FEELING BETTER BY GETTING AWAY

 WELLNESS TRAVEL IS EMERGING AS MORE THAN JUST THE "TRENDY TRIP"

 

Already a multi billion dollar industry, the wellness travel sector will see a significant surge in coming years for several reasons:

•    Aging baby boomers are looking to extend their years of good health.
•    More people are realizing that the key to good health and longevity lies in their own hands.
•    There is more wellness product available in all price categories.
•    Globalization is opening the doors to wellness lifestyle philosophies.

As ever-increasing numbers of us adopt a wellness lifestyle, more and more travelers want to incorporate wellness into their trip planning. They want to maintain their healthy lifestyles, including food and fitness, while traveling, whether for business or pleasure.
Others who have begun looking at their vacation time through a different lens are looking for a wellness vacation. Often traveling with a specific intention – such as losing weight, getting fit, managing stress, reconnecting with self or a significant other, communing with nature – they want a vacation that’s designed to maintain, promote or kick-start a healthy way of living.

Here are 10 wellness travel trends and predictions for 2014 and beyond. 

1.    More people in all fields will recognize the value of the wellness vacation, including what it can mean for one’s overall health and sense of wellbeing and how it fits into disease prevention.
2.    People will begin to schedule wellness vacations annually, for the betterment of body, mind and soul. Just as we visit the dentist every six months, we'll take a yearly wellness vacation.
3.    Since food is the foundation of wellness, culinary vacation options will grow in tandem with the movement to eat more healthfully.
4.    Forward-thinking corporations will include wellness vacations as part of wellness-in-the-workplace employee benefit packages. Some businesses will offer wellness vacations as an incentive to motivate individuals and teams to reach performance goals.
5.    While many hotels already offer elements of a wellness lifestyle – i.e. food, fitness, spa treatments, sleep programs – we will see major hotel brands adopt a fully-integrated approach with wellness-themed hotel brands. One example: IHG’s Even Hotels, which launches in 2014.
6.    For patients with certain conditions – weight gain, insomnia, eating disorders, depression and loneliness, for instance – doctors will begin prescribing specifically-designed and accredited health and wellness vacation packages before calling on “big pharmacy.” 
7.    There will be more, more and more wellness travel product available. Along with programs at destination spas and spa resorts, we’ll see a greater number of small companies and sole proprietors offering yoga/meditation getaways, healthy cooking classes and nourish-your-soul retreats.
8.    While the spa has long been a central focus of a wellness lifestyle, more spa marketing organizations will embrace and promote other aspects of a wellness lifestyle – fitness, food, sleep, community and wellness for the planet, for instance. 
9.    Taking a cue from Europe, the North American hospitality industry will see an emerging category where luxury-meets- wellness-spa-meets-sophisticated-medical-clinic. One prototype is the award-winning SHAWellness in Spain.
10.    Spas and anti-aging clinics will supplement existing menus with cutting-edge medi-treatments. How does this fit under the banner of wellness travel? Feeling good about the way we look increases our sense of wellbeing. Also, some of these new medical innovations will only be available in other countries.  

To book your next Wellness Trip or any other deserved vacation, contact  

Great Escapes Travel

 407-740-6464

877-740-6464

#wellnesstrips #spatrips #healthytravel  

ADIMON TWM

PACKING JUST RIGHT FOR A CRUISE

PACKING FOR YOUR CRUISE

One of the biggest cruising ad­van­tages is that you on­ly have to un­pack once, even if you are vis­it­ing sev­er­al coun­tries. No need to live out of your suit­case. But stor­age space is some­what lim­it­ed in ship cabins and most air­lines now charge for checked bag­gage — and hit you with over­charges if your bags are heavy.

