Travel Maven blog

Cruising on Disney's newest Fantasy

Fourth ship in fleet offers new twists

Imagine your drawing dancing on a wall

A child's makeover fit for a princess

The 80-year-old man had not drawn a picture of himself since childhood. That’s what his son said.

Aboard the new Disney Fantasy cruise ship, instructions made it easy: Here’s a magic marker. Imagine how you look.  On the paper placed at your table in the dining room, scribble in the white spaces, on the face, chest and tummy, shirt sleeves, trouser legs, and feet.

As his son tells the story, the old man sighed and acquiesced. He drew a simple line for a mouth, circles for eyes, some hair of which he had little, dots on the shirt, stripes on the pants. Finished quickly, he concentrated on his family in the Animator’s Palate dining room.

Then came the magic, and his eyes twinkled into a full grin.

To the music of a whimsical cartoon, the old man’s picture began to dance across the dining room walls, along with several dozen other characters from other tables.

Springing forward at Florida's Disney World

You know you're in a Disney hotel when the bedside clock magically changes time while you sleep.

Woke this morning at Disney World near Orlando, Fla., to a new time, Daylight Savings.

The clock in my room at Disney's Board Walk had handled the one-hour change forward without my help.

I asked a man at the desk: Are all the clocks wired for changing the time  in spring and fall?

"We send an elf to each room during the night," he said.

Walking Wellington, comfy cruise port for eating, gazing, shopping for short pants

When travel offered me a second shot at visiting Wellington, I wasn’t going to miss a morning at Te Papa, a lunch of green-lipped mussels (right), and a pair of three-quarter pants that are all the rage in New Zealand and Australia.

A Grande slice of Gulf beach in Naples, Florida

Many of the newer condos and resorts lining the coast of Southwest Florida in and around Naples stand tall toward the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico.

That’s toward, but not on the beach, because man, these days, no longer is stupid enough to destroy the mangroves, nature’s best beachfront protectors from the furious storms of the Gulf. Instead, vacation buildings near water’s edge sit behind the mangroves, which are low twisting trees with amazing root structures that live comfortably in and around the seawater.

One of my favorite activities on a Southwest Florida vacation is to play in the waters between the mangroves and the mainland, kayaking, for instance, near Fort Myers on ancient Native American paths now mapped out as the Great Calusa Blueway.

Farther south, in the Naples area, where private development sometimes makes beach reaching difficult, you’ll find easy access to the sands and a nice boardwalk for strolling through the mangroves off U.S. 41, near the venerable Naples Grande resort, which is  part of the Waldorf Astoria group.

Mingling with the mannequins: What the Dickens is Charles of England doing in Ohio

Cambridge, Ohio
As soon as Halloween is over, the Central Ohio town of Cambridge will have a festive Victorian look, not only among its buildings, but also its people, some of whom dress and act like Charles Dickens characters for two months each winter.

Through early January, downtown Cambridge celebrates all things Dickens, from carolers and well-dressed society types to street urchins, Bob Cratchit, and Tiny Tim.

If you stop by, you may also dress the part, borrowing for free some garb at Ye Ole Curiosity Shoppe on Wheeling Avenue and heading outside to mingle with the mannequins, which dot the downtown like extras in a huge performance.

For a sneak peek, here are pictures, taken at a local warehouse, of the many mannequins that soon will be stationed along downtown’s Wheeling Avenue at antique lampposts and benches.

"Puss in Boots" is this week's Allure of the Seas

Passengers aboard Allure of the Seas are getting a sneak peek with their cruise this week at the new "Puss in Boots," an animated 3-D movie from DreamWorks that stars the voices of Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek.

Royal Caribbean has an early copy of the movie that debuts nationally on Oct. 28 and will be showing it all week to passengers who left on Allure on Sunday for a week’s voyage into the Caribbean.

A red carpet premiere of "Puss in Boots" was held Sunday aboard the massive Allure, world's largest cruise ship and Royal Caribbean’s newest vessel.