Cruise

My adult daughter Jennie and I chose the line Cruise West (Seattle, WA; 888/851-8133, www.cruisewest.com) for our highly anticipated January ’06 trip through the Panama Canal plus Costa Rica.

My wife, Esta Lee, and I took the “Grand Voyage to Scandinavia,” May 13-June 5, 2006, on the MV Discovery of Voyages of Discovery, formerly Discovery World Cruises (1800 SE 10th Ave., Ste. 205, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33316; 866/623-2689).

The package combined a 2-week transatlantic cruise from Nassau in the Bahamas to Harwich in the U.K. and a one-week round-trip cruise from Harwich along the Norwegian coast.

Subscriber G.L. (Hal) Merow mailed to ITN a copy of the following letter, which he sent to Cruise West, regarding a 13-night/14-day “Japan Unveiled” cruise taken aboard the “Spirit of Oceanus,” March 18-31, 2006. Without the airfare but including an overnight in Tokyo and another in Kobe, the cruise-tour cost $4,476 per person. In all, 13 ports in Japan and one in Korea were visited.

We took a 12-day cruise from Sydney, Australia, to Auckland, New Zealand, on the Diamond Princess, Feb. 24-March 8, 2006. We were disturbed by the cruise line’s lenient no-smoking policy, which is the most lenient of any cruise ship we’ve recently been on.

The man in the cabin next door smoked from daylight to dawn. It was either a pipe or cigar. We were forced off our verandah twice. The last time, my wife had a minor asthmatic attack, so we gave up on using the verandah.

On a trip to Greece in September ’05, my wife, Margaret, and I took a 7-day cruise of the Cyclades Islands aboard the comfortable but not luxurious motor yacht m/s H&B, through Viking Yacht Cruises (4231 Lakemoor Dr., Wilmington, NC 28405; 800/341-3030, www.vikings.gr).

The cruise cost $1,460 per person, including breakfast daily along with either lunch or dinner plus the services of Eleni, an excellent cruise director. The H&B is a small craft that carries 40 guests; on our trip there were only 26.

My husband, Ray, and I took a 24-day, 2-segment cruise in Europe on the Insignia of Oceania Cruises (Miami, FL; 800/531-5658, www.oceaniacruises.com), May 21-June 14, ’06.

For the first segmnent we embarked in Barcelona, and when we arrived in Lisbon we had visited six countries plus Gibraltar. Originally, we were booked to go to Libya, but because of problems with the government the itinerary was changed. The second segment, June 2-14, from Bilbao, Spain, to Dover, England, hit five countries.

I became handicapped (I am a limited walker) in 1967, at the age of 41. Rather than spending the next 39 or 40 years in a nursing home, wallowing in self-pity and bemoaning my fate, I have — with my indefatigable wife — traveled to China, done Elderhostels with homestays in Mexico and France, spent eight months roaming around Europe at will and taken innumerable cruises.

Cruises are superb. You don’t have to pack and unpack as you move from hotel to hotel to hotel; the hotel does the moving while you remain conveniently located in the same quarters all the time.

My wife and I started planning in the summer of 2005 to take one of the Russian ships of Viking River Cruises (5700 Canoga Ave., Ste. 200, Woodland Hills, CA 91367; 877/668-4546). We were interested in specific dates in 2006, in order to celebrate one of our birthdays and our anniversary. Our time slot fit the schedule of the Viking Surkov, with a departure from St. Petersburg on June 25 and arrival in Moscow on July 5.