Archive for year: 2011

Most of the time I blog about the different aspects of the cruise industry and my personal experiences of cruising. I thought I would do something a little different this time (but still applies to me helping you find the perfect cruise!)

Over the past couple of months, I have been working hard on my business to be as organized and efficient as possible.  As part of my work, I have to keep track of a lot of documents.  Multiple quotes for multiple cruises on different dates, your travel forms, contact information and so much more.  I have been blessed with so many clients this year that things had gotten a little out of hand!  It turned out to be really handy to have a husband who does social media and business consulting for a living!

Jason and I talked about the fact that I had so many documents on my computer and couldn’t access them when I was in other locations… I had to be home to access this important information.  I also didn’t have a solid method for organizing the travel documents and it was becoming harder to get to the right document quickly.  We looked at several options and I ended up choosing to go with DropBox!  DropBox allows you to store your files on your computer just like any other document, but behind the scenes it automatically saves a copy “in the cloud” (or servers on the internet).  The great thing is that I can access my documents from my home computer just like before, but now I can access them from any computer that has an internet connection, and from my mobile phone!

The other thing that I figured out was that I needed a good folder structure for organizing my documents.  I worked with Jason on some different ways to accomplish this and we ended up going with the following:

YEAR –> CLIENT NAME –> TRIP DATE

This simple hierarchy makes it very easy to get to the documents I need to reference or update.  This has been a huge change for my business and I wanted to share these two tips with you! Let me know in the comments below if this has been helpful to you or if you have any suggestions on what you have used to make your business more efficient!

Barbados

I fell in love with cruising on my very first cruise vacation.  I went by myself to sail the Southern Caribbean out of San Juan, Puerto Rico almost 5 years ago.  To this day, it is one of the most memorable vacations of my life.  Possibly for two reasons……  it was my first time on a large cruise ship and it was my very first vacation on my own.  After returning home from my voyage, I knew that this would become important in my life, I just wasn’t sure how.  I met my husband shortly before I went on this first cruise and he encouraged me to make more of this passion by making it a business.  Not long after we took our first cruise together, I made Curious Compass a reality.  We are embarking on our 7th cruise this fall with a New England/Canadian itinerary to see the leaves changing and eat some fresh seafood :)  My love of cruising grows with each cruise we embark on.  I love to help others plan their dream cruise vacation so they can share in the joy I have found in vacationing aboard a cruise ship.

Cruising has so much to offer.  There are so many exotic ports to visit, from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean to the South Pacific to Alaska and pretty much anywhere in the world you could dream to visit.  Cruising makes it easy to see many places without having to pack and un-pack each time you change your location.  I love waking up in a different port every day.  The days at sea are also an enjoyment for my husband and I.  We tend to use these days to catch up on rest and reading a good book with the sound of the ocean as a backdrop.   The entertainment onboard is extensive, from Broadway shows and shopping talks to poker tournaments and pool parties, karaoke and much, much more.  Most of the entertainment is included in the cruise fare.  Always one of the highlights of our cruise vacation is the Love and Marriage show, hysterical, a must see that leaves us laughing for most of the evening.  Ready to experience your first cruise?  I would love to help you plan!  

Happy Sailing 🙂