My wife and I took our first river cruise, the 17-day “China’s Cultural Delights,” Oct. 9-25, 2009 (excluding Japan stopover), with Viking River Cruises (Woodland Hills, CA; 800/304-9616). Although I abhor tours, this seemed like the way to go in China and I was correct.
ITN was mailed a copy of the following letter, sent by a subscriber to Value World Tours.
(Part 2 of 3 on Egypt)
The main thrust of my September ’09 Egypt journey was a seven-day/seven-night cruise on the timeless Nile, and the first half of the cruise was upstream, heading south, from Luxor to Aswan.
(Second of two parts)
My wife, JoAnn, and I have taken many cruises but never one on any of Europe’s rivers, so when we saw that Uniworld (Los Angeles, CA; 800/733-7820) had introduced the 160-passenger River Beatrice in March ’09, with 7-night cruises along the Danube, we decided to go.
I was on the last voyage of Princess Cruises’ Tahitian Princess from Cape Town to Singapore, Oct. 18-Nov. 19, 2009. The ship went into dry dock when it reached Singapore, and it will come out as the Ocean Princess.
(Part 1 of 3 on Egypt) I had the opportunity to visit Egypt in September ’09 on a journey replicating the 12-day “Egypt Grand” tour offered by my host, Value World Tours (an advertiser in ITN), in concert with the Egyptian Tourist Authority and EgyptAir.
by Lew Toulmin (First of two parts)
I traveled on a Grimaldi Lines freighter, Grande Spagna, June 6-July 5, 2009. From Valencia, Spain, we sailed past Gibraltar to England, Holland and Belgium. We docked at Portugal on the way back to the Mediterranean, stopping at Valencia again before heading on to Italy (three ports), Greece and Turkey and finishing at Valencia.
I was scheduled to leave Valencia on June 2. That was changed to June 3, and I finally left on June 6 on a different vessel than originally scheduled.
by Judith Anshin, Contributing Editor