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What is the Best Party Entertainment to Hire?

What is the Best Party Entertainment to Hire?

Depending on the type of event or party you are hosting, there is a myriad of options for live entertainment. You might find it difficult to find live acts within your price range and that offers the specific type of entertainment you are looking for.

Fortunately, as with just about anything these days, there are apps for that. By cutting out the middleman like talent agents and managers, booking party entertainment is much more affordable, and apps can help you filter the talent down to pinpoint the right types of performers for your event.

Musicians

Musicians are some of the most commonly hired entertainment for parties. Any event can benefit from a quartet, acoustic guitar, cello, or violin. Whether it be a wedding, conference dinner, or family reunion, live music can create the mood you are looking for. A variety of professional musicians can be hired: guitarists, singers or vocalists, and pianists. Imagine a beachside wedding with a harpist playing through the ceremony or lively bagpipes at your annual Scottish games.

Dancers

If you are hosting an evening dinner party, professional ballroom dancers will be the highlight of your guests’ evening. If you are in charge of arranging your best friend’s bachelor party, you may want to look for burlesque dancers in Atlanta, GA. Search for Polynesian dancers for a luau, a drag queen for a girls’ night out, or a fire dancer, which is entertaining for all ages. Professional dancers are also great for conferences and other large events.

Children’s Entertainment

Children can appreciate a variety of entertainment options. Of course, balloon artists, clowns, and magicians are some of their favorite, and fairly inexpensive for parents. You should also consider a professional actress who can dress up as their favorite Disney princess or a singer who knows many of the popular kid tunes. Acrobatics and dancers are also a big hit for kids’ birthday parties. With the average cost for children’s party entertainment between $120 to $250 per hour, it’s not something that’s only for the wealthy.

Speakers

Motivational speakers are always a hit at large business conferences. They are capable of entertaining big crowds with humor, sentimental stories, and motivating anecdotes. If your company is hosting a multiple-day event for its employees, consider having a motivational speaker at one of the morning breakout sessions. Your colleagues will come back to work on Monday full of determination, fresh ideas, and newfound energy.

Comedians

When hosting an event, you may not always think to hire a comedian, but they are surprisingly versatile. A comedian is excellent entertainment for a birthday dinner, holiday party, or business conference. You can search for comedians that are age appropriate for younger audiences or that speak to a specific niche.

Hoping Your Next Party is Fabulous!

Stuart Gustafson,

America’s International Travel Expert®

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Published on December 06, 2019 09:33

Best Beach Towns in Michigan

When many out of towners think of Michigan, beaches most likely don’t come to mind. Michigan is famed for its severe, snowy winters. But there are miles of pristine beaches that you can enjoy when visiting Michigan. Each town has its vibe.

Some are super touristy and offer tons of nightlife and activities, while others have a more artsy feel. No matter what type of vacation you are looking for, Michigan has something to offer for everyone. You may even decide you want to stay. Check out some of these Grand Rapids houses for sale and take advantage of all that Michigan has to offer.

Let’s check out some of our top Michigan beach towns that you can plan your next trip to.

Grand Haven

Grand Haven is Michigan’s most famous beach town. It has a vast beach at the Grand Haven State Park that features a beautiful lighthouse and pier to check out.

This is a great place to take a family and kids. There are so many activities for you to experience, and the food is out of this world. If you can sneak away from the children, make sure you check out the tiki bar at Jack’s Waterfront Bar, you won’t be disappointed.

Sawyer

If you are looking for a peaceful, low key vacation, Sawyer may be the place for you. They have fantastic dunes that can reach heights of over 250 feet tall. The best place to see the most massive dunes is by visiting the Warren Dunes State Park.

Sawyer has some of the most fantastic craft brewing companies so after you work up a thirst climbing the dunes; check out one of the many local breweries.

Copper Harbor

If nature is your thing, consider staying at Copper Harbor. This area offers up some fantastic raw views of the northernmost shore of Lake Superior. This natural area has some excellent hiking trails and mountain biking trails. You can immerse yourself in nature and get away from it all.

Mackinac Island

Mackinac Island is one of the most beautiful areas in all of Michigan. Visiting Mackinac Island is almost like taking a step back in time. Take a stroll through town and enjoy the historic and pristine Victorian homes.

If you have a sweet tooth, you are in the right area. There are tons of homemade fudge shops for you to enjoy. There are also plenty of great restaurants to dine at while taking in the picturesque scenery.

St. Ignace

St. Ignace is one of the most amazing places to view the Mackinac Bridge. You can even stay at many different hotels that offer sweeping views of the famous bridge. When you get hungry, make sure you head to Clyde’s Drive-in.

This is home to Michigan’s most famous and best burger. At night on select weekends, you can take in the fireworks show over Moran Bay, Lake Huron. There are tons of fun-filled activities to try out.

