Save time when you do this…

Liz Hough on

How do you get ready for your vacation? 

Check lists, organizational chart, or throw it all in one bag?

 

I am going on a trip this week and even though I plan, arrange, and make sure all my clients have everything they need, I am finding myself a bit out of sorts.  I have been getting together our paperwork, making sure that we have all the arrangements finalized, the document holder is ready to go (yes, the exact same one I give to all my clients I use too), luggage ready, passports, etc.  So why do I feel like I am missing something?

 

I have a travel checklist I give my clients each time they take their trip to ensure they don’t forget anything.  This list includes everything they might or are going to need.  Documentation, identification, toiletries, clothes, electronics and charging devices, sunscreen, skis, surfboard, etc.  Some of the things on the list most people will never take in their travels. I wanted to create a list for all travelers going anywhere so I included everything from the basics to a bit of the exotic.

I am a checklist kind of person.  Unlike my husband who will throw everything in his bag the night before, I pack several days in advance to make sure I give myself time to remember everything.  So as I am going through my checklist I am finding it really easy to get my stuff together.  I have it all laid out on the bed in our spare bedroom or as my toddler calls it, Yia-Yia’s room as my parents sleep here when they are over.  Everything looks in order but I still feel like I am missing something. 

 

Now when you travel in the United States if you forget something you just go to the local store and get it.  When you travel internationally there is the confusion of which store sells what?  There were some stores in Europe that I had no idea what they sold until I physically walked through the door!  Depending on what you need or how bad you need it at the time, you may want to be walking in and out of stores.  Now we aren’t going far, the Bahamas, and the cruise ship will have stuff too.  I am sure we would be able to find whatever we forget in the Bahamas but it has been almost 25 years since I was last there, I may have trouble finding it.  The good news is, I still can’t figure out what I am missing so I may not have to find it.

 

I was telling my husband that I feel like I am forgetting something.  This is the thing you do when you are forgetting something, you ask the person who throws it all together at the last minute.  He kindly reminded me that I feel this way about every trip.  It seems to be more on my mind when traveling internationally.  I guess I could go a few days without vitamins or deep conditioning my hair.  After all people for thousands of years lived without these things, I can live without them for four nights.

 

So with this last thought, I guess it doesn’t matter how you pack for your trip.  Even having a checklist doesn’t guarantee me to remember everything.  If you forgot something, and hopefully it is something you can live without for a few days at a time, you will survive.  So the next time pack for your trips and feel this way, know that you aren’t alone, your travel agent feels the same way when she packs.

 

P.S.  CLICK HERE…I am giving away our check list for FREE just for reading this article.  THANK YOU!

 

Fill out the form below to get started planning your next European Vacation.  Looking for a motor coach tour, self-drive, or private tour, we can easily put together the perfect European vacation for you and your family’s needs. 

When you book your vacation with a member of the Life is Better Traveling Team, you are supporting local families and business.  Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the past 4 years, we have become an AMAZING travel agency due to your support!

Please understand we get several requests per day for European vacations. We provide experiences for our clients that provide a lot of value. If you are looking for a budget vacation, that is NOT us.

 

New at Disney

Liz Hough on

What’s new at Walt Disney World ?

This is going to be a great year to take a Walt Disney World Vacation and I am excited to tell you why! January through March, guests can enjoy Disney After Hours at the Magic Kingdom®.  This is a great time to take advantage of little to no wait times for over 25 rides and attractions.  For adults or adults with teenagers who stay up late into the night, this is a great opportunity to take advantage of some family bonding time.  The Magic Kingdom® is usually open until 2am and to keep you going through the night, snacks and bottled beverages are provided.  This event is an extra ticketed event, so be prepared to pay around $149 per person. 

 

For the last four years Disney has been hinting at a whole new land in the Animal Kingdom® theme park and we have all seen the renderings, but it looks like it is finally to go open this summer.  Pandora – The World of Avatar will have several new attractions including Na’vi River Journey.  This ride puts you into a canoe like boat that takes you down a river with the exotic glowing plants and interesting creatures.  If you are looking for more of a thrill, then try Avatar Flight of the Passage which will allow you to experience flying with banshees. 

