Archive for the ‘Admin’ Category
Cruising With Kids – the book – Is Finished
The last time that I blogged, it was early December and I felt like I was running about 6 weeks behind. I estimated that the final product would be more than 300 pages. Well, I was right! Cruising With Kids: A Guide To The Perfect Family Cruise Vacation is 474 pages–that, I did not anticipate. I also estimated a late January publishing date–as it turned out, that was a bit optimistic, as well.
The good news, however, is that the book is going to the printer tomorrow! Once we get the proof back, we will release the book for publication. We expect it to be available for shipment, through our website or Amazon, by April 20th.
I am also in the process of building our new ‘cruising only’ website, which should be completed in the next week. Most of the cruising resources will migrate to the new website (in one way or another) over the course of the next 30 days. I will also be adding lots of additional resources, so stay tuned. Once our new website is up and running, we will offer Cruising With Kids for pre-order at a special introductory price.
For those of you who have contemplated writing a book…check back with us in the next few months for our series, “The Reality of Writing a Book”!
A Look Back At 2010 And Forward To 2011
Well, it’s hard to believe that we’ve been live for over a year. In that time, we’ve created some great content, steadily increased our daily traffic and most importantly, helped to educate families around the world. We’re proud to say that we reached our goal of attracting visitors from over 100 countries in 2010.
The top five posts of 2010 were:
- Norwegian Jewel Cruise Review
- Disney Wonder Cruise Review
- Family Cruise Deals
- Airline Seat Reservation Assignment Fees
- Cruise Line Babysitting Options
Our most popular post had over 5,000 views in just 7 months and continues to generate a great deal of hits every day! The number 5 post made the list for a second year thanks to a few updates. Note that we have discontinued our deals posts, so we do expect our very popular Family Cruise Deals to fall off the list in 2011.
Having spent a great deal of time and energy in 2010 on our new book, Cruising Family Style – A Guide to Cruising With Kids, in 2011 we’re hoping to focus on marketing, developing a kickin’ family cruising website and get back to growing this site by focusing on non-cruising topics. Right now, we’re looking at hitting the shelves (or at least pre-order) at the end of January, but that may well slip into early February, depending upon how quickly we can get through proof.
In 2011, I’ll be back on the road and leading student educational tours along the East Coast. That journey will begin to filter into the content that appears on this site, so for a unique perspective on touring big cities with 50 kids, be sure to check back with us in April.
Finally, I wanted to thank our readers for taking the time out of your busy schedules to follow along with us. It has been an interesting first year and we hope to bring more value and lots of interesting topics in 2011. Happy New Year!
Disclosure
Passports With Purpose – Together We Can Build A Village
We recently celebrated our one-year anniversary here at The Lollipop Road and when I think about the things that have enabled us to be so successful, I never even considered the basics, like a roof over our head – we take those things for granted. So, this year, we’ve decided to do something meaningful and have joined with fellow travel bloggers in Passports with Purpose. Three years ago, a group of fellow travel bloggers got together to raise money for Heifer International and at the last minute they were able to pull together $7,400. So, in 2009, they once again endeavored to raise funds, but this time to build a school in Cambodia. Raising more than twice their goal of $14,000, great things began to happen.
Working with LAFTI International this year, Passports with Purposehas set a goal of raising $50,000 to help build basic homes for the Dalits in India. Forget everything that you know about India’s caste system, the Dalits are considered too low to even be a part of it. What they endure is unfathomable. We’d like you to join us in doing something meaningful for them this year.
For about $2,000, LAFTI can build a home, for which the land title is given to the woman of the household. Passports with Purposeaims to raise enough money to build approximately 25 homes to create the Passports Village in Karunganni, located in the state of Tamil Nadu, India.
So, how can you help and how does it work?
