Have you and your betrothed given any thought to getting married on a cruise?

It can, and does, happen. In fact, one of the Princess Lines ships, the Grand Princess (and the folks that brought you the Love Boat) even has a wedding chapel.

Most cruises, however, while they may offer a wedding cruise, are actually going to perform the ceremony on land. You may marry at the port from which you are leaving or a port of call along the way.

Your cruise line wedding can cost anywhere from a low $300 to $75 for each guest attending. The $300 budget wedding provides the ceremony itself, the services of a notary, witnesses to the event, as well as cake and champagne. The upper end of the spectrum includes a bountiful buffet as well as open bar for your guests and yourself and spouse.

Once you book a wedding cruise you’ll be assigned a ship wedding consultant who will help with all arrangements. As part of your wedding package you’ll be able to choose wedding flowers and music. You’ll also have your own choice of photographer.

Wedding cruises are very popular. To book yours you’ll need to give your travel agent and the cruise line of your choice at least a year’s notice, and 18 months would be preferable.

One thing you’ll have to be aware of is that taking part in shipboard nuptials necessitates your being issued a marriage certificate of the home port of the ship line. If married aboard the Grand Princess, for example, your marriage license will be from Liberia. Make sure that your home state will accept this as a valid certificate.

There are so many cruise lines from which to choose – the most prominent being the aforementioned Princess Lines, Carnival Cruise Ships, Windjammer Barefoot Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Celebrity and Royal Caribbean.

Carnival Cruise Lines, for example, offers two types of packages for your dream wedding. You can choose a shipboard wedding, either small or for up to 100 guests, in the area of your choice, from a vast array of luxurious ship lounges. Besides the ceremony, this package includes boutonniere for the groom, bouquet for the bride, cake cutting and wedding topper, champagne toast, wedding march, sparkling wine served in beautiful keepsake champagne flutes, and photographer. These packages are $750 and up. You can also add an open bar and reception with hors d’oeuvres, as well as a magnificently sumptuous sit down lunch for you and your wedding guests. The ports of call you can choose from for your wedding ceremony include Montego Bay, Tampa, Vancouver, Catalina, Grand Cayman, San Juan and several other beautiful romantic sites.

A Carnival Island Destination Wedding, in contrast, includes transport to and from the wedding site of your choice – fantastic exotic places like Barbados, Montego Bay, Cozumel, San Juan, the island of Saint Thomas and Nassau. These romantic island nuptials start at just under $1000.

Jason Roberts
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/wedding-crusies-how-good-are-they-54770.html

We have a family of 5 ages 56, 48, 21, 19 and 16. We can’t have the children stay in seperate room because no one is not 25. If we book one room with my wife and one with me can my wife and I just switch and sleep in one room together and the kids in another? Will that work? Or does the cruise know whose supposed to sleep wherE?

you will have cabins or suits allowcated to a specific name because in an abandon ship situation you will be checked off against a cabin number .but you can change over no one will mind if the cabins are next to each other.

The card is used like a credit card or debit card. All of your purchases made onboard can be charged to a credit card, OR you can put money on the card and have a declining balance.

If you don’t want a child to be able to make any purchases, just ask them when they give you a card. Tell them that you don’t want a credit card linked to the card, nor do you want to put any money on the card. Then they will only be able to use the card to get on/off the ship.

You could just put a small amount of money on the card to let them buy souvenirs or something. If there’s a credit card or money on the card, they can buy anything (except for alcohol).

My wife and I had a great wedding. Family and friends on a gorgeous afternoon in the month of May. It couldn’t have gone better and as far as we’re concerned it was the best wedding we have ever been to. But then everyone says that about their wedding, probably even the people who send their wedding videos to those wedding bloopers shows.

But I digress. We chose to go on a cruise for our honeymoon, which turned out to be a lot of fun for both of us as neither of us had ever been on a cruise before. We cruised on one of the Fun Ships from Carnival Cruise Lines out of Port Orlando Florida. Now many of you experienced cruisers out there know all this but for us first timers going on a cruise was a new and novel experience.

Cruise ships are big, and the ship we were on was only considered medium sized. Trying to find our way around took a little getting used to, but by the second day it was pretty hard to get lost. The first thing we did was find our state room and drop of our carry on bags and then we were off to the lunch buffet up on the main pool deck.

Now here’s where it gets a little confusing for the first time cruiser. Standing in the line at the buffet it suddenly dawned on me that like most cruises this one was all inclusive, except for alcoholic drinks. That meant I could get as much food from the buffet and it was already paid for. Not only that I could come back as many times as I wanted, not that I did. Realizing that we didn’t have to carry money with us was kind of liberating. All we really needed was our room key which doubled as a kind of charge card for things, such as alcoholic drinks, that weren’t part of the all inclusive package.

After lunch it was time to explore the ship and see what it had to offer. I won’t go into big detail here other than to say there was a lot to be done on a cruise ship. On the upper main deck at the back of the ship was the casual dining establishment. It was always open and always had food available. Now as we walked through I noticed towards the back of the dining area a large kiosk. As we approached and came around it from behind it was like a dream come true.

A soft serve ice-cream machine. You know, like the ones at Dairy Queen. It took me a moment to realize that just like the lunch buffet back on the main pool deck this ice cream was absolutely free. Do you get that, for 5 days and 4 nights I could come and get either vanilla, chocolate, or, and this is the best part, chocolate vanilla swirl ice cream anytime I wanted.

