Given a travel related situation, and given a specific question about the situation, summarize the question into a title

I've been looking for some 20 minutes now and can't find any pertinent information. Where can I find the official school holiday calendar for Japan, 2013?

Where can I find the official school holiday schedule for Japan?

Me and My Mother currently reside in the USA, California

My Mom came to the USA with B1/B2 visa and she is from Iran and it is not included in the countries of VWP and I am permanent resident of California, we are flying to Texas and I have seen this:


  Required for transit flights through United States Electronic travel
  authorization In order to comply with instructions for the US
  Government, we inform you that all passengers regardless of
  nationality who are travelling to or transiting through the United
  States of America will need to obtain an electronic preauthorization
  from the 12 January 2009 onwards. * Bellow you can find the access
  link to complete the corresponding application.
  https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov


I got the tickets online. I don't know what ESTA is. Do we need to do it?
It is talking about people under the Visa Waiver Program: I do not even know if we are under this visa or not?

Flying from California to Texas: do I need ESTA?

I am a Spanish citizen, and next summer I will go on a cruise trip from Spain to France (only stopping in those countries). The organising company seems to be oriented to a USA public so they require the passport for the reservation/registration of the travel as well as the embarkation.

I asked them if I really needed the passport, given that my National ID lets me travel through all EU countries, and they replied that I do need to show my passport when I embark the ship.

Why do they require me to bring the passport?

UPDATE: after contacting the company a second time, they answered that the cruise line requires that I have my passport with me although this company is aware of my IDs grants


Why do they require my passport to travel within the EU for a cruise ship?