Archive for the ‘Interviews’ Category

Every time I’ve traveled to Chicago, Illinois, I’ve absolutely loved it there. From the great restaurants to Lincoln Park Zoo, to Old Town and Second City, there are always lots of fun things to do in Chicago…in the summer, at least. I’ve never been brave enough for a winter vacation in the Windy City! Now, a new luxury hotel in Chicago brings a new level of sophistication to this most cosmopolitan of midwest cities. The Elysian’s interior design and architecture brings iconic 1920’s Paris design to mind; the designers were inspired by Christian Dior, Coco Chanel, and the Art Deco movement that was born in 1920’s Paris. The entire interior scope shows off the results of their inspiration. I spoke with Lisa Simeone and Gina Deary, the owners of the Simeone Deary Design Group in Chicago, about their part in creating the luxurious Parisian feel of The Elysian hotel. Anyone curious about creative, inspired interior design, or finding an incredibly romantic luxury hotel stay for a Chicago trip, should find this interesting.

Many Chicago travelers are saying that The Elysian is the best new luxury hotel in the Windy City. Could you please describe what, if anything, is inherently “Chicago” about the Elysian?
Aside from the fact that the Elysian flagship is based in Chicago and that the architect and interior designer are Chicago based – the design of the Elysian is not necessarily inherently Chicago but embodies the spirit of the glamour and excitement of an urban city.  We did make reference to design motifs found in Chicago art and architecture during the 20’s and 30’s – and these are woven throughout the hotel – but the overall feeling is more European and not city specific.

What was your inspiration? Do you always tend towards such sleek, high-end decor?
Our inspiration came from many and varied sources from our client’s wishes, to the architecture of the building; however we built the foundation of our design on the artisan movement, the Paris exposition, the glamour period of the 20’s and 30’s and the timeless designs of Coco Chanel and Christian Dior.

Typically our design aesthetic leans toward the project that we are working on and the concept that we develop for that particular project – currently, in addition to the Elysian hotel, we are working on a ranch resort in Wyoming, a green café in Illinois and an uber modern high end home downtown.

To what degree (if any) did you work with the architect, to ensure a sense of flow from the exterior to the interior of the building?
At our firm, we feel it is critical to work with the architect to ensure this flow….we strongly believe in cohesive and congruent design – it gives a project harmony that is evident to the guest.

What would you hope that the interior conveys to Chicago tourists staying at the Elysian?
We hope that the interiors give any guest that stays at the Elysian that sense of wonder and awe, that each and every detail was thought about to enhance the guest sensory experience and that they feel transformed to a time when high design and detail and client service really meant something.

If there is one thing you could go back and change, tweak, or improve, what would it be?

This is a tough question because there are many little things that we would love to go back and tweak – not so much on the design side, but more on flow and planning.  Truly, the end result of this project is almost exactly as we envisioned it.

The Elysian just officially opened around 2 months ago. How would you say it has been received so far?

From the comments we hear, it is very well received and guests are quite inspired by the design…..it also helps that the talented and passionate staff of the hotel are extremely dedicated to the guest experience.  This was truly a project that does not come along every day.

Well, looking at all the lovely photographs of The Elysian, I have to believe that Lisa Simeone and Gina Deary’s inspiration is paying off in spades. This is an absolutely beautiful looking luxury hotel in Chicago; one that almost makes me consider a winter trip to the midwest. After all, as windy as Chicago is in the winter, it must be incredibly pampering to come in from the cold and warm up in The Elysian.

Today we have a Q&A with Andy Gross, a travel writer I absolutely adore. She’s going to chat with us about her travels, grandchildren, endeavors and more, as she is certainly a Vacation Gal and has already claimed the moniker “Gramma Gal” for her “Gal” name.

1. Where do you live and what do you do for a living?

I live in Denver, CO. Why? Because my grandkids live here. My husband and I were living in Asheville, NC when our son and daughter-in-law invited us to move to Denver. “You guys write for a living,” they said. “We have internet connection here in Denver. Wouldn’t you rather live by your grandchildren?”

You bet we would! It took us less than two months to sell the house in North Carolina and find one about ten blocks from our son and his family. It was the best move we ever made.

Now, when we’re not actively involved with our family, we split our time between travel writing and our business, Legacy Prose, through which we help seniors tell their personal stories to pass on to their children and grandchildren.

