My Hotel Rush - Mantra Sale

Next month my little family is scheduled to visit the GC! Gold Coast! It is for work, but it is always too good to combine business with pleasure. Maybe a visit to the Theme Parks (little B and hubby haven't been) and also a visit to family is in order.

I am eyeing the great Mantra Hotel Sale (ends 28 July 2014 by 10 AM!)- and they have a number of Gold Coast properties to choose from!!! Too many to choose from in my opinion (but choice is always welcome!). (This isn't a sponsored post!) I am just always excited to see sales on, especially if it involves nice hotels and a potential trip for me.

I haven't been to the Gold Coast at winter, but I am guessing weather should be nice and warm. Having said that though I am still looking at an indoor pool - just in case it gets cold. Hubby and B could swim while I work. The Mantra Crown Towers it might be - they have both indoor and outdoor heated pools among other things. Hopefully the room is still available when I finalise the trip on the weekend!

From the  Mantra Crown Towers mantra.com.au

From the  Mantra Crown Towers mantra.com.au

Joys of trip planning

I know I can’t really travel by air anymore, as baby is due sometime soon. However, this hasn’t really stopped me from researching about cheap airline tickets for our possible Manila trip next year. I guess I should really just be trying to save as much moolah as I could for that, because I am pretty sure the rates would be about in the thousand dollars mark per person. Of course, then I would have to think about pocket money, shopping money, buying presents, and other expenses. Plus of course, if we do push through with going home next year, I would love to go on a weekend away with hubby and baby. This means more vacation packages researching for me! I love it! I just can’t get enough of researching about travel. I guess that’s why I love working in the travel industry!

I have a bit of a trivia about me and travel. For fun, I ask my colleagues where they want to travel to, and I come up with an itinerary for them! It’s as if my real passengers don’t give me enough work! I just think it makes travel researching more fun if I know the person I am making arrangements for.

Hot weekend!

It has been quite a weird weather we have been having lately in this part of the world. This weekend the temperature ranged from about 25 to 42 degrees Celsius, and we are expecting the average to drop to 22 degrees Celsius tomorrow! It would have been great if we were at Myrtle Beach Golf club or some place where we can hang out for a while outside, and then come into an air conditioned room! However, I am not that lucky to be enjoying Myrtle Beach Golf Vacations at the moment. I can try to just make myself comfortable with my homemade mango shake, and surf the net for a Myrtle Beach Golf Package that we could possibly go on sometime in the future.

While having lunch earlier, hubby dropped a question that I thought he was serious about. He asked if I wanted to go home this Christmas! Of course, without batting an eyelash I said yes. I told him I would immediately start researching about plane travel for pregnant women in the 32nd week! But of course, he was not serious! Hmp! So instead of researching about that, I should stick to searching on Golf Packages Myrtle Beach.

The week that was

I so need another long break away with hubby. We were meant to have a week off and take advantage of some cheap holiday deals, but then I was called to work and re-schedule my time off. Not the best thing for employer to do, but I guess they were desperately needing staff!

Early this week I had a major exam at university which drained my brain. It’s good that I was able to concentrate on the subject instead of dreaming about Cheap Holidays in Greece or Hotels in Alcudia. Now that university is on a short break, I would like to wallow in the dream of a holiday! I have been researching for weeks about where to travel to for our babymoon. As much as we would like to go on a luxury travel frenzy, we have limited our budget in order to accommodate to buy baby things. It’s times like this that I wish I was in Manila to be able to go shopping! I know there are a lot of nice and cute baby things back home at a much cheaper price. I guess that will have to wait. For now, I will have to just be smart and buy necessary things first.

Babymoon Getaway

I have been researching again about going on a holiday! This morning as I got to my desk at work hubby called asking if we could go on a week long or two weeks getaway. I was so surprised I actually encouraged him to tell me what sort of holiday he was after. I was trying to get him to say he wanted an inclusive Jamaica package of some sort, since I know this is the way to go nowadays! Inclusive and exclusive all the way! He said we couldn’t really afford to go on a two week break to stay at Ocho Rios hotels, or any of those caribbean hotels for that matter. He said he was looking at going local only. Oh well, as if I could really travel very far with my baby bump!

