Happy Birthday, Holy Father! Pope Francis celebrates his 78th birthday today. Click here to see how Vatican Radio described this morning’s festive General Audience

Germans love Christmas trees and AirBerlin is allowing customers to bring Christmas trees up to 5 feet tall with them at no charge on their Christmas vacation flights.

Royal Caribbean Lines has upped Disney Cruises “Magic Porthole” with the introduction of an 80-inch high “Virtual Balcony” for inside cabins on its newest ship - Quantum of the Seas, now sailing out of Port Liberty, New Jersey for the Bahamas and Caribbean. Each of the Quantum’s 373 windowless inside cabins comes with a “virtual balcony” - an 80-inch LED high definition projection screen that stretches from floor to ceiling. Now you can see a digital real-time view of the ocean and destinations visible from the ship’s exterior at sea and in port on the side of the ship your virtual balcony is facing…...an yes, you can turn off the screens whenever you want. On Disney ships inside cabins come with an round “Magical Porthole - an LCD flat-screen monitor in a nautical frame disguised as a porthole. Besides a view of the outside world, Disney animated characters pop in from time to time.

We are delighted to offer New York City holiday shopping and Broadway packages. Hotels and shows are always subject to availability so don’t hesitate to give us a call. Please check out our New York City Trips or Specials Page today.

Top Chef and Tel Aviv

What fun! The excitement and fun of Top Chef is featured on each Celebrity cruise and today onboard the Celebrity SILHOUETTE we had the unique opportunity to participate. My husband Tony was selected from the audience to be a contestant chef while I was chosen to be a judge. Tony and his partner won the Quick Fire contest against another team and then Tony, assisted by the head chef for the wonderful Murano Restaurant, cooked up a tasty steaks. He won a bottle of French Blanc de Blanc for his dish.

Later this afternoon we landed in Israel and headed to the old city of Jaffa and then to Tel Aviv for the day. We learned so much about the history of this land and saw the church honoring where St Peter sailed west for Rome. We found Tel Aviv to be a vibrant, youthful city. Tomorrow we are off to Jerusalem.