A Fascination With Balconies

People who like to cruise seem to have a "thing" for having their own private verandah. It's their little patch of fresh air, stepping out of their cabin enclosure, through the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass window/door, to watch the world go by. Ahhhhhh! It's their personal seat in the lap of luxury. While some people say you don't spend enough time in your cabin to warrant paying extra for a balcony cabin, you can bet that 90+% of those folks have never had a balcony and are only speaking from envy or ignorance. Cruise ship cabins are always dramatically smaller than hotel rooms, and even with a porthole or window those 4 walls tend to become claustrophobic. Plus just like on an airplane, you are breathing somewhat recycled air throughout your cruise. Not so if you have a verandah! Grand views. Fresh air. The freedom to break out from that closed-in feeling some people experience.

In the olden days, shipmakers built entire vessels with just interior or ocean view rooms. Years later, they added balconies in the suite categories, but since there were so few of those type cabins on board, people paid a dramatic premium to travel in them. Sometimes double or even triple a normal cabin rate. Then a light bulb went off. The designers realized they didn't have to make larger, more opulent cabins and suites as the only way to have this extra perk. They started designing ships with 30% balconies. Then 40%. Now there are ships that are 100% balconies. By eliminating many or most of the standard oceanview rooms and replacing them with same-sized cabins that have private balconies, the cruise lines have made their ships more desirable. And in many cases, without raising the rates more than a couple of hundred dollars.

Carnival, the world's most popular cruise line, has a new answer to this fascination with balconies. They now have the Fascination, with balconies! Their ship Carnival Fascination was a carbon-copy of the ultra-popular Fantasy class of ships, originally built only with balconies in the suite categories. But she has just come out of dry-dock, completely refurbished and now with almost 100 new balconies for sale. The ship also has a new Serenity adults-only area, upgraded pools and water park activities, and much more. Carnival Fascination sails roundtrip from Jacksonville Florida, doing a series of 4-night and 5-night cruises to the Bahamas, all within easy driving range of the Carolinas and other Southern states. If you've never experienced a balcony stateroom, this is a great inexpensive entry-level way to try it. I've always got discount rates available on Carnival Fascination, so call me and let's get you on board today!

You've heard of Senior Citizen discounts? Military or Police or Firefighter specials? How about Mexican hairless?! According to a KOTV report in Tulsa, Oklahoma the "Arizona Mexican Restaurant" decided to take discounts to a new level. Every Tuesday at the Arizona, men with dramatically-receding hairlines now get 10% off. Men who have progressed further, with just a few tufts and wafts of plumage on their noggins get 20% off. And for those complete Chrome Domes, it's 30% off every Tuesday. The owners of the restaurant were looking for a way to increase business on what's normally an off-night, and hit on the idea by accident. But is has proven to be a big success. What's next, I wonder? Muscle-Man Mondays? Wide-Load Wednesdays? The possibilities are endless.

A British woman opening a box of eggs was left shell-shocked, after beating odds of more than a trillion-to-one by finding six double-yolked eggs in the same half-dozen carton. An egg expert says the odds of getting just 1 double-yolked egg in a half dozen box is about 1/1,000. So the chances of getting all six with double-yolks is more than 1/1,000,000,000,000,000. The same expert says that double-yolk eggs are more common among younger hens, so all the eggs probably came from one location. The "Octo-Hen," as the chicken is being dubbed, is now in great demand for American morning TV shows. Rumors say the Enquirer is trying to get a photospread of the Egg-Bearing-Mama in a red swimsuit for their next cover, touting the "Miracle Diet of Grains, Corn Husks, Bits Of Fruit and Small Insects."

Another story from not-so-Great Britain: Remember when you were a student? Money was always tight, and you had to be careful not to overspend and accidentally short your bank account? Imagine the surprise of a UK college student, when he went on line to check his statement, only to find out he was over-drawn. By $161-billion British Pounds! His account, which rarely had more than $50 British Pounds in it, showed 2 separate withdrawals of roughly $80 billion each. The bank has admitted it was an internal technical error to blame, and has offered the student $40 Pounds in compensation for the phone calls, time and efforts he had to make to resolve the error. The student however is hoping for significantly more, because of all the stress and mental hardship he was put under. At least, that's what his attorney says. Plus all that stress and mental cruelty is a great excuse for getting out of that stinkin' Chemistry exam on Friday....