Last Minute Caribbean Deals

JetBlue will begin its first international service from Orlando
International Airport this winter with the launch of nonstop service to
Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic beginning March 6, 2008
(subject to receipt of government operating authority). With 10 flights
a day to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, JetBlue offers
travelers the most nonstop service to the Caribbean of any airline at
Orlando International Airport.

This winter JetBlue will offer as many as 220 weekly roundtrips
between the U.S. mainland and 11 destinations across the
Caribbean/Atlantic region.

For any die-hard cruise fans (or up and coming cruise fans) you can view the schedules of most every cruise ship in the world online. CruiseCal.com is an awesome website to check where each cruise ship is currently docked. The site lists arrival and departure times and even notes if the ship is going to be late. Along with the daily list of ships each one has links to individual calendars for each ship and each port. For those ports and ships that have webcams available, a link is also provided.

Most every cruise ship these days has satellite Internet access. Not only can cruise ship passengers surf the web from anywhere in the world, anyone can view the cameras onboard. Not all cruise ships and cruise lines offer live feeds of the ships cameras. The image to the left is from the Carnival Liberty which I have personally sailed on. It looks like they are having great weather today! I wish I was laying by the pool myself.

It seems that everyone has their own individual way of searching the web and shopping online. With tabbed browsing now in Internet Explorer and Firefox you can be much more productive in your web surfing by looking at several things at the same time. I am a big fan of using tabbed browsing, especially when I am shopping online and comparing prices. For anyone who uses Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers there is a great add-on that allows you to preview pages within a browser window.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say you are searching for ‘Caribbean vacation deal’ in Google. When you hover your mouse cursor over the link you’d like to visit in Google a new icon will appear:

When you hover your mouse cursor over the blue icon, a new window will appear in your browser window and display the page:

You can browse the site from within that window or if you move your mouse cursor away from the window it will automatically close.

You can also lock the window on the screen by clicking on the lock button in the upper right of the window

If you would like to save that page for later (kind of like a temporary bookmark) you can click on the stacks icon on the left side of the window and save it.

Once you save the page in your stacks a new window will appear on the right side of your browser window where you can see all of your saved pages and visit them by simply clicking on the image

This cool tool has made my online searching and shopping much easier and I use it every day. I know I will be putting it to good use as I do my Christmas shopping.

You can download the add-on for Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari. Check out the Cooliris homepage for more details as well.

Do you have a cool tip for searching and shopping online? Please share it in the comments below.

Happy searching!

The Christmas holiday usually involves crowded shopping malls, gift wrapping, and plenty of family. Why not do something different this year and take a Caribbean cruise? We are less than a month away from Christmas and now is a perfect time to visit the Caribbean (when isn’t it a perfect time?). Carnival Cruise Lines has great rates right now in Caribbean cruises for December and January. Giving a cruise as a Christmas gift is also a great idea for the person who has everything and a flexible schedule.

If you are not comfortable booking a cruise online, Carnival has an amazing reservations staff who can walk you through the entire process. They are very helpful with answering questions and helping make decisions on cruise planning.  They can even help you find the cheapest price based on cabin availability.

This past weekend, the weather turned pretty cold here in Florida which made me think.. It’s time to plan the next mini-vacation. One place that has been on my list for years has been St. Kitts. When I first moved to Florida a friend of mine recommended St. Kitts to me as “the best island in the Caribbean”. I’m not ready to claim any island as my favorite yet until I’ve seen them all. So, what is it about St. Kitts that is so special?

The first thing that I noticed is that American Airlines will soon be offering non-stop flights to St. Kitts from Miami and San Juan. Delta will also begin flying non-stop to St. Kitts from Atlanta in February. That fact alone puts St. Kitts pretty high on the list. When I take a mini-vacation the last thing I want to do is spend a day hopping from one airport to another. The quicker I get there the better. If flying isn’t an option, there are several cruise ships that pull into Port Zante. Unfortunately the Port Zante website doesn’t keep updated with the Cruise Ship Schedules but I was able to find that Carnival Destiny and Carnival Victory make weekly stops in St. Kitts. On occasion the huge Queen Mary 2 also makes a stop as well. St. Kitts also estimates that cruise travel will increase as much as 70% in 2008.

If St. Kitts is a bit out of reach for your next Caribbean Vacation, Travelocity is currently running specials on other Caribbean destinations.

For me, I’m going to do more research on St. Kitts. Here are a couple of books I’ve picked up about St. Kitts and Nevis:

Antigua, Barbuda St. Kitts & Nevis Alive (Antigua, Barbuda, St Kitts & Nevis Alive!)
St Kitts: Cradle of the Caribbean

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