Although we have decided we needed a bit of a break (our last decent holiday was in December last year!), we are unsure when and where. I have given hubby a number of brochures this evening and obviously he was overwhelmed. I do hope we push through with this much needed vacation. It would also be a good way to spend quality time, since in a few months for sure we would be busy with our new baby!

Travel Rituals

(Note: Postcard photo from here)

Everyone's got their own travel ritual. Pre-departure. On the trip. Post-departure.
It can be a quirky pre-departure endless list of things to do, things to bring, must eat, places to see, people to write postcards to, people to call, things to take back home, etcetera. (I know I am guilty of this!) (Bigtime!).

Or, it can be upon entering your hotel room : take photos of each corner of the room, the view, the bathroom (Okay, I do this too coz I need it for my job!). And it could also be : setting the wake up call with Reception,or checking out the closets/bar fridge/drawers, etcetera.

Arriving back home, some people literally just plop onto the bed and take a very long sleep. Others I know unpack straight away and do one load of laundry. And still others, take a long warm shower.

We all have our quirkiness and travel rituals that comfort or satisfy us in some way. It's just simply the way we do. The way we are. Oh how I love talking about travel.

Book Free Nights at the Intercontinental!

Everybody loves a great deal! Especially me! Another promotion by the Intercontinental Hotels Group (Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Intercontinental). For every two nights, get one free! I am soo tempted to book a few nights stay even just around Sydney. Maybe we should do Crowne Plaza Coogee Beach again.

Check in anytime between May 4 to July 3 of this year. And then, redeem the free night anytime between July 3 and December 26, 2009! Have a look at the Priority Club website for more information. I love love love it!

Oh London!

There are just so many places that I want to visit, and although I have been to Europe, I have not visited London. So for my next trip to Europe, when that is I don’t know yet, I would definitely be looking for cheap London hotels (or maybe stay with friends!). But then again, with my travel agent status I should find some really nice London hotel without having to ruin my budget.

For those who are looking to travel to this part of the world, it is always suggested to be canvassing rates early on perhaps a good five months before the trip. Truly there are sometimes great latest London hotel deals at this time. It would also be wise to study street guides which give depth info of the city of London. I know I would do this for each and every city I plan to visit..Okay, I may be sounding too much of a travel agent I should probably just leave your planning to you, but if you need help I am here!

Need a Break

As usual! I am just wanting one again. Well, I think the last real break I had was.....

I think in May! So that was six months ago. No wonder I have 3 weeks annual leave left for this year!

Actually I am taking four days off in a few weeks time. Still have nothing planned for that. When you plan trips left and right during the day, at work.. it can be tiresome to plan my own. That's just the way it is. Did you know that many travel agents leave booking their own holidays at the very last minute?! haha.

I am dreaming Fraser Island now... See picture. It's just so magical! Ohh I want to go back!!

Mumbles on Work

Anything travel related is something I deal with on a day to day basis. Sometimes, what seems to be a simple travel query turns out to be a big thing. A call could come through for someone wanting to book a simple Sydney Melbourne return flight, while the next call could be a round the world itinerary with at least nine stops during high season in December. I would be lucky if I got a travel insurance question, as we are not allowed to give insurance information or advise we put their calls through to another department specifically handling these types of questions.

Really, no two days are alike in terms of taking travel related queries. This makes my job a little bit more interesting, and it keeps me on my toes trying to figure out a proposal for a family of eight doing all sorts of tours, stopover, etc.

I guess in a relatively plan crazy world we live in, everyone thinks about traveling. Whether it is just local travel, maybe taking public transport to the next suburb or taking an overnight flight headed for Antarctica, everyone plans travel. It is not just our job as travel agents to think of your trip, but you yourself should think about your trip too. After all, without your thoughts and ideas we would never really know where to send you to. Next time, maybe you would like to make our jobs a bit easier: give us tentative series of dates that we can play around with. If we had our way, there wouldn’t be any waitlisting. But of course, our world was not meant to be perfect.