Happy Travels!

Stuart Gustafson,

America’s International Travel Expert®

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Published on December 04, 2019 10:07

Portugal-Morocco-Spain: Let the Tour Begin

Monday, October 21

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Our Globus tour (code ZU 1018) tour has begun, and we are currently in Seville, Spain. The emphasis here is on Flamenco– just as Fado was the emphasis in Lisbon. Yes, we are actually a couple days into the tour, but with the lengthy travel some days on the coach, it is not easy to get something written “every day.”

Art Thefts in PARIS

Speaking of starting a tour, that is how Art Thefts in PARIS starts: Elyse is taking her tour group into a museum in Paris. CLICK HERE for the the book synopsis, and for ordering information (it is available in print AND in all major e-book outlets!)

I call this tour “Portugal, Morocco, and Spain,” although it is technically “Portugal, Spain, Morocco, and Spain [potential side trip to U.K. Gibraltar, back to Spain].” Now you can see why I chose the shorter version. Tours are like cruises — you get to see a little of a lot of places. Then it is up to you to decide if you want to go back and spend more time in one (or more) of those places you’ve visited.

It was a bit rainy the day we visited a few of the highlights in Lisbon, but we were quite fortunate that the hard rain did not appear until we were actually in the coach.

Alfama Tiling

Belem Tower

Monument to the Discoveries

We also visited the Jeronimos Monastery, which was quite crowded on Saturday morning.

With our free afternoon we walked along the riverwalk area that was developed for the 1998 Expo. We had a nice lunch and then a ride in the TeleCabine gondolas. What a deal. A total of 4 Euros for a round-trip ride. It was too good of a deal to pass up!

Gondola Ride

Heading out

To the Terminal

Nearby hotel; not Burj Al-Arab

Leaving Lisbon we stopped in a sleepy little town of Azeitao, still in Portugal. We went to one of the two remaining tile factories where tiles are still made by hand. From the rolling of the clay, to the firing, hand painting, more firing, etc., it was all done by hand. It certainly sounded like quite a long process, but the resulting tiles were very impressive.

We continued the coach ride, losing an hour as we entered Spain, and arrived at our hotel in Seville in time to rest up (quickly!), and then have dinner in the hotel.

Everything is running very smoothly, and I am quite impressed with the organization of this Globus tour. I’ve conducted my own tours, and I’ve escorted many dozens of cruise ship tours as a speaker on board. Every detail on this tour has been taken care of so far, and I expect that it will continue to be superbly run.

So long for now; I hear there is an Irish pub close by!

Happy Travels!

Stuart

Stuart Gustafson is America’s International Travel Expert® who speaks on cruise ships, writes novels, sends out an infrequent newsletter (almost every month!), is an avid TripAdvisor reviewer, and loves everything about travel. Visit his website at www.stuartgustafson.com. You can also connect with him personally on Facebook and/or with him and other travelers on his International Travel Expert page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/International-Travel-Expert-147321228683651/

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Published on October 21, 2019 05:32

Portugal-Morocco-Spain: Before the Start

Thursday, October 17

Greetings from Lisboa (as Lisbon is called here in Portugal). Darlene and I are here on our “pre-night” before the start of our 17-day Globus tour that takes us through parts of Portugal, 7 days in Morocco, and then some time in Spain before finishing in Madrid. (Thanks for putting this together, Cheryl at Hey Wanna Go for organizing this for us). We flew from Boise to Denver and then on to Newark where we spent the evening. We’ve gone full-day from Boise to Europe before, and they’ve been tough trips. This day break was nice.

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Mimosa anyone?

We boarded our TAP Portugal flight in Newark, flying on an Airbus 330-neo, sitting in the middle seats in Business Class. The good news is that it as only a 6-hour flight to Lisbon. The only problem with that is only a couple hours to actually sleep in the lie-flat seats after eating (which was delayed due to turbulence). But it was still an enjoyable flight.

One of the passengers on the flight one row up from us recognized me as “the best cruise ship speaker” she and her [now-deceased husband] had ever experienced. His name was also Stuart, and so we had bonded on that SE Asia cruise two years ago. She was heading to Barcelona for a nice-sounding 6-week cruise to Brazil.

Our transfer driver was there for us as we exited Customs, holding his GLOBUS sign with our names on it. It was a short ride ride to our hotel, where we were able to get into a room at 8 AM. We’d not gotten much sleep on the flight, so we actually slept for 8 hours in the room before getting up and heading out for a bite to eat.

An Irish Pub!

We asked at the hotel for a place to eat, and the first place the young man recommended was an Irish Pub. We love Irish Pubs, and have visited them all over the world.

Butter?