We began this business because we saw how much documenting their past benefits seniors, a subject I explored in a Newsweek My Turn article. Now we know that it benefits children as much or even more. Research by Marshall Duke, Ph.D. at Emory University shows that children who know their family history are more likely to do better in school, avoid drugs, and have higher self-esteem. In short, says Duke, they are “better able to withstand the storms of life.”

This has strengthened our commitment to helping families get their stories down on paper. Our only problem is that we haven’t had time to get our own stories down!

2. How many grandchildren do you have? Do they enjoy traveling?

We have two grandchildren, but with four children, we’re likely to have more in the future. Meanwhile, the two we have are, of course, absolutely perfect! And they are terrific travelers.

3. Do you get to travel with them? If so, where and what have been your most memorable trips?

Absolutely! We travel with them all the time — day trips, weekend getaways, longer vacations. We travel in all combinations, sometimes taking both grandchildren, sometimes just one and sometimes going as a multi-generational clan.

Three years ago we spent a week at a ranch. Last year we all drove to South Dakota because then eight-year-old Jeremy had memorized the names of all the presidents and wanted to see Mt. Rushmore. This year some of us went to Quebec (Samantha’s first experience with a passport!), and we all went to Mesa Verde and the Four Corners.

Samantha touches four states at one time at the Four Corners National Monument — except that, as she reminds us, due to surveying errors, the marker is actually about 2.5 miles west of the actual intersection.

Next year? Who knows. Half the fun is in the planning — and the dreaming.

Best of all, because the kids keep journals of their trips, we get to relive these trips not only through photos, but also through our grandchildren’s on-the-spot observations.

These let us see the trip from our grandchildren’s perspective, right down to the fact that while seeing Mt. Rushmore was fun, the macaroni and cheese that we had afterwards was “totally crumby.” I wrote about kids’ journal keeping in an article for grandparents.com in an article called Keep the Kids Entertained on the Road.

4. What is your favorite destination (with or w/o kids) that would inspire other travelers?

My husband and I love Asia and Southeast Asia and, one of these days, we hope to go there with our grandkids. But meanwhile, we’ve found that there are plenty of places where we can explore the world without leaving the United States.

I currently write a column for Home & Away that focuses on places like Door County, Wisconsin where folks can get a glimpse of Scandinavia, the Kangaroo Conservation Center near Atlanta, Georgia, which has a distinctly Australian flavor, and the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee, where they can see an exact replica of the famous building as it was back in the days of Plato and Socrates.

Otherwise, grandparents.com covered 5 of the ethnic communities in my story titled “Travel the World Without a Passport.” We’ve even found a way to travel the world without leaving the city of Denver. We took Samantha to a different ethnic restaurant every month, introducing her to the food and also the customs of various countries. This was detailed in yet another grandparents.com article, “Around the World (Without Leaving Home.”

5. Do you have any tips for other grandparents traveling with their grandkids?

While we love traveling with our grandchildren alone, we also savor the time that traveling lets us spend with our son and daughter-in-law. Most of the time they’re so busy with jobs and responsibilities that our conversations are hurried, but when we travel together, we have a chance to visit in a more relaxed manner.

And, by watching them parent their children, we can remember how much fun we had raising ours. Grandparenting is a chance to enjoy those years all over again — minus the stress!

So I guess my main tip is to relax and enjoy your children as well as your grandchildren. Thank you, Andy for telling us about your family, writing and of course, travels.

When travel writers love what they do, it shows in their stories. Be it through articles, blog posts, or videos, that passion for experiencing different aspects of travel can’t be faked. The Vacation Gals admire Kim Mance for this very reason. Not only did she co-create the website/video blog Go Galavanting/Galavanting, but she also started the Travel Blog Exchange, a forum/online meeting ground for professional travel writers everywhere. It’s quite an accomplishment, and Kim manages to take some pretty fantastic vacations at the same time. This, no doubt, is a mama we wanna get to know better.

Tell us a little about your family; how do you schedule your trips around your children’s needs? How have your kids adapted?

Have you heard of a little group called The Brady Bunch? That fairly well sums us up — down to the curly-haired youngest girl. We’ve actually got five kiddos between my newly gained husband and me. And this is where it gets awkward, because I have to point out the one big benefit of divorce (if it has to happen): visitation.  I have custody of my three, and my ex has visitations in week or two-week increments during school breaks. So basically, I just schedule the bulk of our travels around their visitations with the other parent. The kids never even know I’m missing, and I enjoy guilt-free travel.

