Now headed towards Finland

The business class of Boeing 777 is nice. I am on my way to Helsinki via Frankfurt. Another 17 hours with the layover in Frankfurt. These flights are tiring, burt business class with good American service makes a difference

American Airlines treats their premium clients well

I have been flying American Airlines as a customer now close to 9 years and the last three years as executive platinum. Let me tell you one thing.... They treat me as thei number one priority and this is also the opinion of my wife who is a former flight attendant for a Danish airline.

There is absolutely no reason what so ever for me to use anybody else than American Airlines. I hope they stay in business as long as I fly!

Piece of advice to American Airlines clients travelling from Baltimore, MD

The cab trip from hotel to airport in early morning went well and smoothly. Same smoothness could be experienced in the security lines so I was far too early at the airport.

Baltimore airport does not have Admirals Club, the American terminal is undergoing construction, so if you are too early, you won't have lot's of services. So I am hanging here for at least 2 hours waiting on my flight....

Baltimore has changed during the years in a positive way

My hotel, Marriot by the Waterfront was really a nice experience and I would recommend it to anybody. I used their gym, which was well equipped and had everything I needed. The employees did well taking care of the conference participants and SPLC 2006 was well arranged.

The hotel surrounding had all I needed such as Best Buy (I had to buy a mouse), Starbucks, Barnes and Noble, Hard Rock Cafe (nothing for me) and many other things. The only sad thing that I did see was quite a few homeless people without destination.

Baltimore in my mind - the city with a beautiful harbour

I am on my way to Baltimore, a nice city in Maryland. This time I will participate in a software conference for software product line engineering.
I have been in Baltimore only once during the last 8 years, so it is going to be nice to see how the town has changed.... if at all....

American Airlines taking us back to Dallas

We are on our way to Dallas, and I have to admit that I am happy to get back home. We spent the lsst 30 minutes in a beautiful Admirals Club in on the San Juan airport and my son specifically loved to see planes arrive and take off.

Until next trip, stay tuned...

San Juan airport works well

I decided to post this message as somebody told me recently that the airport here in San Juan is a bad experience.... My experience tells me the contrary.... This morning we arrived to the airport bright and early, and everything worked very well.... better than many other airports I have been exposed to. The aiport has all of the things one needs such as Starbucks, Subway other typical service things one needs....

Diversity of employees on Carnival Cruise

Hardly ever you get to see so many nationalities to be represented like on a cruise ship.... Our cabin caretaker is from Goa, India.... the waiters seem to be from Thailand and Indonesia... Latvia.... and other lowpaying countries. It is pretty obvious what is going on.... I just hope they make enough so it is not waiste of their time and life. I have not seen a single Scandinavian or Western employee besides the captain and his highest ranking officers...

The ship is made in Italy, not in Finland as most of these Carnival Cruise ships are. I am happy this was the case as the breakdown of the ship caused us to lose one day... Not because of Finns, but due to Italian make... One has to have some pride of heritage...

Carnival Cruise strategy - move the labor pain to its clients

We discussed last night with my wife about the last day's experiences at the Carnival ship. The management of the crew made us all aware how hard the crew works 24x7, how unappreciative some of that work was and how much they were missing their family...

The next we knew, they were spreading letters to the clients... by saying that it is to the discretion of each one of us to put money in the letter... The cruise line had advertised that each client has to pay each day a specific amount as tip that would be spread around the employees. That's it... No worries about how much to pay..

So, please Carnival cruise.... Stop spreading your own disgust that you have on your labor conditions to you clients. If you feel so bad, pay these hardworking guys more....

Plaza Las Americas - Huge mall in San Juan, Puerto Rico

The experience of Plaza Las Americas is a plesant one and according to my wife (she knows better), it is better to many other malls in Texas.

We decided to check out the new movie "Miami Vice" with my son in the Caribbean Cinemas at Plaza las Americas. We had to check first that it is not dubbed to spanish as we would not be abnle to understand anything.

Borders was a big one and had a good selection of both business and IT books as these are something that I love to explore.

We are back in San Juan - rating of the trip

The ship arrived to San Juan early in the morning on Sunday. The weather in San Juan is rainy, but as it is warm, it really does not matter.

Today, we will head towards the "Mall of Americas", which supposingly has Borders bookstore and that is what I need now. Also, we need to continue exploring the old San Juan town as we did not have a chance to do that as well we wanted before the cruise.

How do we rate this trip.... I would say average from Carnival Cruise perspective, and perfect from family perspective. We have decided to explore other cruise lines as well to see what alternatives one has on these trips.

