Our Last Minute Camping Trip..

For those of you who personally know Stef and I, you know that between the two of us, we have enough kids to have our own professional baseball team(we keep hoping they will become good enough players someday to fund our retirement) and yes, this is our retirement plan.

So one thing you should also know about us is that we are both famous for our lack of planning when it comes to our personal lives.  Last minute camping trips are the norm for us.  Stef and I have been talking about this camping trip for nearly a month now, both having good intentions of calling to make reservations and seeing how we are planning on camping this upcoming weekend, we felt today was a great day to reserve our camping spot.  So it will come as no surprise to those of you who excel in planning ahead that nearly every camp ground site in Minnesota was taken...

But, you'll be happy to know that we were able to snag the last camping site at a beautiful private camp ground resort near Alexandria, MN at the Linwood Resort on Lake Osakis!  Keep a look out for our blog post about our last minute camping trip!

Becky's Review of the Hotel Marina El Cid in the Riviera Maya

Stefanie and I love to encourage our clients we've booked trips for to write reviews of the resorts they've stayed at.  We think it's helpful to let people read about others' experiences at different resorts around the world, and hopefully will inspire others to take that much needed vacation themselves.

Don't forget to go and LIKE our Facebook Page to get your review published on our blog and get a $25 gift card of your choice!

We'd like to say thank you to Becky for being so kind to share her experience with everyone at the beautiful Hotel Marina El Cid in the lovely Riviera Maya in Mexico. This vacation included a total of 19 people from 5 different families! If you like Becky's review of this resort, call or Email Us and let us plan your next long awaited vacation!  Becky was also gracious enough to share some fun photos of her vacation, so don't forget to scroll down to see them!

19 of us stayed at the Elcid resort in Mexico, Riveria Maya. 
Our stay was over Christmas 2010. The over all week was very wonderful, there were 5 families. We wanted our rooms to be closer together and that wasn't really the case(some had more people) and booked bigger rooms, although my husband and I booked our room to be adjoining to our kids (ages 20 and 12) the first night we were there we didn't have adjoining rooms but, the next morning I went to the front desk and not only were they able to get us adjoining rooms our room ended up being a honey moon suite. Some of the other rooms seemed on the smaller side.
The entertainment was really good they even had Santa arrive on a boat Christmas eve afternoon. They had nightly local entertainment which was enjoyable to all.
They had staff playing/ getting kids involved in water sports as well as beach volleyball. Also I don't think this part was part of the resort but, they had people going around with certain local animals that you could get pictures taken with.

The front desk was very helpful with taxis and arranging tours.
Over all our favorite meals were the buffets, the buffets worked well with kids we have been to a different resort where you had a better selection of restaurants and the meals were much more memorable, like I said this worked well for the size group we had. Our least favorite meal was Christmas eve which we would of been better off going to the buffet.
We booked our snorkeling ahead of time it was with a lady named Laura I think, she did great booking this for all 19 of us. We were able to snorkel in three different places.
We also booked massages with Sandra which was really getting the experience of mayan jungle massages.
For the week our extra things we did were jungle massages very worth it, snorkeling, deep sea fishing and the Mayan Ruins. 
We did have a very great week, I would recommend this resort, I feel they could bring the food up a few notches. Maybe I expected too much because of our first time in Mexico.

We did book a year in advance and gave Stephanie a price we could all live with and she was able to book the trip for the price we gave her. We felt the price was very good considering we were gone over Christmas for 9 nights. Stephanie did a very good job working with 5 families.


~Becky Bettinger

Are You A Giver Or A Taker?

I came across this article today.  It's a funny play on words story about the givers and takers in the world.  It made me giggle, hopefully it will you too.. enjoy!

"There are two kinds of people in the world: givers and takers. Takers might eat well, but givers sleep better at night." Aha!

Your humble scribe has not been sleeping well lately.See photo.I thought it might have something to do with the stress of keeping pace with atornado toddlerand an almost bursting-at-the-seams, over-pregnant wife, all the while fending back the weeds threatening to overrun the house and take over the kingdom, even while renovating an old room with crooked walls and a slanted floor to become a modern nursery for our Beany-Baby-to-be, and somehow trying to earn a few dollars to keep my ever-so-friendly and oh-so-understanding bank manager from gleefully slapping "past-due" stickers all over my front door.

Now I learn that my lack of sleep is from taking too much and not giving enough. So I set out to give as much as I could.

I decided to start by giving advice. "The blue would look better on you."

"What?" my wife asked. "You never comment on what I'm wearing, at least not voluntarily."

"It's my new sleep therapy," I explained with excitement. "Givers sleep better than takers, so I just gave you some advice."

"Well, while you're at it, is there anything else you want to give?"

I saw my chance to give a compliment. "Overall, you are really beautiful."

"Why, thank you."

I was on a roll. I was really giving. This was my chance to give her my opinion. "Your hair is kind of ugly like that."

"What?! You take that back!"

"No, I can't," I protested. "That would make me a taker and I won't be able to sleep."

"Then you can just take your silly opinions and get out of here."

"No, I can't do that. I can't take ..." My sentence was cut short by the hard realization that my nose and a door could not occupy the same space at the same time.

Give to thy mother

I decided to call my mother. "Hi mom. I thought I would give you a quick call."

