My wife and I decided to take our first river cruise ever, the 15-day “Great Rivers of Europe” cruise from Amsterdam to Vienna, with Grand Circle Travel (Boston, MA; 800/221-2610, www.gct.com).
We chose Grand Circle Travel (GCT) because of friends’ recommendations, and we loved our two previous trips with their sister company Overseas Adventure Travel, or OAT (Boston, MA; 800/955-1925, www.oattravel.com).
8 days, 7 nights, Sept. 29-Oct. 6, 2018. Led by two archaeologists. Highlights: In Split, market visit/island of Bracˇ/homemade wine at UNESCO site Stari Grad Plain/tastings of local delicacies in Žrnovo, Korcˇula/saltworks of Pelješac. £3,495 (near $4,674) ppdo. Single supp., £875 ($1,170). Peter Sommer Travels (Chippenham House, 102 Monnow St., Monmouth, England, NP25 3EQ, U.K.; in US & Canada, 855/443-3027, www.petersommer.com).
My daughter Jill Carrington and I did a trip to Iceland, July 14-28, 2017.
In 1967, Princess Cruises (800/774-6237, www.princess.com) was the first cruise company to send a ship through the Panama Canal. On Oct. 26, 50 years later, the line’s Caribbean Princess became the first neo-panamax cruise ship (holding more than 3,000 passengers) to go through the new, expanded locks of the canal.
When Jean Fischer of Brevard, North Carolina, booked four days and three nights on a houseboat in the Kerala backwaters in southwestern India in April 2016, she expected to visit the types of very narrow canals she had seen when she last visited the region on a day trip in 2012...
For many years, my wife and I have gone to Europe over New Year’s. Early in 2016, we spotted a trip called “New Year’s in the Mediterranean,” Dec. 27, 2016-Jan. 8, 2017, on one of three new oceangoing vessels of Viking Cruises (Woodland Hills, CA; 855/338-4546, www.vikingcruises.com).
Due to increased tensions following the region’s declaration of independence and Madrid’s subsequent move to take control of Catalonia’s administration (see p. 2), travelers to this region are, as of press time, being advised to “exercise caution” because of the possibility of continued protests by large crowds.