Let Great Escapes Travel offer some solutions:

The gold­en rule: pack light
That's not as dif­fi­cult as you might think. Peo­ple of­ten freak out about what to pack for a cruise, but the re­al­ity is you prob­ably al­ready have ev­ery­thing you need. If for some rea­son you for­get some­thing it's like­ly to be eas­ily at hand in the ship's store — or at shops in the ports.
The two biggest con­sid­er­ations when pack­ing for your cruise? Where you're cruis­ing (trop­ical, arc­tic, or some­thing in be­tween) and on what ship you're sail­ing.
Ship­board Dress Codes:
The good news is that most cruise line dress codes have got­ten de­ci­sive­ly more ca­su­al in re­cent years. Dur­ing the day any­thing goes — T-shirts, shorts, jeans, bathing suits (with cov­er-ups) — pret­ty much any­where on the ship (ex­cept if you de­cide to do a sit-down lunch in the main din­ing room, where there may be re­stric­tions). On the lux­ury lines this re­laxed am­bi­ence may trans­late to po­los and khakis, sun­dress­es and de­sign­er-wear, but the ca­su­al con­cept is the same.
What you wear at night varies by ship and where you want to dine — the rules ap­ply to the main din­ing room and dress-up al­ter­na­tive restau­rants, but not more ca­su­al eater­ies. For­mal nights, held twice on many but not all week­long itineraries, are not strict­ly for­mal — more like semi­for­mal. Men can get away with a dark suit and wom­en a cock­tail dress, but check your cruise brochure for ad­vice. Some of the ul­tra­lux­ury lines still stick to the for­mal tra­di­tion, men in tux­es and wom­en in ei­ther long or short fin­ery. For those who want to dress to the hilt (you won't be alone), say to pose for a fam­ily pho­to, many of the big­ger cruise lines still of­fer tuxe­do rental (and there's noth­ing wrong with be­ing over­dressed), which you can ar­range through us at Great Escapes Travel or once you get on­board. Con­verse­ly, even on for­mal nights you can choose the op­tion of din­ing more ca­su­al­ly at the ship's buf­fet, where a Hawai­ian shirt is suit­able day and night.
Some lines have nixed for­mal nights in fa­vor of an in­for­mal dress code, which is akin to semi­for­mal, as de­scribed above. Or you may see the term coun­try club ca­su­al, which means you dress up a lit­tle more at night than you did dur­ing the day. Men may want to wear a blaz­er, with or with­out a tie, or just a col­lared shirt and nice pants; wom­en a blouse and skirt, dress, or nice pantsuit. For a no-jack­ets-re­quired dress code, nix the blaz­er, or not.
Ca­su­al nights (some­times called smart ca­su­al) will in­clude your first night on the ship — cruise lines take this pre­cau­tion just in case lug­gage is slow to be de­liv­ered. Here's where a dress code may ap­ply, such as no shorts in the main din­ing room. The re­al­ity is you'll like­ly see peo­ple break­ing these rules, much to the cha­grin of those who fol­low them. The ba­sic rule of thumb is pants and a shirt for men (some wear a sports jack­et) and a sun­dress or ca­su­al pantsuit for wom­en.
Sug­gest­ed at­tire for ev­ery evening is print­ed in the ship's dai­ly sched­ule, de­liv­ered to your cab­in the night be­fore so you have plen­ty of time to de­cide what to wear.
Sun­dries:
Most ships of­fer laun­dry ser­vice and some al­so have dry clean­ing, with about a 24-hour turnaround. There will be a price list in your cab­in. Ex­pect to pay about $1.50 per pair of socks, $3 per T-shirt (it's not cheap), and $7 to dry clean a shirt. Many big ship lines among oth­ers) al­so of­fer self-ser­vice wash­ing ma­chines and dry­ers.
Your cab­in will have soap, sham­poo, and of­ten con­di­tion­er and lo­tion but qual­ity varies (you may, for in­stance, on­ly have liq­uid soap). If you're fussy about prod­ucts, bring your own. Most ships will sell you any­thing you for­get — tooth­brush­es, ra­zors, sun­screen, et­cand so on. If you like a pow­er­ful hairdry­er you may want to pack your own, as those in cab­ins tend to be weak.
All Amer­ican-op­er­at­ed ships are equipped with 110 AC cur­rent (both 110 and 220 on many). But if you are trav­el­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, on a non-Amer­ican cruise line, you may want to check if you need an adapter for your elec­tron­ic de­vices (cell phone, lap­top, et al). Note that most cruise cab­ins have on­ly a cou­ple of out­lets, so if you're bring­ing nu­mer­ous elec­tron­ic de­vices, you might want to bring along a small pow­er strip.
Pack­ing Check­list:
On all cruis­es you'll want to re­mem­ber to bring a small day bag. On the day you board your ship, it can take up to 8 hours for your lug­gage to be de­liv­ered to your cab­in, so fill the bag with all the es­sen­tials (medicines, doc­umen­ta­tion, and so on) that you'll need for the day. The bag will al­so come in handy when you're out ex­plor­ing the ports of call.
No mat­ter where you're sail­ing, don't for­get to pack your cam­era. Bring binoc­ulars if you're on a cruise where you are like­ly to see wildlife. Carefully con­sid­er the the excursions you plan on tak­ing and make sure to bring ap­pro­pri­ate at­tire. If you're go­ing to hit the gym, pack your sneak­ers and gym clothes. If you take any med­ica­tions, make sure you to bring them along with you.
A spe­cial tip for ladies: ac­ces­sories such as scarves and jew­el­ry al­low you to wear a sim­ple black dress more than once. Clas­sic mix-and-match sep­arates in neu­tral col­ors will al­so work well and cut down on the at­tire you need to bring.

