Another Podcast

As I type, I am listening to my latest podcast. In this episode I interview Gordon Tolbert. Gordon is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing with Karisma Hotels and Resorts. The Karisma Hotels consist of the Hidden Beach Resort, ElDorado Royale, ElDorado Seaside, Azul Beach Resort and the Azul Blue.

I have so much fun putting these together. I hope you enjoy listening to them. If you haven't checked it out yet, go to our website and do so!

More Later.

Various Friday Afternoon Musings

Today we are on day two of a new marketing experience. I won't go into specifics here, because I do have to keep SOME secrets. If you've spoken to me over the last week or so you probably already know what I'm talking about. It's kind of a big deal and I've been excited anticipating it.

Honestly, I'm now a bit underwhelmed.

It's a very expensive marketing initiative. Generally, I understand, this particular initiative generates quite a bit of activity. We're analyzing the reasons why we think it isn't generating much for us. The offer is actually pretty good. I think there are two big reasons. (Maybe three)

1) We are suffering a Mavs hangover. Ever since the Mavs got in the finals, Dallas has been obsessed. Now that we lost, we're sad. Get over it. You don't play for the Mavs. You need a vacation.

2) It's too close to the 4th of July holiday. People in the Texas market generally only think about the next big thing. Right now, people have made plans for the 4th of July weekend. They are not thinking about later in July, or about Fall Break, or Christmas. (This is not a universal rule...just an observation borne out over 18 years experience.)

3) The offer dropped on a Thursday. This sort of initiative has not generally started this late in the week. Our experience has been that, by and large, people plan trips while they are at work. Although this may be a sad commentary on the committment of people to their employers, its just the way it is. We are going to be (uncharacteristically) open tomorrow (Saturday) to catch any phone calls that might come in. I'll be interested to see how long we get calls on this promotion.

Oh, and one more thing. When the offer initially launched, there was an error. I think this really hurt us even though the error was not in any way ours.

So there's how the world looks from here today. We are getting settled in nicely to our new personal residence. There are still some boxes around, which I will be hastily unpacking this weekend.

I hope you have a fantastic weekend.

You need a vacation. :-)

The next big thing...

As I think I've mentioned, I am moving (personally, not professionally) from Plano to Addison. The moving trucks come in the morning. I hate moving. I am living in a box jungle. My daughter got an ear infection yesterday and we had to come to the office to get Advil because ours at home was packed. I went to run this morning and had to go through boxes to find my Timex Bodylink. (Heaven forbid that I should run without a multimedia readout of my speed, heartrate and elapsed distance.)

The move also means that I will be out of the office tomorrow and probably most of Monday. I am trying to work ahead as much as possible so as to not be swallowed up during this our busiest time of year.

Couple all of that with the fact that a great promotional opportunity just fell in our lap that will start on Tuesday and will likely monopolize us completely for the next two weeks.

Never a dull moment.

An entirely different sort of travel...

This weekend I spent many hours uploading new hotel photo tours to our website. We hear from many of you that you enjoy these unretouched photos that we take when we are actually onsite at the various hotels. No airbrushing, cropping or otherwise altering the photos goes on before they are posted to our site. Here is a link to our hotel photo tours.

Right now, the biggest news around here is that Philip and I are moving our residence. Rest assured that our office is still here on the South West corner of Parker and Custer in Plano. I am living in a land of boxes and packing material.

Tonight I am speaking to the Plano Area Moms of Multiples monthly meeting. I'll be speaking about traveling with kids. Right now I feel more qualified to speak about moving with children!

Well, I'd better go work on my speech a little more.

More Later.

So how was the rest of Costa Rica?

Fantastic, actually.

When last I blogged from ten degrees north of the Equator, we were about to spend a full day driving from the Papagayo area up to the Monteverde Cloud Forest. As the name might suggest, Monteverde is certainly located on a green mountain.

As we navigated up the windy, potholed, barely wider than one lane road, it became clear that in order to get to Monteverde, one really had to want to get there. No one would happen upon the place by accident. We were in transit for approximately 5 hours, although that included a stop for lunch. I was sitting toward the rear of the bus, so I couldn't see what an amazing job our driver did navigating our 46 person bus up such roads. I did have the honor to witness it first hand on the way down, however.

