Vacations - Vacation Planning - Discussion

We are already think our next trip: Japan or South America

Doats wrote:We live in California's Bay Area. The news this morning had quite a detailed segment on how cruise lines are offering deep discounts now and so are much cheaper than flying somewhere on vacation. Trick is to live near the embarkation/disembarkation cities to avoid those airfares.

I am so very impatient for our cruise from London to Bergen in 2023. Only 263 days to go!

Donate, my son and daughter in law returned a month ago from their twice delayed honeymoon taking a Viking cruise from London to Bergen. They loved it! Let me know if you’d like any info on excursions, etc.

guardian angel encouraged me to come to this section of the board…never knew it was here! Hubby, daughter and I are currently on a week plus trip to Austria. So far have been in Salzburg and Hallstatt and loved both. Now in Vienna which is bustling.

I’ll write more when I have more free time.

BTW, we are big travelers and I’m the planner so happy to help with an6 ideas others might need.

@luvstx Would love info on any of the excursions but especially if they went to Skara Brae, Caernarfon and/or Chester and what they thought. We are going on that exact Viking cruise in April 2023.

Also, we were in Vienna (LOVE that city!) earlier this year and went to the art museum to see the exhibit on Hieronymus Bosch. It was spectacular and I highly recommend it if you like that sort of thing.

luvstx wrote:guardian angel encouraged me to come to this section of the board…never knew it was here!  Hubby, daughter and I are currently on a week plus trip to Austria. So far have been in Salzburg and Hallstatt and loved both. Now in Vienna which is bustling.

I’ll write more when I have more free time.

BTW, we are big travelers and I’m the planner so happy to help with an6 ideas others might need.

Both kids are out of college/grad school so my husband and have been doing some traveling, mostly to Europe and mostly on Viking river and ocean cruises. (I do question how the river cruises are going as the news has been showing very low water levels.) After our Viking London-to-Bergen cruise in April we are heading for Alaska on Celebrity.

We have another Amtrak trip planned for sometime this fall. We want to do the California Zephyr again but this time from Chicago to San Francisco (actually Emeryville).

Would love to hear if you've done any land cruises in Italy as that's where he wants to go in 2024.

Going to New Zealand in November with a tour group.

sdmom wrote:Going to New Zealand in November with a tour group.

Sounds wonderful. We've never been to either Australia or New Zealand for some reason.

Please let us know all about the trip when you get back.

@luvstx so glad you posted! Enjoy your vacations, sounds wonderful!!

@sdmom a friend of mine went to New Zealand. She loved it.

@Doats the Amtrak trip will be spectacular with the fall colours!

I am still waiting for my passport. My appointment was at the end of July and they told me it will be 13 weeks before the send it out...so Nov 2nd and I should get it 5 days after. All in total...trying to get an appointment, waiting for the appointment and now the passport...6 months.

I also have an appointment at the Croatian consulate in Mississauga on Sept. 13th to get a Croatian passport. It was much quicker to get that appointment. Sent an email and a few days later they sent me a time...2 months later. We will see how long this one takes to get in.

I am finally looking for a new adventure and the front runner thus far is a trip to Egypt.

https://www.vikingrivercruisescanada.com/cruise-destinations/egypt/pharaohs-pyramids/2024-cairo-cairo/index.html

https://www.womentraveling.com/travel-calendar/trip/details/2023-0013

@Sprite wow that looks fabulous! I learned a lot in those links. Have you ever cruised with max 20 or so people? One of my friends did a river cruise and loved the smaller boat. She cruised many times on the larger ones.

Good luck with the passports. I'm sure eventually it will all work out.

@GuardianAngel I was watching a documentary series on TVO with this British professor who was touring the Nile on one of their traditional boats and that led me to the Viking ships. I didn't even know they did a Nile trip. I would slightly prefer to do that one only because you pretty much travel by boat the whole time, but unfortunately they don't do solo travelers and none of the people  I usually travel with are interested. I would have to pay for 2 and it would be almost $20,000, a bit too rich for my blood. The Women Traveling Together group has almost the exact same trip except you only do part of the trip by boat and you can travel alone or for less, share a room.

It is a once in a lifetime trip. This is the first time WTT are offering this trip and they will be doing it the first time in November so I want to so how that will go. Plus, that is when I will be getting my passport so after that I will be booking something.

WTT also have a fantastic trip to Bali that I have been eyeing since Covid...cooking class, yoga, Balanize dance lesson, bathing elephants at a sanctuary on top of visiting temples,  rice paddies, beaches, sailing. It is a few days longer, but costs less.

The reason I am seriously looking at WWT is that you seem to get more free time to do stuff on your own and it doesn't seem as rushed as some other tours. I  think one of those will be it for me. I am tired of trying to organize everything and work around others schedules. Time for some pampering!

@Sprite the women travelling together is a great idea. Both of your choices sound incredible. I'd prefer to have more free time too. The Bali trip has a lot of fun activities. Keep us posted in what you decide.