May 5, 2025 • 23 mins
I sat down with Julie from Bellevue Travel and we talked about ALL the reasons you should use a Travel Agent.
It makes your vacation a LOT more fun!
It makes your vacation a LOT more fun!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, It's Lucy Chapman and thanks for tuning in to
another episode of Here's More and I've got so much
more This time. Julie from Bellevue Travel is joining me today. Julie, welcome,
Thank you, thanks for coming in and talking about We're
heading into vacation season and I'm sure you're getting busy.
(00:21):
Oh yeah, so glad you can take it a little
bit of time to come and talk to me. You're
with Bellevy Travel. As I mentioned, how long has Bellvue
Travel been around?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Oh, a long time. Technically it was started in nineteen
eighty two, so it's been a minute.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
We think of travel agents today not the same way
that we did even twenty years ago. We think, oh,
we can do it ourselves. We've got all these websites
and everything, and that it really is not good in
many ways, and we're going to talk about some of them.
But the biggest thing is the ability to have somebody
to call if something goes wrong. And you can't do
(00:56):
that with those those book all your flights and hotels
and everything all here together in this one website. It
doesn't really work that way.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
It doesn't If the pandemic taught us anything, it's that, oh,
you really want to have a person in your corner.
Instead of sitting on the line yourself for five six hours,
we would put you know, our lines on hold, and
then we would immediately have you know, all these lists
of people that we had to talk to them about,
and so you know, we took care of that, and
(01:27):
the same is true now. We will take care of
you when you are traveling before, during, and after. And
I think that's that's really important and you can't get
that with an online travel agency.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You must have had over the years, you must have
had some horror stories people that have booked on their
own and then came running into your door for their
next trip.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, and sometimes it's a simple thing. Had a client
who we booked every single year to go to Mexico
or Jamaica, and I always booked it. They just told
me where they wanted to go, when they wanted to go,
and I took care of it. And she was going
to a wedding in Mexico. Family had already booked the
block of rooms. She just needed to do airfare, so
(02:12):
she booked the airfare. They go to the airport. He's
at TSA, she's already gone through, and they stopped and said, well,
this is not your name on the passport. Oh, his
legal name was Kenneth, but he always went by Kenny.
She knew him as Kenny, and she did the ticket
as Kenny, which again it's not a stretch from Kenny
to Kenneth. But TSA can.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Do whatever they want.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, I was all, I was trying to be diplomatic
about that. No. So yeah, so they pulled him out
of the line and made him, you know, have like
I don't know, two or three other forms of ID.
And she's standing there going, oh, my travel agent, Juli
wouldn't have done this. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
She had to come back and tell me that, you know,
and that's a simple thing. And it's again, it was
all taken care of. TSA. Let him go, and then
they made sure that the airline changed the name before
he flew back, so he didn't have the issue coming
back into the US. But still, she said she almost
had heart attack at the airport because she knew it
was all her fault. And it was a simple thing,
(03:14):
very very simple thing.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And that is why you need to go through a
travel agent. Bellevue travel preferably, right, we prefer yes. What
are some of the popular destinations that people are wanting
to travel to this year?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, as always, we are landlocked in Nebraska, so the
ocean always calls, oh yes, so you know, we have
to have the beaches in Mexico or the Caribbean. Cruising
is also very popular because you can go to the
different beaches and unpack one time and go to all
these different places. Europe is usually very popular. It's still
popular a bit, but not as just from you know,
(03:52):
current events. Some people are not that comfortable. They don't
know how other countries are really looking at us. I
can tell tell you that I was in Paris and
Vienna in March and people were very friendly. They know
that we're not our government, so they're people too.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
So they want our money exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
They want our money, and they want us to tell
the world that it's okay to go there. You know.
They had like Venice was one of the first ones
to say over tourism, go away, leave us alone. We
don't want you, you know, and they did that in Portugal,
they did that in Paris. But the truth is it
(04:36):
also runs their economy, so they really would like to
pick and choose the people that come to their country
and say, oh, well, yeah, you look like a good tourist,
and you look like an idiot, and I don't want
you here. But you know, I mean the British citizen
who you know carved his name and his fiance's name
in the colisseum with a key and it was recorded.
(04:56):
So they finally caught him after a day and then
he said, well, didn't know that it was an ancient
place or I don't remember his wording, but it was
a place of antiquity or whatever. And then that just
made him look even more stupid, right, So you know,
that's the kind of tourist nobody wants at their place,
but the money is important, so.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
He's driving their economy exactly exactly. You mentioned cruises, and
something I've always wanted to do is is a river
cruise right here in the United States? Is that something
you can book?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
You can You can go up and down the Mississippi,
you can go off into the tributaries. They also have
the Colombian Snake River over in the West, which is amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
And that's something that Bellevue Travel can book for.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yes, absolutely, I will warn you they can make you
cry when you see the pricing on them. It's a
little jolting, okay, but they do include everything. They also
include a night at a hotel the night before, so
they make sure that everybody gets there. But it can
be a little sticker shock.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Okay, well, good to know. No, I'm still gonna do it.
