Colorado Springs, CO.  Red Carpet Cruises, Cruise Vacation Specialists.

Queen Mary 2, here we come!

1) Bad economies need good vacations.
2) Next up, QM2!
3) Twitter a virtual World Cruise?
4) Check out the new website.

1) Well it’s been a heck of a year so far for our new cruise business.  Even with the state of the economy we’re well on pace to meet our first year goals.  The unemployment rate is uncomfortably high but for those fortunate enough to be riding out the economic storm so far, its not that people don’t have money but that they’re being very cautious about how they’re spending it. 

And I seem to be reading more and more lately that with all the stress so many of us are under these days, that taking some time off to just get away and recharge our batteries is getting to be more important for both our mental and physical well being.  

I think that’s part of the reason we’re selling cruise vacations.  It’s a fantastic stress reducing experience and an incredible value, even more so this year with the cruise lines doing whatever is necessary to fill their ships.

So think about it, won’t you? Take a break and come cruising with us.  Life will still be here when we get back.

2) So as I mentioned last time, we’ll be packing our cruise bags again in a couple of months!  I know, I know, it’s a dirty job but someone’s got to get out there and report the cruise news back to Colorado!

I am really excited about this cruise, my first experience with the grande dame of luxury cruise lines, Cunard, aboard their flagship, the magnificent Queen Mary 2.  We’ll be doing a short, 4-day Labor Day cruise out of New York City up the east coast with one stop in Canada and then back to New York.

Cunard is the oldest cruise line, with a 140-year tradition of superior service and luxury.  It was a Cunard ship, the Carpathia that was the first to reach the survivors of the Titanic and save 705 people.

At 160,000 gross tonnes, the QM2 is enormous (the Solstice by comparison, considered a megaship, is 122,000 tonnes).  The QM2 is currently the largest cruise ship in the world, although she will relinquish that title this December when Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas makes her debut at an astonishing 220,000 gross tonnes (and yes, Crystal and I will be on a special ‘agents only’ invitational two-day cruise on the Oasis of the Seas in November).

This short cruise is an excellent, relatively inexpensive way to experience a true luxury line aboard arguably the most famous cruise ship in the world.  There are still a few cabins available if you want to join my family and me on this cruise.  Otherwise, I’ll be blogging, tweeting, taking pics and video to send back to our Red Carpet Cruises website for you to enjoy.

3) Speaking of tweeting, starting next week I’m going to do something that hopefully will be interesting, fun and educational for some of you.  I will begin a virtual cruise for the 2010 World Cruise Itinerary of the QM2 on Twitter. 

Each day I’ll tweet a short message on where in the world we’d be today if we were on this 106-day cruise around the world.  We’ll be making 35 port stops on 6 different continents and along the way I’ll tweet some of the ‘101 things you can do on the Queen Mary 2’

If you’re interested, sign yourself up for a free Twitter account (http://www.twitter.com), search for ‘CruiseKing’ and click ‘follow’.  That’s all there is to it.

Check out our brand new website, http://www.redcarpetcruises.com.  I love this new website, it is such a quantum leap forward for us.  With this new website we now have very strong community capabilities, with individual blogs and photo galleries for our RCC (Red Carpet Cruises) members to use to communicate with each other.

The photo strip you’ll see running across the home page is now filled with actual cruise photos taken by our clients.  I think that’s a lot more fun to look at then the standard stock footage you usually see on cruise websites. 

We also have a forum section where we can talk about various cruise topics and perhaps use as a way to bring groups of people together for better pricing and amenities on cruises that interest them.

You’ll notice specific portals now for the Cunard and the Air Force Academy (USAFA).  We won a contract (technically a Memorandum of Agreement) with the Air Force Academy and now book all their cruises.  We’ll be doing Spring Break and Graduation cruises for the cadets and special cruises for the AOG (Association of Graduates) like our upcoming Valentine’s Day Cruise.

The Cunard portal is my special project since I want to really focus on selling World Cruises, the holy grail of cruise bookings for cruise agents.  Nothing like a good challenge in land locked Colorado, eh?

Finally, a huge new feature that has a lot of people excited is that with this new website we’ll be able to set up auto debit cruise vacation accounts for you.  So just as many of you now have Sun Spot Atlantis auto debit your monthly membership fee for your convenience, we will now be able to set up accounts so you can book a cruise down the road and then if you wish, set up a monthly auto debit payment plan so that by the time your cruise date arrives, your cruise is already paid for! 

We’re about to book our first cruise, a 15-night Panama Canal sailing in early 2011, under this new program.  Having us set up an auto debit payment plan made the difference for this customer.

I have to take just a minute to thank Mike Schmidt and his son Lucas for their incredible work on this website.  Mike’s company, Ensemble Ventures, architected this entire project from cradle to grave and did 100% of the work that you see.  If you need a good website company, these are your guys.

Whew!  I guess I had a lot to say in this email.  Thanks for listening.

Until next time, remember;

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page.”

                                                                                                - St. Augustine


Ric

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