We checked in at the Monteverde Cloud Forest Lodge. What a charming place. There are not telephones or televisions in the rooms, although both are available in the lodge. There is not air conditioning, but it was actually chilly and I had a hard time going to sleep because I was cold.

We had scheduled a tour of the Butterfly Farm as well as a Skywalk. In what seemed to be a theme of the trip, we were running dreadfully behind schedule. So, each person had to pick which of the activities they most wanted to do. Most everyone, including me, wanted to do the Skywalk.

I think I've mentioned before that I am afraid of heights. This was one of those times that I had committed myself to feel the fear and do it anyway. When we ascended the long set of metal, wet, windy spiral stairs I found it hard to breathe. This was not because of exertion, but because we kept going higher and higher. After reaching the top of the stairs, we immediately went across our first suspension bridge. That sensation was a little hard to get used to because the bridge bounces.

After the first one though, I was hooked. In no time at all I found myself looking straight down from the middle of each bridge. From many of them it was impossible to see the ground. I got way ahead of the rest of the group and took the voice recorder I use for my podcasts and just recorded several minutes of the sounds of the Cloud Forest. I think those recordings turned out well. I'll include a couple of minutes in an upcoming podcast.

After completing the Skywalk we asked our driver to take us to a supermarket in town. Libations were purchased and we returned to our temporary home. I recorded podcasts with the manager of the hotel as well as Traci, our Occidental Resorts rep. The Funjet folks as well as several of the other agents on the trip had great fun attempting to (and often succeeding in) distracting the interviewees. You'll hear it on the recordings. Only those present will know exactly what the distractions were. (What happens on a fam, stays on a fam.)

The remainder of the evening was spent on the enclosed balcony. We had music and great conversation and some uniquely fam behavior. Fun times.

Many of us stayed up entirely too late, especially considering the strict 6am departure the next morning.

Really, a great trip. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

In fact, I just may.

I am home.

Yes, that's right..I've returned home from Costa Rica.

I am really hoping to get all of the pictures posted by the end of this weekend. Today I have completed publishing the first of the series of podcasts I did while I was there.

To subscribe to or listen to our podcast, you can go to http://legacytravel.libsyn.com/

What a wonderful destination. Costa Rica is safe, there are a multitude of things to do, or beautiful surroundings to relax and enjoy. The water is safe, even directly out of the tap. The people are very friendly. You really must plan a trip!

More Later

Just another day in Paradise...

Today we did two site inspections and a river boat ride. We did an official site inspection of the hotel where we are staying (Occidental Grand Papagayo) as well as the Fiesta Premiere. So far the Occidental really is my favorite. It is closer to the airport (35 minutes) than some of the others and is more compact (i.e. you can walk around it ' most others you have to shuttle around the property).

I just finished doing a podcast with another agent on the trip who was stuck in the Riviera Maya for 8 extra days because of Hurricane Wilma. We sat together on the plane coming down and I thought her story was fascinating..I think you will too.

I am keeping an eye out for Traci, the Occidental rep. I want to do a podcast with her as well.

Today on our river cruise we saw howler monkeys, whitefaced monkeys, crocodiles and various birds. Quite fascinating.

We are having dinner at 9pm at the Italian restaurant (just a few of us, not the whole group).

Tomorrow we will go to the Monteverde Cloud Lodge which will involve a great deal of driving. I have become adept at going to sleep on the bus. The joke has become that any two points in Costa Rica are an hour and a half apart.

I am going to sign off and go look for Traci.

More Later. (I probably will not have access again until I get back to Texas!)

A few minutes to blog....

It is 756am. I have eaten breakfast and the bus doesn´t leave for 15 minutes.

Where to begin? We have seen several properties and spent a LOT of time on the bus. (I have gotten really good at curling up across two seats and going to sleep.)

I guess the most fun we have had so far is the canopy tour. If you have never been on one, a canopy tour is where they rig you up in a harness and latch you to cables that go from tree to tree across the jungle. In between trees you basically fly through the jungle. Now, I am afraid of heights. However, I was committed to fully experiencing the adventure.

So, I told the guy strapping me up about my kids so he would be extra sure to make sure everything was secure. He told me about his kids as well.

The first zip line wasn´t very high up so that wasn´t a big deal. Then the rest of the time consisted of flying through the air for a few minutes, then standing on these platforms waaaaayyyyy high up in the jungle waiting for the next "flight".