I'm still gonna do it, so expect to offer me someday.
And then the other the other trip I was thinking about.
Can you do train trips because I know, trips through
the rockies and stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yes, especially you can go all the way across Canada
if you if you want to. We do have now
train trips through Rocky Mountaineer in it goes from Denver
to Moab, Utah. It's only a couple of days, but
they have the dome car so you can just literally
sit there and look up and see the spectacular scenery.
(06:38):
I mean, you know, and then you can have a
night before and a you know, a night after, or
you can actually do it round trip. You can go
back and forth.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, that sounds absolutely spectacular. Yeah, I've never been on
a train. Oh not even you know, stupid amtracker, I
don't know whatever.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Not even the ones like Royal Gorge train and oh.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
My god, it's on my bucket list.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
It's speaking of bucket lists, you've you've got a little
saying about about you mentioned sticker shock, but you got
a little saying about about the money. What is it?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Well, these days, most of our kids probably make more
money than we do, so they really don't need us
to leave our you know, accumulated wealth or lack thereof.
So we do have clients that would rather instead of
saving the money for their kids to give it to
them when they pass away, they would rather spend the
(07:31):
time and make make memories with their family, especially the
younger generations. So we jokingly say that it's go ahead,
it's sibid, it's spend it before you die.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, I mean it makes sense, but it does because
my kids make more money than I do. I get
to go on better trips than they get to. But nonetheless,
but this way, you've got grandparents, kids and grandkids sometimes
great grandkids depending on and they go on these trips,
and that's what those grandkids are going to remember about you.
(08:08):
They're not going to remember that, oh, you left enough
money for their college or whatever. That's not as important anymore.
It's really the time spent, because time is what we
have the least of, don't we know it exactly. We're
all so busy, and we're busy being busy, and so
(08:29):
that's one of the things about a vacation. They have
scientific proof that it actually helps your mental health because
you get away, even if you work all day, and
even if you take a lunch hour and you go away.
You know, like I leave the office, I go home
for lunch because I live very close to the office.
(08:51):
I can play with my dog. There's no phone calls,
there isn't anything I can plan my phone if I
want to. I can read a book, I can go
outside and pull a few weeds. But I am away
from the office, and then I can come back. And
even just that hour break makes a difference. So for
those people who have that use it or lose it
by the end of the year and think they're doing
so well, right, you're not irreplaceable. Take a freaking vacation,
(09:16):
you know you need it, and you come back so
much more productive and get more done than if you're
burned out and you're just trudging along. You know, it
doesn't do anybody any good. So take a break and
then come back and it's all easier, all right.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
So two questions that came to mind when you're talking
about that. Can you do really short trips? Can you
book really weekend getaways?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Absolutely? We just had a gentleman call us on Friday.
He just in, like next month he wants to go,
and he just wanted like three nights somewhere warm. He'd
like to beach, you know whatever. They don't have passports.
We did a fantastic trip form to San Diego.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Just like that, and they got away, and yeah, now
they have a better perspective, you know, even if it's
only for a few months, that's better than you he
was doing before exactly. And the other thing that when
you were talking about that, the family getaways that you have.
Let's say you want to go on a group vacation,
but you don't necessarily want it completely planned out every
(10:20):
step you take, and with maybe with people that you
don't know, And so can you do something like that
for a group of ten or fifteen, Absolutely, and you
can plan everything absolutely or as much as they want.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I was gonna say as much or as little as
you want, because some people literally only want to get
from point A to point B and have a place
to stay. And other people want, well I need something
every day because we're spending this money to go somewhere.
We need to have something to do.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
But you also have the expertise. You can say, okay,
you're going to the city. I can tell you in
this city, yeah, there are great excursions up into the
mountains or whatever.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Exactly exactly. We we are not against agendas, but we're
against twenty four to seven agendas people think we have.
We have people who will call and they will want
to do seven countries in Europe in a week. Oh
you know, I mean, well while we're here, we might
(11:17):
as well go here. Well, while we're here, we should
go you know. So we have to tell them no,
that you literally would spend an hour in each city
and then you'd be on your way to the next one.
You'd spend so much time in either a train station
or an airport that it's not a vacation. So we
take out a few and then say, oh, look you
(11:39):
could have a few days here, a few days here,
and look what you can do. So sometimes we have
to rein you in.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And not only that, but when you're doing that, they
can tell you, we want to go to these these
things that we want to get all into this vacation,
and these are absolutely must haves, and these are the
things that we could we want to do, but maybe not.
