Spring Break for my family this year brought about a long awaited event -- a family cruise in the Caribbean to Grand Cayman, Cozumel, and Montego Bay, Jamaica. We had long anticipated this event, and when the day came, of course our newest family member, my TC1000, jumped in his case (yes my TC1k is a guy), and came along for the ride! Just thought I would share just how handy it was to have my tablet along.

Of course the first thing to note is that in any long journey, lighter is better. I used to carry my Dell 8200 notebook along on trips like this (when my wife would let me), but now, it stays at home and the tablet goes with me, and believe me, when you travel with a family of four, you really appreciate every less pound. I had no problems at all with security; it went right through with no questions (although I suspect they just missed it -- not a good thought). My first actual use onboard and got a quiet moment, was of course to open up Journal and start ... well -- a Journal! I was struck once again (for about the thousandth time), at how nice it was to pick up the tablet, and just start writing. If you use Standby and Hibernate on your tablet, you know what I mean -- this is one of the best benefits of these computers. I did my journal (in Journal, I like saying that) in many different places. I did it in my cabin, the dining room, in several different lounges, as well as out on the "Promenade" deck sitting in a deck chair watching the blue waters go by. One negative note here, is that using the tablet outside was great on the Promenade deck (which is covered and shady), but anywhere else outside was just not practical without a transreflective screen. I even tried under an umbrella, and although it was doable, was definitely not desirable.

The main purpose for bringing the Tablet (besides not wanting it to get lonely), was to download digital pictures. I was using a borrowed Olympus E10 digital camera which uses Compact Flash cards. I cannot tell you how wonderful it was each evening when I returned to my cabin to simply insert the CF card into my TC1k, give it a folder name, and offload all pics. The XP Photo wizard works great. I could then take the tablet to dinner with me and share our images of the day with my family and the folks at our dinner table. I even emailed a few shots to family and friends back home. Our dinner companions were shocked that I was going to email them a picture of our dinner group, and that it would be in their email before they even got home. I could of course also have done this with a notebook computer, but it was a ton easier with the Tablet.

How about Internet connectivity? Our cruise was with Holland America, and I must say I was impressed with their Internet Cafe capability. For $3.95, you set up an account on the ship for Internet access for the whole cruise, and can either pay a bit more and rent a computer of theirs, or bring your own laptop (or Tablet of course) and use their system -- they even offer wireless 802.11b! For a fairly decent charge of about 10 cents a minute, you can attach wirelessly to their WAP onboard at the Internet Cafe, and do your email, web surfing, etc. I had no problem accessing their wireless system. Just turned on my wireless, entered login info, and I was online. They also offered temporary shipboard email accounts if you could not access you account from their system. There was an "Internet Manager" in the cafe at certain times to help, but for the most part you just went to the Cafe, sat down and did your thing. The night before we would dock at a port, I would go online, do a little research, and find sites, etc. for our days visit there. Very nicely done Holland America!

Other uses were for my 14 year old daughter to play a few games, I of course did do a little work (but only just a little) on sea days when I had gotten enough sun for the day, and a little e-book reading (but I had forgotten to download some new books). I did of course have to do the obligatory demos just about every time I displayed it in public, but I tried to sit in quiet places when I could. While in quiet areas, I would at times be sitting near someone who was reading (or catching a quick nap), and it was nice to know I would not disturb them with the tap-tap-tapping of a keyboard. One additional very special note was that my TC1k even fit inside the cabin's mini safe! Try that with your notebook computer! I did not have to worry about just leaving it sitting in my cabin, which was a nice thing!

Well, that is about it. I thoroughly enjoyed my cruise, but also was thankful to have my tablet along. My wife was much happier than when I had my notebook as well (although I did get fussed at a couple of times). The versatility of this unit continues to amaze me. You can take a tablet lots of places that you would never go with a notebook computer. I really enjoyed having "TC" along!