Easton Tour & Travel Blog

Yay, it’s October!  And you know what that means.  Yes, Halloween and Thanksgiving and falling leaves (and raking those leaves) cool crisp autumn air and all that fun stuff.  But in Winnipeg there’s something special about this October – our new airport terminal finally opens.  And yes, I know, we’ve been teased by promises of opening dates before only to have our hopes dashed and postponed by “unforseen circumstances”, but it looks like this time is different.  The Winnipeg Airport Authority is determined that the new terminal will open October 30 come hell or high water. (And let’s face it, there’d better not be any high water here by the end of October).  About 130 of us in the travel trade were treated to a preview tour of the new terminal a few weeks ago, and I thought I’d share my photos and impressions of it with you.  Note that you’ll see a lot of construction tape etc in the photos because it is still under construction.

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Cosmopolitan

Our first stop on our hotel site inspection tour was the Cosmopolitan, and I can honestly say I was completely blown away by this hotel. There are so many very cool and fabulous features of it I could easily devote an entire blog post just to it. And maybe if I stay there sometime I will! But here’s a brief rundown:

• The rooms are fantastic. This property was originally built to be condos, but when the economy turned it was decided that it wouldn’t sell as condos and they made it into a hotel instead. As a result the rooms are all suites, and they’re all big. Read the rest of this entry »

I was fortunate to be able to stay in 2 hotels this trip and visit 5 others for site inspections, although as previously mentioned 2 of those were fully booked so we were unable to view the rooms.  There are 2 trends in Las Vegas right now – one is building new hotels up instead of out, resulting in sleek high-rise buildings instead of the now-common sprawling resorts; and the other is to outfit the sides of the hotels with special screening so that they can be used as video screens.  This can result in a somewhat impaired view from the windows – my room at the Tropicana had this screening on it which appears as dull spots on the pictures I tried to take through it. Read the rest of this entry »

Finally, a blog post about the June Las Vegas Vacation.com conference!!

I had every intention of blogging about each day’s events as they happened, but completely forgot how absolutely jam-packed and exhausting the days at conference are!  So unfortunately I’m just getting around to posting now.

Here’s a brief rundown on the first section of our recap – General Information:

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Well of course you know the saying about the best laid plans right? I had thoroughly intended to do blog and photo updates every day of the conference from Las Vegas, but things have just been so jam-packed that every evening I’ve been totally exhausted!

Yesterday we spent 7 hours walking along the strip and seeing some of the various sites. The outdoor canal area of the Venetian has been drained for construction/repair, so those looking for a picture of the iconic gondolas in the water outside are out of luck for now. Last night we attended a reception hosted by the Tropicana at their Nikki Beach area – I have several photos from the evening that I’ll get online soon and will add them to this post.

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Right this moment I’m taking a break from frantically packing for this year’s Vacation.com conference. We leave in a few hours and we’re just so excited about it! Every year the conference is jam-packed with tons of seminars and classes, it’s easy to suffer from information overload! This year we’re going to be updating the blog and our Facebook page on a daily basis, so watch for some great specials and news bits coming your way over the next week. And we’ll be updating our photo gallery with pictures daily as well, so keep an eye out for those too!

Well another annual Christmas Trip has come and gone.   Folks seemed to have had a good time, 97% of them have rebooked for next year so we think that’s a pretty good indication that they enjoyed the trip.  As always we had a ton of goodies for our hospitality room – from Alma’s savoury pies and fancy sandwiches to baking from several of our passengers and of course from us as well.  Shopping at Target was a little disappointing, they’ve really cut back on their Holiday Helpers event to the point where it’s pretty much a non-event right now.  If they keep up with this then we’ll probably rearrange our shopping schedule for next year so that we’re not having to get up at the crack of dawn for it. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll admit, I’m a little biased when it comes to the benefits of using a travel agent – after all, I am one.   I am also a consumer though, and I don’t like spending any more than I have to, or getting less than I think I should be getting, or buying something and then finding out it’s not actually what I wanted (like my new cell phone).    Using a travel agent shouldn’t cost you anything more than booking your travel direct, with the exception of possible service fees from the agent.   In fact booking with an agent can actually save you money if the agent has access to promotional specials the general public doesn’t. Read the rest of this entry »

The invoices for the Annual Christmas Party Trip have been sent out. If you haven’t received yours yet, don’t panic – we are of course at the mercy of Canada Post for delivering them. If you still haven’t received yours in a few days please contact me and I’ll be happy to send a new one out to you. If you have email that’s even better as it bypasses the whole Canada Post issue!

Alright then, we’re down to our final 2 parks at the Walt Disney World resort, and as promised our brief interview with Adrian!

Hollywood Studios

To be honest this is my least favourite park at WDW.  I’m not a thrill ride person so I won’t go on Tower of Terror or Rock’n'Rollercoaster.    I don’t really care much for stunt shows.   Now having said that 2 of my favourite rides are in this park, and I still think it’s definitely worth the visit.

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