Dear Travel Agents/Advisors,

In the world of social media, what do you really need to promote yourself and your travel business? If you are a one-man/woman show, my answer is so simple: YOU!

Yes, that is it!

I am not going to discourage those who STRONGLY believe in a colorful and beautiful website, logo and business cards (I am not here to argue!) but your face (currently), your enthusiasm, and your presence – together with your phone number and name will bring you more clients than all of your promotions on social media put together.

But how?

Become a conversation piece everywhere you go. Wear a cap with the name of the country or place you visited (or buy one on the internet just so you can talk about it). Wear a t-shirt, bag, any souvenir you can show. Where to wear it? To the market, stores, church, community center, park, or even to people’s homes.

I recently bought a very colorful apron in Barcelona when I was there in May. I decided to wear it when I had my family over. I was so happy to show and tell. My son asked me where I bought it. I answered, “Can’t you see? In Barcelona!”  And he said, “No mom, Barelona!” They forgot the letter “C”!  LOL!

Salud!

Follow me at:
Facebook @travelwithrosana
Instagram @travelwithrosana
Blogs @ http://www.travelwithrosana.com

 

Dear Travel Agents/Advisors,

That car do you drive? Are you surprised by my question?

Honestly I don’t really want to know, this is just a rhetorical question. Many people work hard to have a nice car, house, or houses and cars, the more the merrier.

I wanted that too. I thought that the more I worked, the more I could aim to afford a comfortable life. Then we started to get older and life happened!

Health became more of a concern than money. I started to understand that health is wealth, and my body is my most important possession. More important than any house or car, and changing parts is not that easy. Once the engine (heart) fails, you are headed in the direction of 6 feet under. I can’t replace or upgrade my body or its parts. This is it!

Take care of your health. Watch what you eat, exercise cautiously, be proactive and go to the doctor on a regular basis. And, definitely enjoy life and travel like there is no tomorrow!

Life is too short to worry about how fancy or big your house is. Life is too precious to waste on getting the latest model car of the year. Your health dictates your future, and every day you should realize how precious your life is.

To health, to life, and to many travels!

Cheers!

Follow me at:
Facebook @travelwithrosana
Instagram @travelwithrosana
Blogs @ http://www.travelwithrosana.com

 

Dear Travel Agents/Advisors,

To those who know me, and even more so, my mentees, I had a reputation as the Celebrity Queen! This was so true that I even have cruises booked up until December 2024, and in the past have cruised with them 3 to 4 times a year. Well….. let me tell you about my last 2 experiences!

To celebrate the New Year in 2023 we cruised on the beautiful Celebrity Beyond in the Caribbean and had an incredible time. As always before, I highly recommended it to everyone I could and as a Celebrity Queen, I suggested they experience and enjoy this cruise line.

A long time ago, we booked an itinerary that we were looking forward to, from New Jersey to Canada to Greenland to Iceland on the Celebrity Summit. We have been on most Celebrity cruises since the Millennium, and have always been pleased with food, shows, service and cost/benefits.

This cruise was such a downer! They have now decided to charge for room service. We only learned that when they were late with a room service delivery on our excursion day, and they said, ”Don’t worry, we will not charge you for that!” Oh, now you are nickel-and-diming us!

The shows are no longer like they used to be with beautiful stages, lighting and Broadway style choreography. On the contrary! With many days at sea, our Cruise Director had 3 entertainers performing 2 times each, “because of popular demand.” LOL! (From who??!!!)

The food in the main restaurant had very little variety. The Basic or Premium drink packages didn’t offer good wines.  If you wanted a good wine from Napa or somewhere else, you needed to buy a bottle for about $250. It seemed as though they were “strongly” suggesting that passengers eat in the other restaurants for about $55 per person (minimum) and purchase the alcohol for extra money.

The Aqua class and the suites (which have their own restaurants) didn’t get any better deals than Concierge or Veranda.

What continues to be great is the service from many wonderful crew members, but unfortunately that is not enough. I don’t want to use a cruise line that nickel-and-dimes us. I prefer to pay extra and know that everything they spell out is included.

Unfortunately we are paid and committed to a Celebrity Cruise in December from Singapore to Indonesia on the Millennium. After that, all our bookings are canceled and we are ready to find a cruise line that thinks more about the passengers, and is not hungry and desperate enough to trick us with the only purpose of making money.

Leaving my crown for now, Celebrity!

Cheers!

Follow me at:
Facebook @travelwithrosana
Instagram @travelwithrosana
Blogs @ http://www.travelwithrosana.com

Dear Travel Agents/Advisors,

In December of 2015 my family and I decided to go see the Northern Lights in Iceland. What an incredible experience to see a country where it was only “daylight” from 11am until 3pm. It wasn’t even sunny, it felt like being in a dark room where you turn on the light and it is not very bright. The rest of the time it was dark as night. We slept with the curtains open because no matter when we woke up, it was night.

We learned to walk on the icy streets of Reykjavík, and we saw the Blue Lagoon, The Golden Circle, The Geysers, went on a “safari” to look for the Aurora Borealis (what a great experience!) and drove over ice (we didn’t want to take a snowmobile).

Since that trip, I have been craving the experience of seeing Iceland in the summer, and we have just returned from there! What a blast! It was a completely different experience, as if we went to a totally different country. This time it was daytime until almost 11pm, and at about 4:30am it was daylight again! (Close those curtains, we need to sleep LOL!)

We saw beautiful waterfalls in so many places. We went to the Black Sand Beach, which was so beautiful that even pictures will not do it justice. Reykjavik was so much fun and there were so many tourists like us dressed warmly, but the locals were wearing  t-shirts and shorts. (It was about 56F.)

We did not want to do the Blue Lagoon again since we had done that before, but we definitely could have spent more days enjoying nature in this incredible country.

I highly recommend visiting Iceland at both times of the year if you can!

Cheers!

Follow me at:
Facebook @travelwithrosana
Instagram @travelwithrosana
Blogs @ http://www.travelwithrosana.com