Adding to readers’ comments about making flight arrangements for tours (Dec. ’08, pg. 41 & June ’09, pg. 41), my wife and I usually make our flight arrangements independently from the cruise or tour company we are traveling with. We do this because of the following:
For years I toiled to put together for myself a land tour that would include Bosnia & Herzegovina plus Montenegro and Albania, but the inaccessibility of air flights between these countries combined with border crossing technicalities made the process too complex.
by Joyce Bruck, Ocean Ridge, FL
by Mary Beltran, ITN
I stood on deck, feeling the cool breeze of our passage and realized, again, that river cruising is one of my favorite ways to travel.
My husband, Rodney, and I took the “Imperial Russian Waterways” tour with Vantage Deluxe World Travel, Aug. 5-26, 2008, which included a 3-night Kiev pretrip and a 3-night Stockholm post-trip extension for a total of 22 days.
This was not only our first riverboat trip, it was our first experience in being with a group larger than 20 people. We approached it as an experiment, to see whether our avoidance of large groups was really justified.
The following lists a series of events that occurred when my two friends and I were scheduled to leave Sacramento, California, on Jan. 15, 2009, and go to Buenos Aires one day prior to boarding the Star Princess for a cruise to Antarctica.
The 16-day cruise “Antarctica and South America,” Jan. 17-Feb. 2, left from Argentina and included stops at Montevideo, Uruguay; the Falkland Islands; Ushuaia, Argentina, and Punta Arenas, Chile. We were to cruise the Antarctic Peninsula for several days as well as Cape Horn, the Beagle Channel and the Strait of Magellan.
by Donna Judd, Fullerton, CA
by Lew Toulmin
I’m writing in response to the subscriber’s letter titled “Cruising ‘Italian Style’ on Costa Europa” (July ’09, pg. 31), which listed multiple complaints. My friend and I, both Americans, were also on the Jan. 17-31, 2009, sailing of that ship, in the Indian Ocean, for which the base price was $3,340 plus a fuel supplement of $252. (I purchased my own air.)
My husband, Richard, and I made reservations with Norwegian Cruise Line on Feb. 9 for an 18-day cruise from Santiago, Chile, to Los Angeles aboard the Norwegian Sun, April 12-30, 2009.