Family Travel Girl

Cruise Ships: Royal Caribbean Creates Floating Parks

Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship

According to Royal Caribbean's latest press release, they're about to wow the cruising population with new travel ideas featuring land to sea designs.  Their brand new initiative is called Project Genesis (click this link to see a video).  According to the latest travel information, the cruise ships in this series will include an area at the center of the ship that will open to the sky and have green, park-like grounds featuring walking paths, flower gardens, and trees.  This area will be the length of a football field.  This sounds like a cool idea.  Reminds me of people who have patios and gardens on the rooftops of their city apartments.  Our family loves to cruise, and I can easily see myself relaxing and reading a book under the shade of a canopy tree.  What do you think of this concept?

Photo by FotoDawg via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Cruise Travel Deals: Beat the Euro, Take a Cruise!

European Cruise Package Can Save You Money!  Because of the poor exchange rate between the US dollar and Euro, there's been a lot of talk about how to stretch your dollar in Europe.  One great suggestion that I've read about is to book a cruise.  Why is that you might ask?  A cruise vacation allows you to pre-pay using US dollars; therefore, you can avoid the unpredictability of the rising euro.  Book ahead and get even more savings by finding early booking cruise travel deals.

Our recent trip to Europe was an eye opener.  For instance, our family decided to drop in on the Hard Rock Cafe in Berlin for a quick lunch.  Sounds like a quick, casual, fairly priced place to eat, right?  How does 18 euro for a hamburger and fries sound?  Oh yea, and did you remember to calculate that in US dollars?  We're talking almost $29 for one hamburger with a few fries.  Have a family of four?  Want something to drink with that?  Like to leave a tip?  Before you know it, you've laid out $160 for a quick, casual lunch.  McDonald's or Subway was sounding pretty good to us after a couple of weeks! 

So, back to the cruise idea.  I think that my husband probably would have slept a little better knowing that he could return to the cruise ship to enjoy a nice meal that was already paid for (in U.S. dollars).  Now, why didn't I think of that?

P.S.  We've cruised and enjoyed Royal Caribbean many times, and according to Royal Caribbean's website they offer several European cruise destinations.  Might be worth a look.

Photo by Savannah Grandfather via Flickr (Creative Commons)