The kids love watching the videos and all make me promise I’ll take them hiking in Italy’s Cinque Terre or to Rome’s famed monuments one day. And I will. In fact, whenever possible, I take the kids with me traveling now, because it not only expands their worldview, it helps them realize that packing a bag and going somewhere isn’t scary or intimidating (and that mommy always returns).

What was the inspiration for creating TBEX?

Debbie Dubrow and I wanted to get a bunch of travel folks together. Chicago is a great central location, and since the fabulous BlogHer annual conference is happening in late July, we cooked up a meeting and planned it. The whole thing has come together beautifully and the response overwhelming. Attendees are coming from far and wide and we want to make the big bash worth everyone’s time and effort.

My cohorts at Galavanting and I took it a step further and thought it would be great to involve the worldwide travel folks who can’t make it to the TBEX 09 meetup in an online community as well. So we spent many very late nights brainstorming and creating until we came up with the TBEX Community website in January 2009. To date, the site already acts as a hub for nearly 1,000 travel bloggers and PR professionals interested in connecting with them.

What are your future plans for TBEX and/or Galavanting?

We want to keep TBEX active and useful and will be reaching out to members of the press, media, and PR reps, as well as advertisers, to highlight the burgeoning community of travel writers on the web. TBEX can raise their visibility and connect bloggers to each other in ways that simply surfing the net for kindred spirits cannot.

As far as Galavanting goes, we want it to become a household name. My co-founder Katy Quissell and I had the original idea of a television show that featured women with spunk, useful information, adventurous tendencies, and non-boringness. Women we could relate to. And not many of the travel shows, if any, were doing that. We started the online travel magazine GoGalavanting.com to help other women tell their stories of adventure, and then launched Galavanting.tv which was fairly quickly picked up by a distributor called KoldCast.tv who made us available on TiVo and across the web. We hope it will soon be on regular television too.

You co-operate Galavanting, and the four of you live in very different places. Do you coordinate travel plans to see each other – and if so, how often?

Great question. I’m in Chicago, Katy is in London, and Maren & Courtney are in Omaha. In fact, I don’t know what we’d do without the many Google tools available to us — we use a shared calendar, collaborative spreadsheets, and endlessly confusing color-coded documents before a trip. We make carefree, fun Galavanting episodes, but there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work and planning that goes into it. And keeping up with a brand new travel destination every month has proved to be no small feat. We end up seeing each other about once every three months or so at least, which goes faster than it seems. Surely you experience the same thing with the fabulous Vacation Gals group! It is pretty much the best job in the world.

Thanks for the Q&A, Kim! Any traveling mom is a friend of ours.  Kim can be found on Twitter, for anyone who would like to hear more from her.

At Sun Studios in Memphis

Candy Harrington is the editor of the print (and online) publication Emerging Horizons, and she penned Barrier-Free Travel, which will be released in its third edition later this summer. This heralded book is a “nuts and bolts guide for wheelers and slow walkers,” covering everything from the logistics of air travel and how to protect your wheelchair in flight, to how to find an accessible hotel room and how to book accessible shore excursions while cruising.

Candy and her husband share their California home with an aviary full of rescued pigeons and three ring-necked doves. Plus, there’s Agnes the chicken. (“Yes,” says frequent-traveler Candy, “We do have a bird-sitter.)

How long have you been a travel writer?

About 34 years now. Outside of a sappy advice column I wrote for a now defunct hometown paper (from age 8-17) I’ve pretty much always covered some aspect of travel.

How did you start covering accessible travel?

I’m able-bodied, and I pretty much got my start because of boredom. About 16 years ago I got tired of writing what I considered fluff. I was writing mainstream travel, I needed a change and a friend suggested accessible travel. Nobody was doing it at the time and it sounded challenging, so I went for it. My colleagues all thought I was crazy, but it’s worked out well for me over the years. It’s still a challenge, which is good for me.

Do you ever cover general travel anymore, or is all your work about the accessibility of a place pr excursion?

