Thanks to our client Michele from Illinois for this review of her and her husband Paul’s Disney cruise in Norway featuring Adventures by Disney excursions.
Thanks to Georgianne Holland for sending us these photos and her feedback on a Royal Caribbean 7 night Mediterranean cruise she booked with us)
Here’s a photo of my 25-year old son Eric Bender and me on a day that we had an excursion to Cinque Terre, Italy. That was our favorite part of the cruise…our excursions.
This photo was taken early in the morning when we were tendered to shore. It was very fulfilling to have my three adult children with me on this cruise. It was truly a great bonding experience in a busy life!
The hotel in Barcelona you arranged was great (Hotel Regina). They were very accommodating and all of the plans you made for us went very smoothly. We loved all of the tours you set up…Barcelona and Rome. Both of those companies I would recommend to others.
The food on the ship was tasty, but not as luxurious as I remember cruise food being. The sheer number of people they had to feed (over 4,000) probably added to the complexity. The food we ate during our excursions was outstanding!
I would say that one of the best parts of working with you Tim is that when things do go wrong, and with travel, they sometimes do, it was so great to know I could email or text you and I would get the kind assistance that I needed…even from half-way around the world!
Thanks again,
Georgianne Holland, Certified Holistic Health Coach
In the Fall of 2013 we finally were able to visit a city we always wanted to see – London, England. Listed below is our trip blog and some pictures we took of London and surrounding areas. At the end of this post Anne gives her impressions of our stay and tours.
Day One
Greetings from London! Anne and I arrived early this morning after a 7 hour transatlantic flight from Washington DC. Here I am standing outside of our hotel – the Lancaster Gate Hotel near Hyde Park. This is a good location, close to the major transit hubs.
After checking in to our hotel, we immediately started touring. Though tired from the long flight we wanted to adjust to the time change by staying awake. Our “hop on, hop off” original London tour company bus showed us around the town, with narration of the sights we saw.... Read More
Earlier this month we told you about our Rhine River Cruise – one of our best trips ever! When planning the trip we figured since we were paying for airfare to Europe, why not experience more than just the river cruise? We had never been to London before, and we saw on the map it wasn’t too far to get from London to Amsterdam by air or train. But then we came across a third option, shown in this video:
This service is offered by the Stena Line. When looking at costs of an extra hotel night in London followed by a train or air trip to Amsterdam on the day of our cruise, we found this rail and sail option would save us money, and it would be a new adventure for us. We decided to go for it!
The first obstacle we found was booking the rail and sail trip online – Stena, we discovered, declined all credit cards from the U.S. because of fraud concerns. Fortunately, Stena has an 800 number accessible from the U.S. and we were able to easily book our trip over the phone.
We’ll tell you more of our four days in London in a future blog post. What worked extremely well for us was to hire a private driver for our last day of touring in London, and have our driver drop us at the Liverpool train station for our overnight rail and sail trip to Amsterdam.
Our rail and sail trip was great – we would to it again! Anne writes about the experience:
“I enjoyed our trip from London to Amsterdam. Of course it was new and different, so that can be both exciting and nerve wracking! Although Tim had purchased our train/ferry tickets in advance we had to figure out the train station in London. Although nervous about being in the right place and catching the right train, we pulled it off and even caught an earlier train then we had expected. The train was delayed at one point and there is no convenient place to store large suitcases, but we made the best of it.
The ferry was fairly easy to board and there was assistance available to lead us in the right direction. The ferry was more like an ocean cruise ship than I expected. I thought the dinner was good, but there are many opportunities for them to entice you to open your wallet – menu upgrades and alcohol to name a few. I was fine with the dinner selection and enjoyed my banana split dessert. The ship has many areas for lounging, drinking, even a casino for gambling! Our room was very much like many of the cruise ship staterooms we have experienced in the past. We did have fresh fruit and beverages at our cabin level.
