How I Became a Travel Agent

In October 2002 shortly after getting married I found a new job working as a direct banking associate at ING Direct. ING Direct was the first online bank with no brick & mortar locations.
I worked my way up from a regular banking products to being a mortgage account manager and during this time I had my 4 children. I took 8 months maternity leave after my first daughter a year after my second daughter, six months after my third daughter and 2 months after my son.
The biggest reason for shorter maternity leaves was the awesome daycare provider we had ant not wanting to lose our subsidized spot. Also I had to work to help support our family. I was our biggest wage earner at the time. In 2008 when we found out we were expecting our last my husband's company was sold and it took him until October to find new work. We were commuting from Morrisburg to Ottawa everyday and dropping the kids off in Winchester which was the half way point. However the new job was in Russell. So it became drop the kids off in Winchester and drop my husband off in Russell and then head to Ottawa by myself. My hour one way commute was now an hour and a half. The crock pot was my friend and we made this work for us.In July 2011 shortly before our trip to Disney the CEO of ING Direct made a trip to Ottawa and advised us they would be closing the call centre and relocating the bilingual, emergency back up centre to Moncton, New Brunswick. We were given an option to transfer to Moncton once it was up and running or head office in Toronto. If we stayed until closing in March 2012 we would receive extra bonuses and if we moved we were offered re-location bonuses. After much deliberation as a family we decide re-location was not for us. So on March 31 2012 just shy of my ten year Anniversary I found myself unemployed.
For a year I looked for a position that would work with our commuting schedule. I did not want to stay in mortgages. All other banks were 100% commission and you had to find your own clients. Had I served my area with ING I may have considered it but I served the province of Quebec. In February of 2013 I discovered Disney Travel Agents and I figured there was my dream job. However most of them were in the States and Ontario has strict rules for operating as a travel agent.
I finally found Pure Magic Vacations based in Ontario and in April 2013 I became a home based travel agent who specialized in Disney travel. But being 100% commissioned and taking a huge cut in money meant I was not likely to be travelling any time soon, but I did not let it deter me as I was able to live vicariously through my clients travel and the excitement of first trips to Disney.
After a while I realized I really wanted to specialize in all family travel not just Disney and in April 2015 I found the agency Exclusive to you Travel services to work with and became Stephanie the Travel Agent Next Door. I have never been happier working from home allowing me to be more active in the kids lives and helping so many people make their dream vacations a reality. Of course by following my blogs you will know I have actually started travelling a lot more with and without my family.
While  I am still focusing on family travel I have branched out ad have been working on group travel as well. Exploring more of my interests and loves. I hope one day I can help you make your vacation dreams a reality and remember family vacations do not just mean Disney and all inclusive. Today it includes the world.
My current group offerings are as follows: New York City weekend in November 2019, Game of Thrones Ireland Tour August 2020 and Lord if the Rings New Zealand Tour October 2020. For more information on each you can find the events on my Facebook Page

My family coming home from our Western Caribbean Cruise

Where you can find me:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/stephaniethetravelagentnextdoor

Website: http://www.exclusivetoyoutravel.ca

Email: slough@exclusivetoyoutravel.com

TICO 500212282

55 York Street, Suite 1003

Toronto, On M5J 1R7

Please keep in mind that while my head office is in Toronto. I am a home based travel agent and I live in South Dundas and I can service clients anywhere in Canada. But, I meet with clients in the SD&G area

Summer Vacation Almost Over

This has been one of our bizarrest summer vacations in the last few years in our home. My kids are 9, 10, 13 and 14 so yes I have two teenagers in my house.
This is the first time no one attended vacation bible school (vbs). Last year we did the one at the Williamsburg Christian Reformed Church, the Dixon's Corner Christian Reformed Church, the Gathering House and the Morrisburg Pentecostal Church. All of them were 1/2 days accept the Gathering House was a full day. This meant that for four weeks I had every morning to myself to get work done. My son actually went to school every morning in July and the girls went to Camp Lutherlyn Sponsored by our church for a week. This summer there were no camps, no school. My oldest daughter spent July with my parents but it still meant I did not devote enough time to my business this summer and I am so looking forward to school starting back up.
I am hoping to be able to post my blog regularly as well as to all my social media accounts they have all suffered this summer.
I have made the decision to get my CTC (certified travel consultant) and my CTA (certified travel agent) as well as committed myself to doing more supplier training and adding to the designations I already have.
Not too mention I have already talked about upcoming partnerships that I hope to have time to iron out this fall to get things rolling for the spring and beyond. I even hope to host my very own consumer evening with Monograms an awesome supplier.
So I am really looking forward to back to school and getting back into a routine and being able to set some proper hours instead of working crazy hours around kids being home during the day and being taxi for swimming and golfing.
Next summer I think I will have to go back to having some sort of routine or activities planned for the kids so that I can try and work more regular hours or find and office space away from them during the day.
I will actually have a vacation myself next summer when my mother and I take two oldest girls on their first Mediterranean cruise just before they turn 14 and 15.
What did you do this summer and how did you arrange things for your children?
Now I know school has been in for two weeks but I have been a little delayed in getting back on track with all the routines.