 

Even though the new Star Wars themed land at Hollywood Studios isn’t open yet, that doesn’t mean Disney isn’t taking advantage of adding in new characters from the latest Star Wars Movie.  Advanced Weapons Research or AWR are now part of a new scene in the “Star Wars: A Galaxy Far, Far Away” show.  There are also new props from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story movie at the Star Wars Launch Bay, and new footage of the behind the scenes of the movie.  I was going to talk about this in my next newsletter but I am too excited so I am going to share it now!!  Are you ready, this is so exciting?!?  If you are a Star Wars super fan, there is now a 7-hour guided tour led by a Star Wars “all-in the know” tour guide!!  This tour includes front of the line access to Star Tours, an in-depth tour of the new Launch Bay, Jedi training (ages 4 -12), Star Wars themed menu items from the Backlot Express, and to end it all off, prime seating with sweets and specialty beverages for the Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular Dessert Party.  The number of people on the tour is limited so I highly recommend making reservations in advance. 

 

If you had been to WDW in 2016 you may have been surprised that Hollywood Studio® was half the park it used to be.  Don’t worry, all good changes are on their way with new and exciting rides and attractions.  They also have recently opened PizzeRizzo, a two-story eatery that serves fresh salads and personal sized pizzas.  If you have always been a big fan of Rizzo, like myself, then this is must stop quick service restaurant.  A quick note, all quick-service dining plans have removed the dessert from the meal.  In return they have added an extra snack to the plan so now everyone on the plan will receive 2 snacks per night of stay. 

 

 

The Muppets are jumping theme parks!  They will still be in Hollywood Studios® entertaining people with their quirky MuppetsVision®, but they now have their own show that plays several times a day in the Magic Kingdom® in front of the Hall of Presidents.  Get ready for Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and The Great Gonzo in “The Muppets Presents…Great Moments in American History” where they put their spin on the what they believe were the greatest moments in history.  This is a live show so you never know what is going to happen. 

 

Epcot is the theme park to go to for their festivals.  They host the Food and Wine Festival and the Flower and Garden Festival to name a few.  This winter for the first time, Epcot will be hosting the Festival of the Arts which combines visual, culinary, and performing arts all in one place.  For six weeks only, you can take art classes, watch Broadway Style singing shows, and feast on delicious creations that, of course in Disney style, look too good to eat!   They are only running these special exhibits for six weeks and on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday’s only. 

 

MagicBands are now part of your everyday wardrobe when you are at Walt Disney World, and I still truly believe have revolutionized the efficiency of how Disney can handle so many people.  I am surprised in the last 4 years that Disney hasn’t redesigned the MagicBand to make it sleeker looking, and easy to wear, but wait they have!  They have redesigned the look a bit so that it is more flat to your wrist and a bit wider.  You will still have all the amazing benefits that the MagicBand had in the past, but now with a cool design. 

 

Walt Disney World has so many changes coming up that I just want to help book everyone an amazing family Disney vacation.  Make sure to contact me to book your next Disney vacation because you never know what new changes are coming or have been made!!

 

 

P.S. Call me this year to plan your AMAZING Disney vacation.  I always recommend to start planning your Walt Disney World vacation 8 to 12 months in advance so we can start planning everything out for you. 

Fill out the form below to get started planning your next European Vacation.  Looking for a motor coach tour, self-drive, or private tour, we can easily put together the perfect European vacation for you and your family’s needs. 

When you book your vacation with a member of the Life is Better Traveling Team, you are supporting local families and business.  Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the past 4 years, we have become an AMAZING travel agency due to your support!

Please understand we get several requests per day for European vacations. We provide experiences for our clients that provide a lot of value. If you are looking for a budget vacation, that is NOT us.

Travel Protection covers you for….

Liz Hough on

Let’s talk about what you get with Travel Protection, because you may be missing out!

 

You have been saving up your money for a few years to take your dream vacation.  You are at the airport and the gate attendant announces the flight will be delayed due to mechanical issues.  This delay causes you to miss your connecting flight to your final destination.  Many hours later you get to your destination, and you slipped on a wet spot in the lobby landing flat on your back.  You feel a pinch, and have trouble standing up straight and walking.  At this point you wonder if the universe is telling you that you shouldn’t have taken this vacation, then you remember, YOU HAVE TRAVEL PROTECTION!  You can use your travel protection to cover all of these weird occurrences. 