If you have the expertise, the the experience to say
this thing that's on your maybe you can drop that,
(12:09):
maybe see it another time. But you have that ability
to say, I've been there and I can tell you
right now there's not going to be a lot to do,
or this is the thing that's kind of on your
maybe you.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Want to do.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
You really should do this, Yes, because you've got that experience. Yes,
And you're not going to get that online from No.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
You can read all the reviews you want and write,
and we read reviews. I mean, as much as I
would like to, I can't say I've been everywhere it's
on my list. I have not been there yet, so
I'm working on it. But it does make a difference
when somebody, like my favorite city is London. So if
somebody says they want to go to London, then it's
they want to do this and this. Okay, well you
(12:47):
just hop on this and you go over here, and
then by you go walk right by you know, Westminster Abbey,
or you go by Buckingham Palace, or you walk in
that area and you can do this, this and this
and that will probably take you a few hours because
I know I've done it several times, and that does
make it easier. If it's a place that we don't know,
(13:09):
then we have access to our travel agent friends who
have been there, done that. We look at reviews, we
pull out Google maps, we do I mean, you should
see my screen. Sometimes I will have five windows open
and it's all for one trip because I haven't been
there and I don't know. So that's when we figure everything.
(13:29):
We have. We have cool resources. We have a great
way of finding out things.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Well, I'll give you a quick example of that. If
you're listening and you're thinking, well, but the kinds of
things I want to do, I can probably just do
it myself because I have been there and I have
done it. And this is many years ago, when my
husband planned it all through a website and we get
to France and the one thing, the one thing that
(13:54):
I wanted to do more than anything while we were there,
is to go to Normandy. So he booked the the
trip to Normandy, and we got lost getting to the
train station and we missed the train by three minutes.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
They are very much on time, very much.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
And the next one wasn't. It just was not gonna win.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
And it's a long day from Paris, so it ends
up being a thirteen hour day trip from Paris.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
If I if I would have known that then, knowing
that I missed my dream place that I wanted to
see by three minutes and could not get that back.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
And are you still married to him?
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Yeah, well I'm just just yes, I can just forgive
him just checking, you know what, This is what we
women do. Oh, I probably should have said that I
noticed that sign over there, but I didn't. So it's
really I'll take part of the blame on this. What
In reality, it was like we've been in this spot already,
we're going the wrong way, and now those words were
(14:56):
actually said. So yeah, it really is about It's about
being able to have that contact. It's about being able
to have your vacation planned out. But it's also very
important because you're not going to miss the things that
you wanted to see more than anything, because you know
what you need to do and you know you know
(15:17):
where you need to be.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Well, I don't think there's anything worse than going to
a place and missing the big things and then you
come back and everybody goes, oh did you see this?
What was that? You know? So, but if you do
it on your own, because we lived in Europe courtesy
of the United States Air Force for a total of
(15:39):
seven years in two different countries, and it was always
up to me to find out what are we going
to go see and do? Why are we going to
see it? What is it? And how much time do
we need to spend there? Well, you know that's it's
a lot, and it's all on you. Where if you
take a tour, whether it's a it's a group guided
(16:00):
tour where you're with the same group all week long
and you're doing those things, or maybe we have you
in London or Paris or wherever and we do a
day trip where you go out so you're with a guide.
They tell you the things that you need to know,
plus they give you some background in some history, or
they tell you some cool antecdote that you get to
share with the next people that you talk to, and
(16:22):
you sound like you really are a world traveler because
you know this obscure thing that Noah, you know, right,
So you don't have to do it on your own
and you don't have to do all the research and
you'd I mean, we like informed clients. We love people
who know what it is they want to go and see.
Or this is why I'm going to this city because
(16:43):
I want to go to this spot. Now what else
can I see? That's fabulous because you got to know
at least a little something about I mean, why is
it you wanted to go to this place in the
first place?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Right?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
What drew you to this destination? And then we work
from there.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
The moral of the story is you can do it
on your own, but you're gonna miss stuff. You're gonna
miss stuff, and you're not going to be as relaxed
because you know you're not gonna be able to enjoy
your vacation. So, without saying the exact number, what is
if somebody's listening to this and they say, yeah, but
(17:20):
I can do it cheaper on my own. First of all,
are you really because you don't have the inside knowledge
of the different places that might be a little bit
less expensive, So you're really not going to save any money.
But is booking. Is going through a travel agent going
to be cost prohibitive.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
No, No, not at all, because a lot of times
we can find a better way for you to do something.