I don’t cover mainstream travel at all — just don’t have the time or inclination. I do however cover accessible travel from every possible angle — interviews, property reviews, new products, reader questions, op-ed pieces, destinations, cruises, best practices, legal matters, rules and regulations and the general nuts and bolts. It keeps me pretty busy.

This is the third edition of Barrier Free Travel; what’s new?

A lot of access laws and regulations have changed — in major ways — since the last edition, so I’ve included updates about them. This includes everything from the Air Carrier Access Act, Canada’s One-Person, One Fare regulation and Europe’ s EU PRMS (all concerning accessible air travel) to the landmark hotels.com settlement and even upcoming changes in the ADA regulations. And since cruise travel is such a popular subject with my readers, I added a new chapter about shore excursions, which includes the contact information for 45 local tour operators who can provide accessible shore tours. Additionally I updated everything and added lots of new resources, including a worldwide list of companies that rent accessible vans. And of course I threw in some new tips and tricks, as well.

What U.S. city is most friendly to travelers in wheelchairs? How about a foreign city?

In the US I like San Diego — very family friendly with good accessible public transportation, some nice hotels and lots of accessible attractions like Sea World, the San Diego Zoo and Hornblower Harbor Cruises. Plus they have a great access guide published by Accessible San Diego.

Outside the US, it’s a toss up between Vancouver and London — both offer excellent access — but if I have to pick one I’ll go with London.  The deciding factor is that all London Black Cabbies are wheelchair (and stroller) accessible. It’s the law, so in that respect they are even ahead of the US in access.

I’m assuming that in general, hotels, planes and public places have become more accessible in recent years. Is there still a hold-out anywhere — some place or some aspect of travel that is not accommodating to people with disabilities?

In the US, things are looking pretty good. Laws, including the ADA, have helped that; however in the past few years I’ve also seen a huge change in attitude from the hospitality industry. They are starting to look at disabled travelers as a market segment — one they want to attract. So I’ve seen many sites go above and beyond minimum access standards. I’ve even seen wheelchair-accessible tree houses in public spaces!

Worldwide, I’d say the biggest problem is with denied boardings to wheelchair-users by domestic airlines in Asia, Australia and Africa. In fact, Tiger Airways totally ruined one family’s vacation when they refused to board their daughter on a Singapore to Athens flight. The airline was well aware that she was a wheelchair-user, but when the gate agent saw her, her whole family was turned away. There’s not much you can really do about this, but it pays to be aware of the situation when traveling in those areas.

Candy at Bandelier National Monument

Is there anything in particular that parents should keep in mind if they are booking travel for their wheelchair-bound or disabled child?

Probably the biggest hiccup comes when little ones get too big to fly in a car seat. Many parents forget that they will need to figure out some way to stabilize their child if they lack the balance or the strength to sit up unassisted. Sometimes this can be done with pillows and blankets (on airlines that still provide them), but it pays to plan ahead. And remember, you can’t bring aboard anything too bulky, or seating devices that are not FAA approved. If you can find a way to stabilize the child for take-off and landing, you can recline them for the duration of the trip. But sometimes this takes a little advance planning.

You’ve traveled all over the world. Do you have a favorite personal location? Or a spot to which you’d like to return?

Well, I’m a mountain girl, so I love Yosemite, but not in the summer as it’s way too crowded for my taste. I lived in Far North Queensland (Australia) for a few years, in a town called Palm Cove, and absolutely loved it. New Zealand, specifically the North Island, is also a favorite of mine.

What’s in the future for you? Will you keep on doing what you’re doing for a while?

I expect so. Emerging Horizons is doing well, and I will keep writing more books; and I get a lot of assignments from other publications and have several regular columns. I’m also accepting a lot more speaking engagements these days, which I really love. Accessible travel will probably be part of my life until I die. I can see myself slowing down, but never totally retiring.

I’d like you to meet Megan Calhoun, the brains behind TwitterMoms.com. In case you don’t twitter (or are not part of the demographic) Megan started this website as a convenient, easy to use way for moms who use Twitter to find and keep connections with their cohorts. It’s quite a site: In less than a year, TwitterMoms has been recognized as a force in the online community, with a distinct, lively personality and active forum. So impressive! A mama with great ideas is a mama we want to get to know better.

Tell us a little about TwitterMoms; what inspired you to create it, and what would you like to see happen with it in the future?

