Little Footsteps in the Big World

On my previous post about our story of cruising with little kids , I promised to write a separate post for tips and tricks for cruising on budget. I mentioned how we took the cheapest cabin available in the ship. The price also covers all meals and access to most facilities like pools, gym, theater, library, etc. Of course, you'd have to pay extra for spa and its services like massage. The good news is, kids don't pay until their 18th birthday, and they get their own beds in the parents' cabin. So if you're not crazy about private balcony or windows with sea-view, take the cheapest inside cabin for your family and spend most of your time on the outdoor deck. You'd literally just sleep and shower in the cabin. Apart from the main price of the cruise, these are our tips to keep your experience low budget: Research well to avoid taking their official shuttle Most cruise ports are located a little far from the city center or the old historic port of the town. B...

Many major airports in the world, the home of the biggest airline companies, offer free stopover tours for their loyal passengers. In cooperation with the national government, they give their transit passenger a compliment while promoting their own tourism, which, is kind of smart. A lot of people don't know about this, I think mainly because the packages are advertised only on the official website of the airlines, so unless you buy your tickets from their official websites (many people still get their tickets from travel agencies) chance is you won't see the offer. Until recently I only knew that Turkish airlines, Qatar airways and Emirates offer the tour for transit passengers in Istanbul, Doha and Dubai. A few days ago I found out that Thai airways and Singapore airlines offer the tours for Bangkok and Singapore. We did Istanbul stopover tour twice, in December 2014 and  March 2016; both times with our daughter (seven-month old the first time around and 23-month now the se...