Seminar at Sea Update - 80% Sold

Chris has a quick update on our 2027 Seminar at Sea, which now only has 20% of its space remaining.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Beyond the Handbooks. Practical insight from the minds behind the manuals. Your hosts are the authors of the best-selling Travel Advisors Handbook Series. Michael Lakana and Chris Grump. Elite Cruise Counselor Scott McAllister and accredited cruise counselor Danielle Gogner. It's time to go beyond the handbooks.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

And today we're going beyond with just me. Hi, it's Chris. The other authors getting a break on our podcast this week. And this is going to be a relatively short one. I wanted to give you an update on our 2027 or fourth annual seminar C, whatever way you would like to label it, because we are starting to get pretty busy on the bookings, and we definitely don't want you to miss out. As of the recording of this podcast, we are now at 80% of our capacity. And I get a lot of people that ask about this and they say, well, I went on and I looked at the um the bookings and cruising power, and there's plenty of rooms left. How can you be at 80% capacity? So I wanted to address that first and explain what that means, and then we'll talk a bit about what is left and how you can get on board. So the reason we say we're at 80% capacity is that our seminars at sea take place, or at least next year they will, on Celebrity Beyond. And we use the conference facilities. And if you've never seen the conference rooms on board the ship, they have a limited amount of space, which means that when we get to that number, we can't have anybody else join us on board for our seminars at sea. So when we get to our number that we have enough room for, we have to cut off sales. Now we don't want to do that. Look, I'd love to be able to charter the entire ship to be completely candid with you. And I'm sure as a travel advisor, you're thinking the same way. But we are limited in space. And so when we hit that final number, we have to cut off sales. And so we are 80% there, which means we're probably going to sell out here in the next couple of months. And then what'll happen is we'll go on a wait list. And if we do get any cancellations, we'll go down that wait list and uh hopefully be able to clear a few people. But you never know. So right now is the time to book. If you've been thinking about this, I wouldn't recommend waiting too much longer because when we do get to that hundred percent capacity, there's no guarantees after that. Now, a couple other things to think about. If you're considering sailing solo, you definitely want to get on this fairly quickly. Uh, Celebrity Beyond has some solo rooms that are designed specifically for people traveling by themselves. The beauty of them is you get one of those infinite verandas, which is like having a balcony, but you're going to pay less for that than you would for a double occupancy interior. And so it really is an advantage for single travelers to be able to not have to pay that double occupancy and still get a balcony. Now, um, I only have a few of those left, and I only have one left that has an unobstructed view. Some of those rooms are slightly obstructed when you look down because there's lifeboats below some of them. But I have one left, as of right now, anyway, uh, in the single infinite veranda state rooms. After that, they're going to be somewhat obstructed. You can still get on the ship, but you might have a little less of a view. Uh now, for those of you that are sailing double occupancy or beyond, we still have rooms available in pretty much every category, all the way from interiors to ocean view to uh the virtual um balcony, I shouldn't say virtual balconies, the infinite verandas. Um, for those of you not familiar, infinite verandas are kind of similar to what you see on the rivers, where the entire room becomes the balcony and the the window lowers halfway instead of having a walkout balcony. Now, if you book a suite or if you book a sunset veranda, we can get you a true balcony. And again, we have all of these available. There's two different ways that you can get pricing for the seminar C. Uh if you go to our website, tahandbook.com slash cruise, or if you just look for the cruise banner on the front page, either way, that's going to get you to our cruise page. And there we have the schedule for the seminar C, all of the scheduled activities we're planning on doing. Some of those will be announced later, but most of it is there already. We have the cruise itinerary, we have the state rooms with starting pricing for each level. We have an FAQ, and then we have a button that says request a quote. You have two options when you go there. The first one is just fill out a very quick form, your name, your email address, and your phone number. And somebody, namely me, will reach out to you, usually within the next 24 hours, sometimes the same day, and give you pricing, availability, and answer any questions you might have. This is the route you want to go if you're not sure about what room type you're looking for, if you're not sure about amenities, and so on. If you know what you want, you know that you want a suite, or you know that you want an ocean view, you can flip that form over and literally fill out everything that you would need, and we will send you a quote with a room number and all the pricing and all, and you can choose insurance, gratuities, you can choose the perks package, which by the way, if you choose that perks package, not only do you get the uh classic drink package, if you do anything below a suite, you also get uh one device of Wi-Fi. And then we are throwing in a third perk, which is dinner with the authors, all four of us, at one of the specialty restaurants. And you'll get to choose between Le Petite Chef and the Fine Cut Steakhouse. Now that's why those spots in the restaurants last. So again, you definitely want to book sooner rather than later. Now, if you don't do the perks package, no big deal. You still get the cruise, you still get all of the onboard things that we're gonna do in the seminars, but you don't get the drinks, the Wi-Fi, or the dinner with us. Now, if you book a suite, the retreat, any level of suite will get you the premium drink package, the premium Wi-Fi, and you'll still have dinner with us. So those are your options as far as bookings go. You can fill out the form. We will get back to you right away. Uh, just let us know what you're interested in. And one thing that I do want to mention, because we get this question a lot, and then we'll wrap up this podcast. Can I bring a guest that is not a travel advisor? Absolutely. We have a lot of people that want to sail with a spouse or a friend, and the spouse or the friend are not in the travel industry. That is perfectly fine. In fact, if you want to bring the kiddos along, you're welcome to do so. The way that it's gonna work is this for the seminars, the you know, the classroom stuff, what we'll do is when we book your cruise, we're gonna ask you, okay, within your party of two, three, four, however many people, who wants to come to the seminars? And anybody is welcome to come. Kids probably won't want to come for that, but anybody adult age is welcome to come to the seminars. Now, if you have a husband and wife that are traveling and the wife is a travel advisor and the husband's not, he doesn't have to come to the seminars. The only reason we'll ask you is that we do cater them, we bring light bites and refreshments, and we pay by the head. So I don't want to pay for somebody if they're not going to be there. And I'm sure you can understand that. Uh so we'll ask you how many people want to attend the the uh the sessions. As far as the dinner goes, if you do the perks package, you will be able to attend and everybody in the room will be able to attend. So if you have uh, like I said, a pair of spouses and only one is going to the seminars, both will get invited to dinner if you do the perks package. So don't worry about that. We'll take care of you. We're not going to split you up for dinner at night. Uh, so those are your options. We welcome you to bring as many people as you like. If you want to book a room with three or four people and they're all travel advisors, perfectly fine. We've had people do that as well. But feel free to reach out. It's tahandbook.com slash cruise, and you can get all the details there. And then if there's anything that's not answered there, simply fill out that form and we will get back to you right away. And we would love to sail with you.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Thanks for listening to Beyond the Handbook. Visit tahandbook.com to order our books. See our upcoming schedule of seminars at tea, and listen to episodes on demand. We'll see you next time when we go beyond the handbook.