As a stay at home mom, you sometimes don’t get enough adult interaction during the day. Twitter was great for connecting with friends, and I noticed a lot of interesting moms on it – but no easy way to learn more about them, or make decisions about who would be really interesting to connect with on Twitter.

My husband joked about starting a site to fill that niche. On Sept. 2, 2008 I had roughed out the concept on Ning (a free “build your own social network” web hosting company). I added the URL to my Twitter profile and the next morning we had four members. A month later, membership rushed past 2,200 active members, and now stands around 16,000. It’s been quite a rush!

For the future of TwitterMoms, I would like to continue to offer the moms high-quality opportunities and resources from the media, marketers or other moms. I want to give my members value that could possibly help them in either their professional or family life.

We believe that any mom can be a Vacation Gal. Where are some places you’ve vacationed with your children?

Well, I love to travel, and it’s one of my passions that I would like to pass down to my kids. But since they are so young right now I’ve really only taken them to places to visit family like Colorado to go skiing with their cousins, Florida and Indiana to visit the grandparents. However, I plan to travel internationally with them when they are older.

Since becoming a mother, have you had to travel without your family?

Funny you should ask! I’m leaving for a business trip to New York without my kids in a couple of days. It’s the longest time I have ever been away from them. On one hand, I’m very excited about having a break, but on the other, I will miss them so much.

Where is the one place you’d most like to vacation with your children?

Italy. Because I want to give my children the opportunity to learn about another culture and experience a different world outside of their bubble. And, I love the food, language and people. My dream vacation would be to rent a villa in Tuscany for many weeks and take trips to Florence, Venice and Rome. Wow! I would love that.

Thank you, Megan! And for the uninitiated, you can find Megan at Twittermoms.com, or on Twitter as, well…her Twitter name should be no surprise. Thanks for letting us get to know you better, Megan!

Sedona is one of my favorite US vacation destinations, no doubt. Whether it’s a family trip or a romantic getaway, the glorious scenery and outdoor adventure opportunities make it one of my top recommendations for travel. So when the owner of the Innovative Analysis Group asked that I talk with him for his well-regarded aviation and travel industry’s podcast, I immediately requested that the podcast’s travel destination focus on Sedona, Arizona. Addison Schondland agreed, suggesting that the theme be summer budget travel to Sedona. After all, it’s HOT in Sedona in the summer; all the more important to get great value from a summer trip there. Smart man; these days, everyone’s looking for ways to get the most out of their vacation budget.

Talking with Addison was a lot of fun; the podcast (click here) regarding Sedona summer vacation activities came out well as a result. It may sound counterintuitive to plan a summer trip to Arizona, but my kids loved it last August, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Show of hands: Who here has seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Whoa! Maybe I should ask, who here has seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding over 5 times? …That’s still a lot of hands. Well, the Vacation Gals are extremely proud to have Nia Vardalos with us for this Mama Interview. Nia Vardalos is, of course, the creator/writer/star of Greek Wedding, and June 5, 2009, sees her starring in another fun comedy, My Life in Ruins. This movie takes place in Greece (get it? Ruins?). I loved the gorgeous background scenery for Mamma Mia; My Life in Ruins promises to be a movie with settings that makes the travel lover in all of us want to pack our bags, too.

Nia Vardalos is also a strong supporter of the Alliance for Children’s Rights. What with starring in movies, raising her daughter, and supporting this worthy organization, she is one busy mama. She still finds time to be HILARIOUS though.

Your movie, My Life in Ruins, takes place in Greece. Where were some of the locations? Had you been to those specific places before?

All the locations are within the Mystical Triangle: Acropolis, Olympia, and Delphi which were built 121 kilometers from each other…2500 years ago! I had visited all these sites (bored) as a kid. Now I see the healing powers of traveling the triangle. You’ll come out refreshed. Your skin will be clear. And you will fall in love!

How did you come to be such a strong supporter of the Alliance for Children’s Rights?

I didn’t know, before my husband and I adopted our daughter, that we didn’t have orphanages in the U.S. But we do have 500,000 kids in foster care. Of these kids, 129,000 are legally free for adoption and waiting for a family. We had waited on many waiting lists for an infant and when these routes kept falling through, turned to FosAdopt. Nine months later our daughter, at the time 3 years old, walked into our house, and turned it into a home. Now I feel compelled to tell anyone and everyone: American FosAdopt does not discriminate against age, single parents, sexual orientation, income level.