We also are part of a consortium that gives us
benefits of different hotels and certain tours and things like that,
or on cruises sometimes it's an onboard ship credit or
you know whatever. But what we do besides save you
(18:02):
a lot of time, is we look for the best
value for your dollar, not necessarily the cheapest, because a
lot of times you find out the cheapest can be
very expensive. Sometimes you know yes and or something doesn't
work out and then all of a sudden you're trying
(18:22):
to replace it, or it.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Falls apart and you have no one to call exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
So, we are not trying to charge you the most
amount of money that we can, because that's stupid and
we wouldn't have been around this many decades if we
did that. But we also don't do the cheapest thing,
because there is we want you to come back. I'll
flat out and tell people I don't look for the
cheapest thing. We may end up getting a really good
(18:50):
deal on something. You know, we'll get the least expensive
for what you want, right, But people tend to do
it cheap or because they don't put something in, or
they're well, look i'm doing this air in this hotel.
Look at I got it for this. But then they're
looking at an all inclusive resort because that's what they
asked for. Well, everything is included, it's not going to
(19:13):
be the same price. So we want you to spend
your vacation dollars, your mental health dollars, right, you know,
and use them wisely and get the best bang for
your buck, because that way you're going to come back
to us. Brenda and I in the office have worked
(19:35):
for we'll just say a couple of decades and we
have seen families and generations come back to us, and
they do it because we take care of them. But
we're not just trying to spend every dollar that they have.
If we ask you, do you have an idea of
what you'd like to spend for this trip, and they say, well,
(19:57):
I'd really only like to spend one thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
They're going to cant the city, right, you know, yes,
I know, we go to Omaha the last weekend for a.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Thousand exactly, you know, So what we do best is
figuring out what's the best use of your time while
you're away, and what's the best use of your money
to get the most out of it, not necessarily filling
up your day, meaning the most out of it, but
the most out of it that you actually wanted out
(20:27):
of it. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (20:29):
It does, okay, Julie. What do you want people to
know about Belvy travel?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
What I just said? We have taken care of generations.
We have been around for a long time. We do
know what we're doing. We don't look at the cheapest,
but we save you time because yes, you can go
down that rabbit hole of the internet and you can
find all kinds of things because everything looks beautiful on
the internet. I have been to some of those resorts
(20:56):
and taken this sort of the same picture and go
how did they do that? They must have stood up
in the corner and looked down and with a wide
angle lens because this room is small, right you know.
So yeah, we bounce you back to reality if you
need to be. But the best thing is that we
(21:16):
are looking out for you because we want you to
come back. We are not a one and done. We
want you to come and work with us, and we
want your next generation to work with us, and we
want you to spend it before you die with us.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I love it. Can I book just an airfare just
to get to a city?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
You can. There are some people who are terrified of
booking it on the internet. Either they've made a mistake
or they just don't know how to do it. Whatever.
It's not that complicated and people can do it. But
we have a lot of people who have come back
to us and said, I have tried that. I spent
four hours last night trying to book this and I
don't know it. The price kept changing every time I
looked at it. Well, it does because the airline thinks
(21:58):
every time you look at this, there's a lot of
people looking at this flight. So hey, it's popular, and
we'll jack the price up. And they do that, and
we know that, yes, you know. So if you just
back off of it and the next morning or whatever,
or later in the day go back to it, the
price may have settled down.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
So I can come in to Bellevue Travel and say, Julie, look,
I've got to go to the s family reunion. I
know where I'm going, I know where I'm staying. All
I need is airfare, a hotel in the area, and
a rental cars. Not a big vacation. I'm not going
on a big trip. But you can do even that.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Absolutely. We have people who say, well, we're driving, but
we need this hotel where we're staying because we're visiting whoever,
and their house isn't big enough whatever, And we can do. Yeah, absolutely,
we can do. We can do as much or as
little as you want us to do.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
I love that. I don't think I would ever go
and try to do anything on my own anymore, especially
if I know you can just do the the hotel
in the car and the then the airlines. And that's
basically the trips that I take right now. So I
gotta get Well, that's tenants fast, I know, Okay, but
I had schedule eleven. Okay, well, we'll wrapping up, wrap
(23:05):
it up.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I want you to meet the website and the phone
number and the address.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Okay, okay, Well, Juliet has been such a pleasure to
have and so knowledgeable. You are so knowledgeable and now
I feel educated. So it's been great to have you
in Where can people get in touch?
