Welcome And How To Listen

Todd Carlson 0:32

Back to the Inside Travel Talk Podcast and Radio Show. Presented by Blue Planet Vacations.com, America's Best Travel Advisors. Get us up right now. 801-649-3700. 801-649-30700. And check out the podcast at InsightTravel Talks.com. Here's Patrick and Mark.

Just Cruising Headlines Begin

Patrick Wiscombe 1:04

All aboard for the infamous Just Cruising segment on the Infamous Inside Travel Talk podcast, a radio show. This award-dominated program. At least it is inside of my head. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for allowing us to be part of your weekend each and every Saturday and Sunday morning at 11 o'clock mountain time live here in Salt Lake City. And if you are podcasting the show at a future date, you can just stream the podcast if you don't want to subscribe. If you're not a podcaster, just go to inside travel talk.com and you just press play. But if you are a podcaster, please take the time to subscribe to the show. Coming up in this segment, of course, we've got the cruise news headlines. This segment is only about cruise news. We've got the cruise deal of the week. We've got five and seven-day cruises going to Mexico. We'll detail that. But Mark, let's start with the cruise news headlines. Where do you want to start? Should we go Alaska or should we go Florida? Let's go Florida.

Sinking SS United States For A Reef

Patrick Wiscombe 2:15

All right. A Florida county. This is not something you hear every single week on the show, is offering three million dollars to sink a cruise ship closer to a tourist hotspot. What's this all about?

Mark Faldmo 2:27

It's an old ocean liner, the SS United States, which is a very historic ship. And so they are going to sink it off the coast of Florida in the Panhandle area near Destin, Florida, to be an artificial reef. That area of Florida has lots of dive tourists. So this county is offering them three million dollars to move the ship closer to their county so they can get a piece of that dive revenue that comes in there. Wow. And right now the ship is in Alabama. They're stripping it of all the metals that can't be sunk. It probably has some asbestos in it, too. So they're they're getting rid of all of that. Let's get rid of the poison before it's sunk to become a reef. The SS United States is a historic ocean liner. Even to this day, it still is the fastest passenger ship out there. Made the run from New York to London in record time, hasn't been beat yet. And it was in service to the late 1960s, but the US military kept it on until the late 80s because it was so fast in case they needed to move troops. Then it was retired. It's had several owners. Interestingly enough, one of those owners was Norwegian Cruise Line. Norwegian Cruise Line, when the US, I think it was called US cruises, went out of business. Norwegian Cruise Line bought one of their ships partially built, which is now the Pride of America. When Norwegian purchased that ship, which is now the Pride of America, they also went and purchased the SS United States because it was a hull that another cruise line could have purchased to compete with them. So they bought any cruise ship that was built in the U.S. still operating so that no one could compete with them. They never brought it into service. Now it's going to be sunk in Florida. It's become reef for divers.

Patrick Wiscombe 4:25

It's going to be interesting to follow this. And I realize it's being stripped. I'll just call it parts and poison. It's going to be interesting to see if in just a few years, five, somewhere between five and ten years, if we start seeing strange fish. Yes. We didn't get all the poison, but we start seeing fish with human teeth, just something like that. Something crazy. Yeah.

Sitka Weighs A Cruise Passenger Cap

Patrick Wiscombe 4:47

Sitka Alaska residents are voting or will be voting on a cap on the number of cruise ship passengers. When is the vote set and what are the details? What are the numbers?

Mark Faldmo 4:59

So the city council just had a meeting this week and they've set the vote for May 30th. So the referendum that's going out is to cap cruise ship traffic to 4,500 cruise passengers per day and 300,000 per year. And also limit cruise traffic to only six days a week. So giving them a day free without cruise ship passengers. Now this is a local advocacy group that is trying to do this. This is actually their fourth attempt to do this. It's never passed the citywide referendum before. Although, looking at that, 4,500 cruisers a day, most of the cruise ships that visit there are about 2,500. And I've only ever seen one cruise ship in Sitka before. So I don't know how this will actually affect it. Although that yearly cap of 300,000 could affect that because pre-COVID, the highest number of passenger Sitka saw was 290,000 cruisers. Last year they had 585,000 cruisers.