And right next to the bowls and spoons was every topping imaginable. They had chocolate, caramel, sprinkles, hot fudge, peanuts, cherries and whipped topping. It was like getting locked inside a Dairy Queen for the night, only the night lasted for 5 days. I mean, come one, that ice cream machine was more than worth the price of the entire honeymoon cruise.

So if you ever get a chance to go on a cruise make sure to find out if the ship you want to go on has a soft serve ice-cream machine. I know I’m looking forward to the next time my wife and I go on a cruise just for that simple fact.

Andrew Bicknell
http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/honeymoon-cruises-and-ice-cream-machines-127317.html

Our Little community of rocky point has experienced an incredible ride. It has become known internationally as a tourist destination that will continue to develop into the future. The majority of the impressive growth has been led by the sales of condos, single family homes, and even raw land. There are several strong indicators that the positive growth cycle will continue, placing us on even more radar screens. Simply ponder the amount of time and money put into studying growth trends; market futures; and touristic patterns, by any major hotel group when looking to invest millions in a new destination market. Now think about these researchers representing the Marriott hotel group. The Marriott Penasco Bay is a 28 story 265 room four diamond resort. This is such a huge statement as they obviously didn´t choose Puerto Penasco overnight, or without knowing something. The feasibility analysis done by an empire like Marriott looks into so many aspects of the demands of seasoned first class travelers, that if Penasco was not positioned for stardom we would not see their logo on our horizon.

Another impressive indicator of international success is the selection of Rocky Point has a major home port for several large cruise ship companies. Representatives from cruise lines like Holland America, Princess and Carnival have all been here, and Mexico´s federal government has approved Rocky Point as a major hub in a joint effort as the result of many discussions among the experts. We have been receiving a lot of attention from the leaders of Mexico and many of Mexico´s most prominent investors. Obviously now, investors from all over the world have been watching Puerto Peñasco, Mexico.

Studies indicate that the future looks bright here because Rocky Point sits less than four hours from several major U.S. metropolitan areas with proven retirement markets. Take the similar climate to those already respected, retirement magnates add our beautiful beaches and lower cost of living and one starts to see where the excitement is coming from. The huge number of soon to be retirees speak volumes in terms of future demand. This group of over 25,000 people a year is an astounding number looking to retire. Between now and 2025, there will be a baby boomer retiring every 16 seconds. While 2030 will be the peak year of boomer retirement, the first year of baby boomers (born in 1946) turn 62 this year; many of which are now retiring and taking advantage of a record level of leisure income. Many of these people will look to the beaches of Mexico to spend their golden years. The draw of rocky Point is that it is one of the few superb beachfront markets that will support both drive-in traffic and air travelers. There are many dynamics of this that will lead to a surge in retirees. To many, the close proximity to large U.S. cities, where they can go to monthly appointments or various hometown cultural events is important. The airlines will allow other family and friends ease of access. Many have already discovered that while the healthcare system in U.S. continues to struggle, Mexico´s healthcare is rapidly accelerating into one worth the trip south. One can expect the advances in Mexico´s healthcare to continually draw visitors south more and more. With insurance providers now servicing so many from the north, more large companies will enter the market, and the cycle here will continue to expand as the international audience grows.

About ten years ago there were no condo projects with more than 100 units. In 2000 there was only one project of any large scale. This all changed, and now Sandy Beach alone has about 3,000 condos sold, and over 30 condo towers have been completed. The feeding frenzy was wild and we enjoyed a great cycle as the town morphed itself into a resort destination. Then, because the economic situation affecting so many investors, we shifted into a buyer´s market. It would be irresponsible to say that the correction period has fully completed its course as no one has found that crystal ball yet. It would however be safe to say with confidence that there are some great bargains to be found in the Rocky Point area. Plain and simple, there are people that need out. Much like the buyer´s market sought after by successful investors in so many U.S. communities, we are ripe for the next phase of our cycle. There are properties in every market segment that are priced many thousands of dollars below the ¨List Prices¨. You just have to know how to find those bargains. It truly does come down to representation. Who is representing you? In Mexico, like in the United States, there is a National Association of Realtors. In the last few years we have come along way in regards to communication, ethical practices and working on the development of an MLS system. It is because of this and our mandate that all of our members are licensed, that we have been welcomed into NAR, the same international organization you would likely seek for representation in the U.S. In order to truly guarantee satisfactory representation you need to secure the representation of an AMPI professional. AMPI agents are NAR Realtors, registered at the state level, and are the only real estate association endorsed by the federal government.

Historically, Rocky Point Real Estate is one of the safest investments you can make as it is scarce by nature. No more land will be created. Even more scarce is land found near the beach. This is way in the long term, Rocky Point is destined to be an international real estate success story, and the big money is already starting to see the opportunity.

There are new improved mortgage money programs with reasonable rates allowing people to take advantage of the current opportunities. Some people are turning self directed IRAs into real estate investments in and around Rocky Point. Others have chosen to split ownership on properties with friends, family members or other investment groups. There are even reverse mortgages out there allowing homeowners to simply turn equity from one home into equity in another. If one truly wants an investment that they can enjoy Puerto Peñasco is certainly a worthy alternative to the less than predictable stock market.

Within a year, an international airport will be open in Rocky Point and a new costal highway will extend south and east from Tijuana , through Rocky Point, to beyond Guaymas. These geographic factors alone will bring many thousands of new visitors to this area, and a profound positive influence on the economy. Rocky Point is a great place for anyone interested in owning a second home or a secure investment that allows one to stay at and enjoying their portfolio.

Author: RealtyExecutives Mexico

Steve Schwab
http://www.articlesbase.com/real-estate-articles/major-indicators-bright-future-of-puerto-penasco-717924.html