lynncarol

I stand corrected. Thank you. It was 20 pounds that he wanted. We had been in the UK but were heading next to Poland and Hungary so utilized several currencies during the month-long trip. Anyway, at my age I should have realized that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't.

You raise a good point about the cruisers having more limited time, and in that case, they may be tempted to take a walking tour. However, the first day I signed the two of us up for one of the "free walking tours" being touted by vendors on the Royal Mile. I don't think we were more than 10 minutes into the tour when our guide stopped the group and announced that he was only working for tips and expected that to be 20 euros per person. I don't know how he ever enforced this request, as we left at that point giving him ten euros total. But, beware...those walking tours are anything but free..

My post didn't mention a "fast track' but said that you could skip the line with a pass. I apologize if a 'fast track' is what you interpreted my comments to mean. However, I was speaking from my experience there last September. Taking the Tube, we arrived at the Tower right after opening time to find a long line of folks waiting to buy tickets. However, with our pass, we went right in. I don't recall seeing anyone holding timed admissions tickets when we arrived (maybe it was too early for them) but at the entrance, the attendant only gave our passes a quick glance before immediately admitting us.

You can also purchase a London Pass for the day which allows you to skip the lines at the Tower. In addition it gives you free access to the Uber boat on the Thames which we used to get from the tower to the the Millennium Pedestrian bridge dock where we walked across to St Paul's Cathedral. Then back on the boat to the Westminster Abby complex. Probably the pass is cheaper than the taxi tour and will allow you to customize your visit.

My husband and I were in Edinburg this past September for three days. Unfortunately, the first day was the Queen's funeral and all public buildings were closed. The next day, no available tickets to the castle with all the re-schedulings. However, that forced us to explore more off-the-beaten track places in the city. I highly recommend the National Museum of Scotland, just a short walk off the main drag in the historic center. It's free as are all museums in the city. Next, back up to the main street and head down the Mound several blocks to the Princes Street Public Gardens (free) if you want to get great photo opts of the castle. Just across the street from the gardens is another nice museum, the Scottish National Gallery which was having a special exhibit on the Impressionists artists at the time. Another place we really enjoyed was the Royal Botanical Gardens, easily accessed by public bus. A gorgeous place, and even has a small waterfall feature. Having visited the Castle years ago, I can truly say that I enjoyed these experiences more.

Our host Jazzbeau mentioned awhile ago there is a huge Facebook group: Vantage Deluxe World Travel Complaints Page run by a consumer advocate that has been following this situation closely. If any of you are Facebook members, you could follow this sad saga and will learn that any chance of getting your money back from Vantage itself is impossible.

If booking a private tour, I will never again use Viator. Once, on our own in Italy, I booked a private tour of the Ravenna mosaics through Viator by mistake. I later learned from the Vendor himself that the tour would be in Italian and since I was well before the 48 hour deadline, I cancelled. The vendor then told me it had been booked through Viator and they would be refunding the money. Hah! I eventually disputed it with my credit card and Viator responded by sending my card company a 7 page statement of why it was my fault, not theirs. Obviously a pre-printed ready-made excuse which caused my appeal to the credit card to be denied. Avoid Viator!

Thanks for the update, although since we used the railroad pre=pandemic, i know fare were less than presently quoted. However, you are certainly correct that fees reflect what the public is willing to pay. This past Forth of July holiday my husband and I plus a grandchild were in Philadelphia visiting my sister. We thought our grandchild would enjoy taking Amtrak into New York city and back for the day. (Something we did several times in years past). To my horror, for the 3 of us the cost would be almost $400 dollars. And, as I am sure you know, that distance is under 100 miles. Obviously we nixed that idea but I just now rechecked the current fares and found them to be considerably less, now the holidays are over. Still, my philosophy is if I know I will never get the chance to do it again, go for it, regardless of cost and that is how I feel about the Alaskan railway.