Pack Based On Climate:

Warm Weath­er

• T-shirts or po­los
• Shorts, sun­dress­es, and/or ca­su­al skirts
• Evening­wear
• Bathing suits with cov­er-ups
• Walk­ing shoes or com­fort­able san­dals
• Light rain jack­et, pon­cho, and/or fold­ing um­brel­la
• Sweater or shawl (for ship­board air-con­di­tion­ing)
• Aqua-socks (for snorke­ling, kayak­ing)
• Sun­glass­es
• Sun­screen
• Mosquito re­pel­lent
• Sun hat
• There's no need to pack a beach tow­el as these are pro­vid­ed ship­board.

Cold Weath­er

• Wa­ter­proof jack­et
• Sweaters, fleece pullovers, or a warm vest
• Pants or jeans
• Walk­ing shoes (prefer­ably wa­ter­proof)
• Warm hat and gloves
• Fold­ing um­brel­la
• Sun­screen
• Mosquito re­pel­lent(especially in Alaska)
• Evening­wear
• Sun­glass­es
• Swim­suit (for hot tub)

Mod­er­ate Temps

• Light jack­et
• Sweater
• Shorts and pants
• Good walk­ing shoes
• T-shirts and po­los
• Long-sleeved shirt
• Evening­wear
• Sun­glass­es
• Hat
• Fold­ing um­brel­la
• Swim­suit (for hot tub) 

For more information on cruises and other travel needs, don't hesitate to contact us!

www.getescapes.com

407-740-6464

F. Golden USATT

NORWEGIAN BREAKAWAY ICE BAR AT SEA

ICE at SEA!

This week the NORWEGIAN BREAKAWAY docked at Port Canaveral as a "Port of Call" for guests sailing from New York to the Caribbean Islands. We here at Great Escapes Travel were invited to come over and board for the afternoon to tour the massive ship and have dinner.

If you haven't heard of the ship - here are a few quick facts....
The gross tonnage is 146,600 tons.
Overall length is 1,062 feet.

Cruising speed of 21.5 knots.
Guest occupancy can reach 4,028, and there is a crew of 1,640.
28 restaurants, many specialty and just as many that are included in your price.

Two sister ships are being built for delivery in the next two years and hopefully Port Canaveral will be home
base for one.

We'll be showing more pictures via social media of the ship periodically, but we thought we'd start off with
this fun blog.
On DECK 8 along with other pubs and night spots such as Fat Cats Jazz and Blues Club, The Humidor Cigar Lounge,  Malting's Beer and Whiskey bar, Prime Meridian, Shakers Cocktail Bar you have ...
drum roll please........ICE BAR.

Have a seat!

For those passing by or having a cocktail at the ICE BAR without asking, you'll never know that behind that steel door is a room that has furniture and a bar made of ice!
Yep, ice! Constant temperature of 17 degrees and fur seat covers so you won't stick to the seats. The coldest vodka shots at sea!

As a specialty item bar, for $20.00 added to your stateroom account, you are allowed 45 minutes to enjoy with 2 drinks of choice, parka included!

Don't try to Belly Up At This Bar!

 For more information on this incredible ship and to book your voyage, call us!

GREAT ESCAPES TRAVEL 

407 740 6464

www.getescapes.com