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what are the best ways to stay
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up-to-date on the cruise shutdown
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startup refunds and in news
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I'm Gary Bembridge this is another of my
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cruising tips for travelers things are
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changing so fast at the moment with
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Cruise Lines chopping and changing when
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they're going to be starting up or
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hoping to start up really complicated
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with refunds when you can actually
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change your cruises up to what they do
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change because it's a whole lot of
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information and it's changing constantly
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and all the time it's really hard to
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keep up to date obviously if you look at
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you know newspapers or the media that's
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not the best source in many ways because
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you'll often get the more sensational
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stories but you won't be able to keep up
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to date exactly with the detail of
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what's going on YouTube videos it's
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obviously great but they can not
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necessary always be up to date in the
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very specific cruise line you're looking
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at and spot on what's happening in that
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particular hour because a lot of these
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are changing by the day and even in some
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cases by the hour so what I thought I
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would do is share with you how I keep up
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to date and what I use to keep
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up-to-date with everything that's going
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on to make sure that as I plan my
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cruises so I know which ones have been
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cancelled I know when I need to be
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making decisions to be able to move
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cruises or get refunds etc etc except to
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all those complexities so I thought I
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would share with you the things that I
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use there's actually a set of eight
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different things that I use so let me
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run through those starting with this one
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one of the great resources that I love
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and find incredibly helpful is a podcast
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I really like podcasts and one of the
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podcasts that I really recommend you
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take a listen to is by a guy called Doug
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they said Florida and he has a podcast
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which is called cruise radio but the
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important one to listen to is cruise
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radio news every single day it's a short
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podcast maybe a minute two minutes long
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depending on the might of news where he
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updates the news from the last 24 hours
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and it is fantastic resource because it
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really really everything that's
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happening in cruising opportunity at the
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moment with everything to do the shut
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down etc going on he will give you the
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latest changes updates everything that's
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going on so that's a really fantastic
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resource it's very topical and it really
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one thing I would say is all the links
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to what I'm talking about I will
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have links to all the different sites in
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the description of this video a second
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great resource specifically want to
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check things out or later to is when is
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my cruise line or cruise line looking at
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at this point in time today when are
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they saying they're going to start
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cruising again which ones had they
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cancelled and what's the latest
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situation with refunds is to take a look
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at cruise critic cruise credit of course
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is the biggest sort of resource for
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cruising in terms of reviews and
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information on the Internet
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cruise critic has a very specific page
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where they list alphabetically for both
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ocean and river cruising by cruise line
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what is the plan start date and winners
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complexity so for example it's time for
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quiz Carnival had stopped everything to
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one date but then depending on the
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different region it was a different date
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and some ships was different days so
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they just simply list all of those and
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it's a very good resource to just go and
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check and again I would have a link to
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that very specific page in the
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description the third thing that I use
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and I found this to be an incredibly
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helpful resource because it gives me not
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only the news but also a sense of what's
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also happening on the ships and where
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the ships are and issues and problems
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they might have with repay trading
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people or anything that's going on and
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that is actually the cruise line
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Facebook pages and the reason I talk
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about Facebook pages is to be honest
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with you I find the cruise line websites
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are not that helpful so most of them
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even if you go to it they are all about
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the sell so they'll talk about the
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promotion's the regions their sailing in
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the deals they're offering and more
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buried within the website you can find
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out information about their
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cancellations and refund policies apply
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for refunds that kind of stuff and it's
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actually more hidden so I don't use the
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cruise line websites unless I'm actually
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going to look for refunds to get that in
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or I'm actually looking and started
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planning for future cruises but what I
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do find incredibly helpful is their
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Facebook pages and they have been very
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active on the Facebook page and it's
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easy to understand because looking at
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the major cruise lines they have around
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five million followers on their Facebook
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page so it's a very powerful tool for
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them so pretty much every single cruise
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line that I've looked at from small to
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large has a Facebook page
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Carnival Cruise Line has a pager over
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five million followers Royal Caribbean
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just under five million even MSC has
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almost 5 million and then even gone to
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Princess on America Pond on whatever it
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is you'll find a Facebook page so did
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you go to Facebook search to the cruise
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line and saw that most of them will
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point you to the main site although some
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of them so for example Carnival Royal
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Caribbean some of those they will then
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have site-specific to your country as
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well but that's the place where they're
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posting their information on changes and
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cancellations and refunds and all of