Patrick Wiscombe 6:07

Oh wow.

Mark Faldmo 6:08

And so they're just getting one cruise ship a day, where before they were getting two to three cruise ships a week. They're just getting more cruise ships there. So even that daily cap, there are not many days when they go over that anyway.

Patrick Wiscombe 6:22

Okay, I've got my reggae remix. It's being released to inspire Caribbean cruising. Yeah. Okay, I'll just turn it off. Yeah.

MSC Drops A Reggae Travel Playlist

Mark Faldmo 6:39

What's all of this about? MSC Cruises. This is just in time for the launch of the World America, which you'll be on in about two weeks' time. I'll be on in about two weeks. They have released a playlist on Spotify. They've taken songs from Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, The Beatles, Madonna, and Reggaey's them. So they've remixed them and covered them to uh reggae. So we will hear this probably on the ship then. On the ship. Yeah. If you want to hear some of these songs, just go to Spotify and type in MSC holiday playlist, and it should come up for you. Research has shown that music can influence people's travel traces. Here comes the sun is the one they did by the Beatles.

Patrick Wiscombe 7:32

Here comes the Sun. Yeah. Here comes the Sun, baby. Watermelon sugar. Just like that, I killed the travel industry. They will not want to go on the ship with me.

Mark Faldmo 7:48

Go to Spotify and find the playlist. I've listened to it. It's pretty good. Does make you want to travel, which is the whole purpose of that playlist.

Cruise Deal From New Orleans

Patrick Wiscombe 7:56

Let's get to the cruise deal of the week, always in the infamous just cruising segment. We're taking off from New Orleans. So the main port here is getting from Salt Lake City, only because we do the show from here to New Orleans. What are the details on the cruise deal of the week?

Mark Faldmo 8:12

First, we'll start off with the port of New Orleans had a record-breaking 2024. They had 1.2 million cruise guests come through there. And that was both ocean and river, because New Orleans is a starting point for ocean cruises as well as Mississippi River cruises. Carnival Cruise Lines has a ship base there year-round. And then in the wintertime, they bring in a second ship to do cruises from New Orleans. They've actually are celebrating their 30th year of sailing Caribbean cruises from New Orleans. And then Norwegian Cruise Line has a ship that sails out of New Orleans seasonally, so during the cold winter, starts in I think late November and cruises through March. So for today, we're just gonna talk about the ocean going cruises. You can do four to eight day sailings from New Orleans. I had Buffalo Alligator there. So you get some exotic foods too. Wow. Buffaloed alligator. Yeah.

Patrick Wiscombe 9:18

Yikes. It tasted like chili chicken. Of course it did. Yeah. Alright, let's get to the cruise deal of the week. Let's start with the five-day cruise on Carnivore. Carnivore.

Mark Faldmo 9:32

Carnival. Valore. Yeah. So these are all cruises in January. So this this five-day cruise, it's on the Carnival Valor. Not even Valore. No. Okay, I'm Carnival Valor. Valor. Yeah. And an inside cabin starts at 4.79 per person, and a balcony cabin starts at 7.14 per person. Jeez. This cruise has two ports. It goes to Cozumel, spends a full day in Cozumel, and then it spends a full day in Progreso. Progreso is the port near Merida, Mexico, and it's the closest port to go visit Chits and Itza. So that's what a lot of cruise guests do there because it's a shorter drive from Progreso as compared to when you do it from Cancun. It's a four-hour drive on that. So and then you know, also one thing I didn't say is New Orleans is quite a ways upriver from the Gulf. And so you do get a little bit Mississippi River cruise. You get a couple hours of cruising on the Mississippi.

Patrick Wiscombe 10:42

See, I've always thought that New Orleans was right on the Gulf. I didn't know that it was that far in. It's inland a little bit.