Speaker 2 (23:21):
The easiest is by email, which is on our website
Bellevue travelne dot com. Our phone number is four oh
two two nine two six six zero zero and we're
open nine to five thirty Monday through Friday.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Will you come back again sometime?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
And I don't have to book that or anything in no, Julie,
we need you all right, that's a deal. Thank you
so much for being here today.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
You are welcome. Thanks for having me
Hi, It's Lucy Chapman and thanks for tuning in to
another episode of Here's More and I've got so much
more This time. Julie from Bellevue Travel is joining me today. Julie, welcome,
Thank you, thanks for coming in and talking about We're
heading into vacation season and I'm sure you're getting busy.
(00:21):
Oh yeah, so glad you can take it a little
bit of time to come and talk to me. You're
with Bellevy Travel. As I mentioned, how long has Bellvue
Travel been around?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Oh, a long time. Technically it was started in nineteen
eighty two, so it's been a minute.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
We think of travel agents today not the same way
that we did even twenty years ago. We think, oh,
we can do it ourselves. We've got all these websites
and everything, and that it really is not good in
many ways, and we're going to talk about some of them.
But the biggest thing is the ability to have somebody
to call if something goes wrong. And you can't do
(00:56):
that with those those book all your flights and hotels
and everything all here together in this one website. It
doesn't really work that way.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
It doesn't If the pandemic taught us anything, it's that, oh,
you really want to have a person in your corner.
Instead of sitting on the line yourself for five six hours,
we would put you know, our lines on hold, and
then we would immediately have you know, all these lists
of people that we had to talk to them about,
and so you know, we took care of that, and
(01:27):
the same is true now. We will take care of
you when you are traveling before, during, and after. And
I think that's that's really important and you can't get
that with an online travel agency.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You must have had over the years, you must have
had some horror stories people that have booked on their
own and then came running into your door for their
next trip.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, and sometimes it's a simple thing. Had a client
who we booked every single year to go to Mexico
or Jamaica, and I always booked it. They just told
me where they wanted to go, when they wanted to go,
and I took care of it. And she was going
to a wedding in Mexico. Family had already booked the
block of rooms. She just needed to do airfare, so
(02:12):
she booked the airfare. They go to the airport. He's
at TSA, she's already gone through, and they stopped and said, well,
this is not your name on the passport. Oh, his
legal name was Kenneth, but he always went by Kenny.
She knew him as Kenny, and she did the ticket
as Kenny, which again it's not a stretch from Kenny
to Kenneth. But TSA can.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Do whatever they want.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, I was all, I was trying to be diplomatic
about that. No. So yeah, so they pulled him out
of the line and made him, you know, have like
I don't know, two or three other forms of ID.
And she's standing there going, oh, my travel agent, Juli
wouldn't have done this. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
She had to come back and tell me that, you know,
and that's a simple thing. And it's again, it was
all taken care of. TSA. Let him go, and then
they made sure that the airline changed the name before
he flew back, so he didn't have the issue coming
back into the US. But still, she said she almost
had heart attack at the airport because she knew it
was all her fault. And it was a simple thing,
(03:14):
very very simple thing.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And that is why you need to go through a
travel agent. Bellevue travel preferably, right, we prefer yes. What
are some of the popular destinations that people are wanting
to travel to this year?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, as always, we are landlocked in Nebraska, so the
ocean always calls, oh yes, so you know, we have
to have the beaches in Mexico or the Caribbean. Cruising
is also very popular because you can go to the
different beaches and unpack one time and go to all
these different places. Europe is usually very popular. It's still
popular a bit, but not as just from you know,
(03:52):
current events. Some people are not that comfortable. They don't
know how other countries are really looking at us. I
can tell tell you that I was in Paris and
Vienna in March and people were very friendly. They know
that we're not our government, so they're people too.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
So they want our money exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
They want our money, and they want us to tell
the world that it's okay to go there. You know.
They had like Venice was one of the first ones
to say over tourism, go away, leave us alone. We
don't want you, you know, and they did that in Portugal,
they did that in Paris. But the truth is it
(04:36):
also runs their economy, so they really would like to
pick and choose the people that come to their country
and say, oh, well, yeah, you look like a good tourist,
and you look like an idiot, and I don't want
you here. But you know, I mean the British citizen
who you know carved his name and his fiance's name
in the colisseum with a key and it was recorded.
(04:56):
So they finally caught him after a day and then
he said, well, didn't know that it was an ancient
place or I don't remember his wording, but it was
a place of antiquity or whatever. And then that just
made him look even more stupid, right, So you know,
that's the kind of tourist nobody wants at their place,
but the money is important, so.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
He's driving their economy exactly exactly. You mentioned cruises, and
something I've always wanted to do is is a river
cruise right here in the United States? Is that something
you can book?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
You can You can go up and down the Mississippi,
you can go off into the tributaries. They also have
the Colombian Snake River over in the West, which is amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
And that's something that Bellevue Travel can book for.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yes, absolutely, I will warn you they can make you
cry when you see the pricing on them. It's a
little jolting, okay, but they do include everything. They also
include a night at a hotel the night before, so
they make sure that everybody gets there. But it can
be a little sticker shock.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Okay, well, good to know. No, I'm still gonna do it.