Breakfast was good the next morning but if you go too late they start to run out of some things, since the buffet is only open for set hours. We had no problems disembarking and were able to walk right onto the train to take us to our next destination. I was glad we stopped at the ticket office for a pre-printed list of train stations and arrival times. The train to Amsterdam became very crowded and again there was no convenient place to store our luggage. With the train station in Amsterdam being so close to the pier, we didn’t even have to take a taxi. We were able to walk the short distance to our next adventure – the river cruise.”
If you have questions about this rail and sail package, or would like to work with us on your river cruise plans, please contact us.
Viking River Cruise on the Rhine October 2013 by Tim Larison, CLIA Certified Master Cruise Counselor (MCC) with contributions from Travel Agent Anne Larison... Read More
When Susan Ben approached us asking for a Europe cruise vacation for her family (2 adults 2 kids ages 23, 16) we suggested this Holland America Noordam cruise departing from Civitavecchia. The Bens wanted to see Italy and departing from the port close to Rome allowed them some days in Rome before and after the cruise. We also set them up in a small family run hotel that was close to the city sights and considerably less in price than the larger hotel options. Thanks to Susan for providing us this report and pictures:
Cruise Day 1
Some pictures… As we set sail, and then later that evening my son and I attended the welcome aboard Mixology class.
We are in Lavernno today, and heading to Luca and Pisa. To see the Leaning Tower of course.
Ciao!
Sue
Dinner in Rome
On the ship
Leaving Rome Port
We took a mixology class
Jen and Mark
Mark And Mom
Cruise Day 2
I am having some great fun with this “deployment plan” for Project Rome!
Still on track. Today,:
step 127.1.2.1 – Eat Gelato (Strawberry was the flavor) was completed
Step 132.3.4.7 – Lean with the Leaning Tower Of Pisa was completed
Step 995.1.2.4 – Back-up and have wine in an Outside Café was added and completed
We are on track for deployment. Up next is Monte Carlo and the James Bond/Princess thing, when we dock in the morning.
Ciao!
Sue
Eat Gelato
Lean With The Leaning Tower
Wine at outdoor café
Cruise Day 3
Project Rome! Risk Mitigation (Gambling) Plan
Since we are in the high-end gambling Principality of Monaco today is about managing risk.
• Being a Princess isn’t easy, so I made sure that my kingdom would be ready! The royal Wedding is on July 2nd, so the streets are being decked out to celebrate. See the flags by My palace, overlooking the sea?
• Of course I met my “James Bond” prince by the Casio. Honest!
So the through project plan and the bucket list have been as a good “risk of not doing everything” tool as a well-managed RAID list.
Formal night for the Princess and her James Bond this evening.
Bon nuite! (they speak French in Monaco)
Sue
All Ready For The Royal Wedding
View from My Palace Overlooking the Sea
My 2 James Bonds
Cruise Day 4
June 23rd
More items on the Vacation Bucket List crossed off today in Barcelona.
· Enjoy Spanish Wine & Eat Tapas in Barcelona – We did this in two different places today
· See Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia – They started building that Church in the late 1600’s and still are not done!
· Wander the Streets of Barcelona – Did a little wandering today… More tomorrow, which is a national holiday for the feast of Saint John
· Sit on the Spanish Steps – This is our lesson for today on defining clear requirement!
I have my family keeping track of the bucket list of vacation objectives… one was to sit on the Spanish Steps. My requirement is to sit on the Spanish Steps in Rome, but today my son said “Mom, there are some steps by the church, why don’t you sit there and I will take your picture sitting on Spanish steps”. He got it right, but did not meet the business partner requirement… Just goes to show the value of well documented requirements!!
See you all next update!
Sue
Eating Tapas and drinking wine in Barcelona
Seeing Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia
Wander the Streets.. Included street musicians
Sitting on “Spanish Steps” not “The Spanish Steps” get those requirements right!