That quick rush feeling

I must admit, fiancé and I have considered the thought of doing an out of town wedding, that was far from Manila or far from Sydney. There was something about destination weddings that sparked a bit of excitement from both me and my boyfriend. I guess it was the travel junkie in us that was thinking. We thought it would be a great idea to have all our families with us, bonding at some destination that neither of us were from. It would have been a good place to discover and start our life at. A foreign place where we could kick start our life together, or maybe just have the wedding at the same place we would look at having a honeymoon all inclusive resort that could take care of everything for us.

Playing on this idea gave me a quick rush, the same feeling I get every time I plan discount vacation packages. There are so many good deals out there just waiting to be discovered. I guess I should be satisfied with just planning an out of town honeymoon for now, as wedding preparations are already underway.

P & O Earlybird Cruise Offer

Okay, for a good hour I got all excited about thinking of going on a cruise. Neither me nor hubby's been on a weekend overnight cruise. P & O Cruise has this earlybird offer, wherein we could do 2 nights Sydney - Brisbane or Vice versa, for about AUD 565 per person, for a 2 night cruise in a Room with Private Balcony, on the Pacific Dawn. This rate includes all meals (a la carte or buffet), and afternoon tea, access to various entertainment and activities.

I opted for this coz the price is reasonably cheap, all inclusive, and the fact that it was just for 2 nights would give us a feel of how cruising is like. For all we know we won't like it. So this won't be too bad, if ever. However, when I had a look at the itinerary, the cruise departed from Brisbane at 8PM on Day 1, and arrived into Sydney on Day 3 at 8AM. That's a bit of a rip off, as it would mean the time we board, settle into our cabin it would be night time! So we won't see the view much. And, we'll only have one full day to appreciate the sights before we arrive after sunrise into Sydney Harbour. Well, come to think of it, seeing Sydney at sunrise or early morning would be quite nice. And, a full day to travel the north NSW coast may be good enough.

Of course am planning on my own again and for all we know hubby won't like this idea. We've talked about it before, but not seriously.

Oh, I remembered I get my travel agent rate, so we won't really be paying the published rate!!! Hmm! I suddenly got excited again! I have til September to think about this. I might ring them up tomorrow to check availability and all. Should you be interested to see what I am talking about, click here to see more information!

P.S. I neeeed this for my job! To make me a better travel agent! Think so?!

A traveller's check list

I am going on my Mauritius trip on tuesday, and I've come up with a traveller's check list of things to bring:

• Passport/Document organiser


• Ticket and Itinerary copy


• Business cards


• Wallet


• Camera/Camera charger


• Camera Memory Cards


• Mobile/Mobile charger


• Iphone/Iphone charger


• Sunnies


• Smart casual outfits for hotel inspections


• Dressy clothes for nights out and gala dinner


• Beach clothes (bikini, sarong)


• A couple of jumpers


• Sunscreen


• Cap


• Black ballet flats, thongs, black heels


• An extra bag (or two)


• Book/Magazine


• Bag locks


• Kikay Kit


• Toiletries


• Medicine kit


• Ziplock bag

Europe Travel in 2009?

Today I spoke to a friend in Dubai who's got a colleague that transferred from Sydney to Dubai in the hope of a change of work environment. She's mentioned about her colleague not being able to get a working holiday visa because she was aged over 30. This gave me an idea to try to get a working holiday visa in case I get my Aussie passport before I turn 31. All is up in the air about that. But in case I do get my passport with enough time to process that, I could opt to get a work visa for either the UK or Canada. If not, then I should just be content with travelling to Europe or America.

I've been planning my Europe trip in my head for the longest time, working out the cities that I would be visiting. One city that I intend to go to is Riga, in Latvia. I've seen quite a number of Riga apartments for rent, which may be the better way to go if I intended to stay in the charming city for at least a week. We all know how expensive staying in hotels can get, and I intend to travel wisely by staying in an apartment in Riga and use the money I save on shopping instead! It's quite handy that I was able to come across a great website on apartments for rent in Riga. This site is user friendly, showing photos, property description and rates in one page. So clear and straightforward I wish planning for each city was this easy.

Whatever reason or however way am sure I will do Europe next year!