Traveling Pen-Pals – Are You Still In Touch With Them?

I remember when I was a child, I first traveled on a plane with Royal Airlines which is no longer in service back in mid 90′s, I remember traveling to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico when I met new friends on the plane and I got their phone numbers and address, and I kept in touch with them for 3-4 years and then we drifted apart, and then I remember going to Florida, in Daytona Beach, and I had gone there for 2 weeks for Christmas and New Years, and I met great people from England, United Kingdom and we had seen each other and hung out with each other quite a bit and then we ended up getting each others address, and phone numbers, but we only sent each other mail and became pen-pals and sent pictures to each other. We still keep in touch since 1997. As the years went by, and my travels increased, I ended up meeting so many different people in the world and I still keep in touch with people I met from Russia, England, Armenia, Vancouver, in other parts of Ontario, Canada where I met them on my trips, and it was so awesome. We have each other on Facebook and we have each others e-mails and its such a great thing.

When you travel around the world, you meet so many different people with different views and lifestyles on life, and the way people see things and different opinions, and its so good. Travel and People experience has been part of my life since day one. I love being social and interactive with so many people. When I travel, I tend to bring up subjects and meet random people when I am at resorts, cruise ships, planes and airports. This last trip I did go on however, it was quite different, we all spoke and kept bumping into each other and met some really cool folks, but I ended up not getting any  phone numbers, e-mails, addresses. I don’t know what happened to me this time, but I had written a review on trip advisor online and one of them spotted me and my pictures, and she wrote to me and said Hi remember me from the hotel? I said Oh yes I do, She said I am sorry we didn’t get each others contacts, but thank goodness you wrote something on our hotel we stood at or else I would have never found you. You had told me your name, but I wouldn’t have known how to spell it to begin with, so she said I am glad I checked. So at least I am keeping in touch with one of the people I met now.

I had always carried around a small notebook and pen with me in my little purse around the hotel in case I met someone interesting, nice and great, but I never got to asking them. I was just so excited to be away and enjoy the hotel and everything else. There are so many people you meet, some you see again, some you don’t get to see again. I miss my friends in United Kingdom, Russia, and other places. I want to see them again and soon. Hopefully. Have you had a pen-pal? Do you still keep in touch with people whom you have traveled with or have met while you have been abroad? Have you kept your bonds strong with your travel pals?

Would love to hear from you.

All the best!

The Carnival Triumph – It Could Have Been Much Worse

As you may or may not know, The Carnival Triumph of Carnival Cruise lines engine on the ship caught fire which led to a power outage on the ship and passengers were left stranded for 5 days with deplorable conditions on board the ship and the Triumph made it safely to Mobile, Alabama where all passengers and crew were disembarked off the ship safely. Ladies and gentlemen, I think were missing the big picture here with people going so crazy over this mishap and people filing lawsuits against the cruise line, but it would have been much worse and the officers and crew of the ship played a heroic part in saving the passengers on board and helped with the conditions as much as they could.

People around the world in impoverished, third world countries that have little or no power and who live in unsanitary conditions and there are people who have it a lot worse than what happened on this cruise ship of just 5 days where people live a lifetime of these conditions all the time. It is very important to think about what we do and say with our actions. Some people haven’t seen the way people live in the world, and I have seen the way people live, I’ve traveled to places and seen the way their lives are. What happened on this cruise ship shouldn’t even be justified as a HUGE ISSUE, because what should matter most is people are alive, well, and off the ship reunited with families. Accidents happen unfortunately and people should really think about their actions. I know what happened was horrifying and scary in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico and I sympathize with what everyone went through, but then again it could have been a whole lot worse like the whole ship catching on fire or part of the ship. Thank goodness it was just the Engine area, and it didn’t poke a hole to the ships bottom or else, there would have been more problems, but rescue teams, and boats tugged and towed the ship to the port and everyone did their part to make sure The Triumph gets to land safe and sound.

I mean that is what should matter at the end right? Lawsuits should not happen, and I am sure people will make up stories and try their best to get thousands and thousands of dollars. Instead of saying thank goodness nothing serious happened, people should thank their lucky stars. People are way too dramatic and there will always be people who will not appreciate, they will criticize, and do what they can to get justice, but its something that I wouldn’t want to happen to myself either, and its something that I wouldn’t want to go through, but you know what? Worse things can and could have happened on board the ship. The ship is now being cleaned and repaired right away after the Triumph was docked at the port. I thank and congratulate Carnival Cruise lines for a job well done to make sure passengers, crew members and officers are all safe and sound and that the rescue team efforts did a marvelous and great job to ensure everyone’s safety. That is all that should matter is that there were no fatalities, everyone’s safe and gone back home.

That is all there is to it.