Post cruise, we spent a week in Alaska and took the train trip to Seward, spent the night there and caught the evening train back the next day. Yes, leaving Anchorage that early in the morning isn't fun, but we thought the whole trip very worthwhile. We saw Beluga whales and a moose near the track on the way down and a spectacular sunset on the return trip. I don't recall the price but know we booked early, so pretty sure the cost wasn't that expensive

No need for a ship excursion. Our first stop in Tallinn was their Visitor center. At the time they had a bus tour that took you out to the folk-music stadium as well as a city tour with a guide. It seems they also have free walking tours from the center now. As for Kristiansand, right off the boat was the Odderaya Peninsula, a former military area that has been converted into a recreational park. There are still armaments and fortifications in place and great viewpoints. In August, blackberry bushes along the trails were laden with fruit which augmented our picnic lunch.

Boston's Museum of Fine Arts was a wonderful place to spend several hours if you like museums. It even has an onsite cafe and is easily reached by public transit

We visited the Eastern Cemetery in Portland. It is on the National Registry of Historic Places and, at least when we were there pre-pandemic, they gave guided tours. Even our teen-age grandkids enjoyed it. Right up the street from the cemetery is the Portland Observatory, also very interesting. Then you can stroll along the Eastern Prominade (great place for a picnic) before heading back to the ship.

The family of friends of ours was in a very serious car accident driving in Portugal. Our bus could not leave the port area one afternoon as the exit was blocked by a collision between a truck and a car. We were very happy our tour was on a bus, especially near the larger cities, as trucks, busses and cars squeeze past each other with inches to spare on narrow winding roads.

I forgot to add that while visiting the vineyards along the river, we were told temperatures can get up to 110 degrees in the summer. So, there is no way I would recommend this cruise in the that season..

The Duoro River in Portugal has five dams and you get to go through the locks at each one. One of the locks is 35 meters high, one of the tallest in Europe. So no worries about water levels. We were just on a cruise there this past April. As others have said, the river is very scenic and I'm not sure how well you could see it driving along the road. Yes, we missed being able to walk into the city from the ship (well except for Porto, and that involved a long walk across a big bridge) which we always enjoyed on other river cruises. My husband and I were glad we went, but for us, it was a 'one and done' experience.

Depends on what kind of walker you have. If it is one of those roller-wheeled walkers, I wouldn't try the trail as I recall it was mostly gravel. If you are active and using a regular walker, it could work

Ah...you are looking at the Vantage World Travel home page in Facebook. The one that is delivering the real truth is the Vantage Deluxe World Travel Complaints page, which is hosted by a consumer advocate and now has over 1000 members, including current Vantage employees. Latest news on that is that all employees were informed they were "laid off" as of yesterday and the Vantage phone lines are no longer manned....you just get a recording asking you to call back later. A very sad ending to what once was a great cruise line and one that now has left lots of folks out lots of dollars.

My husband and I are in our late seventies and have traveled extensively both on land and by cruises. Both of us agree that if we limit our choice to a port that we visited just on a cruise, we would pick Odessa Ukraine. In 2014 we were on a small mega-yacht through Vantage on a 17 day Black Sea cruise. One of our stops was supposed to be Yalta, but as Russia had just annexed Crimea, we ended up with 3 days in Odessa which is gorgeous! Founded by Catherine the Great, she envisioned a Paris on the Black Sea and planned a city overlooking the ocean with wide tree-lined boulevards and amazing edifices including museums, opera houses and palaces. We were allowed lots of time to wander about on our own and found the local folks to be welcoming and gracious. It breaks my heart to think of what has become of them now.

I am on Facebook and have been following the Vantage issues closely. Bottom line: Some folks have been waiting for over three years for a refund and despite Vantage's promises, none are forthcoming. At this point, although a few fortunately people have gotten refunds through their credit cards or banks, nobody else has much hope to ever recover their money. It also appears that Vantage has not been paying their employees either and are confiscating any tips not paid directly to the employee in cash. Their ships are no longer in service and nobody expects the company will emerge triumphantly and honor future cruises after this fiasco. Unfortunately, Vantage is still trying to sell cruises to unsuspecting folks, but apparently tells them that payment by credit card is not allowed.