On the first couple of platforms I had to really concentrate and not look down. The lady in front of me freaked out on the first platform and had to be taken back down. I have no idea how they did that, I was on to the next one.

By the end I was an old pro. Some of the agents went upside down, some did it superman style (head first), but I was content to do it normal style and really enjoy looking around and enjoying the sensation of flying.

We are off to some national park today. They say to expect heat and mosquitos.

I´ll let you know how it goes.

More Later.

Long Day

I may not get this posted before my time on the Internet runs out. We saw three hotels today and did the canopy tour. What a fantastic time we had. Even though I was afraid of heights I did not chicken out.

I have taken many pictures and am very tired.

More in the morning.

Costa Rica - Day One

I've had a great night of sleep and a good breakfast. I'm bug sprayed and sunblocked. The bus leaves in 8 minutes for a full day of hotel site inspections and a canopy tour. We don't return until 9pm.

I've also done one podcast so far. I interviewed Francisco with CAT tours. They are the inbound tour operator for Funjet here in Costa Rica. I hope to interview Tracy with Occidental who is also on this trip.

Oh, and I did end up with a room to myself. Bliss I tell you. Supreme Bliss.

More Later.

Hello from Costa Rica!

We finally arrived in Costa Rica four hours late. We were delayed two hours, then some instrument on the plane was not working which meant that we could not fly at a very high altitude. That meant that we would burn more fuel which meant that we had to stop in Cancun enroute for more fuel.

Interesting trip, but I'm here and safe. I'm off to my room to sleep for a few hours before tomorrow starts with a Canopy tour!

More Tomorrow.

Off to Costa Rica!

I'm at home right now, making final preparations for my departure to Costa Rica later this morning. I'll be on a Funjet Vacations agent familiarization trip. Molly and Ellen from the local Funjet office will be our escorts.

One thing about "fam trips" is that you are generally paired with a roommate. This is my least favorite part about fam trips. In fact, I avoided going on them for many years for this very reason. The people are generally nice enough, I just don't like being around people 24/7, especially people not in my family. Even my family will tell you that I need to be by myself for a while each day. So, I'll go and try to be nice. :-)

I'll be taking along my podcasting equipment and will try to catch interviews and experiences that will be fun to listen to later. I'll see how practical it is to try to record my reaction as my afraid of heights self experiences zipping on a cable over the rainforest. Not sure if that recording will ever be published.

The first three nights we'll be staying at the Occidental Grand Papagayo. The last night we'll stay at the Monteverde Cloud Forest Lodge. From what I can see, the Occidental has hair dryers, the Lodge does not. I don't even know if I'll be able to plug in my hair dryer at the Lodge..but I'm taking it anyway. When I return to Dallas I am expected to go directly to a staff meeting and I certainly can't go with bad hair. I may not go anyway because I may be too wiped out, but I'll give it the old college try.

Other things we'll be doing in Costa Rica:

Visiting Hotels:
Villas Sol
Paradisus Playa Conchal
Occidental Allegro Papagayo
Premier Fiesta Resort
(And, of course, our hosts mentioned above)

Also...
Canopy Tour (Swing from tree to tree with steel cables)
Palo Verde National Park
Monteverde Area including the Sky Walk
Butterfly Farm

Sounds like a full few days. I called Verizon Wireless to see if there is any chance my cell phone will work. Sounds like it's possible, so I'm taking it just in case.

I'd better go finish getting dressed and ready. Besides getting ready to leave we may be called for a house showing at any moment and have to vacate the premises.

I'll try to blog while I'm gone. I expect to have Internet access while at the Occidental for the first three days.

More Later!

Malaria!!?

I recently sent some great customers on a rather extensive trip to Africa and France. An odd combination, to be sure.

Actually, I mostly helped with the France part...I also arranged the air tickets. They were going to visit a family member who was currently working in Africa...then France was on the way home, more or less.

He built a website with pictures of his trip, a trip log and travel tips they learned along the way.

One thing he didn't mention on the website is that he came home with Malaria! They were both taking anti-malaria medication in preparation for the trip, but his was causing some harsh side effects so he stopped taking it. I'll bet he wishes he continued!

I appreciate the link to our website too!