 

Facts show that 17% of those who traveled had their travel impacted by medical problems, natural disasters like a hurricane, or mechanical/carrier caused issued which delayed their trip for more than 3 hours.  When you have purchased travel insurance, also called travel protection, there are three main services that you are getting:

 

1. Medical Coverage 

Most insurance plans, including Medicare and Medicaid, do not cover a person outside the borders of the United States.  Your credit card may have some medical coverage, but you may have had to purchase your trip with that card, and even then, the coverage amount is minimal.  Hospitals outside of the United States will require a person to make full payment before they are allowed to leave the hospital, no matter how much the charges may be.  This could lead to a financial hardship on the whole family.  With Travel Insurance, you have several tiers of medical coverage and it can either act as your primary medical insurance or secondary medical insurance. 

 

2. Travel Arrangements 

There are many things that can happen including trip cancellation, trip delay, and trip interruption.  Life happens and sometimes things happen right before a trip that forces you to cancel but the supplier might have 100% non-refundable cancellation policy.  But your travel insurance doesn’t and you can recoup the cost of that trip not taken.  Did you know that when you have trip interruptions you can be reimbursed for meals, lost luggage, and missed connections?

 

3. Concierge services

Most people don’t realize that travel insurance companies offer this service.  Want to go golfing?  Call the travel insurance company and they will set up a tee time for you.  Did you forget to send flowers to your mother for her birthday before you left to go on vacation, call the travel insurance company and they will send flowers, balloons, or a cake.  There are so many possibilities to use this service and it is all part of the plan you purchase. 

 

Travel Protection is for everyone who is going to take a vacation or even a small trip.  If your credit card offers travel protection, you really need to make sure you check what is covered, how much is covered, and if you need to have purchased your vacation with that card to get the coverage.  Since becoming a travel consultant, I have been purchasing travel protection for myself and my family even when we take small trips here in the United States.  Why do I do this?  I know that it is there if I need to use it, I know how much I am covered for, and if I need any reservations somewhere I can call the concierge services to do it for me.  Oh, and it also gives me peace of mind.

 

Stayed tuned for next week’s newsletter about knowing what you get when to purchase travel protection.  Also, if you know someone who is about to take a vacation and haven’t purchased travel protection, please forward this email onto them and tell them to sign-up for my HIGH CONTENT newsletters about travel at LifeisBetterTraveling.com. 

 

Fill out the form below to get started planning your next European Vacation.  Looking for a motor coach tour, self-drive, or private tour, we can easily put together the perfect European vacation for you and your family’s needs. 

When you book your vacation with a member of the Life is Better Traveling Team, you are supporting local families and business.  Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the past 4 years, we have become an AMAZING travel agency due to your support!

Please understand we get several requests per day for European vacations. We provide experiences for our clients that provide a lot of value. If you are looking for a budget vacation, that is NOT us.

Why you may want to check your luggage

Liz Hough on

Do you have anxiety about checking your luggage at the airport?

You may never have to worry about that again!

 

When you buy a plane ticket today, one of the questions you are now asked is if you want to pre-pay for any checked luggage.  The last thing you want to think about is checking your luggage if your vacation is months away.  Checked luggage causes thoughts of mishandling, stress packing, and anxiety.  Many people have been too afraid to check a bag that they have mastered packing their carry-on.  But what if the airport could guarantee that 99.5% of the time, all luggage would not be mishandled? 

 

Each year the amount of mishandled luggage is actually decreasing.  In 2014, according to SITA, the world’s leading air transport IT and communications specialist, airlines mishandled 7.3 pieces of luggage per 1000 passengers and in 2015 the number dropped to 6.5 pieces of luggage per 1000 passengers.  Considering there were 3.5 billion people who flew worldwide in 2015, one might argue that this is still a large amount of mishandled luggage.  So what are the airlines doing that the rate has gone down?

 

In 2005 the McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas introduced RFID technology in tagging checked luggage.  Most passengers would not even know that their piece of luggage has an RFID chip on it, as the chip is embedded in the tag that looks similar to the old barcode tag.  The barcode tag system has a high accuracy rate of 80 – 95% but since implementing the RFID tag, they have found an accuracy rate of 99.5%.  This means that when a piece of luggage is mishandled, instead of deploying teams of people to find luggage that looks similar and scanning the barcodes, they can send out a signal and know exactly where the piece of luggage is at the airport. 

