but had nothing exciting about it (I can't even remember the name). We still spent about $129 a night as it was a Holiday.

This year I decided to call our rep, Cara Berends, from the Larkspur Hotels and see if I can arrange a stay at the Casa Munras with a site tour on Friday. Of course they were happy to accommodate me with a great TA rate of $99 a night. When I called to see about 2 more rooms for my family, they extended the same rate - what a deal.

So while the rest of you are exhausted from cooking (or picking up) dinner, I will be at a ocean front restaraunt eating lobster with my family....

(I will write up a full hotel report after Thanskgiving)

2009 Garden Tour of New Zealand

You can follow our progress (and learn a lot about New Zealand) at

www.rhododendrongardentours.com

Diane

H/A Pacific Northwest & Coast Fam Cruise

Sixty nine Travel Agents from all over U.S.A. was invited to sail on the m.s Veendam from Vancouver,B.C. to Victoria, and Astoria.Disembark in San Diego.This was the best Cruise Fam offered by any cruise line,really reasonable priced which included two top notch Hotels overnight stay in Seattle and Vancouver,B.C. Amtrak Cascade Train from Seattle to Vancouver and five night cruise on the ship.Sept.25-Oct.02,2009

It was first hand learning experience on board with two days of Seminars: Mr. Dave Fields,Coordinator and Mr. Rene H, Spatz,Sales Developement Manager was the principal representatives of Holland America. Invited travel partners: Tourism British Columbia,Anchortage & seattle Convention & Visitors Bureau.Amtrak and CLIA.

I flew up to Seattle on Friday morning with a one night stay at the Renaisance Seattle Hotel- a nice downtown location with a pool on the top floor overlooking the City. Hosted a fantastic dinner Buffet:Rack of Lamb,Cooked in front of you Crab Cakes Cakes.Fresh Salmon,etc. Next morning a beautiful scenic Coastal train ride on Amktrak Cascade-4 hours to Vancouver. Box breakfast was served. Narrow gauge train that was build in Spain,comfortable beige leather and very clean bathroom facilities.Also Business class csection is available at the back end of the Bistro car.

We stay overnight at the Pan Pacific Hotel,home of Canada Place-lower floor-Cruise Terminal. The new Fairmont waterfront is right across the street. A surprise dinner location was hosted by Tourism Vancouver inside the Vancouver Aquarium catered dinner with unlimited cocktails and wines with fishs swimming around you.. Another truly undersea experience was watching the 3D10 special effects and then was treated to a private night show by their residence Dolphins.

After Breakfast(Canadian bacon and eggs) at the Hotel,we boarded ms. Veendam for a tour of the ship and the Travel Agents Sailaway Cocktail Party-I think we had one too many including yours truly-thanks to couple young ladies!

Next morning-we were in Victoria-capitol of British of Columbia .Visited the Royal B.C. Museum and the world famous Butchard Gardens(we had the most wonderful Afternoon Tea better than Sheraton Palace Hotel or the Peninsula Hotel of Hong Kong.

The highlights of the Fam trip for me was meeting and listening to all our Hosts and presenters first handed about new destinations/point of interests and having the knowledge to promote Holland America Line from being on site.

Holland America Line is best suited for anyone who likes refine taste and not overly stuffy. Excellent values for the bucks and always ecellent service from its staff.

I am greatly appreciative to Holland America's Mr.Dave Fields,Mr.ReneSpatz,Mr. Jordan Marona and Ms. Velma Chen for this educational fam trip.

Raddison San Francisco

I recently stayed at the Raddison San Francisco (While touring the Norwegian Sun ). They were pretty booked, but still gave me a discounted rate of $129 a night (online was $179). It was an average room, nothing much to write about. I had read that they had a major renovation, but it was not evident at all. The bathroom vent did not work and there was rust and mold in the tiles behind the bath. I toured their conference center and the smell of must or mildew was so strong, I had to walk out.

One great thing was the outdoor fire pit. Several guests sat around, smoked, drank and chatted about where they were from and where they were traveling to. Several families picniced around the fire pit and played games as well.

A few days later, I received a survey in my email and I was dreadfully honest about my stay. It was average. A few hours later I received an email from Ronald Diaz, the Front Office Manager as follows:

Dear Ms. Gries,

We appreciate you taking the time to complete a survey regarding your recent stay with us.