First day of school Elizabeth, Victoria, Daniel and Katherine

Where you can find me:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/stephaniethetravelagentnextdoor

Website: http://www.exclusivetoyoutravel.ca

Email: slough@exclusivetoyoutravel.ca

TICO 500212282

55 York Street, Suite 803

Toronto, On M5J 1R7

Please keep in mind that while my head office is in Toronto. I am a home based travel agent and I live in South Dundas and I can service clients anywhere in Canada. But, I meet with clients in the SD&G area

Sorry

So when I started blogging this past summer it was to share my love of travel as a travel agent with the world and to let people get to know me and my family and why I had chosen this "dying"profession as a way of life.
Little did I know how difficult this would be even after I made a list that had well over a hundred blog ideas and many could be turned into multi day posts. Heck let's be honest I could write something new about Disney everyday and never run out of topics or inspiration but as much as I love Disney it is still not what I am all about.
You see as I mentioned I am a work from home mom who is raising four kids. My husband works full time out of the home and is also very active in the Masonic Organization. What this means is the kids become about 100% of my responsibility and all that entails while working a job. So in the summer when I started this venture the kids where home. We made use of the local churches vacation bible schools which offered one week had day camps. We did three of those and one church has a full day which we used also. The girls attended a week long stay way camp sponsored by our church and my youngest did a half day summer reading program at the school for the month of July. My second oldest daughter swam with her summer swim team. So while the kids were home I did get some free time and my weekends tended to be booked with swim meets. The free time was enough to sit down and blog and of course blogging like most social media these days allow you to schedule posts so you can always write as many as you can and schedule them to post later.
August was bit of a challenge as there was a short getaway with the two oldest girls for their Grand Assembly for the International Order of the Rainbow for which they are members of, but I managed to stay on track. But then I was hit with back to school and I know we are involved in a lot. Hard not to be when there are four kids and two adults leaving together. But not only did I have to deal with the back to school bustle I ended up going on a week long working cruise to the Mediterranean (I know you are not saying poor you). I figured that I would be able to blog live while on my trip and have time to develop content for the future. But go figure my down time was not quite as much as I thought it would be and I spent what little of it I had sleeping or staying in touch with my family and my clients. I am almost three weeks post cruise and still I had not posted a blog heck I haven't even shared pictures with friends and family or reviews for my colleagues which is normally what one does on a working a vacation.
So just to give you an idea of how hectic our life is My oldest daughter is in grade eight she is an Explorer with scouts and she is a Rainbow girl.  My second daughter is in grade seven she is a swimmer (although no competing this year just doing lessons) and a Rainbow girl. My third daughter is in grade five and she is a Timberwolf with scouts and a pledge girl (this is pre rainbow). My youngest son is in grade three and he does Taekwon Do and attends the local churches youth group. So I have to do or co-ordinate the drives for all these activities. I also am on the advisory board for the Rainbow girls (which means monthly meetings and helping with all events). I am a Senior Explorer (scout leader, I used to lead one other group and do the admin for all the groups but had to back away). I am the secretary on the Parent council for the high school and I volunteer for events at the elementary school and help when and where needed. So coming back home I had to launch into a Luau fundraiser for Rainbow (I made 90% of the food) and served Thanksgiving dinner to the elementary school on top of cooking a turkey for it. As can be expected I kind of ran myself into the ground and was burning the candle at booth ends. So I got sick.
So here I am apologizing to all of you for not keeping up on my goal of posting blogs every two days and going for just over a month since my last post and even then they were two quick posts about Hurricanes and there is much more than should have been written since then. So I am getting back on my band wagon and will be starting to share my travel experience because it was Amazing!!! I really can not recommend more taking this cruise itinerary. So if I have peaked your interest and have not lost you as a follower yet. Please stay tuned to my blogs posts for the next little while!!

mom and I

Have a great weekend and if you are wanting to connect here is where you can find me
www.facebook.com/stephaniethetravelagentnextdoor

www.exclsuivetoyoutravel.ca and www,exclsuivetoyoutavel.com

my email slough@exclusivetoyoutravel.com