 

 

But it is 2019, why aren’t all airports doing this?  Most airports allow the actual airline to control their luggage handling, where McCarren decided to take it over.  The good news is that one of the largest airlines in the industry, Delta, has been slowing implementing this into various airports and seeing almost 99.9% accuracy rates of finding mishandled luggage.  IATA, International Air Transport Associate, has insisted that all airlines implement a system where they are able to track each bag, step-by-step, from the checkpoint to its destination by 2018.  Having this type of system in place will really give the traveler peace of mind that their luggage will be at their destination when they land.  It will also cut the amount of costs that the airlines have to pay out for mishandled luggage. 

 

It sounds like soon Life will be Better Traveling!

Fill out the form below to get started planning your next European Vacation.  Looking for a motor coach tour, self-drive, or private tour, we can easily put together the perfect European vacation for you and your family’s needs. 

When you book your vacation with a member of the Life is Better Traveling Team, you are supporting local families and business.  Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the past 4 years, we have become an AMAZING travel agency due to your support!

Please understand we get several requests per day for European vacations. We provide experiences for our clients that provide a lot of value. If you are looking for a budget vacation, that is NOT us.

I am opening up and you may be surprised.

Liz Hough on

  Why I Do What I Do?

I am sharing the REAL reason why I do what I do and you may be surprised.

 

I recently had a friend look over my website and told me I was missing a key element, Why do I do what I do.  As I started to explain to her how I became a travel consultant she stopped me and told me that it wasn’t the “Why.”  So after some soul searching and a lot of thinking, I wanted to share with everyone my “Why.”

 

Travel is a passion of mine and it is something I absolutely love to do.  When I personally travel, I get feelings of excitement, relaxation, interest, curiosity, and a bit of anxiety.  When it all comes together I have created a memory that reminds me of all of these emotions. 

I have traveled to 17 European countries, and in each country, I experienced what I just described.  I felt excitement when we were roaming the canals of Venice and thinking this is nothing like Italy in Epcot Center (even though it is a good replica). 

 

 

 

 

I felt relaxation in Scotland when my husband and I enjoyed an anniversary dinner on Rose Street in Edinburgh drinking Scottish beer.  I was interested in touching a 1000-year-old entrance to a library while in Ephesus in Turkey.

 

 

 I was curious what smoked lard and Palinka tasted like in a small café in Bucharest, Romania.   I was anxious going up the cogwheel train to Jungfraujoch in Switzerland while my head was pounding from altitude changes.  The best part of travel is that when I am not traveling and I think of those places I instantly get a smile on my face regardless of the emotion that I felt. 

 

 

 

 

Was I travel consultant when I did all of those things?  No.  It was because of those trips, journeys, vacations that I decided I wanted to help plan those types of experiences for other people.  I wanted to make sure that when someone came to me for planning a vacation to another country that we planned something amazing and unique.  A journey of memories that causes emotions which can be triggered back at just the thought of them.  When I plan a customized European vacation for someone there are many times an emotion from one of our trips will come up and I just get a smile on my face.  So I guess in some ways my job makes me smile, a lot.  What a great job to have!

 

It has taken a friend who had a smile and her head tilted to one side, asking my “why” to really understand why I love my job.  It is the people who I plan amazing journeys with, who I now feel are friends, it is the amazing places that I get to go and experience, and it is being able to spend more time with my family that has really made me love my job. 

 

I want to thank everyone who has planned an amazing vacation, trip, or journey with me.  You have been a great support to my business and when you work with me you are also supporting my family.

 

 

Fill out the form below to get started planning your next European Vacation.  Looking for a motor coach tour, self-drive, or private tour, we can easily put together the perfect European vacation for you and your family’s needs. 

When you book your vacation with a member of the Life is Better Traveling Team, you are supporting local families and business.  Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the past 4 years, we have become an AMAZING travel agency due to your support!

Please understand we get several requests per day for European vacations. We provide experiences for our clients that provide a lot of value. If you are looking for a budget vacation, that is NOT us.

 

Kids and Plantations, oh my!

Liz Hough on

When you travel to the south there is one destination that is always a must, a plantation.  What is a plantation?  It is a large estate with usually several hundreds of acres of land, multiple working buildings, beautiful gardens, some type of cash or food crop, and many working animals.  Plantations are large enough that they can be an all-day sight-seeing tour, but when you have two little kids a full day looking at flowers and crops is not too exciting.  Around Charleston there are several plantations to choose from and they each offer something unique and different to enjoy.  One plantation was highly recommended to us by another mother who said she takes her children there and they really enjoy it.  If another mother recommends it then it must be good right?