On behalf of our entire staff here at the Radisson Hotel Fisherman's Wharf we apologize for the concerns you have about your experience at this hotel. We appreciate the feedback and, as a good will gesture, wish to extend a partial refund in the amount of $100.00 for your stay.

Please accept our apology and we hope to see you again when your travels bring you back to San Francisco. If you would like to discuss your experience further with me, please don't hesitate to call me at the phone number listed below.

They actually credited my card $180...I appreciate the gesture, but I could not recommend this location for a client.

Norwegian Pearl Inspection and Lunch

On thursday Sept 24th I arrived at Pier 27 to join other agents for the Ship Tour and Luncheon.
There were about 50 agents and we were all signed in by 11:00AM. Due to security we did not board till 11:45AM. We were given two room number and went to see each cabin. One was an inside Cabin Deck 8. I like the bathroom but the cabin itself was tiny. Then on deck 10 we took a look at an OceanView Balcony Cabin. Same thing. Nice Bathroom and Balcony but tiny cabin.
We went up to Deck 11 and just looked for an open cabin that was being cleaned. Much better.
Suite Cabin much larger. So if I was booking my clients on this ship. The lowest Catagory I would reccomend would be the Suites with Balcony. Next we rushed down to the Summer Palace Main Dinning Room for Lunch. One of Four Dinning Rooms. It was very beautiful. Low Ceiling and Russian Paintings of Katherines Palace in St. Petersburg. Lunch was very nice.
Spring Rolls, Lobster Bisque Soup, Salmon, and a Chocloate Desert to die for. The offered Red and White Wine and any Soda or Tea you wanted and coffee. Next we had one hour to see the
public Areas. I like the pools, the Gym, the Spa, etc. The Atrium of the ship was only two stories and they had a huge movie screen playing videos etc on the main wall. I noticed windows everywhere in the eating decks such as the Buffet Lunch Area. The hallways where the cabins were not wide enough for me. I also felt claustropobic on the Cabin Decks. The ship is decorated in cool tones with warm accents. I felt the serve yourself dinning areas were to plan and not appealing. I would reccomend this ship for those that like to stay up on the sports or pool decks.
But the overall impression I got was the ship was too dark and boxy. Not enough light and Dark public areas. I prefer Holland America or Celebrity myself. Even Royal Carribean sometimes.
She will be sailing Alaska and the Carribean in the winter next year. As always their shows and water sport activities are top notch. The shopping deck had quite a few stores and nice and large walkway. This ship would be a good choice for a family or couple on a tight budget as NCL is priced to sale. Resturants looked good and it dine when and where you want that many people like. Like other ships. They have a electronic board showing time and how long before you can be seated. I like this ship more than the older ones. Just not enough outside decks and light for me. Robin

Linda & John trip to Sandals Negril Jamaica

Linda and John Moore trip to Sandals Negril with a site inspection at Beachs in Jamaica on August 23 to 30th 2009. John and I and our friends/relatives David and Jeanette spent a fantastic week at Sandal Negril. It was so nice to just relax and enjoy the Beauty of Jamaica. And it was even sweeter that we were upgraded three categories to the Grand Luxe Beachfront Rooms in the Coconut Cove buildings; which was 50 feet from the waters edge and valued at $7000.00. We swam about 3 times everyday with water temperature of 82 degrees. The air temperature was between 80 and 86 degrees.
John and David are both Certified Scuba Divers; so they did a 30 foot dive and two 70 foot deep dives during the week. John said he would recommend these dive sites at Sandal to anyone. Diving at Sandals is free to certified divers, they supply all equipment and only charge $10.00 per day for a wet suit if you want one. You can make two dives per day. You can get your Open Water Certificate if you stay 7 days or more. There is an added fee for the Certification.
The white sand of the seven-mile beach at Negril goes on forever and is so beautiful.The dress code is casual; men dress in shorts and collared shirts for dinner and only the Kimonos restaurant did you have to have long pants and make reservations. They have Six restaurants to pick from each night. Kimonos restaurant was Asian. The Bayside restaurant was international and had buffet style breakfast and lunch; but for dinner was sit down dining and more of a steak house. Barefoot by the Sea served seafood and was right on the beach. Beautiful table settings but you sat on hard wooden benches with cushions and not very comfortable and all the food is cooked over at the Sundowner restaurant and then brought out to your table. The Sundowner restaurant has Caribbean West Indian dishes and is an indoor restaurant with elegant place settings and service. This was my favorite restaurant at Sandals Negril by far. The 4C’s was Italian the meal started with a cold buffet with appetizers, salads, breads and desserts. Then you order your main dish of Pasta; which you would pick from there menu and they make it up in there open kitchen. Also on the beach and they did the pasta on a hot plate in the middle of the restaurant. The Café Sandals Grilled served sandwiches, burgers, fries, fried chicken and was very good and a big hit as there was always people hanging out there. They closed a different restaurant every night being it was the slow season; but you did not know till you walked up to the restaurant that night. Also John was disappointed that they did not have lobster at any of the restaurants.

