Having a fair understanding of logistics and the value of expertly applied organizational planning a

By Dennis Tkach. Have you ever taken an ocean cruise? Up until three weeks ago, I had not. I think the only experience that would have given me a greater shock of pleasure would be to find Halle Berry in my stocking on Christmas morning overseas discount airline tickets . If you have not yet experienced ‘cruising’, I can only hope I infect you with the desire to become a ‘cruiser’. overseas discount airline tickets Sitting at my iMac with thoughts whirling around like a maelstrom of sugar plums dancing in my head I have decided there are too many goodies to share in one column, so stay tuned for my next two follow up offerings. Think of finding overseas discount airline tickets yourself in a gourmet ‘word restaurant’ and my first course overseas discount airline tickets on the menu… the appetizer. This will follow with the main course and if you are a food lover, get your drool bib ready because ‘Food for the gods’ will be your salivation. Then for desert, this curmudgeonous chef will culminate his tale of boogalooing on the high seas with “Entertainment – Cruise ship style”.
All my life I’ve lived, overseas discount airline tickets worked, and holidayed in many a nook and cranny of planet Earth. I have travelled by foot, on horseback, by car and Greyhound, taken ferries, helicopters, and patronized many of the world’s airlines.
But I had never taken a cruise. Why? Getting on a giant ship with a few thousand people dancing to the lemming two step? Not my cup of herb tea. Visiting exciting ports of call for five or six hours while unable to see everything worth seeing held as much excitement as watching Roberto Luongo facing shoot outs. Responding to a ‘cattle call vacation’ was comparable to spending Saturday night watching my living room mirror. If you then toss in memories of ‘Titanic’ or ‘The Poseidon Adventure’ overseas discount airline tickets you can readily understand what set my determination never to follow in the watery footsteps of Johnny Depp and Captain Jack.
And so it was, and so it always would be… until our kids decided on their idea of an unusual gift for their parents. They tied my wife’s retirement, Christmas, and our fortieth wedding anniversary with one large bow, and gave us… a Caribbean cruise and an extended stay in Florida.
When I was a young scallywag I and my boyhood friend Harry Mueller, who also loved to wag at scallys, took a Greyhound bus from Winnipeg overseas discount airline tickets to Los Angeles (via Vancouver). The trip seemed but a few hours short of forever, the company on the bus leaned towards overseas discount airline tickets the derelict and the misanthropic, and the seats seemed determined to exact a malevolent overseas discount airline tickets curse on both back and bum. But, as in the glory days of all youth, our backs were straight as arrows and our bums were young. Of greater import and discovery, our eyes and minds were opened to the new world passing outside our window. This Greyhound experience proved to be a life changer. As the old song goes, ‘How are you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm, once they’ve seen L.A.?’
overseas discount airline tickets We flew out of Seattle. Note to all tinged with the Scottish high pocket gene: Canada flights are ridiculously more expensive than flying from the U.S.A. The drive below the 49th was a short two hours and the hotel where we stayed the night before our departure… excellent. Fate, however, has a way of playing overseas discount airline tickets with people, like the cat who captures and toys with a mouse before munch and crunch. And so it was with the Tkachs. Our flight next morning necessitated getting up at 4:00am. 4:00am?!!!!?
The wheels of our big silver bird left the tarmac overseas discount airline tickets at Seatac overseas discount airline tickets at 7:30am and it took two flight transfers and a whole day of discomfort before we arrived overseas discount airline tickets in Miami at 11:30 at night. Flying economy sucks when you spend all your time confined to a space as small as Kim Kardashian’s overseas discount airline tickets IQ. When the highlight of your flight is visiting the loo, successfully ignoring the excessive mass of humanity snoring in the seat beside you or tuning out the baby across the aisle incessantly crying because it’s little ears have not learned to pop.
Cheer up! Things could be worse. Sure enough, I cheered up and things did indeed, get worse. Luggage took an hour to arrive on the carousel and when it did, it arrived battered and torn. The shuttle overseas discount airline tickets from airport to hotel took another hour in arriving finally responding to my third desperate phone call for relief. This was followed by spending the night in what the Guinness Book Of Records must surely declare is the world’s smallest hotel room. I got goosed overseas discount airline tickets by the doorknob every time I bent over. I also got to retire in an authentic replica of Frodo Baggin’s bed. However…
Had a great night’s sleep wrapped in a dream wherein Penelope Cruz tried to entice me to run away with her. Sigh. We left the Fraser Valley in heavy rain and 8 C chill and awakened to sunshine and 21 C warm. The shuttle to the port of Miami and our cruise ship, the Carnival Liberty, was fast and friendly and fully worth the fifty cent tip I gave the driver.
Ah! The Carnival Liberty! A ship that true to it’s name, injected us with the same magical and delightful Clarabelle mood we all experienced as children visiting the Shriner’s overseas discount airline tickets Circus. Liberty. This was my new home for the next wondrous seven days, a place that seemed to instantly liberate me from all my mundane overseas discount airline tickets worries and cares.
