Vacations and cruises are supposed to be relaxing, but you know that’s not always the case. Sometimes, you have to worry about things like where to eat, changes to your flight, and other little details. To smoothen out your planning, here are the best iPhone apps to help you for your vacation and travel needs.
Cruise Finder
When looking for a cruising app, the first on your list should be Cruise Finder. Instead of tediously looking for a cruise ship in every cruising company, Cruise Finder lets you search cruise information on 20 different (major and smaller) cruise lines. It also allows you to look up 220 ships, 25 destinations and more than 12,000 itineraries. The app isn’t perfect (e.g. it only shows one departure port at a time), but it’s the best one right now.
TripAdvisor
You’ve probably heard of TripAdvisor, a review website for various hotels, restaurants, vacation rentals and other travel-related stuff. Well, there’s now an app for that—but what makes the TripAdvisor app worth downloading, aside from being free, is that it comes with the option to call an establishment directly at a press of a button (the site doesn’t provide this option).
Royal Caribbean International – Official App
This app may be limited to Royal Caribbean cruises, but it’s incredibly useful. It comes with a Find Your Cruise function and lets you view RCI’s special offers, live webcam shots from Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas, ship facts, and destination information. You can even find out how much your cruise will cost.
TripIt
It’s utterly bananas how TripIt is so handy and yet it’s free. Just create an account at the TripIt website; forward your cruise, flight, hotel or whatever other confirmation e-mails to [email protected]; and then TripIt immediately recognises your reservation. You can then use the app to access all your cruise details. After that, the information would be saved on your iPhone.
AroundMe
If you’re on a port of call, make sure you have AroundMe installed in your iPhone. Using your phone’s GPS, the app would list down banks, cafés, hospitals, gas stations, parking spaces, restaurants and all manner of establishments near your location. Tap any listing and AroundMe will show a map showing directions to the establishment. You can even save the information as a contact or send it to a friend.
Yelp
Yelp is like AroundMe—it also shows you a list of nearby establishments. What makes Yelp different is that it’s also a social network that lets its users post reviews for each establishment. Yelp also lets you narrow your search by price and what’s currently open, and make reservations on OpenTable.
Orbitz Flights, Hotels, Cars for iPhone
The Orbitz app lets you look for and book flights and hotel rooms (even at the last minute), view your itineraries, check your flight status, and find hotels near you. The app, particularly its latest version, is quite easy to use.
SeatGuru
Need help looking for an affordable flight? Searching for good seats in the plane? The SeatGuru app should help. It provides you a wealth of information on ticket prices, seating, flight statuses, and more details for more than 100 airlines. While the app doesn’t have everything that the SeatGuru website offers, the amount of data it provides is still staggering.
StubHub Tickets
Don’t forget to download StubHub for your iPhone, especially when you’re on a stopover. It lets you buy tickets for events like sports games, concerts and theatre shows. Using the app, you can also search for events a variety of ways like by sports team, number of seats left and seat location; sell your own tickets; or look for restaurants and parking areas near the venue.
But aside from iPhone apps, another thing that can make your holiday planning much easier is through travel packages. If you want to watch a sporting event during your vacation, then be on the lookout for sports packages, which provide several noteworthy benefits: they let you watch your favourite event, meet like-minded people, and enjoy a relaxing vacation without the logistical hassles of planning everything from scratch.
About the Author:
This guest post was brought to you by Charles. Charles has travelled all over Sri Lanka, and enjoys writing about his experiences in hotels, tours and cruises.
Originally posted on October 17, 2012 @ 9:04 am