Many years ago, my husband surprised me with a cruise from NYC to Bermuda for our twentieth anniversary (which was in June). It was my first cruise and almost my last as I was terribly seasick most of the way down. It took ten years for him to persuade me to take another cruise... anywhere. Now I love cruising although still am not the best sailor. Fortunately, today's medications make things a lot easier. Maybe talk with your doctor and get something to bring just in case.

cruisemom42 Your outlook on cruising is very similar to mine. I always check out the the itinerary first. And lots of what others think of as critical (free drinks, laundry, unlimited wifi, casinos, personal concierges etc) are not important to me. However, if I think I will never experience a particular event again, I will definitely spend the money. A 17 day- Black Sea mega-yacht cruise, balloon ride in Sedona, Alaska float plane to see the bears, a small-plane sightseeing tour over Canyonlands are among the things I have done that I know will never occur again in my life. Were they expensive at the time? Yes but my memories are priceless.

Nutsaboutgolf. I will be happy to elaborate about our disastrous experience with Celebrity Air. As mentioned, once our flight to Philly was interrupted by bad weather, Celebrity told us we were on our own to rebook. But now we had to rebook to Oslo, not England and needed another connecting flight. Celebrity told our airline we were only authorized for 2 legs, not three. Fortunately, the airline agent felt sorry for us and comped our third leg of the flight. When I phoned Celebrity with our new arrival info, I begged them to let my elderly parents, who were supposed to fly from North Carolina to Philly and onwards with us, know what happened. This was in 2007 and I had no way to contact my parents who had no cell phone nor knew how to use the internet. Turns out 2 days went by before my folks were told what happened to us and my frantic father (who was on blood thinners) while desperately looking for us in South Hampton, tripped and got badly bruised. Meanwhile, Celebrity told us their port agent in Oslo would pick us up and we would be provided free overnight accommodations in Oslo then taken to the ship the next day. None of that happened as planned. The agent was nowhere to be found but finally the information desk at the airport was able to phone his home. An hour later, we were picked up. He assured us the hotel would be free and he would pick us up and take us to the port the next day. Hah! We had to get ourselves to the port, and then once we were on the ship the agent had the nerve to come onboard where we were waiting at guest services and say we never paid for the room. At this point, I lost all control and gave the guest service folks onboard a full accounting of our shabby treatment. They promptly escorted the agent off and told us 'everything will be taken care of'. I will say that the ship's customer service manager after hearing the whole sordid tale, did give us a $500 onboard credit. Much of this we used to buy drinks for my parents, myself and my husband as we were all traumatized by this time.

This happened to us a number of years ago when because of weather we missed our flight from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia and thus our flight on to South Hampton England. Because we had booked air through Celebrity, I naively thought they would take care of us. Hah! Celebrity told us they were not responsible for weather delays and therefore it was up to us to get the airline to reschedule our flights. Consequently we didn't catch up to the ship until Oslo where Celebrity then tried to deny us boarding because we didn't have a ship card. A big mess. Fortunately there were now eight folks trying to board in Oslo and after creating quite a fuss, someone from the ship came over to the gate to admit us.

The Facebook page that our Host refers to about Vantage's bad behavior now has over 700 members. So many reports of cancellations that the moderator has now created a separate file within the discussion group as this Facebook site is becoming overwhelmed with these sad, and often heartbreaking, stories.

Thanks for your feedback. As you mentioned, there was a guard outside the castle itself where the timed admission ticket holders lined up and he was stopping all others from further advancement, so it is lucky that somehow you managed to bypass that issue. Our admission tickets included the park and the palace. I don't understand why you were charged for the shuttle. However, we walked up ourselves and then took the shuttle down for free, so maybe the charge is only for those going up.