The management team put on a welcome cocktail party and we met all the staff. It was very nicely done and we enjoyed meeting all the different people. They also do a private dinner for return guests with the managers on a different day.

General Manager Horace Peterkin hpeterkin@grp.sandals.com

Sales Manager Jeffrey Burke JBURKE@grp.sandals.com

We did a site inspection and there we were told that Sandals Negril was at 65% capacity. All the rooms have air conditioning. The internet there was $60.00 a week or $39.00 a week if you had a lap top. For the people that had butler service they were given cell phones that dialed directly to the butler for whatever they wanted. It was amazing how many young couples had the butler service. John got a bad sunburn while we where there and the SPA did a lily wrap on him, they wrapped him up in sheets that were soaking in a tub of Ice and water it helped take the pain away. The SPA was so nice; I did a salt scrub and loved every minute of it.
We used the swim up bar a couple of times but the young couples took it over most of the time and played volley ball in the pool so the ball would go flying and hit you on the head while you were trying to cool off and have a drink.
The private dinners on the beach for the wedding couples or honeymooners was done so nice and it was $170.00 and well worth it. Even if you had a anniversary or feeling romantic you could do this too.




We picked a three package tour that was $100.00 per person and well worth it. They took us in a van to the Black River at St. Elizabeth where we saw many birds and
Alligators.





We had a buffet lunch Jamaican still and it was good.

From there they took us to Y/S Falls a 7-tiered waterfall where you ride a tractor drawn jitney up to the falls.

Then we finished our day at the Appleton Estate Rum Factory where they served us rum punch and gave us a tour and then had everyone sample 7 types of rum and John says they were very good. They sold the rum cheaper than any where else put people did not get the fact that you can not carry the bottle on the plane and when they went to check in they had to put them in there check on luggage; I wonder how many bottles made it home unbroken.

Before we went all we heard was go to Rick’s Café; they have the best food and it so much fun. Okay so when we got to Sandals Negril they said it was not safe for us to do it alone and we had to go with them either by $20.00 per person taxi/tour guide or $72.00 catamaran from the resort. The boat ride was a party boat and we did not want to do that. Big mistake as it cost for the 4 of us $190.00 to eat and drink and the food was not that good and for 3 hours the total cost was $270.00. The divers did a few dives and kept coming up to us to pay them more for another dive. It was nice to see the dive but after you saw them dive there was nothing else. They had a band later when it was time for us to leave so we guessed people liked it for that. Any way the four of us vote it as a tourist trap and other than the divers it got thumbs down all around.

We also did a site inspection at Beaches Negril and to get there we walked to Beaches Sandy Bay which was right next door to us and then took the free shuttle to Beaches Negril. We also were given cards to show that we were staying at Sandals Negril to get on the Beaches properties. I liked Beaches Negril very much but they had a lot of stairs to all the rooms. The children’s programs were great and they even had child care room with cribs. The lazy river was so much fun that Jeanette and I kept going round and round. We had lunch there and the pizza was very good. The guys did the water slide and they liked it. We found out that Beaches was 95 % full. Also they have X-BOX games that are tried there before going on sale to the public. The internet was cheaper at beaches they sold cards of $5, $10 or $15.00 to use it.

Anthea showed us around, but my contact was Iesha Samuels isamuels@grp.sandals.com and we also met with the general manager Carl Hendriks hspittle@grp.sandals.com.

Lazy River and Water Slide at Beaches Negril



We would highly recommend Sandal’s and Beaches Resorts to any client.