Category: Travel Places

Road trips around the U.S.

We love road trips! Though we will love to visit every country eventually, since we live in the United States right now, we’ve done trips around here the most.

We’ve gone all around the Northeast, up n down the East Coast, all around the Southwest, and up n down the California Coast. We’re still working on the other corners and areas in between. I’ll try to add more road trip planning info and trip recaps of some of our past trips soon in the hopes that it’ll help you with your trip too.

In the meantime, here are some sites to start you thinking about the future road trips that we can all try to take when it’s safe to do so. Even if you can’t do the full trip, you can get ideas for the segments of the trips that are near the areas that you want to go to. And of course, you should adapt the itinerary to the pace that you like to take.

Feel free to contact me if you want to chat about planning your trip.

New Disney Wish Details

Disney Wish Atrium

Disney Cruise Lines has finally announced the sailing dates for their newest ship, the Disney Wish! We’ve been dyin’ to hear this and can’t wait to go! Drumroll…..

The maiden voyage will be a 5 night Bahamian cruise from Port Canaveral, Florida, on June 9, 2022! Ahhhhh!

That will be followed by their regular 3 and 4 night Bahamian sailings for the rest of that summer. Well, probably for the rest of time too, but they’ve only officially announced sailing dates through late September so far.

The sailings will open for booking in a few weeks, starting May 17, 2021, depending on your Castaway Club member level! Double Ahhhhh!

They also gave many cool details on the shows, restaurants, pools, water coaster!, entertainment areas, kids clubs, and cabin rooms! You have to watch the video below! It all looks amazing! I looooooove the gorgeous atrium design (above image), especially the wishing star concept of the chandelier!!

Watch the story behind the design concept of the Wish here.

Watch the official details video here. Fun fact, Ashley was the assistant cruise director on our Alaskan cruise many years ago, and the director of our Caribbean cruise a few years ago. She’s awesome! I hope this means that she will be the director of the Wish. Directors are the ones in charge of the entertainment, so they’re very important.

Read about the details of the Wish here. This has lots of still photos of what was revealed in the video above and was written by the owner of the travel agency I belong to.

Check the sailing itineraries for the Wish here.

Are you excited to sail on the new ship? Can you tell that I’m excited? Lol! Sorry for all the exclamations.

I would love to help you book it so that you can join us too! Email me!

National Park Week

National Park Week

This year, National Park Week is celebrated from April 17 – 25th. Parks around the country are hosting events, both virtual and in person, to mark the occasion. If you go in person, there’s also free admission on Saturday, April 17, 2021 for the ones that charge an entrance fee, though I don’t mind contributing to support the parks anyway.

We love the national parks! We hope to start travelling to more later this year once we’re all vaccinated. We’ve been to almost half of them so far, and honestly, cannot name one that we didn’t like. It’s hard to pick a favorite even. Each one is so different and so cool in its own way. Hopefully, you can learn more about each park and explore them yourself too.

Check out this NPS page for detailed information on all of the events to celebrate National Park Week.

Summer 2022 Disney Cruises

Disney cruise ships

Time to plan ahead! Disney Cruise Lines just released their next batch of sailings! You can now book any cruises through the end of September 2022. Hopefully, cruising will be somewhat back to normal by then. For now, you can just book with a deposit down, and can cancel for a full refund before your pay-in-full date. Just make sure to read the details to note the date and any restrictions. If you would like me to help with planning or to book your cruise, feel free to contact me.

View Disney Cruise Lines Summer 2022 sailings.

New River Gorge National Park

New River Gorge NP

Did you know that there is a new national park?

Located in southern West Virginia, the New River Gorge National River was officially designated as New River Gorge National Park and Preserve in early 2021. The park includes 70,000 acres of land, as well as the 53 mile long river, that provides many opportunities for outdoor recreation. The gorge is the longest and deepest river gorge in the Appalachian Mountains. The surrounding forest contains some of the oldest and most diverse flora and ecosystems in the world, where many endangered animals live.

Learn more about the newest national park here.

More Virtual Trips

Recognize this?

Did you love virtually visiting the national parks in my last post? I can’t wait until we can go to them in person too. If you want help planning your future trips to national parks, feel free to contact me. We’re working our way through all of them, though only about halfway there so far.

In the meantime, here are some more trips that you can take virtually for now – Samantha Brown’s Trips to Take. Unless you’re the ‘absolutely no spoilers’ type, I think these virtual trips are a great way to get acquainted with a place in order to plan future trips.

Visit a National Park

Alaska’s Kenai Fjords

Right now, many National Parks are still closed or have certain access restrictions in place. So, the best way to visit them is to travel virtually. Here’s a great article that summarizes all the different ways you can visit a National Park without actually visiting it! Stay safe!

Nintendo World opening date announced

Universal Studios Japan just announced the official opening date for their new Super Nintendo World section! It will finally open on February 4, 2021. If you’re a Nintendo fan, I’m sure you’ll be super excited. It looks incredible! We can’t wait until the travel situation gets better and we can go! For now, check out the pictures and videos here.

Support Disney cast members

carousel

You may have heard by now that Disney has been hit hard by Covid too. The parks were affected by lengthy shutdowns, and even upon opening, still have limited attendance and restrictions. This has caused them to need to lay off thousands of employees.

Here are some efforts that have sprung up so far to help these folks that have given us so much joy over the years. We’ve donated already. If you are able and willing, please look into these also.

Of course, there are many, many others around the world affected by Covid as well. Please support your local community resources also.

Thanks!