I'm still gonna do it, so expect to offer me someday.
And then the other the other trip I was thinking about.
Can you do train trips because I know, trips through
the rockies and stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yes, especially you can go all the way across Canada
if you if you want to. We do have now
train trips through Rocky Mountaineer in it goes from Denver
to Moab, Utah. It's only a couple of days, but
they have the dome car so you can just literally
sit there and look up and see the spectacular scenery.
(06:38):
I mean, you know, and then you can have a
night before and a you know, a night after, or
you can actually do it round trip. You can go
back and forth.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, that sounds absolutely spectacular. Yeah, I've never been on
a train. Oh not even you know, stupid amtracker, I
don't know whatever.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Not even the ones like Royal Gorge train and oh.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
My god, it's on my bucket list.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
It's speaking of bucket lists, you've you've got a little
saying about about you mentioned sticker shock, but you got
a little saying about about the money. What is it?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Well, these days, most of our kids probably make more
money than we do, so they really don't need us
to leave our you know, accumulated wealth or lack thereof.
So we do have clients that would rather instead of
saving the money for their kids to give it to
them when they pass away, they would rather spend the
(07:31):
time and make make memories with their family, especially the
younger generations. So we jokingly say that it's go ahead,
it's sibid, it's spend it before you die.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, I mean it makes sense, but it does because
my kids make more money than I do. I get
to go on better trips than they get to. But nonetheless,
but this way, you've got grandparents, kids and grandkids sometimes
great grandkids depending on and they go on these trips,
and that's what those grandkids are going to remember about you.
(08:08):
They're not going to remember that, oh, you left enough
money for their college or whatever. That's not as important anymore.
It's really the time spent, because time is what we
have the least of, don't we know it exactly. We're
all so busy, and we're busy being busy, and so
(08:29):
that's one of the things about a vacation. They have
scientific proof that it actually helps your mental health because
you get away, even if you work all day, and
even if you take a lunch hour and you go away.
You know, like I leave the office, I go home
for lunch because I live very close to the office.
(08:51):
I can play with my dog. There's no phone calls,
there isn't anything I can plan my phone if I
want to. I can read a book, I can go
outside and pull a few weeds. But I am away
from the office, and then I can come back. And
even just that hour break makes a difference. So for
those people who have that use it or lose it
by the end of the year and think they're doing
so well, right, you're not irreplaceable. Take a freaking vacation,
(09:16):
you know you need it, and you come back so
much more productive and get more done than if you're
burned out and you're just trudging along. You know, it
doesn't do anybody any good. So take a break and
then come back and it's all easier, all right.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
So two questions that came to mind when you're talking
about that. Can you do really short trips? Can you
book really weekend getaways?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Absolutely? We just had a gentleman call us on Friday.
He just in, like next month he wants to go,
and he just wanted like three nights somewhere warm. He'd
like to beach, you know whatever. They don't have passports.
We did a fantastic trip form to San Diego.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Just like that, and they got away, and yeah, now
they have a better perspective, you know, even if it's
only for a few months, that's better than you he
was doing before exactly. And the other thing that when
you were talking about that, the family getaways that you have.
Let's say you want to go on a group vacation,
but you don't necessarily want it completely planned out every
(10:20):
step you take, and with maybe with people that you
don't know, And so can you do something like that
for a group of ten or fifteen, Absolutely, and you
can plan everything absolutely or as much as they want.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I was gonna say as much or as little as
you want, because some people literally only want to get
from point A to point B and have a place
to stay. And other people want, well I need something
every day because we're spending this money to go somewhere.
We need to have something to do.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
But you also have the expertise. You can say, okay,
you're going to the city. I can tell you in
this city, yeah, there are great excursions up into the
mountains or whatever.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Exactly exactly. We we are not against agendas, but we're
against twenty four to seven agendas people think we have.
We have people who will call and they will want
to do seven countries in Europe in a week. Oh
you know, I mean, well while we're here, we might
(11:17):
as well go here. Well, while we're here, we should
go you know. So we have to tell them no,
that you literally would spend an hour in each city
and then you'd be on your way to the next one.
You'd spend so much time in either a train station
or an airport that it's not a vacation. So we
take out a few and then say, oh, look you
(11:39):
could have a few days here, a few days here,
and look what you can do. So sometimes we have
to rein you in.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And not only that, but when you're doing that, they
can tell you, we want to go to these these
things that we want to get all into this vacation,
and these are absolutely must haves, and these are the
things that we could we want to do, but maybe not.
