Hurtigruten (405 Park Ave., Ste. 904, New York, NY 10022; 866/257-6071, www.hurtigruten.us) is offering savings of $1,000-$3,600 per person on five 13- to 22-day Antarctic sailings in 2008 and 2009.
For a 19-day expedition departing Nov. 6, 2008, and visiting Antarctica, the Falkland Islands and Port Lockroy, the discounted cost is $5,499-$13,099, not including airfare, taxes, gratuities and $6-per-day fuel surcharge.
The 105-passenger MS Andrea is being chartered by PerryGolf for a “2009 British Open by Sea Cruise,” July 11-20.
Starting at St. Andrews, the cruise-tour offers opportunities to play five courses along Scotland’s coast (Kingsbarns, Royal Aberdeen, Royal Dornoch, Machrihanish and Machrihanish Dunes), ending at Turnberry for the final round of the 138th Open Championship at the Ailsa course (after the Open, course access is an option).
Two of the 12 people to have set foot on the moon’s surface, NASA astronauts Edgar Mitchell and Charles Duke, will be aboard the 700-guest Seven Seas Voyager on the final segment of Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ Feb. 1-May 8, 2009, world cruise. Suites left for the 20-day segment from Istanbul to Fort Lauderdale, April 18-May 8, cost $8,495-$30,250 per person, double. RSSC (877/505-5370, www.rssc.com or travel agent).
The Berlin International Beer Festival is held on a 2.2-kilometer stretch of Berlin’s Karl-Marx-Allee. Along with live music on 18 stages, more than 240 breweries from 80 countries will present 1,750 brands of beer, Aug. 1-3, 2008, and Aug. 8-10, 2009.
Admission is free; souvenir beer mugs (6.7 ounces) are sold for €3.50 (near $5) and, when presented at a brewer’s stand, cost €1.5 to fill up.
Contact Praesenta, Ltd. (Köpenickerstrasse 325, 12555 Berlin, Germany; phone 030 657 635 60, www.bierfestival-berlin.de).
Twenty-four specially schooled Helsinki Helpers will be available to assist visitors to Helsinki, Finland, in up to 20 languages, including English, Japanese and Croatian. From mid-May to early September, they can be found from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily in key tourist areas of the city center. Services are free.
In Copenhagen, holders of the CPH Card get free admission to 60 museums and attractions; free transport by train, bus and metro (including airport routes), and discounts at participating restaurants, car rental agencies and attractions.
The cost for a 24-hour card is DKK199 (approx. $41) adult and DKK129 ($27) child 10 to 15 and for a 72-hour card, DKK429 ($89) adult, DKK249 ($52) child.
The Marco Polo has been sold by Norwegian Cruise Line to Global Cruise Lines and will be operated under charter by Transocean (in UK, phone 0845 4300274, www.transoceancruises.co.uk, or see a travel agent). She will keep her name.
Based at London Tilbury, she will cruise the British Isles, North Sea, Baltic Sea and Russia and, in October ’08, across the Atlantic to the West Indies. Sample rates — £849-£2,799 (near $1,681-$5,543) per person for the 13-day Baltic-Russia and £2,299-£5,999 for the 33-day West Indies.
The U.S. Department of Transportation on April 14, 2008, revised the rules (Part 250) regarding the rights of passengers who are “bumped” (involuntarily denied boarding from an oversold flight) from any scheduled-service flight within or leaving the U.S., including those of foreign carriers. (Excluded are charter flights and planes with fewer than 30 seats.) The limits on the amounts that airlines must pay in compensation have increased; other changes are subtle. In this summary, the major changes are highlighted in bold.
Panama City’s Metropolitan Park, the only protected rainforest in a city, is home to sloths, monkeys, 42 other mammal species, iguanas and more than 250 kinds of birds. London-based Cox & Kings now offers, either on a group tour or custom itinerary, the chance to get an up-close view of wildlife in the rainforest canopy by riding in a wire-screen-enclosed gondola manipulated by a construction crane.
