Whats to be done when you need vacation packages? Times used to be simpler. You chose your seaside location and designated either a few days or weeks. It was far safer to travel in those days. Terrorism was a term used to describe the latest Hitchcock thriller. 911 was a number you associated with late-night stores. Then people could store their electrical goods under their aircraft seats and it was debatable if you really should extinguish a cigarette on take off! Prior to take off the stewardess would issue boiled candies to suck. I recall as a child being invited up to the cockpit to see how they drove the aircraft. If I attempted to do this now, I would be looking at several months to years extended all inclusive vacation in a detention center. Vacationing is not what it used to be.

So how do you go about assessing cruise vacation packages? Oooops, I made a postulate there. It wasnt so long ago, you could acquire a return flight, arrive at your destination, grab a cab and say take me to a good hotel that isnt too expensive! Those were different times. Today, during holiday season, that question will elicit in the cabbies mind the word chump. You just stated that you have cash in your pocket, you dont now what you are doing at this location and you are prepared to blindly hand over your holiday spending money. And the cabbie will expect a copious tip for divulging this local insight. We hope those times are gone. Nowadays people to not want to jeopardize their limited and precious time. They want a vacation PACKAGE. People would rather not concern themselves with exchange rates, if the water is safe to drink and where they should eat. They want all-inclusive vacation resorts that ensure them the basic elements of any quality vacation. They want to know that there is transportation to and from their hotel and that the pool can be accessed directly from the hotel lobby. They also want to understand that the villa has a safe that they can leave their monies and identity papers (passports or visas) while they are out site-seeing.

Vacation resorts are unfortunately a diversion from our every day work schedules. I say unfortunately because it presupposes resistance to the major part of our waking day. The paradigm of dissipating 85 per cent of our waking day to simply pay bills is not logical to me. The contention that we may not have enough in the future and therefore are required to keep working for the large corporates, doesnt make sense. Personal experience has been that if you follow your passion, something fortuitous always turns up. Just like they say if you do what you have always done, then you can expect what you always get. There is no room for modification? Who can doubt, if you cease banging your head against the wall it feels wonderful when you stop, but that wont justify striking your head from the get-go!