 

 

 

 

So we planned to spend half a day or up to 6 hours at the Middleton Place.  It was about a 25-minute drive outside of Charleston on a 2 lane road that had multiple plantations.  We decided on the full experience which included a 45-minute horse drawn carriage ride around the plantation, entrance onto the grounds, and guided tour of the house.  There were also additional tours of various parts of the plantation during the day including a tour of the flower gardens.  When you are touring a plantation, it is best to get there earlier in the day to try and beat the heat, however, with kids, you get there when you get there.  We got there around noon and decided to take the guided garden tour.  There were only a few of us on the tour and the lady we had was extremely knowledgeable about the history behind the plantation, but the kids were hot and ready for something different. 

After the tour ended, it was time for our horse drawn carriage ride around the plantation.  The kids thought this was so much fun because they love horses and with it being so bumpy, they felt like they were on an amusement park ride.  As the estate was quite large, this was a great way to get around the grounds and see the different buildings and natural beauty of the property. 

 

After our carriage ride it was time to take our tour of the house.  The house was air-conditioned, which gave us nice break from the heat, but it was also dimly light due to the 200-year-old paintings and other valuables.  The tour was very interesting for adults as the guide went through a good amount of history, but the kids were bored and unimpressed by the children’s room. I wouldn’t recommend the house tour for children as there are a lot of artifacts that required no touching, and this can be difficult for kids (especially ours!). 

 

After the house tour, we headed over to the barn and blacksmith area.  We were able to see the horses being fed, and the kids found out that there were three cats roaming the area so it became a game to find them.  At a certain time every day, one of the employees brings Bessy, a cow, up to a special area where she is milked.  She was an older cow and very tame, which is why they chose her to milk.  The kids all gathered around to see what was happening and to our surprise, they let the kids milk her also.  This was a lot of fun for the kids, probably the best part of their day. 

 

 

 

 

We spent 4 and a half hours at the Middleton Plantation and I would say that it was worth taking them, but I would plan next time to get their when they first open to try and beat the heat.  We were also careful around any water as there were alligators lounging around on the grassy areas near one of the ponds, and definitely take bug spray because there were a lot of bugs.

 

Fill out the form below to get started planning your next European Vacation.  Looking for a motor coach tour, self-drive, or private tour, we can easily put together the perfect European vacation for you and your family’s needs. 

When you book your vacation with a member of the Life is Better Traveling Team, you are supporting local families and business.  Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the past 4 years, we have become an AMAZING travel agency due to your support!

Please understand we get several requests per day for European vacations. We provide experiences for our clients that provide a lot of value. If you are looking for a budget vacation, that is NOT us.

Next up…Charleston, S.C.

Liz Hough on

If you haven’t been, here’s why you must go!

 

Our family recently took a family vacation to Charleston, South Carolina.  The last time my husband and I were in Charleston we didn’t have any children and we enjoyed the pleasures of Down Home Southern Cooking.  We walked around the romantic waterfront and sat in front of the iconic Pineapple fountain while watching the sunset project beautiful hues of pink and purple onto the bay.  We walked around the entire historic district taking in the sights of various mansions, quaint alleyways, and hearing ghost tales of years that have gone by.   One thing about Charleston is that the historic district remains the same, not much had changed in the past 10 years since we were there last.  Except, this time we had two little ones with us. 

 

We didn’t have much time at the Pineapple fountain before one of the children had a meltdown and didn’t want to get a picture as a family, but we tried anyway.  The meltdown probably came from a long day of excitement, playfulness, and good food as there is a lot of amazing things to do in Charleston with children.  Every day the kids were exhausted, ate well, and couldn’t wait to get out of the hotel the next day to see where we were going next.  One thing to make sure of when you travel to Charleston with the kids is to make sure they get a good, hearty breakfast.  There are so many amazing breakfast places in the historic district and we found them by simply asking our concierge where to eat.  There is an amazing place on Meeting Street called Toast that has homemade biscuits the size of my hand.  They may be large but they are not heavy. We visited Toast on several occasions as they had some interesting breakfast items that we wanted to try, and the food was consistently good. 