Where is your favorite travel destination?

Clearly I love Greece, and not just because the men look like my costar Alexi G, and the landscape looks like the posters, but because there is a laid-back wisdom and joy in that country. Also, I loved being in Japan because I couldn’t speak the language or even read the street signs. It was a joy to just get lost and figure out what to eat every day (oh boy, I can only imagine what I thought was a gum ball, may have been an eye. Anyway, I loved it there!)

Any mom can be a Vacation Gal. Have you taken any trips with your daughter yet?

Yes, and I always thought I would be an organized drill sergeant. I am surprised how laid back I’ve become. So, we forgot the crayons, big deal…I hand her a lipstick and let her draw on my pants.

Lipstick on pants? Been there. Believe me, the Vacation Gals are going to be first in line to see My Life in Ruins. And who knows – a group trip to Greece may be next! …we can dream, anyway. Thank you, Nia!

The Vacation Gals adore and support our travel blogging bretheren. From camping to cruising, there are as many types of travel writers as there are types of travel – there’s room on the interweb for us all. And when we daydream, we daydream about luxury family travel; imagining that there’s some way the whole lot of us could work out a fantastico deluxe European vacation together, with all our children of varying ages magically wanting to see the same sights as us. Not gonna happen, of course, but when we indulge our fantasies, we go to Ciao Bambino.

Ciao Bambino is our favorite luxury family travel planning website. It doesn’t merely list classy vacation packages and 5-star travel deals in swanky destinations. Ciao Bambino has reviews, opportunities for community feedback, and a hoppin’ blog. Nancy Solomon, one of the freelance contributors to the Ciao Bambino blog, was happy to sit for an (email) interview.

What special compromises do you make when you travel with your children?

Dinners out! We simply cannot enjoy a lovely meal with our four children. This is harder for my husband, a true foodie, than myself. We tend to get a nice lunch and then just a simple evening meal. We also love to hit local markets and picnic. Occasionally, my husband will take one of the older kids out while I stay back with the younger ones. By 8:00 PM, after playing tour guide all day, I’m usually exhausted, so I’m delighted with this. Every once in a while, we’ll book a sitter and enjoy a nice meal.

The other area where we compromise is in the destinations that we choose. For the last eleven years I’ve been either pregnant or traveling with a baby. This presents safety issues that limit where we felt comfortable traveling. We have tabled the exotic, far-off destinations. My youngest is 20 months now, and we are just starting to look at Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. For the last while, we chose Europe, the Caribbean, and the USA.

What destinations are on your “bucket list?” That is, where have you not yet been, that you’d love to get to when you have the time and it’s feasible?

I can’t wait to take my kids to London (pre-kid favorite). My daughter has been studying the Middle Ages and the time is perfect. We are headed there and to Ireland this summer. Other than that, I really want to go to Turkey, Morocco, Israel, Kenya, Costa Rica, Chile, Vietnam (again, loved it pre-kids) and Greece. I want to do a farmstay in the Netherlands and a bike trip anywhere. Oh yeah, I’d also love to show my kids Yosemite, Zion, and the Grand Canyon National Park.

If there is one personal aspect of yours regarding travel that you’d love your children to emulate, what would it be?

To just go with the flow and to try to connect with the destination.  There are so many little things that happen when you travel that can be seen as irritating. You have to just be patient and enjoy the ride. Rarely do things work out just how I planned them. We have to be flexible and adjust. We also don’t over plan. We have a list of things we’d like to do and then go with it.  Also, I always love asking locals for suggestions. It’s how I’ve found the best things. While we are at a destination we try to do things that locals do, like grocery shop, visit the park, go to an amusement park or local ball game. When we side step from the tourist spots is when we really connect with a destination.

Family travelers who really engage in their vacation destinations give an enduring gift to their children.  World travelers will often say that they meet the nicest people while exploring different destinations. I’ve found that this is true. It’s heart-warming to know that this camaraderie exits between fellow travel writers, as well.

Nickelodeon cruise vacations are poised to become the Next Big Thing in family travel. The itineraries - to the Mexican Riviera or the Caribbean – are popular vacation spots in their own right, of course. Add in the fun of a family cruise with real Nickelodeon TV stars from iCarly (and characters – hello, Spongebob!), and we’re talking happy, entertained children from sunrise to sunset.