Having a fair understanding of logistics and the value of expertly applied organizational planning and execution, I marveled at the smooth efficiency of a cruise ship’s overseas discount airline tickets operation. This particular ‘floating city’ had a staff of 1200 people serving every whim and pleasure 3000 guests could ever conceive, twenty-four/seven, and doing so with all the majesty of The Mormon Tabernacle Choir performing ‘The Messiah’.
Our battered and bruised luggage was awaiting us in our stateroom. Wonderfully quiet quarters. The accommodations were spacious overseas discount airline tickets and worthy of three stars. King size bed, ocean view portals, large bathroom with an amazing shower. Amazing because the water was perpetual hot water and the high pressure never altered overseas discount airline tickets when someone flushed. overseas discount airline tickets Television with free movies that were constantly running. (We never watched… too busy gorging ourselves climbing an Everest of fun stuff.)
Nine floors of restaurants, a full size Vegas style three story high, Mardi Gras themed showroom with plush seating overseas discount airline tickets and a different show every night, a disco, piano bar, constant overseas discount airline tickets outdoor partying and dancing to the boom boom sounds of a dj on speed, indoor and outdoor lounge areas, 24 hour room service, live entertainment everywhere from early morning until late into the evening, a gym, a spa, a mini-golf course par excellence, swimming pools, waterslide, hot tubs, duty free shops galore, a giant screen movie theatre under the stars and all of the aforementioned free and inclusive with the price of your boarding pass… (the pay extra exceptions are alcohol, overseas discount airline tickets playing in the casino, overseas discount airline tickets and strangely enough, soda pop…)
It took me nearly all week to familiarize myself with how to go where. We were given a good ship map and the stewards and ship’s staff were always everywhere to help guide the befuddled, but I still felt like Alice down the rabbit overseas discount airline tickets hole, never sure of where I was going. Elevators and stairs everywhere and the ship’s accommodations were so spacious, even with three thousand people, traffic was never a serious issue. Walking around the ship, especially overseas discount airline tickets on the main deck where the partying and loud happy music began the moment we boarded ship, was very exhilarating. I would compare overseas discount airline tickets it to the first time I visited Disneyland. When the ship cast off from the pier leaving the port of Miami, we all stood at the rails waving at an equal number of strangers in name but brothers and sisters in travel on the Norwegian liner in an adjoining berth, also preparing to leave port. Exciting overseas discount airline tickets stuff.
Once the skyline of Miami disappeared from sight I was seized with a weird disorienting sensation. Walking around the ship’s deck, wherever I looked, all I could see was endless ocean. This was definitely not like taking a ferry to Nanaimo or Victoria, surrounded by gulf islands, or even standing on an Oregon beach staring out at the endless sea with a whole continent at my back. Here, on the Liberty, I was truly surrounded by an endless vista devoid of any trace of terra firma. Here I was Kevin Costner, my wife, Jennie Tripplehorn in ‘Water World’. (Hmmmm… maybe I’m more like the movie’s Dennis Hopper character.)
First port of call. Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas. Beautiful beach, overseas discount airline tickets wonderful overseas discount airline tickets on shore barbecue, white flour like sand under a classic canopy of palm trees, overseas discount airline tickets however, disappointingly cool water for swimming ( I said ‘cool’, overseas discount airline tickets not ‘cold’ as in Cultus, White Rock, or Alouette. Honestly, our first touch down at a tropical paradise proved to be a bit of a let down.
That feeling was quickly erased overseas discount airline tickets when we docked in the deep sea port on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Now this place is ‘tropical’! 30C, a former pirate’s overseas discount airline tickets stronghold where Blackbeard and Captain Jack Sparrow used to trade their stolen wares for provisions (yes, Virginia, there really was a Captain Jack… the Disney people did their homework. I learned overseas discount airline tickets that ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean’ held much more truth than fantasy.) Free tour of a rum distillery, free samples too. Breathtaking drive up a mountain. Spent an hour with a local story telling bartender who informed me that the world’s best tasting vodka is French. Ciroc ‘Blue’ (made from ‘snap frost grapes’.) The best rum in the world comes from Cuba. Second best is Appleton’s Estate 12 year old Reserve from Jamaica.
overseas discount airline tickets San Juan, Puerto Rico. One of my favorite cities in all the world on my favorite island. Old world charm in this city founded by Christopher Columbus, with its uniquely painted and stylistic architecture, a veritable shoppers mecca. Watched a 200 piece marching band in splendid white uniforms (with gold trim) marching through ‘the avenidas of ‘old San Juan, playing Sousa-type compositions with the artistry of the Boston Pops orchestra and the precision of a West Point drill squad. Bought a set of bamboo bedsheets and pillow cases, the softest, smoothest, coolest fabric in the world. 100% bamboo makes silk sheets