The letter titled “Private Shore Tours” (April ’10, pg. 14) was written by a traveler with a preference for taking independently arranged excursions as opposed to ones purchased from a cruise ship.
My response — the benefit of booking tours directly through the ship can be summarized in a few words: the ship’s staff knows where you are.
Although saving money is, indeed, a virtue, there certainly are hazards inherent in going on your own.
My husband and I took the eight-day “Paris & the Heart of Normandy” cruise with Viking River Cruises (Woodland Hills, CA; 800/304-9616). Excluding air, we paid $5,211 for two plus, for a three-day pretour in Paris, $1,398.
On shore excursions, passengers each had a portable receiver so we could hear the guide wherever we were standing. I have walking limitations, so the earphones made it possible to keep up.
About to depart for home on April 17 after Grand Circle Travel’s “Holland & Belgium in Springtime” — an excellent cruise-tour aboard the R/V River Aria — we got word that all flights were canceled due to the ash cloud from Iceland.
That evening we were advised to relax because passengers would be able to stay on the ship, and meals would be provided too, at no charge. There was no discrimination between travelers who had insurance and those who did not (like us).
I signed up for the April ’10 “Egypt & Eastern Mediterranean” cruise with Voyages of Discovery (Ft. Lauderdale, FL; 866/623-2689). It cost $6,238 including air from San Diego, two nights in London, one night in Istanbul and my single supplement.
I wished to snorkel in the Red Sea, transit the Suez Canal and tour Jordan, Syria and the WWI battle site at Gallipoli in Turkey. None of these events were realized due to the volcano in Iceland.
We booked the “Circle South America” cruise aboard the Seven Seas Mariner of Regent Seven Seas Cruises (Ft. Lauderdale, FL; 877/505-5370), Jan. 9-March 16, 2010, and one of the optional excursions offered was a two-night, three-day trip to Machu Picchu in Peru.
The excursion cost $2,600 per person, with only six hours actually at Machu Picchu. That seemed expensive, and I found a similar tour on the Internet for much less, but, in the end, we thought it might be safer to take the ship’s excursion.
I did a feature article about my cruise on Elegant Cruises’ Monet (March ’03, pg. 22), so I was sad to read in the subscriber’s letter that the company is in such bad shape (“Awaiting Refund for Canceled Cruise,” May ’10, pg. 24).
The letter “Foreign-transaction Fee” (May ’10, pg. 14) really struck a nerve with us. In early April we were on a cruise from Miami to Barcelona with Oceania Cruises, and while on board we decided to place a deposit for a 2011 cruise. We paid the $1,500 using our Wells Fargo Visa debit card.
When we returned home and checked our bank statement, the bank had tacked on a 45-dollar (3%) International Purchase Transaction Fee.
by Fred Steinberg; Riverside, CT
orldI read Ed Graper’s letter “World Cell Phone” (March ’10, pg. 48) and have a few comments.