Cruise Day 5 & 6
June 24th and June 25th (Cruise Day 5 & 6)
Just another day in Barcelona, right like that’s normal. The deployment is still on track and the status is green. In fact in the past 2 days even got a chance to add some items from the extended family bucket list…
· Spend a day NOT doing a preplanned shore excursion – Mike
· Have a martini – Jennifer
· Take pictures of something other than “tourist sights” – Mark
· Go to a beach in Mallorca, it was the Palmas Beach – Sue, Mark, Jen (Mike just wanted to sleep)
· Plan a surprise for Sue (sent flowers and wine) – Mike
Sunday we are at sea all day… so taking a tapas cooking lesson, doing a wine tasting and another mixology class and continuing our vacation “Hand and Foot” card game tournament. Only 25 points separate the ‘rents (parents) from the Kids.
The weather has been so good, I have forgotten all about System Bulletins.
Sue
Just hanging on La Rambles in Barcelona
Jen having her martini (lemon drop), while we play cards
We made it to the Beach!
Mark went topless, Jen didn’t, I stayed covered up and 50% of the females were topless.
Yes, I am rubbing it in that I am not back in the states at work!
June 26th and June 27th (Cruise Day 7 & 8)
We spent Sunday “at sea” (no port) and headed into Tunis in Tunisia today. I finally visited Africa! It was pretty cool to see Carthage. Got my hair done on Sunday and did “ship things”, to get ready for the history lesson on Monday. To celebrate Mike and I did the ship Pub Crawl this evening… 5 bars, 5 different drinks. Since we have been on this ship so long we have actually gotten to know Ken (the master bar tender), Elizabeth (Party Planner) and Frank (Cellar Master) pretty well. What can I say we are enjoying the vacation!
More items on the bucket list:
· Have fun on vacation
· Appreciate the History of Carthage, we really saw some very cool history items from before Christ.
· And Mike and I did the ship pub crawl this evening!
Only two items, but lots of fun!
On to Sicily tomorrow.
Sue
Some Fun Places on the Ship
In Carthage – Roman ruins and a WWII memorial to our soldiers.
More North Africa
And some fun back on the ship
Cruise Day 9
June 28th (Cruise Day 9)
Relaxing day today in Palermo, Sicily. Walked in to town to “Do Something Memorable and Spontaneous in Palermo”; who would have guessed that consisted of trying to cross a street and make a local phone call. LOL. Of course we also did some shopping and ate more gelato. We are just leaving port now as I write this. It’s our last formal night so Jennifer has started her 2 hour “get ready” ritual.
We are still on track to complete the “cruise milestone” on schedule.
Today’s items crossed off the bucket list:
· Something spontaneous – Just wander into town with no set agenda
· Something memorable – Trying to cross a street without getting run over by a Vespa, horse and carriage or car.
Only two items, but lots of fun, since shopping was also involved!
On to Naples and Pompeii tomorrow.
Sue
Just some shopping time
Watch out for the Vespa’s they are everywhere
More Gelato!!! Yumm Yumm!
Coming back to port
Cruise Day 10
June 29th and June 30th (Cruise Day 10 & Rome Day 1)
Spent the last day in Naples and packing up all the clothes and memories to head back to Rome. We are back in Rome (where the internet is FREE!!!) now waiting for our friends to arrive. The vacation is getting shorter and the list of un done items on the bucket list is also getting shorter. We have met a few people from the Chicago area, but today we did meet some one from Naperville… We always joke that no matter where we go we meet someone from Naperville.
More items on the bucket list:
• Eat Pizza in Naples
• Explore the ruins of Pompeii
• Shop in a real Italian Market
• Make bruschetta in Rome
We are eating under the stars this evening… and on to the Vatican tomorrow.
