JET Travel July 2017 Newsletter

Welcome to my July 2017 newsletter! I'm still on a roll with sending these out. Hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoy putting them together.

Isn't that a beautiful view? I really enjoyed sailing down the Mississippi.

I hope this newsletter finds you having a great summer. The end of May and beginning of June were a very busy time for me so for once I was glad that I wasn't traveling. By mid June I was happy to be taking a break with friends on a cruise. As you all may or may not know, I'm a hotel snob and I'll be honest and say that a Carnival cruise wasn't high on my list. Our cruise experience to date had been on Celebrity once and Disney several times. I'm happy to report that we were pleasantly surprised in our experience on the Carnival Dream. >P> Here is a link to our video on youtube channel about this trip: (Be sure to click the 'subscribe' button if you want to be alerted when we post a new video)

One thing I have to say is that my whole family enjoyed sailing out of New Orleans. When we've sailed in the past, we've either driven to Galveston, Port Canaveral or flew to San Juan. For this cruise, we got in the car, drove to the port and got on the ship. That's it. Easy peasy.

Boarding took about a half hour and once we had lunch our cabin was ready and by the time we put our bags down and checked our cabins, our luggage had arrived. Of course then we had the dreaded muster drill and after that it was nothing but fun even though we were sailing through Tropical Storm Cindy.

One thing we did as soon as we boarded is make dining reservations at the Steakhouse and confirmed our reservations for the Chef's Table. Immediatly after we walked into this guy! LOL He's a towel animal that walks around the ship which is so cool. We had awesome towel animals in our cabins every night which we all had fun playing with. I talk a lot about groups and for this trip we were traveling with a small group of 11 and an extended group which was about 30 more. It was really nice to pretty much go anywhere and be able to sit and chat and get to know people better. Plus there was always someone telling me they'd seen one of my kids and thankfully they were behaving. Ha!

I highly recommend traveling with others that you get along with as it really was fun and we're now going to put an annual travel group together. Here is a photo of the group that we were traveling with:

That photo was taken on Roatan while we participated in an excursion with Christopher Tours. I've always wanted to hold a sloth but as I have a thing against captive animals, I never had the opportunity until Roatan. There is what amounts to an exotic pet rescue center and they take in exotic pets that are no longer wanted. If you watch the video you'll see me basically lose my mind when they put Granny into my arms. Holy Moly did I fall in love.

Our excursion consisted of a tour of the island, a photo stop, the sanctuary, lunch andsnorkling. I'm one of those people that actually likes staying on the ship when it's in port but this excursion was worth getting off the ship for. Here was the Serenity Area (Adults only) while the ship was in port. Seriously, why would you fight the crowds for the same old excursion? :)

We were back in plenty of time to get ready for our Chef's Table dinner. Overall it was a good experience and I'd highly recommend it. Unfortuately the food was mostly cold but the experience of eating in the galley and getting the tour and speaking to the chef was an experience that I'd gladly do again.

Speaking of food, the Steakhouse was fabulous and we ended up eating there twice. Olga was our server and if you sail please tell her we said hello.

The other place we spent a lot of our time was the Alchemy Bar. Anca took great care of us and we tried many of her concoctions. Really a fun happening place to meet before or after dinner.

Comedy shows were fun as were the shows in the main dining room. I won't give anything away here. Overall we had a really good time on the Carnival Dream and I'd definitely recommend it.

Remember: The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.

GROUPS! (bears repeating)

One of the things that mention often is groups and I've got some fantastic tools to help my guests become group leaders. Each one of you can be a group leader and I have the tools to make it easy. Think of a trip you'd like to take and email me and we can talk about how to get you to that dream destination with super amenities or even at a reduced rate! The next time you are talking about travel and one of your friends says "I would love to do that": tell them they can! It's a win / win for everyone!

Where are we headed next? Currently, I'm sitting in an airport lounge in Dallas waiting on a delayed flight to London. We're headed to London for a week and then up to Eddinburgh, Scotland! It's going to be a fun summer!

Ready, JET...Go!

Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or YouTube to keep up and ask questions about any place we go.

See you in August!

Jen