My own kids had an amazing two-day cruise experience recently. A highlight was when they met iCarly actors Jennette McCurdy and Nathan Kress. In fact, my younger daughter snagged herself an interview with Nathan Kress, who plays Freddy on iCarly. He’s a cool kid!  Here is the interview, straight from the Nick cruise:

Nathan Kress is a professional actor, despite his young age. He knows how to project his voice, whereas my somewhat starstruck daughter does not. In case you had a hard time hearing her questions (I know I did, and I was 3 feet away), she asked him what his favorite TV shows are, if he likes to vacation with his family, how it feels to have so many fans, his favorite place to travel, and what it’s like playing Freddy on iCarly. Softball questions, yes, but this wasn’t Meet The Press.

This partnership of Nickelodeon and Royal Caribbean is really exciting for those of us with Nick-crazed young kids.

Diego and Dora on the Nick Cruise (nick.com)

The ship that cruises out of Los Angeles, the Mariner of the Seas, is huge (Voyager Class), with plenty of things for the parents to do while their kids play.  It’s over a thousand feet long with 15 passenger decks, after all – room enough for an adult spa and fitness center as well as an ice skating rink, and designated youth and teen areas. Imagine that: While Mom and Dad are enjoying a relaxing body treatment in the spa, our children are getting a full-body treatment of their own, in the form of getting slimed. That’s right, the classic Nick Slime Time makes a big appearance on Nickelodeon family cruise vacatons, along with Dora, Diego, and the genial, friendly stars of iCarly. It’s hard to imagine a more child-friendly, entertaining family cruise trip.

Today we have Yana Berlin with us – founder of Fabulously40.com – a social network dedicated to women 40 and beyond. I was going to tell you all about her, but I think I’ll let her tell her own fabulous story.

Welcome, Yana!

1. Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m a proud mother of 4 wonderful children and a wife to a wonderful man that I adore. My oldest daughter is 21 and the youngest 16. I was born in St. Petersburg, Russia and immigrated with my parents when I was twelve. I grew up in Los Angeles in a tight knit family.

2. What made you launch such an inspiring website?

I believe in the power of girlfriends. I was fortunate to grow up and remain friends with my girlfriends for as long as thirty years. Our friendships lasted longer than most marriages, and remain to be the rock that we can always lean on.

Several of my girlfriends are a few years older than me. When they began turning 40 I saw a complete transformation. Some became a lot more bolder, others embarked on new careers; one of my friends that was shy and never really said much suddenly got her “voice.” She became passionate and vocal about many things.

As I observed all those changes, I knew that we were fortunate enough to have each other, to bounce ideas, to provide support, and to have a shoulder to cry on. We laugh at each other’s jokes, steer one another in the right directions, and more. I also knew that many were not as fortunate.

I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea of a website for women over 40. I woke up my husband and asked him what he though about building a community for women who share the same goals, dreams, issues and fears. My husband, who is my biggest cheerleader, thought it was a great idea. I waited till the morning to talk to my girlfriends, and we all agreed that all of us women can use a friend who will stand next to us as we embark on this journey to the next chapter of our lives.

3. How do you think today’s 40 is different from our mothers’ and grandmothers’ 40?

I think that our mothers and grandmothers were brought up to believe that once you turn 40 you are old. You have to cut off your hair, button up your shirt and call it a day.

Women today just begin their lives at 40. Many are just getting married and having kids, others are sending their kids to college and embarking on new careers, achieving their goals and reaching for their dreams.

4. What are some of your favorite destinations you have traveled to with your kids?

Because we have four children it is very expensive to travel as a whole family. My husband took our two daughters to Japan. Our son traveled to Hong Kong. My favorites however, are the trips we take together. When our oldest was 15 we took everyone to the South of France for a month. My husband and I worked out of the office in Cannes and the kids got to travel all through Europe. It was an amazing experience. My son came back and never again asked to wear baggy, hanging pants.

We also travel to Cabo San Lucas (see photo) every year during Thanksgiving week. It became a ritual that all of us enjoy yearly and plan with enthusiasm.

5. If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go?

I just came back from St. Petersburg. Only my son and my nephew that now lives with us got to enjoy the beauty and the culture that this city offers. I would love to spend two weeks with all of the kids visiting museums and introducing them to their roots. Next stop: South America.