Ciao
Sue
Mt Vesuvius in the background from the Forum of Pompeii
Pompeii Collage
Shopping in the Italian Market
Before and after the cruise the Bens stayed at the Residence Candia which we had booked for them. Sue’s comment:
Residence Candia – We did like the hotel. The location is fantastic! Less than 5 minute walk to Vatican Museum entrance, 15 minute walk to St Peter’s Square, Metro station 5 minutes, excellent shopping district and restaurants. Hotel staff is very friendly and helpful. The apartment we chose when we returned to Rome was a pretty large apartment by European standards. We had 3 bedrooms, 2 baths (all showers as is typical for Europe). The kitchen was a full kitchen (4 burner stove/oven) and everything you needed. I would recommend this if you are dealing with people that understand Europe and the state of non-chain hotels. For the price it was an excellent value. But like European 3 star hotels it is functional not luxurious. Our friends that came down from Turin also stayed there and were quite impressed at the level and cleanliness of the rooms.
And some final pictures of the Bens time in Rome:
Sue writes “Thanks for the great service!” and we thank Sue for sharing these wonderful pictures!
Of all of the cruises we’ve now done, this is one of the top ones I think. Warm weather, interesting variety of ports, and something for everyone. They said multiple times that the Splendour was the smallest ship in the RCCL fleet, but had the best weather. It was the perfect ship for this cruise with 8 ports days and only 2 sea days, as we didn’t miss the other activities found on larger ships (we did see the Navigator in Athens and the Voyager, on which we sailed in 2008, parked next to us yesterday in Venice as we left). The public areas were in good shape.
By Bryan Richardson (Family Travel Gurus client)
Our aft junior suite was very nice. The cabin itself was only microscopically larger than the D1s we’ve often sailed on in the past, but that microscopic difference was big–we could get from one side of the cabin to the other when the sofa bed was out. The interior of the cabin was extremely worn–the carpet was shot, and there were lots of signs of wear on the drawers, shelving, and in the bathroom. But the balcony more than made up for it–almost the size of the cabin interior. Half exposed, half covered by a sunbathing deck above (nice and quiet at night and early mornings), we could always find a shady spot to read our book or watch where we’d been disappear into the distance. I’d readily book another aft cabin again on a ship with nothing loud overhead. You’ll see all of our other trip pictures on Facebook, so I’ll attach a couple of balcony shots here that didn’t make that cut.
The rest of the ship looked to be in good shape. I didn’t see too many other signs of wear in the public areas (theater, lounge, dining room). We found the food to be very good–better than our RCCL experience on the Jewel in 2009 or Voyager in 2008. Maybe it was the smaller dining room and fewer meals getting cranked out. Or maybe it just hit the spot more after hiking and touring every day 🙂 I think the Splendour was originally scheduled to dry dock last spring but it was postponed. Hopefully the dry dock work would be in updating the cabins. Entertainment was, as always, a mixed bag. Three acts were repeats from the Jewel cruise in 2009–I wonder if they don’t fly back & forth between the ships in the Med & the Baltics. The show on the next to the last night was one of the best live shows I’ve seen on a cruise ship–East Coast Boys, a Frankie Valli (sp?) tribute group–and I wasn’t even a fan, but it was extremely high energy and they got a rare standing ovation at the end.
In terms of the itinerary and stops, here’s what we did (no RCCL shore excursions, you’ll note. We’re getting braver at coordinating our own thing):
Day 2: Still in Venice. Used the remaining hours of our 48 hour water bus pass to go back into town and see another art museum and collect our souvenirs.
Day 3: Kotor. Got off, wandered around the quaint and very clean old town. Hiked up 1,000 feet to the fort in the 90 degree sun (we didn’t arrive until noon). Very pretty
Kotor
Day 4: Sea Day
Day 5: Athens. Did a private tour Becky found somewhere from a Cruise Critic link. Very sharp lady; says she generally has stopped taking cruise ship passengers because they aren’t opinionated enough about what they want to see, but I think the fact that our daughter and hers were the same age caused her to make an exception. Could have easily done it on our own but would have missed a lot of context. The port is close to the Acropolis and old town (5-7 miles?). There were (I think) 8 cruise ships in port that day–the port was a mob scene between day-trippers like ourselves and several ships starting/stopping their cruises.