Mark Faldmo 10:49

What's the seven-day cruise? Yeah, so the seven-day cruise is on the Norwegian Escape. Its ports are Cozumel, Harvest K, which is their private island in Belize, Roatan, which we've talked about the last couple of weeks, I think a few times. It's been on a lot of the cruise itineraries we've talked about. And then Coastamaya. It's a Western Caribbean cruise, but goes a little bit further south than a lot of the typical cruises. So that cruise starts at 7.29 for an inside cabin and 989 for a balcony cabin. What are the dates on that one? That one was January 11th of 2026. Now is a good time to start planning next winter's escape from the cold.

Patrick Wiscombe 11:35

Call Mark to get down to New Orleans. Get down, go to Mexico. Book those vacations directly with Mark. Just get the conversation started. You'll obviously have some questions. No obligation. Just get the conversation started. 888-718-7717-888-718-7717. And Mark will also post this on BluePlanetVacations.com. When we come back, real headlines, everyone will remember this. London's Keithrow Airport had a massive fire. We're going to talk about travel insurance. And I think the airport has opened. Is that correct, Mark? It has opened, yes. We'll also talk about how to book a airport security reservation. Kinda tricky, kind of time consuming as well. That is next. When the Inside Travel Talk Podcast and radio show continues, my name is Patrick Wiscombe. He is Mark Faldmo. We will be right back.

Todd Carlson 12:36

Explore your world. You're listening to the Inside Travel Talk Podcast and Radio Show. Presented by Blue PlanetVacations.com. America's best travel advisors. Call or text the show now. 801-649-3700. 801-649-3700. We'll be right back.com. America's best travel advisors. Call or text the show now. 801-649-3700. 801-649-3700. And now, here's Patrick Wiscombe and Mark Faldmo.

Travel Headlines Return From Break

Patrick Wiscombe 13:41

Welcome back to the Inside Travel Talk Podcast, a radio show. Thank you so much for allowing me and Mark. What's the correct grammar? Mark and I, me and Mark? To be part of your weekend. Can you tell I'm a little excited to go on vacation right now? It feels like let's just get through the segment. And then I'm uh in full vacation mode. Yeah. Coming up in this segment of the show. In fact, let's just start with this. We've got the travel news headlines. We'll also be talking about how to book an airport security reservation. Let's start with what happened in London. This was a big deal. What was this? Monday, Tuesday, late last

Heathrow Fire And Travel Chaos

Patrick Wiscombe 14:27

week, something. This happened last Friday. London's Heathrow Airport. There was a massive fire. Now it wasn't in the airport, but it was off-site at the power plant, if memory serves.

Mark Faldmo 14:40

Yes, it was the power plant that serves Heathrow, uh, which shut the

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Mark Faldmo 15:10

whole airport down.

Patrick Wiscombe 15:12

And it was a big mess. And I don't know how many flights were canceled. It's got to be in the what? At least a thousand flights. It's probably more than that.

Mark Faldmo 15:21

Probably close to that. I know British Airways said they had about 700 flights canceled just then. Just British Airways. Wow. So all the other airlines that fly in there is probably close to a thousand or just over a thousand total flights that were affected.

Patrick Wiscombe 15:38

So this is not intended to be a sales pitch at all. We're just going to talk about travel insurance, and before your eyes glaze over, this is

(Cont.) Heathrow Fire And Travel Chaos

Patrick Wiscombe 15:47

the perfect situation. You never know what's going to happen. But

Travel Insurance When Airlines Cannot Help

Patrick Wiscombe 15:51

let's talk about how travel insurance would have or is probably helping someone who had a London flight board.