Beginning November 15th, you have a chance to participate in making this a successful fundraiser. Your $10 can help us reach our goal of $50,000 so that we can build approximately 25 homes for families who have never owned land, let alone had a bank account. For each $10 donation that you make between November 15, 2010 and December 13, 2010 (11:59 PM PST), you will be entered into a drawing for a prize of your choice. Winners will be drawn randomly and notified on December 17, 2010.
Your donation is made directly to Friends of LAFTI, which is a 501(c)3 charity. Donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law. All of your donation (minus the small processing fee charged by PayPal) will go directly to helping to build these homes. Again, if you wish to be entered into the drawing to win one of the generous prizes, be sure to donate through the PwP website.
We at The Lollipop Road will be participating this year by donating our entire 4th quarter advertising revenue to Passports with Purpose. If you’ve enjoyed reading our content over the last year, please say “thank you” by donating to a good cause. Your generosity will come back to you ten-fold.
A huge amount of thanks is owed to this year’s sponsors: BootsnAll, LiveMocha, Round the World with Us, HomeAway, Traveller’s Point, Hostelling International, Quintess, Raveable, TravelPost, and Uptake as well as PwP’s founders Debbie Dubrow, Pam Mandel, Beth Whitman and Michelle Duffy.
Disclosure
Yet Another Live Cruising Event – Navigator Of The Seas
For those folks who follow us regularly, you probably know that we’ve been working hard on a book that we believe is not only long overdue, but that will also revolutionize the way that families approach cruise vacations. We’ve made incredible progress since we began back in May and we’re still looking to get it to press by the end of the year. In conjunction with that goal, I’m making one last “research” trip on November 15th aboard Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas. Yeah, I know, “research” – lots of people poke fun at how hard it must be to take vacations for a living – my fellow travel writers know the truth – it really is hard work testing all those lounge chairs, swimming in every pool, relaxing in every hot tub and trying to sample every type of food onboard…no, really, it is a burden.
Okay, enough of that, now on to why I’m writing today. Earlier this year, we put together a month-long cruising event that was quite a success. So, in conjunction with my upcoming sailing, we’ll be putting together a “mini” live cruising event that will give readers the opportunity once again to follow the adventure day by day. We’ll be publishing the following articles with plenty of special insights and tips into cruising with Royal Caribbean International.
- November 16th – A Day Aboard Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas
- November 18th – Royal Caribbean For Kids – Adventure Ocean and Beyond
- November 19th – The New and Improved Labadee
- November 20th – Twitter Digest (of all tweets from onboard)
- November 21st – Cruise Review – Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas
If you’ve ever thought about cruising with kids, cruising with Royal Caribbean or just cruising period, you won’t want to miss this event. You can also follow our live tweet stream on Twitter @thelollipoproad or follow our dedicated hashtag #noslive. This time around we’ll also be doing something a little bit different, so be sure to check back on Monday, November 15th, because we believe everyone will want to participate.
For those who haven’t already subscribed, take a few minutes to Subscribe to our alerts. As an incentive, we’ll send you a discount code to be used toward the purchase of our new book, Cruising Family Style – A Guide to Cruising With Kids once it is launched later this year. Also, in 2011, we’ll be launching a monthly newsletter that you won’t want to miss. Sign-up and stay tuned for more details.
Disclosure
What’s Happening At The Lollipop Road
Well, it has been a hectic couple of months. We expended a great deal of energy on our Cruise Views Marathon in May, which yielded lots of additional traffic that has continued to grow. In June and July, we’ve expended lots of energy on moving (and a bit less on actually writing). Now we’re ready to focus on getting our first book completed. We’ve loosely titled it - ”Cruising Family Style – A Guide to Cruising With Kids” and hope to launch it in late-November.
Over the next few months, we’ll be incorporating more guest posts, more cruising topics and even updating some of our older, more informational posts. So, if you are interested in writing for us, exchanging links or otherwise participating in or contributing to upcoming projects, just drop us a line.
We’ve been a bit absent from Twitter lately, but will also be back online again in early August. If you’re not a follower, check us out!
Thank you for your loyalty and continued support!
Disclosure