Day 6: Kusadasi/Ephesus. Booked a tour through Ekol Travel (recommended again on Cruise Critic). Wasn’t as pricey as Athens. Highly recommend this alternative as it got us into the Terrace Houses which the bus tours from the cruise ships cannot do in Ephesus. And you can stop and take pictures and other private-tour stuff, including having an interesting cultural conversation over lunch with our guide (as in Athens, two days after some riots). Really enjoyed Ephesus–I hadn’t had the time to research and prepare like we did in the Baltics and so was pleasantly interested and surprised.
Day 7: Bodrum. Nice little town. Great castle. Hot–done in about three hours, including 30 minutes finding a Bellco-ATM card accepting ATM to get some Turkish Lira for the Castle. Something of a rest day after the previous two. Several nice beaches right in town for folks walking off the ship.
Day 8: Santorini. Took the cable car/tram up the hill. Then the city bus to Oia for a few hours of walking around, and then the bus back to Fira. Very scenic. City busses were mobbed as the Star Princess beat us into port by 30 minutes, so we ended up standing up one way. Kate wasn’t feeling well, so we quit a bit early. Otherwise, lots of nice shopping if that’s your thing, but if not, once the scenery is done there’s not much else to do but eat and shop. Walked down the “donkey poop” trail to the tender.
Santorini
Day 9: Mykonos. And the ports keep coming! Here, we took the Ferry to Delos, another archeological site. I couldn’t find much on line, but wish we’d researched a bit harder. They were out of maps and everything by the time we got there (again, three big ships and another smaller one in port that day). Signs were few and far between indicating what we were seeing, but we were able to explore and figure out a reasonable amount. Then wandered around the pretty town a bit and were out of time for the day.
Day 10: Sea Day (finally)
Day 11: Split, Croatia. We really enjoyed Split. Our plans for the museum and their walking tour were tossed quickly when we found it was a national holiday (on a Thursday) and lots of stuff was closed. We took one of the two walking tours aggressively hawked by young ladies in T-shirts in town (I was a bit skeptical, but our guide turned out to be great–we did the blue shirt company, not the red one 🙂 ). Wandered around a bit, had a light lunch, and then got on the hop-on-hop-off bus tour. Highly recommended (but our bus had four passengers–three of my family and one other lady from our ship). Took us out to the big city park where the locals were playing on their day off, far from the madness of the cruise ship. Had an ice cream, and then they dropped us right off at the ship. So our day was saved!
Day 12: Yesterday–long, long day. First Lufthansa/Star Alliance flight for our free tickets was at 2 pm, and they won’t check your bags until three hours prior to departure. So we stood and chatted with the other waiting passengers in the business class line–one couple from our ship (enjoyed the cruise; said the food on Celebrity was much better), and another that had just gotten off some pricey Seaborne trip only to Croatia. Got home at about 1:30 am this morning!
Conclusion: I wouldn’t take a Vision-class ship for anything except a port-intensive cruise like this one. But it worked out well for us on this trip.
In the summer of 2008 I was excited to try a new cruise experience – sailing the Danube through parts of Hungary, Austria, and Germany on the Avalon Artistry. After sailing on 18 different ocean cruises I had some questions about my first river cruise:
* How would this cruise compare to my previous ocean cruises?
* Will I be comfortable on a much smaller ship? Will I miss all of the features of the bigger ocean cruise vessels?
* Will the shore excursions be interesting? Is a river cruise really one of the best ways to see Europe as advertised?
I answer these questions and more in my trip report below. Sailing on the Artistry was one of my best cruises ever! I rate in my descriptions each part of the trip on an “A to F” scale. I generally gave high marks to everything (grade B or higher).
