Far be it for me to say that I’m an expert in the realm of cruise vacations, but I have been on a couple of trips and there are some commonalities between the different cruise companies. If you look at much of their advertising, you’ll find the prices that “start” at a relatively low number.

Considering that these prices include all the food you can eat and many of the on-board activities, a cruise vacation is a great deal compared to a more conventional fly-in, fly-out type vacation. However, the business model goes well beyond that and you can see how a cruise company can quickly rake in some additional revenue.

The port charges are outside of their control, but each time that the boat docks in to a new town, it offers a range of “excursion activities” that come at a nominal charge. Want to take a tour of the city? That’ll cost you. Want to go to the local zoo, including transportation to and from the location? That’ll cost you.

Many of these excursions, when purchased directly from the cruise company, will cost you more than if you were to book a similar activity on your own. Speaking from my own experience, I remember docking in San Diego and wanting to go to the zoo. It worked out a lot cheaper to take a taxi and to use a discount coupon I found online (I think it was 2-for-1) for the admission than take the chartered bus with the cruise company.

Part of it is an upsell. Part of it is a suggestive sell. In addition to the excursions, other activities and amenities come at a premium cost: alcohol, Internet access, spa services, and so on. The core cruise price may be relatively low, but that’s how they get you “on board.” And this business model works.

Have you considered implementing similar tactics in your own business? Is there a way that you can “hook” a new customer and then convince them to pay for additional products and services?

We’re getting that much closer to Skynet and Judgment Day, as foretold in the Terminator movies, with the arrival of the Rovio WiFi Roaming Bot. Hasta la vista, baby.

This little robot is, as you can tell from its name, equipped with WiFi wireless connectivity. It also happens to have a webcam, complete with audio, attached to its body. Combine these two and you are provided with the ability to control Rovio from thousands of miles away, so long as both of you are still connected to the Internet.

On the flip side, the audio and video feed from Rovio is then streamed live onto the web for your viewing pleasure. This can be great for spying on your co-workers and subordinates, ensuring that they are staying on task even if your watchful (human) eye isn’t there to keep tabs on them. Rovio can be remotely controlled from your PC, Mac, iPhone, or even your PS3.

To make Rovio even more attractive, the roaming robot also has a built-in LED headlight for navigating through dim areas and a set of three omni-directional wheels for optimal maneuverability. Find Rovio on ThinkGeek for $179.99.

Do you have a big corporate event coming up and you’d like to have some good promotional material to distribute? Why not convince people to be your tastefully-attired walking billboards? Get your corporate apparel from BlueFur customer Hatsnshirts.com.

Based out of Costa Mesa, California, Hats ‘n Shirts offers all sorts of clothing and headwear that can easily be embroidered with your company logo and message. For instance, something as simple and classy as a custom polo shirt can start at just $32 each and can get as low as $13.49 with the right volume. They do not charge any setup fees either.

If you have a corporate golf event coming up this summer, the custom embroidered sun visor. The stretchable fitted visor can feature your own custom embroidery and the per unit cost can be as low as $6.43. That’s pretty cheap! For more information and to shop, check out the official site.

If you are a BlueFur customer and would like to be featured in a future blog post, send an email to blogfeature@bluefur.com with your name, website, and a brief description of what you’d like to see highlighted. You can’t beat the price of free for this kind of promotion!

The great thing about WordPress is that while it largely caters to people who want to use the content management system as a blog platform, it can just as easily be used for any number of other website types as well. For photographers and other people who want more of a gallery feel, the Orion Theme could be a great fit.

Rather than use the standard reverse chronological system of listing blog posts or even using the more fashionable “magazine” style layout that seems to be all the rage these days, the Orion Theme is configured to show several thumbnail images on its main page. This is great for graphic artists, for instance, to showcase items for their portfolios.

You’ll also notice that there is no sidebar in this theme, providing maximum on-screen real estate to highlight the work that you want people to see. The natural application is for artists and photographers, but it could work as a business blog to showcase certain products and services too. It is only limited by your imagination.

Even though there is no sidebar, you can still house the same kind of information in the header and footer regions, the latter of which offers at least three columns for tag clouds, category lists, “about” widgets, and similar data.

For a live demo, theme screenshots, and the free download link, direct your browsers to WPCorner.com.

It’s time to take another tour of the blogosphere. Let’s see what people are writing about this week.

Tyler Cruz is in the middle of a weight loss challenge with Paul Piotrowski and they’ve got $600 on the line. In one of his recent updates, Tyler reveals that he still has quite a few pounds to shed before the deadline. It doesn’t help that Paul seems to be dropping weight faster and faster by the day!

Tyler Ingram went on another one of his famed photo walks and he was kind enough to share his pictures with us. He was even brave enough to stalk a skunk, snapping several shots of the cute (but potentially smelly) fellow.

Rebecca Bollwitt, to my knowledge, hasn’t taken a specific stance on the matter, but she is willing to arm you with the information to make your own decision. As such, she’s telling Vancouver residents where they can sign the HST petition. Are you for or against the new tax?

Danielle McGaw takes a moment to highlight seven awesome Chrome extensions for all the writers in the audience. Just as there are myriad of plugins for Mozilla Firefox, the same phenomenon is slowly picking up pace with the Chrome web browser too.

Daree Allen strolls down the memory lane of late night television. Perhaps she was inspired by the whole Conan O’Brien situation or the recent slashing of the Wanda Sykes Show. Whatever the case, she describes why she misses Arsenio Hall. He did have a great late night talk show, don’t you think?

Many social media experts will tell you that there is definite value in giving your company some brand presence within social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. These allow you to reach customers and communicate with them in ways that other marketing strategies cannot.

However, part of the trouble with using Facebook and Twitter marketing is that you are directing these potential customers away from your own company website and toward the sites for Facebook and Twitter. This may actually be detrimental to your branding and brand presence, so what can do to minimize this negative impact?

Well, it seems that talk show host Ellen Degeneres (or at least her marketing team) has taken on an interesting approach. If you go to her website, you’ll notice that she has a Twitter page where her “tweets” are automatically updated. That’s easy enough, but they have also configured the page to allow for interaction with Twitter without actually going to the Twitter website or using a third-party Twitter client; the client is built into Ellen’s site.

They weren’t about to do the same with the Facebook account, but the Twitter implementation seems to be quite effective, especially with the target demographic of the Ellen television show. There’s a lot we can learn from Ellen Degeneres, even when it comes to how to handle social media marketing.