Cruise

International roaming with T-Mobile

T-Mobile (t-mobile.com) is wonderful.

Our service plan with T-Mobile includes unlimited data for our two phones for $120 a month and for our tablet for another $20.

We took a 2-month trip, Sept. 13-Nov. 3, 2016, visiting eight capital cities in Eastern and Central Europe: Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, Sophia and Bucharest. During the trip, we enjoyed unlimited data (Internet, email, Google Maps, Google Translate, etc.) and unlimited texting.*

Belgium to France: Cruising the Canal du Nord

Stats on crimes on cruise ships. Venice visitor limits. Airbnb Trips.

Dear Globetrotter:

Welcome to the 491st issue of your monthly foreign-travel magazine.

Those of you who regularly visit our website will have noticed that we recently took care of some technical problems that were occurring. Thank you for your patience while we got things straightened out.

Loving every minute of a 108-day ‘true’ world cruise

Crystal Cruises celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2015, and to mark the occasion it scheduled a world cruise — not an ordinary world cruise like the ones it and other cruise lines schedule every year but a true world cruise, a circumnavigation of the globe, from Miami to Miami, for 108 days.

Italy emergency hospital visit — an update

Many readers might recall my article about staying in an emergency hospital in Naples, Italy, after a medical condition I had got worse while I was on a Holland America Line cruise in April 2016 (Sept. ’16, pg. 51).

Upon my return to Seattle, it was inspiring to receive emails from several ITN subscribers, including Joyce Perry, Judy Serie Nagy, Diane Robbins and Jane B. Holt, all of whom inquired about my health and wished me good luck.

What's Cooking in... Laos

The North Pole with Quark

When Quark Expeditions sent me information about a North Pole trip aboard a Russian nuclear icebreaker, it was the Murmansk stop that sold me. I remembered that during World War II, merchant mariners took chances sailing to that Russian port in the Arctic to deliver supplies to our Soviet allies.

Cruises return to Tunisia

On Oct. 6, Hapag-Lloyd’s ms Europa, carrying 350 passengers, became the first cruise ship to stop at the port of La Goulette in Tunis, Tunisia, since a terrorist attack on the city’s Bardo National Museum in March 2015 left 21 people dead.

At least two other ships have Tunis stops scheduled in 2016, Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ Seven Seas Explorer and Holland America Line’s Rotterdam, and Viking Ocean Cruises’ Viking Sea has port stops scheduled throughout 2017.

Hurtigruten for Antarctica

In the collection of letters on “Active Years Travel Choices” (Sept. ’16, pg. 41), a subscriber suggested sailing to Antarctica “while you are comfortable jumping on and off the inflatable Zodiacs often used to reach shore.”

My husband and I sailed there on the MS Nordnorge with Hurtigruten (Bellevue, WA; 888/645-6370, www.hurtigruten.us) in January-February 2008, and they didn’t use Zodiacs — one of our main reasons for choosing them.

Covered by Allianz

On 12 of our trips abroad, my wife, Judy, and I had never filed a travel insurance claim due to illness, but in September 2015 I had to use a foreign doctor on two occasions.

We had purchased travel insurance from Allianz Global Assistance (Richmond, VA; 866/884-3556, www.allianztravelinsurance.com) through our local American Automobile Association office. (You do not need to be an AAA member, although we each are.) We purchased a basic plan covering our needs as seniors traveling in Europe.

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