Anywhere we travel, if there is an aquarium or zoo, it is a must stop on our itinerary.  It had been 10 years since I was last at the Charleston Aquarium so I didn’t recall exactly what was there.  Our first stop was to the outdoor enclosure which was a nice surprise.  It was a large pool containing several rays.  If the rays come close to the surface of the pool you can actually touch them.  Now if you have recently seen Finding Dory, there is a part in the movie where the animals in the “touch pool” don’t really liked to be “touched” and when the kids put their hands in the water they all start to find hiding places.  I felt like this scene played out when we were at this pool as the rays clearly didn’t want us to touch them because they all stayed at the bottom!  There were two windows on the bottom of the pool that you could look in and see the rays swimming around happily and that kept the kids occupied for some time. 

 

 

 

Inside the aquarium they have several great exhibits including their large tank with a sea turtle that is my size in height.  They put on various educational seminars about every half hour at various exhibits throughout the aquarium and these seminars really kept the interest of the kids.  One seminar was about alligators and crocodiles, and at the end of the seminar our children actually had the opportunity to pet an alligator, which was a huge excitement for a 5-year-old.  After talking with another employee about what fish and rays eat, she gave each of us a small cup with uncooked shrimp.  The kids put the shrimp on the end of a rod and then they feed the rays.  This was a interesting experience because the rays come up to the glass and use the glass as guidance to find the food.  They are quite aggressive when it comes to food and the large rays would push the smaller rays to the side to get the food.  Again, pure excitement for the kids!  I would highly recommend a half-day to do the aquarium, and try to schedule it so you can see the seminars.

 

 

 

The Children’s Museum of Charleston is another must when visiting Charleston with the kids.  It is all one floor and there are seven large rooms each with a different theme.  I personally like the castle themed room, but the pirate ship was a huge hit with the kids.  The seven rooms are: the arts and crafts room, the castle room, water play room, large building blocks room, pirate ship room, the baby play area, and grocery shopping room.  Each room was designed to have the kids engaged in some type of activity and they were able to dress up in various characters in some of the rooms.  It was fun to see the kids dressed up like pirates and running around a pirate ship yelling at each.  I also enjoyed the grocery store because the kids have a shopping list and then they must go around and pick up the items.  Once they have retrieved all of the items they bring them to the kids sized check-out line and the parents can scan their items.  The kids pay with fake money and they can bag their own items.   

 

 

 

If you have little ones under the age of two, there is a whole area that is enclosed so the kids can’t get out.  They have soft pillows, slides, climbing stairs, and big foam blocks for the little ones to play.  The time flew by so fast when we were here that we didn’t get to go outside to ride the big fire truck or do any of the other outdoor activities.  I would highly recommend the Children’s Museum for either a half-day or if the weather is nice and you can play outside, a good 6 hours. 

 

Check out next week’s ezine when I talk about how to survive at a plantation with kids!

 

Fill out the form below to get started planning your next European Vacation.  Looking for a motor coach tour, self-drive, or private tour, we can easily put together the perfect European vacation for you and your family’s needs. 

When you book your vacation with a member of the Life is Better Traveling Team, you are supporting local families and business.  Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the past 4 years, we have become an AMAZING travel agency due to your support!

Please understand we get several requests per day for European vacations. We provide experiences for our clients that provide a lot of value. If you are looking for a budget vacation, that is NOT us.

 

What would you do?

Liz Hough on

If You Lose Your Passport Abroad, Would You Know What To Do?

These Six Steps will Save you Time and Energy…

 

I recently read an article about a woman who lost her passport while she was traveling overseas.  She was frantic, and didn’t know what to do besides go to the closet U.S. Embassy to get a new passport.  When she got there they asked her if she had a list of things that they need to get the process started for a new passport but she didn’t.  She spent several hours acquiring the things on the list before she went back to the embassy.  Once everything was submitted to the embassy, it still took time to get the passport prolonging her trip. 

 

Even though most of us think that a scenario like this won’t happen to us, the truth is we need to prepared when it does.  So for your next trip abroad, even to Canada, here is what you need to do if your passport was lost or stolen. 

 

Step 1.  Get another passport photo taken right away.  You will need a passport photo for the embassy to issue you a replacement passport so get that first. 