If you have the expertise, the the experience to say
this thing that's on your maybe you can drop that,
(12:09):
maybe see it another time. But you have that ability
to say, I've been there and I can tell you
right now there's not going to be a lot to do,
or this is the thing that's kind of on your
maybe you.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Want to do.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
You really should do this, Yes, because you've got that experience. Yes,
And you're not going to get that online from No.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
You can read all the reviews you want and write,
and we read reviews. I mean, as much as I
would like to, I can't say I've been everywhere it's
on my list. I have not been there yet, so
I'm working on it. But it does make a difference
when somebody, like my favorite city is London. So if
somebody says they want to go to London, then it's
they want to do this and this. Okay, well you
(12:47):
just hop on this and you go over here, and
then by you go walk right by you know, Westminster Abbey,
or you go by Buckingham Palace, or you walk in
that area and you can do this, this and this
and that will probably take you a few hours because
I know I've done it several times, and that does
make it easier. If it's a place that we don't know,
(13:09):
then we have access to our travel agent friends who
have been there, done that. We look at reviews, we
pull out Google maps, we do I mean, you should
see my screen. Sometimes I will have five windows open
and it's all for one trip because I haven't been
there and I don't know. So that's when we figure everything.
(13:29):
We have. We have cool resources. We have a great
way of finding out things.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Well, I'll give you a quick example of that. If
you're listening and you're thinking, well, but the kinds of
things I want to do, I can probably just do
it myself because I have been there and I have
done it. And this is many years ago, when my
husband planned it all through a website and we get
to France and the one thing, the one thing that
(13:54):
I wanted to do more than anything while we were there,
is to go to Normandy. So he booked the the
trip to Normandy, and we got lost getting to the
train station and we missed the train by three minutes.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
They are very much on time, very much.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
And the next one wasn't. It just was not gonna win.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
And it's a long day from Paris, so it ends
up being a thirteen hour day trip from Paris.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
If I if I would have known that then, knowing
that I missed my dream place that I wanted to
see by three minutes and could not get that back.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
And are you still married to him?
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Yeah, well I'm just just yes, I can just forgive
him just checking, you know what, This is what we
women do. Oh, I probably should have said that I
noticed that sign over there, but I didn't. So it's
really I'll take part of the blame on this. What
In reality, it was like we've been in this spot already,
we're going the wrong way, and now those words were
(14:56):
actually said. So yeah, it really is about It's about
being able to have that contact. It's about being able
to have your vacation planned out. But it's also very
important because you're not going to miss the things that
you wanted to see more than anything, because you know
what you need to do and you know you know
(15:17):
where you need to be.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Well, I don't think there's anything worse than going to
a place and missing the big things and then you
come back and everybody goes, oh did you see this?
What was that? You know? So, but if you do
it on your own, because we lived in Europe courtesy
of the United States Air Force for a total of
(15:39):
seven years in two different countries, and it was always
up to me to find out what are we going
to go see and do? Why are we going to
see it? What is it? And how much time do
we need to spend there? Well, you know that's it's
a lot, and it's all on you. Where if you
take a tour, whether it's a it's a group guided
(16:00):
tour where you're with the same group all week long
and you're doing those things, or maybe we have you
in London or Paris or wherever and we do a
day trip where you go out so you're with a guide.
They tell you the things that you need to know,
plus they give you some background in some history, or
they tell you some cool antecdote that you get to
share with the next people that you talk to, and
(16:22):
you sound like you really are a world traveler because
you know this obscure thing that Noah, you know, right,
So you don't have to do it on your own
and you don't have to do all the research and
you'd I mean, we like informed clients. We love people
who know what it is they want to go and see.
Or this is why I'm going to this city because
(16:43):
I want to go to this spot. Now what else
can I see? That's fabulous because you got to know
at least a little something about I mean, why is
it you wanted to go to this place in the
first place?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Right?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
What drew you to this destination? And then we work
from there.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
The moral of the story is you can do it
on your own, but you're gonna miss stuff. You're gonna
miss stuff, and you're not going to be as relaxed
because you know you're not gonna be able to enjoy
your vacation. So, without saying the exact number, what is
if somebody's listening to this and they say, yeah, but
(17:20):
I can do it cheaper on my own. First of all,
are you really because you don't have the inside knowledge
of the different places that might be a little bit
less expensive, So you're really not going to save any money.
But is booking. Is going through a travel agent going
to be cost prohibitive.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
No, No, not at all, because a lot of times
we can find a better way for you to do something.