TheTraveler360 To Be Launched January 31st, 2013

Hello everyone, as you may or may not know, aside from my primary blog which is this one, I am going to be launching thetraveler360 on WordPress at the end of January 2013, and it will be your #1 stop for all your travel needs, and I will cater to everyone’s travel adventure, and those new to travel, those who need tips, tricks and efficient travel with how to pack, Cruises, Cruising, Road Trips, Airports, Airplanes, Airlines, Maps, Adventure travel, All Inclusive, Resorts, Hotels, Motels, Deals, Discounts, Sales, and among newly updated news from the travel world, sharing my experiences, expertise, my life in travel, the way my life has changed because of traveling, among other advisories, what to pack in your carry on, great links to look at, Airline, Hotel, Resort, All inclusive and so much more. I am very excited to launch this Travel website. In all the travel experience I have had since I was 7 years old and now I am going on 28 years old. I have traveled every year and so thankful for all my experiences and so glad to have the gift of traveling, seeing the world, being educated about this all.

It is my passion to help others who are looking to travel, who are thinking about making a travel purchase, organizing their travel plans, getting advice and everything. It is one of my greatest strengths and skills to be able to help people, to be able to give my insight on travel, to be able to give my two cents into it. A lot of people have come to me and said you do an even better job out there then a lot of the travel agents do in the industry. I feel great to hear that from them, because Its a passion, its something that I love doing. I know some people told me I should really be in the travel and tourism industry, but I feel like I can do a better job like this and I don’t care about being paid, my payment is to see people being happy, and traveling safely, and getting great reviews, and I look at this as an interest to me. I am very happy and excited for my launch soon. All the best to you all and for any future travel plans, let me know and I will be more than happy to assist you in anything you need and anything you have concerns with.

Bon Voyage, Happy Travels!

What Traveling Means To Me. I am Glad I can Help People In It

Hello everyone, today I am going to talk to you about what traveling means to me and how vital it is in my life. I am sure most of us love to travel and go away from civilization and reality once in a while. I am here to tell you about what it means to me and how it has shaped my life. Traveling is one of the most incredible things of life. You get to see different parts of the world, form your own opinion, give it your rating, and each travel story is an experience in itself. Last night I was talking amongst friends on my travel experiences and giving them my expertise. One person has never been on a cruise ship before and has never cruised and so I introduced her to a new world full of cruising and traveling. I must have been talking for over half an hour. It is a passion of mine and I love talking to people about travel. She said that you are an expert. I was just happy and moved by what she said to me. It is amazing what traveling can do for you. It makes you feel more independent in a way, it gives you that push into the world to get out of the city once in a while and just explore the world before your eyes. Its one of the greatest pleasures of life. I am so happy to have experienced it all, and I will continue into my journey. I am creating a new blog all about traveling and everything else Which will launch at the end of January, 2013. I am so excited about the experience to help others in all forms of travel. People told me why don’t you become a travel consultant? Although I would love to but, this is my way of travel consultation. I will not have it as career, but people tell me otherwise.

They said Talin you would be incredible on it and you have so much knowledge than a travel agent does. They said its true, you know so much more than a travel agent does. When I heard this, I said no way, they said yes way. I love it, but I just love consulting people online and personally, but not as a job/career path. I like exploring and traveling has shaped me and my outlook on life. I have seen things and I have been to villages and countries where they are not doing so well, and they don’t make much money. Like Cuba one persons salary of the month is like 15-20 pesos, and the food they get is measured by the government, and so much more. I saw this happening years and years ago when I went to Cuba for the first time back in the 90′s. It gives me time to appreciate what I have and everything I have with grocery stores that are easily reached, good clean water to drink and so much more. I am thankful for everything I have here. I have seen the way people live, and one persons house is like 300-400 square feet, and some homes are like tool sheds and 4 people live in it. They also haven’t even seen a plane or the airport, and when we showed them the airplane and pictures of them and everything, they were so surprised and they were amazed at it. This is also one of the reasons why I love traveling. I meet all different types of people, different cultures, and people of every walks of life. I love it.

I look forward to my next adventures.

Special Announcement – My Travel Blog Site To Be Launched Soon!

Hello everyone, I have a special announcement to make to everyone. Besides my primary blog I have here, and due to popular demand, I decided to launch my very first travel blog site which will be launched at the end of January, 2013. Since I was 7 years old, I got introduced to a world of travel by my family, and I travel every year to different destinations and everything. Now, All my knowledge, understanding and my expertise in travel, I want to put it into good use and assist others who are into traveling, and those all new to the traveling world. This blog I will create will include tips, advice, cruises, cruising, cruise ships, how to connect flights, best deals, discounts, great sales, all inclusive vacations, flights, airlines,  hotels, car rentals, airports, road trip travel, my very own travel experiences, travel updates, websites to visit, aviation, the list of places and cruise ships I have traveled and so much more. Traveling is such a big passion of mine, and its something I love doing and helping others with their travel needs is important to me and to make sure they travel comfortable and happy. I am very excited for this step I am taking to create a blog just for the reason of this incredible world of travel. You name it, I have done it. I am very fortunate for all my experiences and expertise and I want to put it in great use. Well, that is all for now.

my blog address will be provided once it is complete. Thank you!