"How sweet. You took the time to call your mother."

"No. No. I didn't take anything," I protested.

"Oh yes you did. You even took my advice to call more often. And you took account of your mother's feelings. And you took ... Hello? Hello?"

I just could not take any more. I scrambled out the door, the receiver still dangling from the table.

Give to thy neighbor

I had to take off. No, that would just keep me from sleeping. I saw my neighbor. Surely I could give him a hand.

"Sorry. Today I'm just relaxing." He studied the stress etched upon my face. "You look like you should use some sleep. Why don't you take a break, too."

"No, I can't take a break. Takers don't sleep well at night."

"Well, at least you're taking a stand on something."

"I am NOT taking a stand," I protested. I was beginning to feel like a career protester.

"Take it easy, fellow."

Yikes! My neighbor was making me into a champion taker. I darted back toward my house.

"Take care," my neighbor called after me.

"Noooooooooo" I screamed with my hands over my ears.

Crouched in the safety of my favorite closet, I tallied up the day. I gave advice, a compliment and my opinion. I took it back, my silly opinions, the time, my mother's advice and account of my mother's feelings, off, a break, a stand, it easy and care. I gave three times and took ten times.

No wonder I wasn't sleeping well at night. I was truly a taker. There was nothing left to do but to take a sleeping pill. That should give me at least five hours of sleep, give or take a few.

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Read more:http://www.thehappyguy.com/give-sleep.html#permission#ixzz1sQKXqOIf

David Leonhardt publishesThe Happy Guy humor column. Get a free humor ebook with your purchase ofClimb Your Stairway to Heaven. Check out also the freeA Daily Dose of Happiness ezineDavid Leonhardt also runsa Liquid Vitamins website.

Read more:http://www.thehappyguy.com/give-sleep.html#permission#ixzz1sQJZR8sh

You Know You Need A Travel Agent When...

You're about to plan the family vacation of your dreams.  You know, the long awaited all-inclusive fiesta on the breathtaking beaches in Mexico, where you have dreams of your kids building sand castles on the pristine white beach, you and your lovely spouse lay on your beach chairs, sipping Margaritas(with the cute little cocktail parasols in them), soaking up the warm sun, thinking to yourselves now this is the life!


Of course in your dream, everything is absolutely perfect.  Your suite.  The food.  The planned activities for the kids.  And your super cute Cabana boy named Pablo who's quick to bring you your next drink, snack, or to provide you with some beautiful scenery.


For the most of us, taking our dream vacation or going on your long awaited honeymoon takes a huge sacrifice financially and also personally.  You're faced with making deliberate, calculated decisions like:  do you take a day off for that doctor's appointment(the one you've been waiting to get in with for over three months), or do you save it up for our vacation?  Should we take the kids out to eat for a fun evening out, or stay home, and cook rice and beans to save more money up for our trip?  The point being that vacations are generally BIG deals for most people, and when you do get the privilege to depart on your long awaited respite, you WANT everything to go perfect.

So with that being said, rather than write a predictable article listing some of the many reasons you should use a travel agent, I thought I'd have a little fun, and hopefully you will too!

You know you need a travel agent when... you get to the airport, only to find that your flight that you booked online  is cancelled due to mechanical problems.  So, you get out your handy dandy itinerary you printed from bookyourvacationonline.com, call their customer service number.. wait on hold for 15 minutes... before an agent(who appears to speak more Arabic than English) answers.  After another 10 minutes, most of which you spend repeating 'what? can you say that again please?', Abdul informs you there's nothing he can do for you and that you need to contact the airline.  So you make your way to the airline's booth... and see the other 300 displaced travellers already in line... and wonder if a riot might break out.

You know you need a travel agent when... Two days later than expected you arrive at your resort eagerly anticipating the beautiful pools, ocean front suites, and the kids tropical water slide park... instead, what you ACTUALLY see are weeds taller than the buildings, the swimming pools are green(and not the good kind of green either), vaguely, you hear your 9yr old ask if you think that's mold growing inside the pool.  As for the ocean front rooms, well, the beach is really 3 blocks away, but if you look through the overgrown shrubs at just the right angle, you can catch a tiny glimpse of the ocean... though you might need to buy some binoculars.

You know you need a travel agent when...  you check in to your three room ocean front suite and are informed that they overbooked and your room is not available.  In their effort to have great customer service, they have one room available.. in the employees quarters.  So instead of your sleep number beds with Egyptian cotton bedding, you have two sets of bunk beds(they kindly offered to put in a pack n play for the baby), with one tiny window with the view of the garbage cans out back.  Oh, and that super cute Cabana boy Pablo.. well, now you're sharing a bathroom with him and 14 other employees.  

One of the many benefits to using a travel agent is that when something goes wrong, you only have to make ONE call to your agent and they will handle any problems that arise.  That's part of our job, we will ensure you have your dream vacation by handling issues like cancelled flights, overbooked rooms, resorts not meeting your expectations, poor customer service, etc.  This is a value added service which we take pride in providing at no extra charge to you.

Does anyone have any nightmare travel stories?  If so, how did you handle them and how did they turn out?

Please consider using Becker World Travel when planning your next vacation.  We'd love to have you!

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