We’ve seen many different appetizers, but I’ve never seen “Butter” listed as one. (No, we didn’t try it). Another thing Darlene noticed as she looked at the menu was that it said KIDS, Under 12. I told her, “Don’t even look at the prices for Kids, under 12. Ours are in their 30s and I’m not doing that again.”

Guinness

Darlene likes Guinness beer; I am more for the lighter style. This is a trick photo in that it is only a 1/2 pint. I just focused more on the glass!!!

That’s it for our first “day” in Lisbon. Our tour begins Friday evening at 6 PM. We’re thinking of going on the Hop-On Hop-Off bus tomorrow during the daytime.

Happy Travels!

Stuart

Stuart Gustafson is America’s International Travel Expert® who speaks on cruise ships, writes novels, sends out an infrequent newsletter (almost every month!), is an avid TripAdvisor reviewer, and loves everything about travel. Visit his website at www.stuartgustafson.com. You can also connect with him personally on Facebook and/or with him and other travelers on his International Travel Expert page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/International-Travel-Expert-147321228683651/

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Published on October 17, 2019 13:01

Why I Like to “Travel Light”

You have probably read in other online posts or newsletters some of the benefits of traveling “light.” My wife and I had an experience yesterday that reinforced that concept—a very pleasurable experience.

Some “travel light” proponents use fear of losing your luggage as a key motivating factor. With my 1.5 Million PAID flight miles on a single airline (and not counting 21 other airlines plus ALL the award travel I’ve taken), I think my luggage has been delayed ONCE! Just once. So that fear factor is NOT a motivator for me. What motivates me is convenience and flexibility. Oh, and I don’t use a carry-on just to save on baggage fees. With my status, I never pay those pesky fees.

When I have my carry-on bag with me (typically a 21″ or 22″ bag), I know that when the plane lands, I just grab my bag and go. It doesn’t matter whether I’m connecting to another flight or am at my destination. I have my bag, and I’m ready to go! Also in case I need a sweater or jacket, I can just take the bag down from the bin and retrieve it easily. No worrying about carrying “extra items” on just in case.

But the flexibility part of using only a carry-on is what I’ve really enjoyed over the years. Here’s what happened yesterday. We were flying home (Boise, Idaho) from San Diego, connecting through San Francisco. Our schedule had us with a 2+ hour layover in SFO because an earlier connection was too tight for it to be a valid booking. But we landed early, grabbed our carry-on bags and walked briskly to the gate for the earlier flight to Boise. Everyone was already on the plane as I approached the desk, handed the agent our boarding passes, and asked if we could get on that flight.

Here is the crucial part; this is the BIG WHY for carry-on.

“Do you have any checked luggage?” she asked.

“No,” I replied. Just carry-on.”

She gave us great seats (plane was about two-thirds empty), and we got home before our original flight was to take off.

BOTTOM LINE: I hope you can tell that I am sold on carry-on luggage. Yes, it doesn’t work for EVERY trip, but I’ve done it even when I’m going to speak on cruises for 30 days, and I need dress shirts, dress shoes, slacks, coat and tie, etc. IT CAN BE DONE!

I hope you’ll give it a try.

Questions? Drop me a line.

Happy Travels!

Stuart

Stuart Gustafson is America’s International Travel Expert® who speaks on cruise ships, writes novels, sends out an infrequent newsletter (almost every month!), is an avid TripAdvisor reviewer, and loves everything about travel. Visit his website at www.stuartgustafson.com. You can also connect with him personally on Facebook and/or with him and other travelers on his International Travel Expert page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/International-Travel-Expert-147321228683651/

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Published on August 27, 2019 14:08

Photos from “Viking Homelands” Cruise

In a previous post, I told you about my first Viking Ocean cruise; it was a truly amazing experience. I didn’t include many photos in that post because it was already long enough. In this post, words will be scant and photos will be plentiful.

Note: If you want to know anything about any specific photo, use the CONTACT page to ask me.

Eidfjord, Norway

Waterfall

Stavanger, Norway

Nobel Prize Winners

Near Åalborg, Denmark

they want to come along

Near Copenhagen, Denmark

Little Crying Mermaids

Gdansk, Poland

Golden Gate

Tallinn, Estonia

Parliament

Saint Petersburg, Russia

Fabergé Museum

Helsinki, Finland

Sibelius Concert

Stockholm, Sweden

they’re everywhere!

Happy Travels!

Stuart

Stuart Gustafson is America’s International Travel Expert® who speaks on cruise ships, writes novels, sends out an infrequent newsletter (almost every month!), is an avid TripAdvisor reviewer, and loves everything about travel. Visit his website at www.stuartgustafson.com. You can also connect with him personally on Facebook and/or with him and other travelers on his International Travel Expert page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/International-Travel-Expert-147321228683651/

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Published on June 10, 2019 06:20