Mark Faldmo 16:01

First of all, no one purchases insurance of any kind wanting to use it. Insurance is for those emergencies, those unexpected things that happen. And especially in travel insurance or travel protection on this, it took Heathrow two to three days to get back up to full flights. When this happens, airplanes are out of position, not able to do flights at the same time. So there are several, probably thousand people that had forced overnights. No situation like this, this was not anything in the airline's control. And so the airline is not responsible to pay for hotels, misconnections, anything like that. And that's where travel insurance comes into place. If you had to spend an additional night or two, travel insurance will pay for your hotels. Travel insurance will give you food allowance if you need luggage because your luggage didn't make it. So if you need to buy some clothes, toiletries, different things like that, travel insurance will cover for that. Insurance is worth it.

Patrick Wiscombe 17:07

Let's move on. Let's talk about how to book an airport security reservation. Now, is this clear or is this just airport security? Are we talking about TSA Pre? What are we talking about here?

Mark Faldmo 17:20

Well, this is a program by Clear. This was sent in by one of our listeners, Mark. Not you. He said this was a good talk. Yeah, not me.

Clear Reserve Security Time Slots

Mark Faldmo 17:29

A good topic to talk about, which it is. This is called Clear Reserve. This is the free program. It's operated by Clear, but it has nothing to do with Clear or Pre-Check or Global Entry, anything like that. There are 20 airports where you can go on, and through this program by Clear, you can reserve the time that you go through security. Oh, okay. The first place this started is an airport that definitely needs something like that, which is Orlando Airport. You can get there and the security line can be an hour and a half. I've seen it as long as two hours at some point.

Patrick Wiscombe 18:07

You're talking about MCO Orlando. Orlando. You're talking about the terminal coming out of the hotel to get into the airport, literally in the lobby.

Mark Faldmo 18:16

Yes.

Patrick Wiscombe 18:17

Oh.

Mark Faldmo 18:18

Wow. So I locked out then. Even the TSA pre-check lines can be pretty long at that airport. Now, this program, if you have pre-check, it doesn't work with pre-check. If you use this, then you have to take your electronics out and you have to go through normal security screening. Right. But it's available at 20 airports worldwide. In the US, it's available at Denver Airport, Los Angeles Airport, Minneapolis, JFK in New York, and Newark Liberty in Newark, New Jersey, Orlando, Phoenix, Sky Harbor, and Seattle, Tacoma Airport. In Europe, this program is available in Amsterdam, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hanover, London, and Rome. And then in Canada at Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.

Patrick Wiscombe 19:09

If I've got this right, clear reserve is to how to book a an airport security reservation. And that's free. Correct.

Mark Faldmo 19:17

Okay. It's free. Yeah. So uh now it doesn't operate all times during the day, just at the peak times at those airports. So you can go in and say, I want to go through security at 5 30. You can reserve it, and then you can go through. It's basically kind of a jumpy to the front-of-the-line service that they have. It is limited so that they can guarantee your time through. So if a time slot sold out, a time slot will get sold out. But it is a great way to kind of help plan your trip so you don't spend an hour waiting in the security line.

Patrick Wiscombe 19:50

Let's go over the various security options. There's TSA Pre, and the process to get TSA Pre, how much was it? Was it 70

PreCheck Global Entry And Clear Compared

Patrick Wiscombe 19:59

$70 for like five years, something like that?

Mark Faldmo 20:02

Yeah, I think it's $75 for five years.

Patrick Wiscombe 20:05

And you go to TSA.gov. I I can't remember.

Mark Faldmo 20:10

Yeah, I think it's TSA.gov is where you go to TSA.gov, and then you can click on the pre-check and sign up for pre-check.

Patrick Wiscombe 20:18

Yeah, okay. TSA.gov apply renew. Okay, I'm looking at the website right now. Now, just for conversation, let's transition over to customs, which is global entry, which includes TSA Pre, which is what we were just talking about. But global entry is for what and who's the ideal candidate for that one?

Mark Faldmo 20:38

That will get you through US Customs coming back to the US. So if you take a lot of international trips, global entry is what you'll want to get because it comes with both TSA pre-check and global entry to get you through customs and immigration.