Happy traveling, Safe travels.

The Titanic – 100 Years After The Sinking Of The Ocean Liner

One Hundred years ago on April 14-15 1912, Titanic was on its Maiden voyage to New York, USA. The Ship disembarked from South Hampton in England to USA on the North Atlantic Ocean. It was during the evening on April 14, 1912, that Titanic struck an Iceberg which put a huge gash on the side of the ship. It frightened the passengers of the ship and water started leaking into the vessel. As people were starting to load up on the lifeboats, it was only women and children first which really wasn’t a great thing. It should be everyone going on board those lifeboats. before they really were strict on first class, middle class and 3rd class passengers and weren’t equally treated. So many things went wrong on the Titanic with not sufficient tools and safety equipment and the big shots of the ship spoke so highly of the ship, “Even God Cannot Sink This Ship”. which should have never been said. The doomed ship started to sink faster and faster. several hundred were killed and drowned, some of hypothermia of the cold ocean of the Atlantic off the coast of Newfoundland Canada.

I must say I was and still is a huge Titanic fanatic from 1997 when the film came out that James Cameron Directed. It was an incredible movie and I learned so much from it, just watching the story unfold. I don’t know why Titanic is one of my all time favorite movies, but I just like the beginning where things were perfect and things were in order. I used to be such a huge fanatic, that I used to have posters, pencils, books, films, t-shirts and a big Notebook with its photo. I was a huge fan of the Movie Titanic and I have watched it maybe 25 times maybe more and I was known to be the Titanic know it all and historian LoL… I kind of liked that, but then I was also serious too. It hit close to my heart. In 1997 up til 1999, Titanic was my middle name. My cousins, and other family members always asked me titanic questions and I would answer them. Now I still know the movie by heart, but I need to re-watch it again once to just refresh. My condolences go out to those lives lost in the Titanic and a beautiful ship with so much that went down to the bottom of the Ocean floor.

The Costa Concordia Cruise Ship Tragedy, Hit Me Really Emotionally…

As I had woken up, I decided to do my regular daily routine by getting on the computer and checking my e-mail, but I decided to check out the news, and I saw a headline that a Cruise Ship had capsized, and I right away clicked on it, and I was just in shock, I could not believe what I was seeing on the computer. I thought it was something out of a movie, but unfortunately it is real. I cannot even begin to describe how I am feeling for the Costa Concordia Cruise Ship tragedy that happened on January 14, 2012 off the coast of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea. My heart feels heavy for all those people involved in such a terrible ordeal. I am glad 4000 people were evacuated and are safe, but I feel for those who have not been found yet and unfortunately those who lost their lives. I have not stopped thinking about this since I heard about it. I started to cry and my emotions on this was on the rise.

Having been on the same Cruise Ship Company on another Cruise Ship called Costa Atlantica, and among other Cruise lines in the industry, this news even hit me harder as I have been on these huge ships before. I cannot believe how scared and eery I have been feeling the last 24-48 hours since this terrible tragic thing that happened. Now I am thinking about how all these people are going to go home without travel documents, how they will be salvaging peoples belongings, how they will even raise this enormous and a 135,000 ton ship. I know this may put a big scar on the cruise ship industry and now people may not travel with cruises anymore, and I wouldn’t blame people who are looking to travel. I know this is a very scary thing, but I really enjoy cruising and visiting so many countries all at once. This definitely will not deter me from cruising again as I have had a passion from cruise ships and cruising and for several years this has been part of my life.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all those and all the families.

Another Travel Blog — I Love Cruise Ship Travel

In My Life I have taken 4 Cruise Ship voyages in the Caribbean and I must say it puts a whole new twist in the travel industry. Its incredible how one travel, takes you to several places all at once. I have been to almost all the Caribbean Islands and some I have stayed right in them such as Cuba, Dominican Republic. I have had so much experience traveling and so my family and I thought lets try cruising this time instead of going All Inclusive all the time to the resorts. in the year of 2000 going into 2001, My dad and I we were looking at Cruise Ship travel  for my family to go away again and we looked all over the net, and as well as going to various travel agent offices to obtain our copies of cruise brochures and books.