 

Step 2. You are going to need identification, evidence of proof of U.S. Citizenship, and your travel itinerary.  The best way to have all of this is to make COLOR copies of all these things before you travel abroad, and place copies in your suitcases or other bags that you are taking with you.  An easy way to have an electronic version would be to scan in your passport and email it to yourself.  Having copies of these will really be handy.  If you don’t have copies, make sure that someone you trust from home can get access to them to fax them to the appropriate embassy. 

 

Step 3.  Try to access a passport application (DS-11 Application for Passport), and the statement form for Lost or Stolen Passports (DS-64 Statement Regarding a Lost or Stolen Passport ).  Having these printed out and already filled in will help you get through the process faster. 

 

Step 4. If you have filed a police report with the local authorities, make sure to bring a copy of the police report with you.

 

Step 5.  Head to the nearest U.S. Embassy or consulate that can help you get your replacement passport issued.  If you aren’t sure where it is, someone within the U.S. can call the Office of Overseas Citizens Services, U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C, at 1-888-407-4747, and they will be able to locate the nearest one for you. 

 

Step 6.  Pay the fees associated with getting a replacement passport, however, applicants who are unable to pay the fee will be asked to provide names of persons they feel would be able to assist them financially if there is sufficient time.

 

Once you have been issued a replacement passport the passport is valid for 10 years for adults and 5 years for children.  If you were issued a limited-validity, emergency passport due to urgent travel plans to allow you to return to the U.S. or continue on your trip, once you return home, you can turn in your emergency passport and receive a full-validity passport.  Most embassies and consulates do not issue passports on weekends or holiday that they are closed.  If it is a life or death emergency they do have after hours duty officers available to assist you in any way that they can. 

 

For your next vacation abroad, make sure to make color copies of all of your identification and give copies to friends and/or family here in the U.S. that you trust.  If you have a travel agent who is available, please give them the information also.  I always advise my client’s to send me a color copy of their passport so I can easily email and/or fax it out quickly. 

Safe Travels!

Fill out the form below to get started planning your next European Vacation.  Looking for a motor coach tour, self-drive, or private tour, we can easily put together the perfect European vacation for you and your family’s needs. 

When you book your vacation with a member of the Life is Better Traveling Team, you are supporting local families and business.  Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the past 4 years, we have become an AMAZING travel agency due to your support!

Please understand we get several requests per day for European vacations. We provide experiences for our clients that provide a lot of value. If you are looking for a budget vacation, that is NOT us.

Airlines are upset.

Liz Hough on

New Changes in Favor of the Consumer?
Find out what 3 changes are coming your way next time you fly…

 

If you have been following the news this past week, then you may have heard that congress has passed some air travel legislation that will help the consumer, but may upset the airlines and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

 

The lengthy lines to get through security at the airport have been felt across the nation, and by those in the House and Senate too.  The new bill wants to offer several ways to expedite the screening process including keeping the PreCheck screening lines open and available during peak and high-volume travel times, especially at the airports who see a huge volume of travelers. When the PreCheck lines are closed, there must be a way to expedited the screening process using “every practicable effort.”  What is the definition of “every practicable effort?”  Only time will tell.  The bill is also requiring that TSA increase the number of people enrolled in the TSA PreCheck program by making it more available for people to enroll.  This could be done through Kiosks, mobile devices, and/or other mobile platforms. 

 

Have you ever had your luggage lost or delayed by the airline and didn’t receive your luggage fee back?  Well, that will now be a fight with the airline that you will no longer have to undergo.  If the airline does not deliver your luggage to you within 12 hours after arrival of your domestic flight or 15 hours after your international flight, the airline will be forced to quickly and automatically refund you “any ancillary fees” you paid for your checked luggage. 

For those who have family members under the age of 13, this next portion of the bill that has passed is a huge win.  Children under the age of 13 are “to be seated in a seat adjacent to the seat of an accompanying family member over the age of 13” at NO Additional Ancillary Fees!  These ancillary fees are usually in the form of a seat selection reservation fees including, choosing a window or aisle seat.

 

Here is a website that shows some of the fees for seat reservations for each airline: http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/blog/4564745/chart-what-it-costs-to-select-your-seat-location.html.  The caveat is that this only applies to economy or coach class seats.  If a family would like to upgrade to economy plus, business, or first class additional fees would be applied.  This rule will probably upset the airlines the most as this will take away from their billions of dollars they earn each year on seat reservation fees.  However, it has been a problem with the airlines not accommodating keeping families seated together when they travel.  As a parent, it is a very scary thought that my child would be sitting next to a stranger while I am on the same flight. 