One of the most enjoyable features of the cruise for me was watching the scenery go by as we sailed up the Danube. I awoke at 6 a.m. most mornings and went outside to take pictures of the beautiful surroundings. We saw old churches, castles, and small towns amidst the lush greenery of the river valleys we sailed through.
During selected parts of the journey our cruise director Hans described the sights to us from the top “Sun Deck”. For an ex-engineer like myself I also marveled at how the river “locks” worked. We passed through 26 locks in all on our 7 day journey – the lock would raise or lower our ship to the next water level so we could continue sailing.
This sailing part of the cruise was the most relaxing to me. It reminded me of cruising the quiet waters of the inside passage in Alaska, only on a smaller ship and closer to the shore. Grade A
Shore excursions
While this cruise had its share of quiet times sailing the Danube, it was an active cruise, too. At every stop we had a choice of one or two shore excursions. In this section I describe the excursions I took. Some of the tours were included in the cost of the cruise (I label those “included”) and some were at an additional cost (I label those with “fee”).
On many of the excursions Avalon gave us radio receivers. Each tour participant received a headset and the guide’s comments were broadcast to the headset. Often our tour group was large (over 30 people) and having the headset allowed me to hear the guide even if I was outside of normal hearing distance. This was an innovative way to take a tour that I hadn’t experienced before.
Vienna Concert (fee) We arrived at our first stop, Vienna, on Monday night. Here I attended the “Sounds Of Vienna” classical music concert. The presentation was in the Kursalon Wien concert hall, a setting where famous composers Johann Strauss and Johann Strauss II performed in the 1800’s. The concert also featured a male and a female opera singer along with a classical dance pair.
The sounds from the small orchestra were amazing as the musicians played many famous pieces from Mozart, Strauss, and others. The orchestra did not have a conductor; the Avalon program explained “this special style of music-making goes back to the time of Josef Lenner and Johann Strauss, who both led their orchestras from the position of first violin.”
I was hesitant to attend the concert at first. Back home I am more comfortable at an NFL football game than a classical concert! But the quality of the performances and the easily recognizable tunes made this a very enjoyable evening for me. Grade A.
Walking tour of Vienna (included)
On Tuesday morning we took our first “included” excursion – a good basic walking tour of the historic district of Vienna. The best features of the tour were:
A knowledgeable local guide, Thomas, who told us interesting stories.
Gazing upward inside of the huge St Stephens gothic cathedral, one of the most impressive cathedrals I have seen.
I have sailed on many cruises in recent years but in May 2006 I was to take my family on our greatest adventure yet – a 12 night Carnival Liberty Mediterranean sailing! This was to be a special trip for me – a 50th birthday celebration (I turned 50 on May 19th, the day we got off the cruise and stayed in Rome). With many fabulous and new experiences this was a trip we will all long remember.
By Tim Larison Travel Agent and CLIA Certified Master Cruise Counselor (MCC) With Contributions by: Travel Agent Anne Larison, and our sons Andrew and Joshua (12 year old twins)
We especially liked this itinerary because of the focus on Italy. In addition to four days at Italian ports, starting and ending the cruise in Civitavecchia allowed us to add two days of Rome sight seeing at the end of the trip. We most wanted to see Italy and this itinerary allowed us to spend more time in this beautiful country compared to other Mediterranean itineraries we considered.
Here’s a photo of my 25-year old son Eric Bender and me on a day that we had an excursion to Cinque Terre, Italy. That was our favorite part of the cruise…our excursions.
Viking River Cruise on the Rhine
We arrived at our first stop, Vienna, on Monday night. Here I attended the “Sounds Of Vienna” classical music concert. The presentation was in the Kursalon Wien concert hall, a setting where famous composers Johann Strauss and Johann Strauss II performed in the 1800’s. The concert also featured a male and a female opera singer along with a classical dance pair.
the historic district of Vienna. The best features of the tour were:
