Simple Ideas for an Extraordinary Kids Vacation

Travel Mum asked:

A vacation for kids need not be the same every year. Always look for fresh ideas to surprise your kids. Encourage them to learn a new skill, to acquire new knowledge or simply let them have some unique experiences for each vacation. Here are some simple ideas for an extraordinary vacation for your kids.

1. Accommodation Fun

You need not always head for a hotel for your vacation. Stay overnight at the zoo with the zoo’s snooze program. Kids will enjoy the Zoo Snooze Program which often includes an up-close animal encounter, craft activities, night tours and games. Alternatively, join the aquarium’s overnight program ! It is a rare chance to explore the aquarium after hours, and you can get to participate in a variety of activities organised by the staff. With an expert guide, you may get to visit the aquarium’s behind-the-scenes areas and the food-preparation area to learn how the animals are cared for and fed. If your kids love animals, why not plan for a farmstay ? Have them engaged in interesting farm activities such as milking the cows, collecting eggs, feeding out the hay, riding on a tractor and watching sheep dogs at work. Your hosts may also bring your family for a farm walk or organize some sidetrips, guided tours or fun activities such as scuba diving, trekking and forest walks. Don’t forget to bring a little gift to thank your hosts for their warm and kind hospitality.

2. Great Rail Journeys

There are many great rail journeys around the world. Sit back and relax. Enjoy the spectacular and breathtaking scenery which the trains will happily bringing you. Many rail companies are now having interesting activities for children on board. Kids may get an activity book, which has a variety of cut and paste, and colouring activities. Sometimes, special activities such as games and video shows are featured at designated cars in the train. Kids will be delighted to know that there are menus specially for them as well. Usually, families with kids will be entitled to priority boarding. Babies and infants under 24 months usually travel free provided that they do not occupy a seat; while children are often entitled to child discounts. Otherwise, look for family passes.

3. Scenic Adventures

Do you know that there are many scenic places which are part of the UNESCO sites ? Take time off to admire the beautiful creation of God, who is the maker of heaven and earth for your next vacation. Many of these sites are mountains, reefs, islands, or national parks where kids can have a wonderful time roaming around and feeling the breathe of nature. Kids will love the gondola rides to the mountain tops; or fish, dive or snorkel at the amazing reefs, or have a fun time trekking at the national parks. You can even camp overnight with your kids at some national parks ! For a comprehensive list of the UNESCO sites, you can visit the UNESCO website for more details.

4. Wildlife Fun

Kids love wildlife ! There are many ways to enjoy wildlife. A visit to the zoo is a good start. Check the events calendar of the zoo and do not missed the animal shows. Animal shows are always interesting and often include audience participation games, keeper chats and animal demonstrations. There are also zoos which allow kids to touch, pat or cuddle the animals. Then, plan a trip to the aquarium. Enjoy their training sessions where you can watch the aquarists feeding and training the sea animals. Why not encourage your kids to be a zoo or aquarium keeper for a day ? Another way of getting to know wildlife is to embark on a wildlife cruise. Observe animals such as whales, dolphins, penguins as well as other sea birds in their natural habitats. Usually, the cruise is fully narrated by a skipper who has a wealth of knowledge of the wildlife. Majority of the catamarans are suitable for families and for young children. Do ensure that your children are supervised at all times for their own safety. Remember to clothe your kids with warm clothing, bring a hat and apply some sun screen lotion. Have a good time experiencing an aquatic adventure that your kids will remember for a lifetime !

5. Children’s Museum

The children’s museum is always a child’s delight. Meant for kids, it offers a myriad of activities and hands-on opportunities for them to unleash their creativity and imagination. A children’s museum is usually a nonprofit institution. You can help the Children’s Museum by making a donation of time, money or services. Different museums will have different themes and galleries ranging from physical and natural sciences, history, world cultures and the arts. Check the events calendar and find out the featured programs of the museum.

6. Learning Journeys

Vacations are great learning journeys. Take the opportunity to acquire new knowledge or learn a new skill during your next vacation. You can learn to dive with sharks at the aquariums or swim with the dolphins, learn how to snorkel at the reefs or surf at the beaches. Plan a visit to factories and learn how cheese and jam are made, or simply have fun watching demonstrations at the ginger factory and honey factory.

7. Enjoying Festivals

Every country has her own festival celebration. By being part of the celebration, it allows you to gain a better understanding of the diversities of cultures and their practices. Why not plan your vacation to coincide with some of the festivals of your desired destination ?

8. Themepark Fun

Themeparks are always a draw for kids. Remember to observe the safety precautions and rules of the themepark. Not all rides are suitable for children as some have age or height restrictions. You can obtain information on the available kids rides from the website of the themepark. Remember to dress comfortably. Protect your family from the sun with sunscreen and headgear, even on cloudy days. Don’t forget to drink plenty of water and have a fun day at the themepark.

9. Appreciating Nature

Even if your kids are not flower lovers, they will not be able to resist a landscape of flowers blooming in their smiles. Plan a trip to the magnificent gardens to have a better knowledge of the plants, flowers and trees. Some gardens have seasonal highlights for spring, summer, autumn and winter; while others have a blooming calendar identifying the varieties of flowers in bloom for different seasons. You may wish to print out the pictures of the flowers from the website and get your kids to colour them during the trip. Bring your kids to the interactive botanical play zone or the children’s garden for a time of play. Alternatively, enjoy a guided tour at the garden.

10. Unique Experiences

Always make your vacation a fun trip for your kids. Give them plenty of opportunities to explore and discover with all their senses. Allow time for them to reflect about the journey. Other unique experiences which you may wish to consider for your vacation include helicopter rides, glacier walks, skiing, or take a trip to the sky with a hot air balloon ride.

The above are just some simple ideas for an extraordinary vacation for your kids. There are definitely more places for you to explore and discover a new adventure for your family. Have a happy and blessed vacation.

Secret Shopping

Kamyar Shah asked:

Secret shopping sounds mysterious and fun and well, shopping is great no matter what. Secret shopping in its basic form is shopping someone or someplace without the person or business knowing it. Shopping secretly seems to draw on this fantasy of part detective, part spy, and part shopaholic. In the best scenario you receive your “mission” and then go to the location and pretend to be a real customer all while noticing all the things going on around you. Some secret shopping companies will have the shopper actually purchase something so that the whole shopping encounter seems more realistic. If you search the words, “secret shopping” on the Internet you will get over 4 million hits on websites that have something to do with secret shopping.

There are all types of secret shopping businesses out there. There are businesses, corporations and large chains that have their own department or group of people that travel around and try to shop the stores. Sometimes this is part of the internal security team that helps reduce shrinkage or loss prevention specialists. Then there are the companies and stores that will choose to hire a secret shopping company who specializes in secret shopping that specific industry.

Some of the things that in person secret shops might uncover are:

How many customers in the store when entering?

Did anyone greet you when entering the store or how long did it take for someone to greet you after walking in the door?

Was the store neat and clean?

Did anyone offer to help you find an item or offer to help you?

Was the associate dressed appropriately?

Was the bathroom clean?

Was the associate using their time wisely?

Did an associate offer to get you a shopping bag, shopping cart, or basket or to start a dressing room for you?

Did the associate let you know of any specials or promotions going on in the store

Was it easy to navigate through the store?

How long did you have to wait to check out?

Was the cashier friendly?

Were your items rang in correctly?

Did the associate offer to open a store credit account?

Did the cashier thank you for coming in?

These are just a few questions that a secret shopper might have to fill out when doing a report on how the shop went. Of course depending on the company, different key areas would be listed and other items of interest that would be specific to that company. Besides a person going into a store and shopping them, some companies are having their shoppers wired for sound and or video. While a person can go to a place and shop and come up with their opinions, sound and video are hard to ignore. Often sound and video are used in extreme circumstances where sound and video would implicate a person or business of a wrongdoing.

There is a show on television right now that shows all kinds of hidden video of stealing, people acting stupid, intoxicated, fighting, driving recklessly, and more. It just goes to show you what people will watch on television. But is proves a powerful tool for incrimination or reprimanding employees.

What kind of business would use a secret shopping service? Lots of businesses use a secret shopping service whether it is an internal monitoring or hired out by a company that specializes in secret shopping. Corporate businesses would use a secret shopping service to make sure that the individual franchise or store is keeping up with the company’s rules and regulations. While some franchises are individually owned they still have to sign a contract with the home office that they will uphold the standards, appearances, and make sure that all the stores are virtually the same. Smaller businesses might use a secret shopping service for a number of things like monitoring, training, compliance, or incentive based information. Monitoring is just that, a basic service that gives the manager or owner a simple description of the secret shop. On going training is essential to any business so companies can use secret shopping to help with continued training. Compliance goes a little further with specific areas of sales, customer service, safety, and rules being covered. Incentive based secret shopping is when the person or business being shopped and that said person or business doing a great job would get a reward. The reward could be monetary, time off, bonus, lunch, or other items that the owner or manager will choose.

Some companies choose to do telephone secret shopping instead of or in addition to the in person secret shop. Telephone secret shopping uses the same principles as above except the whole interaction is done over the telephone. Modern software and telephone equipment have made this type of secret shopping easier and more secretive. But with technology comes the backlash of trying to be secretive, the arch nemesis of the telephone secret shopping world, caller id. There are ways around caller id and they will not be shared in this essay, but if you need to bypass a caller id there are systems that can do it, just check out the Internet. So the basic telephone secret shops goes like this:

Store-“Hi, thanks for calling XYZ business, this is Bob, how can I help you today?”

Shopper- “Hello Bob, I was wondering if you could give me some information about your….”

Store- “Sure, I can help you with that. You see here at XYZ business we have…”

You can see where this is going.

The telephone secret shop is typically recorded to an audio system or to the Internet where the call can be retrieved at a later date. Different software systems allow the secret shopping calls to be listened to online in real time or saved and sent via email when the audio format is in MP3. This software also allows its user to edit the call. Trimming the call in the beginning before the rings start and after both parties have hung up allow the call to remain in a manageable length. Some companies record the call and then send it to their clients on a CD. The CD allows the manager or owner to listen and share the call with the employee.

Are you looking for a secret shopping job? There are many established secret shopping companies out there that are looking for shoppers, but how do you know which ones to trust. First of all, like the old saying goes, “if it sounds to good to be true, then it probably is” so don’t fall for all the Internet hype about secret shopping. Could you in reality find a reputable secret shopping company and make some money, yes, if you do your homework. This is such a serious issue that the Federal Trade Commission has advice on how to avoid being scammed by fake secret shopping companies. Here is some advice on how to avoid bogus secret shopping companies:

Do your homework; check out the company BEFORE you give them any personal information

Beware of catchy banners and click me sites that offer to hire secret shoppers off of the Internet. This is a “sounds too good to be true” situation.

Check with the Better Business Bureau about background information on the company before you jump in with both feet.

Many fake secret shopping sites want you to complete “offers” before you are assigned any jobs. These offers are actually ways for that site to gather information about you like your name and email. Offers like; try these magazines or a free trial offer for who knows what, and all you have to give them is your information and sometimes a credit card number. These sites are known to sell or use your email to spam sites that will then riddle your inbox with tons of junk email.

If you know someone who is a secret shopper ask them how they got into the business and I bet they will have some advice of their own to share.

It’s not as easy as it seems, there is often some travel involved and reports have to be written in detail, called in, typed or emailed for you to be able to get paid per job.

So if you are looking for a secret shopping company or a secret shopping job, the bottom line is check the company out before doing business with them. Ask for business references (and call them, just giving a sheet a references won’t do you any good if you don’t call them), check with the better business bureau and ask around. The time you spend doing your homework before you hire or look for a secret shopping job will pay off in the end. There are some great secret shopping companies out there that offer secret shopping services and your business will prosper from the knowledge and training that a reputable secret shopping business can provide for you.

Ei42 Online Shopping A New Face Of Online Shops

LisaLove asked:

 

Ei42 and the Online Shopping Encounter

Ei42 are quite modern to the internet enthusiastic to online shopping they produced and put together a solid online shopping edge bringing all together a lot of the most important online shops making life easier for everybody when it comes to online shopping.

Ei42 freed themselves to the humankind on Friday the 1st of February 2008 and barely took 4 days to hold a relationship base of further than two thousand shoppers. It is not much above a year now that Ei42 have been in the online shopping business and have many thousands of satisfied shoppers receiving cash back loyalties from the many online shops.

Online shopping is substantial with several online shops to go for. Ei42 have classified the chav from the professional  online shops and put them jointly in one mammoth shopping interface making online shopping uncomplicated and well-situated with all the main stores in one simple to reach position. Not only that Ei42 have created a way, that not only will you get hold of the same manufactured goods in the online shops as in the high street shops, more repeatedly than not as soon as online shopping with Ei42 you will notice them to be less costly.

This is for 2 central reasons, the 1st is the Major online shops will be competent to suggest a notable deal to the end user when online shopping as they will be shipping straight from the warehouse, so the overheads for the business will be a good deal lesser than when you obtain from their natural shop. Secondly once you do your online shopping by means of Ei42 you will be in receipt of a cash back bonus into your balance, on the whole to say thanks awfully much for using Ei42 please call all over again.

With the great mass of online shops that Ei42 host on their online shopping interface and our important purchasing wants the cash back can quickly mount up. In short you will be in receipt of money for zilch since if you completed your purchase in the identical online shops but not with Ei42 you will be paying the identical charge receiving the produce you bought without cash back.

Ordinarily when we collect any nature of cash back from a trader it ends there.

This is what creates Ei42 so incredibly singular. Most businesses whether it is online shops or off rely on customer referrals. It was simply the other day whilst I was online shopping and I came across the Space Station Storage website, for individuals that don’t know it is a place where you can put in storage household merchandise. If you offer a acquaintance as a buyer Space Station were presenting £25 Marks and Spencer tickets. Gratitude space station but sorry I wish for further than that, how about a percent of every month’s income from the character I submit to you. We all produce referrals particularly  the ones we don’t get paid for, whether it was a tape, computer game or a nice night out we all achieve it in certain way. 

When you achieve a transfer to Ei42 for friends, relations, or everybody to do online shopping you will obtain a cash back commission from what they have bought, and the same for anyone that they pioneer to the laid-back online shopping occurrence. Just think you present 1 person get cash back commissions from 7 or perhaps a hundred, from people that have been initiated by others.

Ei42 offers cash back commissions for online shopping – the largest production in the globe and it is getting much bigger by the generation as further companys convert to the internet creating their online shops.