We did decide on a cruise and we went with a smaller cruise ship which was the Sundream at the time. We booked it and we decided to go on the last day of the year. We flew to Montego Bay, Jamaica and from there we went on board our ship and we celebrated the new year on board. From Montego bay we went to Cayman Islands, Cozumel, Dominican Republic, Havana, Cuba. We had such a wonderful experience, so our selection of the ship size were getting bigger and bigger. We then sailed Sundream’s Sistership the Sunbird from Aruba, a year later. We sailed to St Kitts, Antigua, Barbados, St Maarten. It was so lovely to see different Caribbean island Cultures and the people there. It was incredible. Definitely an experience of a lifetime.

In 2002, we sailed on Costa Cruises, the Costa Atlantica. This ship is Huge! I was about 17-18 at the time. It was a lot of fun. We flew to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, we went to Port Everglades. We saw about 8 other Cruise ships and they were so enormous in size and then we heard the Cruise ship Horn and it was ever so loud sailing out from Florida port. We then sailed to St. Thomas, Nassau, Bahamas, Costa’s Private Island, San Juan, Puerto Rico. At the time Digital Camera’s were starting to come out, but we had the other camera with the film, so we took so many rolls with us. It was incredible to see all these places that I have always heard about from the news, and doing so much research on all countries before getting to them. It was so incredible.

I just love different types of travel. Since then, I created an e-mail address with Cruiseship360 and i had that for a while. I still do, but i rarely use it anymore. I believe travel is one of the most incredible things about life and just going and seeing the world and just taking it all in. So I can say that I am well traveled and being on Airplanes, Cruise Ships, Buses, Cars, Trains, have been part of most of my life. I want to thank my dad for taking me to all these places. My dad has done so much for my family and I to go out and enjoy the world together, to travel, to get that experience instilled in us and since he introduced to us to travel, I love it so much that everytime I hear we are going somewhere, I am so excited and usually the first one to start planning, packing, researching for hours on end online about it, looking at photos, reading other peoples reviews, going to the ends of the internet to fully satisfy me until we go on that trip. I also go to the travel agencies and pick up oodles of books of pictures of the place or the ship I am going on and I would cut them up and put them in a special box of my travels. All my boarding passes from planes, my cruise ship stuff, all these things are kept in boxes. Like I said I am a very sentimental person in previous blogs ago.

I am so not a patient person when it comes to traveling. I would put countdowns, count the days on my calendar, put x’s on the days that go by and just go shopping. I notice everytime we book, the days seem to get a lot longer and the wait is crazy long. I sometimes try not to think about the trip I am going on so that I don’t torture myself, but then again I cannot lol. I am so impatient and I tend to talk alot about my upcoming trip. I used to do that a lot, but to be honest I am guilty and I still do it. lol. Everytime at the dinner table, during breakfast, or were sitting down in the living room with my family or when we go out, our trip is always on my mind and it cannot get out.

If you have any traveling planned and if its your first time or if you need information, do not hesitate to contact me. I will be happy to assist you.

Thanks for dropping by.

 

I am A Very Sentimental Person & I like to Keep My Memories

Since I was a little girl, looking at my mother and the way that she kept things from when I was a baby, I automatically started to keep things on my own and I learned to become very sentimental on certain things in my life and places and the vessel’s I have traveled with in my life. When I was growing up, one of my favourite things to keep was my boarding passes and tickets from Airlines, and Cruise Ships I have sailed on, so on and so forth. I have this habit of keeping everything. I keep Napkins with the Restaurant, Airline and Cruise ship logos on it, I keep brochures, pamphlets, Candy and Chocolate Wrappers, Receipts, Post Cards, Pens, Notepads, Concert tickets, Sports Games tickets, Wedding party favours, Invitation Cards, so on and so forth.

I love being so organized and everything is documented and kept, and sometimes I take out those boxes full of these things and I just look at them and remember my times when I traveled and stuff. When I receive gifts, Christmas Cards, Birthday Cards, Notes, Letters and stuff. I have saved them all from my childhood. As I said, I am very sentimental and I value my belongings very much and I take care and respect them. Okay I am not to the point where I am a hoarder and like to keep every single little thing in my life. I am not to the level where you cannot even walk in your house with mountains of things. No way, that is so not me. I keep things, but I don’t go to that extent.

Now some of my family members outside of my home and couple of friends here and there tell me and ask my why keep all that? Why take up space? I always say to them because I like looking at them from time to time and I value and cherish where these things came from. I love to travel so much and I love to keep things from my travels. Its pretty neat to get things from other countries. I know a lot of people aren’t very sentimental and they don’t keep anything from traveling, so on and so forth, but some conversation or something can come up and you want to remember the hotel room number you were in, or your seat number in an airplane you traveled on, or when you get asked a question from your travels, you automatically know what to say or where to find those things if your loved ones ask you.

I love memories and looking at those memories. Nothing is more incredible and nicer than memories, the good ones of course.