Dave's Travel Tips

A few months ago, I came across a recommended video from Joe Rogan's podcast on YouTube.  Rogan's guest, a comedian named Tom Dillon, unleashes a humorous but totally incorrect and petulant tirade about his hatred of cruise ships and people who like cruising, which is odd considering that his "evidence" for why cruising is so awful is based on his experiences of being a cruise ship performer himself.  Sure, he's just a comedian saying some stupid and occasionally funny things, but this video has 2.2 Million views and has surely influenced many people's perception of cruise vacations and the people who enjoy them.  I'll admit that I was a bit self-conscious of my own interest in cruising when I first listened to Dillon's rant, but many of his claims are just too stupid to take seriously.  I can't possibly get into every claim he makes, and so many of them overlap, but let's debunk some of them one at a time. Myth 1: Cruise ships are unsanitary ...

As a travel agent myself, it is in my best interest to tell you that you should absolutely book your vacations with an agent.  The truth is that you certainly don’t need to and that it’s a personal choice, but there are some benefits that you might want to consider, and travel agents are not going to disappear anytime soon.  In this article, I will share three reasons you might want to consider partnering with an agent instead of planning and booking everything by yourself. I understand that people are nervous about dealing with salespeople.  I never would have expected that I would become a salesman myself, but here I am.  The truth is that the vast majority of travel agents and other salespeople are regular and honest people who are just trying to make a living like everyone else. Reason 1: It does not cost anything extra to book with an agent People often wrongly assume that dealing with a travel agent is a needlessly more expensive way of booking travel.  Pe...

Welcome to my travel blog!  I am a travel agent from Ontario, Canada and I decided to start this blog to share my knowledge and unique perspective of the travel industry with you.  My primary interest and area of expertise at this time is cruising, so you can expect to see many articles about cruise vacations in the early days of this blog. Over the next few weeks, I am going to share many articles that serve as an introduction to ocean cruising for those who have never cruised before.  Over the past year, I have learned a lot about the cruising industry through industry training and personal experience, and I am going to share the most important information that I think all new cruisers should know.  Cruising is a vacation style that many people are not familiar with, especially my fellow Canadian travelers, and there are some differences between cruising and other resort-style vacations that you might be more familiar with.  If you’re reading this then you pro...