What’s a typical day for a Expedia Cruise Ship Center Travel Consultant like? Isn’t that something you have always wanted to know? Today was a typical day. Did a bunch of paperwork at home this morning and then we went into the agency. Our agency is about a 20 minute drive from the house and the best part is that it’s opposite the flow of traffic so we get there with a minimum of effort.

No sooner had we arrived at the agency and got settled than my first appointment of the day walked through the door. The couple I had booked the Mediterranean cruise for (that I wrote about yesterday—the strange non-balcony) were coming in to go over travel insurance (a topic for another day), their airline seating, shore excursions, pre-cruise hotel and all the other parts of the (as we call it in the travel biz) “the complete vacation.”

The “complete vacation” starts when you leave your house and head to the airport and it ends when you walk back in your front door after your trip. I like to run an Excel file that lists every possible thing that could cost them money (other than souvenirs and lunch) during their vacation. This is also a great way to remember all the places you are going and things you are doing. And I really appreciate clients like these who are looking for that “complete vacation.” I promise much more on this topic in a coming post.

After our discussion with this wonderful couple (we spent about half the time just talking about all the amazing ports they will get to see on their 22-night cruise) they were off and I started on my to-do list for them getting all those things done that they now don’t have to deal with themselves. I still have a few more things I have to do to complete the list and it seems to keep growing all the time. About halfway through the list, a friend of a good friend gave me a call to see if he could arrange a birthday cruise for his wife and eight or nine friends. So I quickly got him some numbers and dates so he could start organizing the celebration.

While I was dealing with the to-do lists for our Med travelers and checking on the birthday celebration, Kathleen was doing all the paperwork for the Med travelers and checking up on some others we needed to update. There is quite a lot of paperwork involved in our business (with Expedia) and most agents have to do their paperwork themselves but Kathleen and I have a wonderful set up where I deal with the clients and do most of the research while she takes care of the invoicing, receipts, etc. It’s a perfect situation as we both get to work to our strengths and makes us a truly great team. I couldn’t and wouldn’t do this job without her.