Cruise

I took a sailing adventure, the “14-Day Historic Coasts/Canada & New England Discovery,” aboard the ms Veendam of Holland America Line, or HAL (Seattle, WA; 877/932-4259, www.hollandamerica.com), Aug. 29-Sept. 12, 2015.

The cruise embarked from Boston, sailed up the New England and eastern Canadian coastlines, entered the St. Lawrence River and ended in historic Québec City. As a single in a partial-ocean-view stateroom, my total cost for this trip was $5,637.

A number of boats carrying refugees heading to Europe wrecked during three days in May, killing 700 to 900 people, as well as in June.

At least 100 people went missing off the coast of Libya after a boat packed with refugees capsized on May 25. From that boat, 562 people were rescued. At least 550 are missing from a boat that capsized on May 26 after leaving Libya. On May 27, when a ship wrecked south of Italy, 45 were killed and an unknown number went missing, with 135 migrants rescued. 

Costing a total of $5.3 billion and taking two years longer than originally scheduled, the expansion project at the Panama Canal, begun in September 2007, at press time was scheduled to begin accepting ships on June 26. 

The expansion adds another lane of traffic that more than doubles the size of ships that can be accommodated, from those that can hold up to 5,000 TEUs (or Twenty-foot Equivalent Units, which roughly indicate a ship’s capacity for 20-foot containers) to those at 13,000 TEUs. 

Escaping the dry, browning Central Valley of California was a perfect excuse for my wife, Betty, and me to schedule a return visit to the lush gardens and green hills of England. 

An agreement made between Carnival Corporation and the Cuban government on March 23 will allow a ship run by the Carnival subsidiary Fathom (Valencia, CA; 855/932-8466, www.fathom.org) to operate the first cruises from the US to Cuba since the 1960s. Fathom’s weeklong cruises aboard the MV Adonia, Miami-Havana-Cienfuegos-Santiago de Cuba-Miami, were scheduled to begin on May 1.

 Travelers can experience the deepest and longest fjord in Norway by train and boat on the “Sognefjord in a Nutshell” day tour offered by Fjordtours (Møllendalsveien 1A, N5009 Bergen, Norway; phone +47 55 55 76 60, www.fjordtours.com/en).

A 2-hour train ride from Bergen to Myrdal is followed by a one-hour ride on the Flåm Railway from Myrdal to Flåm and then a 5½-hour fjord cruise back to Bergen. Travelers can also begin and end their journey in Oslo, requiring two 5-hour train trips to and from Bergen.

7-day, 6-night hotel barge cruise on Caledonian Canal, Scottish lochs. Through October 2016. Highlights: Embark in Muirtown/Glen Ord whisky distillery/Culloden Moor, site of 1746 battle/cruise Loch Dochfour/Urquhart Castle overlooking Loch Ness/Eilean Donan Castle/battlefield of Glencoe/disembark at Banavie/minibus to Inverness. Stateroom, $4,090-$4,750, or suite, $4,690-$5,450, ppdo. Single supp., $1,500-$1,750.