We also are part of a consortium that gives us
benefits of different hotels and certain tours and things like that,
or on cruises sometimes it's an onboard ship credit or
you know whatever. But what we do besides save you
(18:02):
a lot of time, is we look for the best
value for your dollar, not necessarily the cheapest, because a
lot of times you find out the cheapest can be
very expensive. Sometimes you know yes and or something doesn't
work out and then all of a sudden you're trying
(18:22):
to replace it, or it.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Falls apart and you have no one to call exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
So, we are not trying to charge you the most
amount of money that we can, because that's stupid and
we wouldn't have been around this many decades if we
did that. But we also don't do the cheapest thing,
because there is we want you to come back. I'll
flat out and tell people I don't look for the
cheapest thing. We may end up getting a really good
(18:50):
deal on something. You know, we'll get the least expensive
for what you want, right, But people tend to do
it cheap or because they don't put something in, or
they're well, look i'm doing this air in this hotel.
Look at I got it for this. But then they're
looking at an all inclusive resort because that's what they
asked for. Well, everything is included, it's not going to
(19:13):
be the same price. So we want you to spend
your vacation dollars, your mental health dollars, right, you know,
and use them wisely and get the best bang for
your buck, because that way you're going to come back
to us. Brenda and I in the office have worked
(19:35):
for we'll just say a couple of decades and we
have seen families and generations come back to us, and
they do it because we take care of them. But
we're not just trying to spend every dollar that they have.
If we ask you, do you have an idea of
what you'd like to spend for this trip, and they say, well,
(19:57):
I'd really only like to spend one thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
They're going to cant the city, right, you know, yes,
I know, we go to Omaha the last weekend for a.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Thousand exactly, you know, So what we do best is
figuring out what's the best use of your time while
you're away, and what's the best use of your money
to get the most out of it, not necessarily filling
up your day, meaning the most out of it, but
the most out of it that you actually wanted out
(20:27):
of it. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (20:29):
It does, okay, Julie. What do you want people to
know about Belvy travel?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
What I just said? We have taken care of generations.
We have been around for a long time. We do
know what we're doing. We don't look at the cheapest,
but we save you time because yes, you can go
down that rabbit hole of the internet and you can
find all kinds of things because everything looks beautiful on
the internet. I have been to some of those resorts
(20:56):
and taken this sort of the same picture and go
how did they do that? They must have stood up
in the corner and looked down and with a wide
angle lens because this room is small, right you know.
So yeah, we bounce you back to reality if you
need to be. But the best thing is that we
(21:16):
are looking out for you because we want you to
come back. We are not a one and done. We
want you to come and work with us, and we
want your next generation to work with us, and we
want you to spend it before you die with us.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I love it. Can I book just an airfare just
to get to a city?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
You can. There are some people who are terrified of
booking it on the internet. Either they've made a mistake
or they just don't know how to do it. Whatever.
It's not that complicated and people can do it. But
we have a lot of people who have come back
to us and said, I have tried that. I spent
four hours last night trying to book this and I
don't know it. The price kept changing every time I
looked at it. Well, it does because the airline thinks
(21:58):
every time you look at this, there's a lot of
people looking at this flight. So hey, it's popular, and
we'll jack the price up. And they do that, and
we know that, yes, you know. So if you just
back off of it and the next morning or whatever,
or later in the day go back to it, the
price may have settled down.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
So I can come in to Bellevue Travel and say, Julie, look,
I've got to go to the s family reunion. I
know where I'm going, I know where I'm staying. All
I need is airfare, a hotel in the area, and
a rental cars. Not a big vacation. I'm not going
on a big trip. But you can do even that.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Absolutely. We have people who say, well, we're driving, but
we need this hotel where we're staying because we're visiting whoever,
and their house isn't big enough whatever, And we can do. Yeah, absolutely,
we can do. We can do as much or as
little as you want us to do.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
I love that. I don't think I would ever go
and try to do anything on my own anymore, especially
if I know you can just do the the hotel
in the car and the then the airlines. And that's
basically the trips that I take right now. So I
gotta get Well, that's tenants fast, I know, Okay, but
I had schedule eleven. Okay, well, we'll wrapping up, wrap
(23:05):
it up.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I want you to meet the website and the phone
number and the address.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Okay, okay, Well, Juliet has been such a pleasure to
have and so knowledgeable. You are so knowledgeable and now
I feel educated. So it's been great to have you
in Where can people get in touch?
Speaker 2 (23:21):
The easiest is by email, which is on our website
Bellevue travelne dot com. Our phone number is four oh
two two nine two six six zero zero and we're
open nine to five thirty Monday through Friday.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Will you come back again sometime?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
And I don't have to book that or anything in no, Julie,
we need you all right, that's a deal. Thank you
so much for being here today.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
You are welcome. Thanks for having me
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.