 

Over the next couple of months, I hope that we see these changes and they make our lives simpler for when we travel by air.

Fill out the form below to get started planning your next European Vacation.  Looking for a motor coach tour, self-drive, or private tour, we can easily put together the perfect European vacation for you and your family’s needs. 

When you book your vacation with a member of the Life is Better Traveling Team, you are supporting local families and business.  Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the past 4 years, we have become an AMAZING travel agency due to your support!

Please understand we get several requests per day for European vacations. We provide experiences for our clients that provide a lot of value. If you are looking for a budget vacation, that is NOT us.

 

What two things ruined my day.

Liz Hough on

Amusement Park Disappointment!
What two things ruined my experience…

 

It has been awhile since I have written a review, and I think this is the first time that is it not going to be so nice.  I am the type of person who tries to see both sides of the story, which my husband doesn’t like, but I can’t even see the other side of the story when it comes to negligence at an amusement park. 

 

Over the weekend we took our family to Idlewild and Soak Zone Amusement park near Ligonier, Pennsylvania.  Ligonier is a beautiful town filled with amazing stores, restaurants, and the Ramada Inn which has beautiful, clean spacious rooms.  Just a few miles down the road is Idlewild, which was founded in 1878 and is the oldest amusement park in Pennsylvania.  I appreciate older rides such as their roller coast that was built in 1938, and I do enjoy the Daniel Tiger neighborhood that they have built for little kids.  I can’t say anything about their Soak Zone as we didn’t venture into that part of the park, but the rest of the park is nicely catered to those who have children under that age of 12.  Idlewild is the sister park to Dutch Wonderland, and we have been to Dutch Wonderland on multiple occasions, so I assumed that Idlewild would have the same high standards that I have become accustomed to at Dutch Wonderland.  Not so much!

 

At Idlewild you pay for your parking and tickets at the entrance booth.  Once you pay, then you have to find parking.  They do have plenty of parking, but they lacked descriptive signs to let you know where to go for additional parking, so we just followed a path past cars, packed in like sardines, until 20 minutes later, we found a space.  Unsure of we were in relation to the park, we started to follow people figuring someone had to know how to get the rides.  Once we got to the park, finding a map of the park became impossible.  Typically, at the entrance to the parks you find a stand with maps, but there was nothing.  We started to walk around and get onto rides.  I didn’t really have any problems with the actual rides as they seemed to be pretty well kept, but the ride attendants weren’t very friendly and some of them even ignored the guest while talking with each other.  This made me feel a bit uneasy on some rides, as I want to make sure that my kids and I are safe on the ride. 

 

There was one ride I was very excited about, Daniel’s Tigers Trolley ride.  It is a somewhat interactive ride and I was excited to hear that the conductor had a script to follow.  When I hear that there is a script, I immediately think of the Jungle Cruise at Disney and we always get the most amazing and funny guides, but I can’t say that is what we got on Daniel’s Tigers Trolley.  Our guide seemed less than enthused to be taking probably her 10th round of guests, and it was like she was a robot with a monotonic voice.  The ride was great, but again, the attendants fell flat. 

 

 

Overall, the rides were good and it seemed that they were kept in good condition.  However, the park was very dirty.  One of the women’s bathrooms has bird poop all over the floor and stall doors even though there were no birds in there at the time.  Someone dropped their ice cream in the middle of the walk way and when my husband told the game attendant about it, the guy told him someone would eventually be around.  I always take my refillable water bottles to fill them water from the fountain, but there were no fountains in site.  I finally found one but it didn’t work.  It seemed like they were not concerned about cleanliness nor about how satisfying the customer. 

 

Maybe I just have high standards from going to Kennywood, Dutch Wonderland, Hershey, and Disney, but this park could be really great they just need to adjust their level of cleanliness and service.  Will we go back?  Only time will tell.

Fill out the form below to get started planning your next European Vacation.  Looking for a motor coach tour, self-drive, or private tour, we can easily put together the perfect European vacation for you and your family’s needs. 

When you book your vacation with a member of the Life is Better Traveling Team, you are supporting local families and business.  Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the past 4 years, we have become an AMAZING travel agency due to your support!

Please understand we get several requests per day for European vacations. We provide experiences for our clients that provide a lot of value. If you are looking for a budget vacation, that is NOT us.

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