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them to also give you the chance to do
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some customer service on there so that I
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would strongly recommend the fourth
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thing I use is actually also still link
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to Facebook although there is a great
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website and email newsletter and that's
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a site which is called cruise industry
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news so Christian uses on Facebook and
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they post multiple times a day with as
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soon as news breaks the advantage with
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that is that it's cross cruise lines so
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you'll find anything that's going on
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with any Cruise Line they're posting the
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most recent news some of it tends to be
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more business focus than consumer focus
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but it's quite interesting knowing
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what's going on so you might find out
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more around what cruise lines are doing
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in terms of occurring their financing or
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moving ships or things like that which
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is also quite interesting to find out on
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their website or that you can actually
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do it from the Facebook page is you can
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sign up for their daily newsletter
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although you can do a more consolidated
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one every couple of days but cruise
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industry news is a great resource for
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getting a more general picture of what's
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another thing that I do use a lot to
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keeping up today with kind of stuff
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that's going on are to sort of
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specialist sites and I tend to look at
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they're mostly on Facebook although both
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of them do also have a website so you
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can then go into the website if you
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prefer that first of those is crew
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center crew center is run for and by
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crew members on cruise ships and it's
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really interesting particularly this
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point of time seeing what's happening
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with where crew you'll be moved will be
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taken off ships and everything that's
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going on so you get a little bit insight
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about what's going on and as I mentioned
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they do have a website the other one
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that I do keep an eye on although they
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are pretty anti cruising so a lot of
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what they'll do is more the negative
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side of cruising but it's still reinter
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seen with some of that perception and
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some of the stories that they're
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reporting and that's on facebook and
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again a website called cruise law news
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so that's definitely something to take a
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look at in the general perspective so
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those two sites I find really helpful to
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kind of get a sense of some other things
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that are going on in the whole cruising
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world and it's been really interesting
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following those two sites with
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everything's been going on at this point
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in time because they again very active
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the next one that I also rely on and
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take a look at is cruise magazines the
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probably the best-known cruise magazine
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in the world is portal cruise magazine
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there she based out of Florida and on
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their website although they also have a
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Facebook page but on their website they
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have a section which is called kind of
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latest and news and that's been really
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really helpful for posting and keeping
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up-to-date with things that are going
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they're very well-connected because
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they're being around for a very long
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time and they are extremely well
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connected with the cruising world
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particularly that stuff based out of
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Florida and Miami and Fort Lauderdale
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but it's been really really good and
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I've actually learnt a lot of things
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they've broken kind of the stories at
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first so portal cruise magazine send me
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there online and their Facebook is
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definitely one to follow those are
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obably the four main ones that I use and
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sort of interact with really really
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often the next ones that I look at is a
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couple of the bloggers have created very
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specific sites and pages where they're
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also keeping updates of everything
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that's going on and also posting on the
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posts or articles or videos if there
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YouTube with updates on the cruising
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shutdown cover those to look at is eat
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sleep cruise cruising with Ben and David
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and Dave monk ship monk
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so those are a combination of bloggers
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and youtubers and you'll find again
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links in the description but they have
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really up-to-date information as well
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and then the other one that I do take a
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look at is Twitter of course so all of
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the cruise lines have Twitter feeds all
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the ones that I've mentioned have
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Twitter feeds they're actually found
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Twitter to be less good and actually not
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as tiny and I think probably the reason
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for that is passengers themselves are
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probably more likely on things like
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Facebook Twitter tends to be more
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business rates that I've found so it may
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be that they're much less active on
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Twitter because they don't have the
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scale of followers you know they don't
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have the 5 million followers the cruise
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lines don't have the 5 million followers
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on Twitter it's a much less powerful
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tool for them to use but rid of course
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is really helpful interesting so on
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summers I've found what I've used
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Twitter for is if I've seen someone
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posting something or talking about you
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know cruise line postponing or some
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change in regulations her son's gone on
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Twitter and just searched and seen what
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what's bubbling up Nets then Tecna Alton
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- you know verify that on other news
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sites or web sites so that's a way that
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I keep up to date with everything that's
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going on with the shutdown the startup
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new terms new rules new regulations
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things that are going on in this whole
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shutdown period hope you found that
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helpful interesting and hopefully you
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find those resources really helpful to
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you too I have loads more videos whether
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it's about the shutdown or cruising in
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general so why don't you watch another
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one of those right now