8-day / 7-night cruise aboard the 58-passenger sailing vessel Sea Cloud. Departures Feb. 28 and March 7 & 14, 2013. Highlights: Embark from Barbados / hike rainforest on Dominica / ride Zodiacs alongside ship / St. Lucia / sea turtle sanctuary on Bequia in the Grenadines / sail a catamaran through Tobago Cays. Cruise, $6,990-$12,860, double. Single cabin, $10,480 or $11,990. Lindblad Expeditions (New York, NY, 800 / 397-3348, www.expeditions.com).
8-day / 7-night cruise through FRANCE, June 22 or Sept. 7 or 14, 2013. Highlights: Lyon / Châlon-sur-Saône / Mâcon / Viviers / Arles / Avignon / Vienne. Cruise, $2,499-$2,999. Single cabin, $3,999-$5,199. Price includes all gratuities. Swan Hellenic (Ft. Lauderdale, FL; 866 / 923-9182, www.swanhellenic.us).
Royal Caribbean International has a new ship, Jewel of the Seas, the fourth and final ship in the line’s Radiance class.
Silversea Cruises’ guests (or their travel agents) now can reserve shore excursions online, starting with this year’s Mediterranean and Alaska itineraries. The feature is available 60 days prior to sailing.
Guests can visit www.silversea.com and find their cruise. If a “Reserve Now” button appears above “Shore Excursions” on the right, then the online booking option is available.
Large whitecaps topped the waves. The gale prevented us from going on the deck. Amazingly, we hardly felt the ship rock as we were sitting on the verandah of our stateroom. The stabilizers worked amazingly well.
For days we had been enjoying our cruise on the vast, 18-deck, majestic Star Princess as it hurtled through the vast expanse of the empty Pacific, never encountering another ship.
(Second of two parts, go to part one)
A tour of China I took Nov. 8-20, ’03, which included a Yangtze River cruise with Victoria Cruises, was booked with Sharon Carr Tours & Cruises (14580 East Beltwood Pkwy., Ste. 108, Dallas, TX 75244; phone 800/648-4856, e-mail info@sharoncarrtravel.com).
We received a letter today, April 15, from the American Canadian Caribbean Line (461 Water St., Warren, RI 02885; phone 800/556-7450). Inside we found a voucher along with a visa refund slip for a cruise we had planned to take from Belize City. This cruise, on their ship Grande Mariner, was to begin on March 25, ’04.
That day, 48 passengers were looking forward to 12 days in the sun, snorkeling and relaxing on a small ship. We had just come back from a company-planned pre-cruise trip into the Belize interior.
I took a Caribbean cruise aboard Mediterranean Shipping Company’s Lirica, Jan. 26-Feb. 6, ’04, and wish to give my impressions. My perspectives come from over 50 cruises, including canal and Atlantic crossings.
The Lirica left Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, for Montego Bay, Jamaica; Cartagena, Colombia; the San Blas Islands and Panama Canal; Puerto Limón, Costa Rica, and then back to Florida to Key West and Ft. Lauderdale. The fare was $1,995 for the first passenger and $700 for the second (special AARP rate).
Following are some good points:
My wife and I booked passage on Holland America’s ms Prinsendam for a 22-day cruise, Sept. 1-Oct. 3, ’03. The ship started in San Francisco, stopped in San Diego and continued to Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal, Aruba and the Bahamas, then on to Philadelphia and Boston.