Travel Agents and Cell Phones...Today's Reflection about Our Vacation

A few things instantly come to mind when I think about our recent trip to Europe...first, I am so glad that I have a travel agent that I have known for years who will let me put together the trip I want and then will go behind me and fill in the holes...make it run smoothly...etc.  Getting off of a 9 hour flight and walking into a foreign culture knowing that someone is standing in the reception area holding a sign that says DODD FAMILIA (okay...on a trip a couple years ago I think it said DODE...but I am used to my last name being butchered) relieves so much stress...And towards the end of the cruise when I realized how expensive the transfer from the cruise ship to the airport was gonna be if I booked it through the cruise line, I emailed back home and asked if she could set something up and Voila... that email saved us $120.00!!   I am a big advocate of the trusted travel agent and suggest everyone who travels find one and build that relationship!




Cell phones...to be honest we are a family of believers...we like easy access to everything and everyone via our cell phones.  But for the first time we didn't pre-order a phone for this trip because the whole world is techno-savvy right and surely there will be phones to rent in airports....NOPE...both the Atlanta and Rome airports were "out of" European rental phones!  Okay, no problem, our hotel has in room internet service....and if you are either a) Bill Gates or b) maybe not so jet lagged...you can figure it out and be chatting it up with your loved ones back home; this was not our experience!  Not to worry...we are in big cities we can just go into a cell phone store and purchase a cheap phone... speaking English only to an Italian kid (he might have been 22...he was wearing a Killers t-shirt and naive Rich and I like the band Killers and we like their music so we instantly feel a connection....but upon further inspection of the shirt we notice the "group members" are George Bush, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and Osama Bin Laden...arrrgghh...but we need this phone we rationalize...).  So we purchase the cute little cheap phone...Rich even figures out how to change the language to English and life is good...but it came with only 10 minutes of time on the phone (this was quickly wiped out with one message left on Rich's parents' phone, one 6 minute update on Claire's latest achievements, and a 2 minute hey how are you to the boyfriend)....Not to worry we will find another of these Orange phone stores, buy more minutes, and then maybe Rich can call back to the office and check on life in the real world...not happening... (which was the main reason he wanted the phone...could he have had his blackberry set up for overseas use...yep...but then it's like he's not on vacation)...Not to worry...we can use the Internet cafe on the cruise ship, they only charge 55 cents a minute and it only takes about 6 minutes to log on and open up your email...but we can facebook chat with friends and family...NOPE!  All this to say that we didn't really need that much access to home...but it was frustrating at times and yet ended up being a mixed blessing in the end.  Not once during the entire trip did I have to make my "mom face" at dinner or on a tour (you know... the put the phone away and engage in the here and now face)! Rich got on the internet and checked his mail when he wanted and the girls usually checked facebook each night  to make certain the world was still turning on its axis!  We still have the cute little phone which I will research the next time we go overseas and see if we can get some use out of the $50.00 investment...if not we will go back to the tried and true method of renting a phone and having it shipped to our home before we leave!!


Enough food for thought for now...next installment will be about Barcelona...the day my billfold went missing!


Ciao