Carnival Cruise and labor conditions

I am not sure how to feel about all of the hard working guys on these cruise ships.... they are working their tail off.... I have now seen first hand how a company can use its employees when a labor union is not involved. As an example.... the waiters in this ship are working 7 days a week with a lunch break... They are doing it for 6 to 7 months in a row... and what is interesting is that they have to renew their contract after this.... How convinient to Carnival Cruise.... These guys start fresh each time and they can get rid of the guys that they do not want... I think that people in the western world has to realize how well they are taken care of....

Do Carnival pay for the trips back home....? Of course not.... Each employee has to doi it themselves.... So that will eat up a big chunck of the income that these guys have earned...

I kind of feel bad to see this exploatation....

Last day on sea - is it for me?

As an active business person, I am not sure whether I am the right person to just sit and take sun while the ship sails. I used to have a nice boat while we lived in Finland, so I was the one navigating and making decisions on the route. I do know that I like the "one-day-in-each-island" concept, so I am sure to return to some of these cruises.

I also used the gym today, it was very nice and I recommend this type of activity to anyone that participates on these cruises.

Tomorrow morning we will return to San Juan and the Sheraton we stayed in the beginning of our trip.

Some advice to Carnival Cruise

Our stop in the beautiful Caribbean island St Lucia ended up us having to stay in the ship and closeby duty free shops. All of the Carnival Cruise arranged tours were cancelled due to heavy rain. However, Carnival Cruise did nothing to promote all of the outside entreprenours that would have been more than happy to arrange things for clients.

This is in fact my first Caribbean trip and I now know what the deal is. The money that these cruise lines are making is not coming from the cruise fee itself, but the drinking (not included in the cruise fee), all of the arranged tours etc.. So be prepared to double your trip budget so you can enjoy your journey.

St Lucia needs to be explored again

The St Lucia port looked very nice and we need to come back to St Lucia at a later date.

There are two airports in St Lucia, the one in south is a larger international airport and a smaller airport in the city where Carnival Cruise stayed for the day.

The last day is spent on a ship with the theme "Fun at Sea Day". This morning we were seated with four other nice people from Dallas, Texas and we exchanged contact information so we can be in touch later on.

Our kids have spent lot's of time in the kids club and they seemed to have enjoyed it very much. My son got to spend one night to 3.30 AM with other kids.... Overall, Carnival Cruise has arranged this side very well....

Stay tuned....

St Lucia - a memory of the past

St Lucia brings lots of memories to me. When I was around 12 years old, a girl in my class with relatives from the famous Eriksson family (Mariehamn, Aland) was supposed to move to St Lucia of some reason, but it never happened.... I am not sure why....

We arrived to St Lucia early in the morning (07.00 AM EST) and the weather was cloudy and rainy. We are about to leave for our last arranged tour, this time a 4X4 Adventure that let's us explore the nature from some kind of 4X4 vehicle. Let's see how the trip turns out.

Most beautiful gym in the world?

I decided to do som workout yesterday in probably one of the most beautiful gyms from a scenery perspective. The Carnival Destiny cruise liner has its gym in the 10th floor with windows as walls so you can enjoy the scenery while you work out. My scenery was the beautiful Barbados....

The gym even has a Scandinavian style sauna... I was first sceptical anbout it, but it really is a true sauna...

One needs to test out both...

Sea Turtles and old shipwreck in Barbados were unreal

We spent almost 4 hours on a guided trip where we had a chance to swim with sea turtles in natural environment. I have to say that we enjoyed the day very much.

It looks like Barbados is a place we are going to come again as we did not have time to visit the downtown area at all. Next time we will do it.

Now we are on our way to St Lucia, which is on the west side of Barbados... so we are on our way back to San Juan direction.

This has been very enjoyable trip and I have specifically enjoyed the fact that I have been together with my dear family.

Some glitches in the service when posting to blogger using the cell phone - posts in incorrect order

It looks like blogger.com did not get my posts as expected... so the readers of the blog might be wondering the order of the posts...

The trip destinations are as follows:

Flight Dallas, Texas - San Juan Puerto Rico

Carnival Cruise trips as follows:

San Juan- St Thomas
St Thomas - Dominica
Dominica - Barbados
Barbados - St Lucia
St Lucia - San Juan

The trip was cut short with one day due to problems with this Italian-made ship.... so instead of 7 days, it will sail for 6 days.

Cingular works well in Southern Caribbean - full GRPS access

I was surprised how well my GSM phone works in the Carribbean islands. Puerto Rico, St Thomas and today Dominic has full singular access so I have been able to access my email each day, which to me is unreal!

Now we are sitting in a tour bus on hour way to rainforest.... This island is volcanic.

Stay tuned....