Reservations at your Resort Specialty Restaurants
You’re booked into a week-long stay at your luxurious beachside resort (or week-long Caribbean cruise for that matters) and you’re tired of the buffet, the beachside tiki hut, and the grill house. The same food routine morning noon and night has lost it’s lustre.
Most larger resorts also offer a chance to upgrade (for a fee) to one of their specialty restaurants – like a steakhouse or a sushi bar or Italian restaurant. But to have dinner at one of these requires a reservation – up to 48 hours in advance and no earlier than 48 hours before a booking. And keep in mind the extra costs for these like your wine and the restaurant reservation charge usually are not included in your stay.
We recommend you hit the ground running and throw a mixture into your food selection.
- As you arrive, book your first specialty for the second day out.
- Mid-week, book the second specialty restaurant ahead of the rush.
- Keep in mind the morning lineups are pretty long as the booking desk opens at 9am, so make sure you have your mimosa in hand.
Scope out the selection of restaurants early in your vacation and keep mixing it up so the food doesn’t get boring – your taste buds will thank-you!
~ GG Staff
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Traveling as a group - have some fun!
Everyone likes to feel part of a group, right? Why not have some fun with the group and be able to corral them at the same time – both kids and adults alike!
- Bus trip excursions or arriving at your cruise ship for the embarkation processes, or at an amusement park – arrange to get group t-shirts made with a family
name or crested in a bright uniform color so they stand out in a crowd and know they belong together. - Casual night at a resort or on a cruise ship – have a hawaiin shirt night and take a bunch of pictures.
- Take goofy candids along the adventure - stick your tongue out, make a funny face, etc.
- Out on a family excursion as a larger group – have a leader carry something unique they can hold up like an umbrella (great for a spot of shade too) or walking stick that can stand out higher than a crowd for that extra point of sight.
Great memories, great bonding and some amusement for all!
~ GG Staff
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How to do laundry when traveling?
A week’s holiday requires a fair bit of clothes. You plan to explore that historic town for a few days, hike a mountain another day, swim, check out the market, have nice clothes for dinner. Warm days, cool nights … and that’s how many days of underthings?
I know some fellow travelers that pack it home with them and hold all their wash til they get home! Others spring a mid-week laundry day. We like to wash on the go and hang things up to dry overnight … and we apologize to the housekeeping team … the room cleaners who may stumble upon our dainties hanging in the bathroom!
Here’s a few simple tactics to keep the week-long mouldy things from getting so stanky:
- at your local lingerie store, pick up a small bottle of powdered fabric wash to hand wash items in the sink – or bathtub if the clothes are a little bigger. Wash at night, generally they will be dry by morning.
- Tide and other major laundry brands carry single packet laundry pouches for small batches of laundry on the go.
- If you know your Airbnb, or cruise line has laundry facilities, we pack a few Tide Pods to do an odd load and go. Hang to dry overnight and you’re back in business.
We find this allows us to cut the quantity of some items down dramatically, and keep the smell controlled for that exercise gear for those sweaty hikes where they can be washed and rinsed before the week long mould has a chance to settle in!
~ GG Staff
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Wifi on board a ship or plane – is it worth it?
Wifi service while traveling just hasn’t kept pace to the changes in technology that is constantly upgrading. At home you’re used to multi-channel, super high-speed unlimited access to your data and the web at a second’s notice – not so much when you’re traveling. And you come to expect your data flowing at a rate slightly better than the old dial up networks of the last century – especially for the price you pay!
Without some serious upgrade to hardware at your resort, on your cruise ship or in your hotel, you will pretty much need the patience of Job just to check your email – forget streaming Netflix or Hulu!
Don’t get me wrong, infrastructure is improving slowly:
most flights have some level of wifi available (a rare possibility as little as 5 years ago)- United Airlines even is beginning to offer free wifi on board some of its main flights,
- most metropolitan downtown cores offer a connected experience
- cruise ships are tied to satellite networks, so even more challenged!
but it’s still a far cry from what you are used to experiencing at home and what you pay a small fortune to get.
Our philosophy is that a vacation is a vacation and the purpose is to disconnect and recharge. IF wifi is available at a reasonable speed at a reasonable cost, we usually commit to an hour in the lobby (with a cocktail) where the service is strongest to check in before escaping back poolside.
Not to sound like a negative ninny, but keep in mind your personal data security on open wifi networks – even though networks haven’t kept up-to-speed – your friendly local hacker has improved their skills and can purloin your data faster than you may think! It’s far wiser to increase your data rates and travel plans to surf via personal hotspot or purchase the services of a good VPN for the speed and security you will be gaining.
~ GG Staff
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Top 5 Best Pizza in the US (2018)
According to TripAdvisor reviews from visitors enjoying (and rating) pizza's across the United States, a Top 5 Best Pizza's in the US has been revealed.
GoGirlfriend had the absolute pleasure to visit Regina Pizza while conferencing in Boston and I must say, Regina Pizza truly deserves a Top 5 ranking. It was a truly delicious pizza, hand tossed and made with fresh ingredients that wowed us! Now, as to whether it deserves the #1 spot requires us to do a little more traveling. Considering how much we love pizza, we'll have to see if we can explore this list.
Here's the reference article from USA Today and the visitor rated rankings:
- #1 spot - Regina Pizza – here's where in North End, Boston
- #2 spot - Bleeker Street Pizza – here's where in New York City's Greenwich Village
- #3 spot - Modern Apizza - here's where in New Haven, Conneticut
- #4 spot - Home Slice Pizza - here's where in Austin, Texas
- #5 spot - Moose’s Tooth Pub and Pizzeria - here's where in Anchorage, Alaska
Have you enjoyed one of these esteemed pizzeria's? We're hunkering to ...
~ GG Staff
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Now where did I park?
As a frequent air traveller, park n fly is often the cheapest parking option for longer adventures. I always take a photo on my 
phone of the pole or aisle marker so I have a quick and easy reference when I'm trying to find my vehicle - certainly better than walking the lot and playing with your car alarm to help you find where you parked. Take a moment for a bit of parking-lot planning as you prepare to leave on your adventure to save some headaches when you return to a massive parking lot/garage.
This works wonderfully at any major theme park or shopping center where the massive lots make for a not-so-fun game of “where did I park”?
The next question may be ... Where did I put my keys?
Updated note: Make sure when you take your photo before your week of holidays you capture the floor level as well! From recent experience, I dutifully took my photo, left for a business trip to Boston/Salem and upon my wife and my return, we looked at the photo to see where we had parked and had to simply laugh - we had failed to capture the floor level of the b19 parking location. We began guessing at level 4 - nope, level 5 - nope! A secondary tip - the floors are also sorted by color. As we identified we were yellow b19, that allowed us to quickly find our vehicle on level 7. Even seasoned travelers still can learn something new!
~GG Staff
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A New Way to Hail a Cab
Hailing a cab in New York City is an adventure in and of itself. But thanks to some snappy new apps, you might up your odds of finding what you need quicker.
- Curb – Provides fairly reliable tracking of taxis nearby.
- Ride Arro - similarly allows you to find the nearest taxis
Sid-car – Opens up ride sharing opportunities for those who need a ride and those want to offer one.- WOW Taxi – Allows you to book a wheelchair accessible cab in Manhattan. In a city of more where only 200 of the 10,000 available taxis offer this service, this is a pretty sweet app.
- And lets not forget about the non-taxi sharing of Uber and Lyft.
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