In a week, I’m sailing to the Western Caribbean. This is my first trip to the Caribbean and my first Princess Cruise, with exotic ports of call including the Grand Cayman Island, Honduras, Cozumel, Mexico and the Bahamas. What a Trip!
Along with several other tweeting travel writers, I was invited by Princess Cruises to take a hosted trip and share my experiences as part of a first-ever “Twitter Press Trip.”
Check back here for some videos and posts along the way. You can follow along on my discoveries via the #FollowMeAtSea hashtag I’ll use on Twitter.
I’ll share details from my Aroma Stone Therapy massage to shore excursions in each location including swimming with sting rays and a dolphin encounter at Anthony’s Key Resort & Tabyana Beach. I’ll be horseback riding at Punta Sur State Refuge in Cozumel, Mexico and snorkeling at Princess Cays in the Bahamas.
Truth in travel
One of the reason I like Twitter; immediate feedback or in some cases, fallout. There’s been a lot of tweeting about “Truth in Travel.” On Twitter the hashtag is #twethics. As I mentioned above, this is a hosted trip, yet I will do my best to present an honest take on our cruise.
I also hope to learn about Princess Cruises’ efforts on keeping green while sailing the big blue.
Follow me at sea on Twitter
You can follow me, along with other travel tweeters on Twitter.
Gary Arndt @EverywhereTrip
Anita Dunham-Potter @ExpertCruiser
Kim Mance, Shanna Quinn & Courtney McGann @Galavanting
@cherilucas
@JohnnyJet
@PrincessCruises
Shannon Hurst Lane @Cajun_Mama
Simone di Santi @ARoadRetraveled
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Few years ago I took a cruise to the Caribbean and I had a wonderful time. Have fun.
No matter what rave reviews I read about cruises, for some reason I dont like the idea of being stuck on a boat and jumping off for specified periods of time.
It will be really interesting to see how all the travel writers handle the twethics as we all know that large cruise ships do HUGE damage to the environment. It’s the travel industry’s dirty secret, isn’t it? Sadly, cruise ship companies give so many freebies to travel writers, that most of the public does not know that big cruise ships are the worst possible option in travel for our environment! While many travel companies flounder, cruise ships are a booming business.Cruising is actually 7x worse than air travel on C02 emissions most also plane to start the cruise as you will. Not to mention how much waste and garbage these floating cities dump into our oceans! Please look deeper than the sugar coated supposedly green policies of a cruise company. Why is it only travel writers NOT taking all the freebies or advertising dollars from cruise ship companies, doing the important job of educating the public so that our kids grandkids can enjoy travel too?Anyone who has sat like we have in tiny, ancient towns like Dubrovnik, Santorini, Capri, Mykonos, or Ephesus seen the absolute obscene horror of 30 thousand cruise ships’ passengers flood them like a hoard of locusts, could ever call big cruise ships responsible travel! The damage they do in the Caribbean is also just as bad and well documented.At the very least, I hope all the twitter writers on this freebie press trip point to the Clean Cruise Ship Act is in Congress now. Travel writers on #followmeatsea press trip can promote petition!Please don’t just do travel porn that glamorize cruises without giving the complete story! Those of us that are passionate about responsible travel will be following this closely.
Nancy – I’m looking forward to taking my first cruise and excited to see you too. It looks to be an interesting trip that will be full of intelligent and provocative discussion amongst the attendees. I just love how Princess Cruises is willing to allowing us to see just how a cruise ship deals with every aspect of the industry, including environmental and economic factors.
@bettina Thanks for stopping by to offer your well wishes.@erin You are not alone in your thoughts about cruising. What ever floats your boat!@soultravelers3Thanks for stopping by and leaving your opinion. I, too, have had the good fortune to visit Dubrovnik. I traveled to this ancient town by boat. How about you?Travel porn? You’ve taken my writing to a new level. I did have a chance to go below deck with Holland America to their recycling waste center. It was quite impressive, but I didn’t think readers would be interested in their behind the scenes garbage efforts. Perhaps this merits a blog post?@Shannon I’m new to cruising, too!. What a Trip!
Nancy – I look forward to following your posts and tweets from the cruise! I especially want to hear all about the dolphin encounter and would love to see photos. We did a dolphin meet-and-greet at the Kahala on Oahu a few years ago and the dolphins seemed to have the personality of puppy dogs! I’d love to swim with dolphins again some day!Also, I’d love to see photos of the restaurants and food aboard the ship.You’ve got some great travel companions! Have a terrific cruise and happy tweeting!
Nancy, have a wonderful time on your cruise. I’m looking forward to your posts and tweets as I know they’ll be objective and informative. You’re going to love swimming with the stingrays. Alan and I did that on a cruise in French Polynesia. It’s one of my favorite cruise memories. http://myitchytravelfeet.com/2008/07/25/swimming-with-the-stingrays-in-french-polynesia/Enjoy the terrific company of fellow travel writers and bloggers.
Sorry, if I have offended you with the travel porn comment as it wasn’t personal, but a commonly used phrase by many travel writers to describe the lighter, entertaining, tempting fluff pieces with photos and videos meant to entice.Nothing wrong with that!We are luckier than most and do very slow travel, so get a much deeper experience of a place than one who gets a day to explore with thousands of others via large cruise ship. Thus, we mostly explored Dubrovnik by foot in the month that we stayed there, but did a little sailing, used the local bus a few times, rented a car to see nearby Montenegro…before we drove our small RV to various parts all over Croatia for another month or so, Mostly we park RV walk tons, but we also stayed in a few lovely BBs owned by locals.We did take some small ferries to Hvar, Korkula various islands, but we would never take a large cruise ship after what we have witnessed. We also got to know and talked to many of the locals ..I even found a local dentist through some we met and got my teeth cleaned!We also stayed a month in Santorini etc, so we have a much more complete picture than most just based on experience. I didn’t start reading about the horrors of the very wealthy cruising industry…or even thought much about them…until we saw them in person. The best travel tip everyone (especially locals) will give you is NEVER visit a cruise port town on cruise days!
Oh, another funny part is…our month in Dubrovnik in a gorgeous luxury resort with amazing, pools,beaches,kids clubs, etc cost MUCH less than a cruise person who saw it for a day with a crowd!
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