Patrick Wiscombe 20:55

So international, if you're doing a lot of international, that is ideal. But if you just want to skip the line, get through there quickly, you're talking about TSA Pre. So what is clear then? Which is what we were just kind of talking about, but it's to re reserve your place in line going to the airport. What's clear, generally speaking?

Mark Faldmo 21:14

Clear is a is a paid program similar to TSA. They use biometrics to get you through. I've started seeing Clear has two lines, clear with TSA pre-check and regular clear. And those basically, if you have clear, it'll jump you ahead, depending on the airport, but kind of ahead of the TSA pre-check people. So so Clear is a private company that's cleared to do security screening. And there are clear lines at sporting events. You know, a lot of the NBA, NFL, major league arenas have clear lines. So you basically can just walk through without going through the regular security protocols.

Patrick Wiscombe 21:57

We should have done this in the infamous just cruising segment, but we wanted to talk about cruise ship mistakes to avoid.

Cruise Booking Mistakes And Loyalty Picks

Patrick Wiscombe 22:06

We've got a few minutes here. Let's go through this list.

Mark Faldmo 22:09

Yeah, so there are a couple of items on this list. One is booking your cruise too late. Oh, yeah. It used to be that you could book and get last-minute cruise deals. Those are less and less available. Most cruise lines put their best fares out when that ship goes for sale two years in advance. Yeah. And then the prices slightly go up. They do have some ways to fill cabins if they need to, but very rarely do they go below that first initial offering price. So don't wait too long. If you want to go on a cruise, it's probably best that you just book it right when you decide you want to go on the cruise because chances are the price is only going to go up.

Patrick Wiscombe 22:52

Just for conversation purposes only, what happens if you've booked a ship and all of a sudden, because they need to fill ship space, you know, for whatever reason, a particular date isn't selling, and that does happen. What if you paid, I'll just say a thousand dollars, just to keep it simple, and all of a sudden they advertise your same room, same category, everything is the same for 900. How does a cruise ship remedy that situation?

Mark Faldmo 23:19

So if you're outside of penalty, now the cruise lines don't like to do this, but if you're outside of penalty, you can always cancel it and rebook the cabin. But what they'll do in many cases, if it does go down, a lot of them do have the low price guarantee where if that price goes down in your specific category, they will give you an onboard credit. So they'll make it up to you by giving you money to spend on board.

Patrick Wiscombe 23:45

Who, in your opinion, which cruise line has the best loyalty program?

Mark Faldmo 23:49

I think it's a tie. I would go with Princess Cruises, I think has the best loyalty program, or Norwegian. Both of those offer you significant things on board, like you know, free specialty dining, free internet minutes. So I think they those two have the best. I would lean towards Princess myself, but I do like the free specialty meals that come on Norwegian.

Patrick Wiscombe 24:14

That's gonna do it. Vacation Patrick is officially in motion as soon as I get off the air. Yeah. Have a good

Final Thoughts And How To Book

Patrick Wiscombe 24:23

cruise. Have a good cruise, though, I should say. Back to back to back to back, baby. You can listen to this show again tomorrow morning, 11 a.m., right here on this radio station. And of course, you can stream, download, and subscribe to the podcast at inside travel talk.com. If you don't want to subscribe, you can just literally stream the show on insightraveltalk.com. Just go to the latest show, just press play, and you'll get to hear the sultry voices of Patrick and Mark. If you want to book any of the vacations that we've talked about here for the past hour, call Mark in his office. No obligation. Get the conversation started. 888-718-7717. 888-718-7717. It is now your turn to get out and explore the world while you can because you never know what curveballs life is going to throw at you. Live your life deliberately. Live your life intentionally. Thank you so much for listening. Really, thank you. We don't have a show without you. We'll talk to you again next week.

Todd Carlson 25:35

That's it. That's the end of the show. You've been listening to the Inside Travel Talk Podcast and Radio Show with Patrick Wiscombe and Mark Faldmo. Presented by Blue Planet Vacations.com. Book your adventure right now. Call 888-718-7717. That's 888-718 7717. Thanks for listening. Have a great week.