Choosing a Cruise Cabin

About.com has a great article on the relative merits of different cabin locations on a luxury cruise.

You can read the article here, or to summarize in a few sentences they note that you'll save a lot with an inside cabin and for many that usually-very-tight-space will be just fine since they'll be using it mostly just for sleeping. However they also say a window and balcony cabin is much nicer and a thus a fine place to relax on the ship.

Thanks to the economic difficulties this may be an exceptional time to plan a short cruise, especially if you take advantage of the "last minute" specials that all cruise lines offer. The cruise travel economy is *huge* and very complicated, so the best first start is to surf online to the various company websites to get a basic feel for places, amenities, and costs. I've listed a few of these sites below. After you have a sense of costs and what you might want, dig deeper online searching for "discount cruises" and view several major travel sites for specials and deals. My understanding is that generally your lowest costs will come from specials as they seek to fill a boat in the month or week before the cruise sets sail, so as with almost all travel try to be as flexible as possible for the best bargains.

www.NCL.com
www.Carnival.com
www.Princess.com
www.RoyalCaribbean.com
www.CelebrityCruises.com
www.HollandAmerica.com

Mont St Michel in France

Approaching the Mont
Originally uploaded by dennis and aimee jonez

The Magnificent Mont St Michel, originally callled Mont Tombe, has played an important role in history for almost 1500 years. It was an early stronghold of Rome until AD 460. Mont St Michel was ransacked by the Franks around the year 700.

In the year 933 William I annexed the region including Mont St Michel for Normandy and remained under Norman control during their conquest of England in 1066.

As reformation fervor waned the abbey lost it's significance and the Abbey of Mont St Michel was turned into a prison for several decades, closing in 1863.

Mont St Michel is now a Unesco World Heritage site, recognized for it's unique role in geographical as well as human history.

Minuteman National Historical Park - candlelight walk

Minuteman National Historical Park - candlelight walk
Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

If you find yourself in Boston around mid Aprilyou'll want to check into the wonderful candlelight tours and reenactments of early US History at the Minuteman National Park battlefield area as well as in Concord, Lexington, and the greater Boston area.

Local history enthusiasts dress in period costume and perform, battle, shoot and march over the countryside much as their ancestors did in the formative years of the USA over 230 years ago.

Montmartre Paris, at Metropolitain Subway Stop near Sacre Coeur

Montmartre offers some of Paris' most intriguing cityscapes. The Metropolitain Subway Stop, the Pigalle "red light district", the magnificent Sacre Couer Cathedral looming above the world's most famous nightclub, the Moulin Rouge.

When visiting be sure to take the long walk through the windy streets just below Sacre Couer where you'll find some of the sources of the inspiration for many masters of the art world.

Montmartre at Wikipedia

Montmartre near Sacre Coeur

Depression Coming? How about some Campbell's Soup.

This is a Campbell's Soup magazine advertisement from December of 1929. Although the crash of 1929 was in October the full blown depression era was just beginning and would last through most of the 1930's. Interestingly the cost for a can of Campbell's Soup in 1929 was a whopping .12 Although that might not sound like much compared to today's cost of about 1.25 per can it is important to note that if you'd put that .12 in average DOW listed blue chip stocks at the time it would have become by now approximately $4.40
DOW 200 vs current DOW 8400 = 42x increase. So be thankful that Campbell's soup remains ... a bargain even in these troubled times.

Miami History: Essex House Hotel

Essex House Hotel
Originally uploaded by Photog*Phillip

The Miami area has a history going back over 1000 years to the native Tequesta Indians. The Tequesta were displaced by the Spanish who built a Mission in Miami in 1567. However Miami's rise to global prominence as a key center of US culture and commerce is a a fairly recent phenomenon, fueled in part by a large influx of Cubans after Fidel Castro overthrew Batista in Cuba in 1959 and hundreds of thousands of Cubans left the Island, many to settle in the USA.

"Migrant Mother", one of the USA's most famous pictures, was taken in February or March of 1936 by Dorothea Lange. Pictured are Florence Owens Thompson, then 32 years old, and her children who are now grown. Katherine, who is the girl to the left burying her face in shame in this picture, was interviewed this week by CNN. Click here for more.

As economic uncertainty once again grips the USA we'll see more references to the great depression - the worst economic time in the history of the USA with terrible conditions that extended to other countries. Thankfully, most experts think the US won't face depression era conditions even as conditions become worse.