“If I can do it, you can do it.”  That’s been my motto since I began traveling as a career and passion 15 years ago.  I’ve experienced all kinds of travel from Luxury 5 star resorts to hiking to remote villages in Vietnam to spending the night on a frozen lake with no tent just a sleeping bag.

I like luxury travel. Who wouldn’t?  What I don’t like is that most travelers can’t afford it.  But there are travel companies that make luxury accessible and that’s what brought me to Carnival Cruise Lines

Luxury is not just champagne service and 5 to 800 count sheets.  For me luxury is time.  Being able to spend time with your children, grandchildren, best friends since high school-you name it.  That’s why I love a cruise.  It gets many over-scheduled and under-rested people together and allows them to simply focus on being in the moment with the ones they love (and possibly finishing that novel that’s been sitting on your bedside table for 6 months).  You don’t have to worry about where you are going to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner or how you are going to get from point A to B..

I had never been on a cruise ship before and had never expected to go on one either, until Royal Caribbean gave myself and a handful of other bloggers the chance to experience a day on their current largest ship, Oasis of the Seas, when it came to...

We all love our pool time when on a cruise. Some of us even enjoy getting in a daily workout while sailing -- all the better to warrant my massive increase in calorie consumption when I'm on vacation, I rationalize.

 How about being able to do both at the same time? I'm talking about starting your day with a challenging workout while in the pool. On a cruise ship!

 I know, it sounds crazy. Well, you do a get a few odd looks of interest when taking part in the AquaCycle class on MSC Divina. MSC Cruises' signature U.S.-based ship sails out of Miami on weeklong cruises to the Caribbean and offers AquaCycle classes, which are fun 45-minute sessions that replicate the shore side spin classes that you know from your health club back home. 

Except on MSC Divina, the spin studio is the aft adults-only Garden Pool. Special spin bikes are dropped into the pool by the instructor, who must artfully negotiate the sensitive and potentially explosive task of telling morning swimmers that they must leave the pool because a AquaCycle class will soon be starting.

Not everything that's heavy sinks right to the bottom of the ocean floor, and there's no greater proof than Royal Caribbean's Harmony of the Seas—which happens to be the biggest cruise ship on Earth.

The world's largest cruise ship boasts an ice-skating rink, a movie theater, 10-story dry slide, and weighs no less than 227,000 tons. And that's without any of its 6,780 passengers.

We know that giant ocean liners don't sink, even with their rock climbing walls and nightclubs. But have you ever wondered why?It's not magic or flying unicorns that keep the Harmony of the Seas plying the open waters. It's all about buoyancy: the power of a liquid to keep things afloat.

Colossal vessels stay above water by displacing an amount of water equal to their mass (the wide, U-shaped hull helps with this). As the ship moves forward and pushes water away, the water is ceaselessly trying to return to fill the space, with an energy that forces the ship upward.

On my last cruise, I met a couple who said they didn’t really want to sail with Royal Caribbean because the company’s ships were “too big.” And while Royal Caribbean certainly has some of the largest ships around, four of their smaller vessels are among my absolute favorites to cruise aboard.

Launched between 2001 and 2004, Royal Caribbean’s four Radiance-class cruise ships (Brilliance of the Seas, Jewel of the Seas, Radiance of the Seas and Serenade of the Seas), carry just over 2,000 guests apiece. At 90,090 GRT (gross register tonnage), they’re almost mid-size by modern cruise-ship standards, yet they’re still plenty big, with a length of 293 meters and 12 passenger decks, most of which, are adorned with wall-to-wall glass windows.

These ships are so roomy and uncrowded that, for the most part, you’ll wonder where everyone is. You’ll still find that same amazing sense of grandeur that Royal Caribbean is known for when you walk into the multi-story atrium that soars all the way up to the pool deck, but throughout the ship, public spaces take on a more clubby, intimate tone.

Cruise vacations while inclusive by nature, have their share of opportunities to spend more. Here are some tips for controlling expenses.

Our friends over at Onboard just published this nifty infographic that contains a lot of useful information for first-time cruisers and explains the basics of cruising in one easy-to-read graphic.

They invited us to share it — click the infographic to enlarge it on your screen.

Courtesy of Onboard.com(Click to enlarge)

For cruising veterans, it may seem obvious how to choose the best cruise line for your vacation, but for newbies, it’s the crucial first step and begins by asking the right questions.

To start, ask: What is my budget and what is my traveling personality?

There are four main categories of cruise line quality increasing in cost in order of standard ones, premium ones, upscale ones and luxury ones, and in each category, there are a number of different lifestyles to be expected onboard each individual line.

In an effort to sustain interest in their existing fleets, cruise lines are pouring millions of dollars into their older ships to have them stay on par with their newer ones. That means far more options for travelers across the board. Besides the usual basic maintenance and sprucing up, here are a few of the trending improvements rolling back onto the classic vessels.

Additional Dining Options

More Staterooms

Extra Cabin Comfort

New Water Slides

Better Entertainment

A little while back I gave readers a behind-the-scenes look a what goes into the hotel director's job on Celebrity Infinity in this video interview.

The folks over at Royal Caribbean's Press Center spotted that and passed along word of a new short video with Royal Caribbean Hotel Director Gary Davies, who oversees 13 departments and attends to every detail that affects the guest experience. 

Davies provides a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into managing the day-to-day operations on board Anthem of the Seas to ensure a memorable vacation for guests.

It’s hard to imagine a hotel charging extra for a room with windows, but when it comes to cruising, fresh ocean air comes at a premium: Typically, the coveted outdoor balcony space on a cruise costs at least $100 per person, per voyage more than an interior or porthole stateroom. But with budget and savings in mind, are cruise balconies actually worth the extra fee? We explore.

What happened on cruise ships used to stay on cruise ships -- at least until the boat reached the next port.

One of the remaining Internet-free places on the planet, passengers could spend days wallowing in isolation unless they spent serious cash on a telegram or ship-to-shore call.

Then, in 1999 Norwegian Cruise Lines introduced the first on-board Internet café.

And nothing much changed.

Because, even though cruise lines have been rolling out connectivity at sea ever since, coverage has been frustratingly patchy, slow and expensive.

It's changing now though.

Over the last few years, cruise lines have been improving their satellite technology to boost connection speeds and working out ways to accommodate different budgets.