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Post by Tulips on Dec 24, 2017 14:15:24 GMT
After a fabulous tall ship sailing in Europe and two weeks in East Africa, I'm still undecided about the entirety of 2018. My heart says African safari but my wallet does not. My week in Kenya having a vehicle and guide to myself and being able to spend entire days out viewing animals has spoiled me.
But, I do have a trip to Morocco booked at the end of March and then after that I'm eyeing 3 or 4 tours to different places.
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Post by bet on Dec 26, 2017 23:33:11 GMT
Tulips, I wish you would post a little tale on your travels as they sound so adventurous and you have a way with words that have always made your travels so interesting to read about.
I'd love to hear about your Kenyan trip, especially as I was planning on going there but I've had to postpone that option for another time. Happy travel planning for 2018.
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Post by Tulips on Dec 28, 2017 18:02:48 GMT
Hi Bet,
I've started it but have run into a technical issue and am hoping Admin can help.
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Pauline
Full Member
Normandy, Brittany & the Loire Valley, WW1 Battlefields and Northern Spain in Sep 2023 with Insight
Posts: 210
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Post by Pauline on Dec 29, 2017 9:18:02 GMT
Good to hear Pauline - did you do a review of this tour? It would be great to read of your impressions of this trip. Hi Denise, I've been busy over the past few weeks and have only just gotten back to logging on here, so have only just seen your question. Yes I did write a review which was on the Insight BB, which is no more. Overall, I loved the tour, as it went to places that Insight didn't normally go to. The itinerary has certainly improved since our experimental tour. Hi Denise, I don't know if you will see this or not BUT I just remembered that Val wrote a journal about the Insight BB tour and it can be found on his website. cnxphoto.smugmug.comIf you click on the Travel Folder, then on the Tours Folder, then on the BB Tour 2010, you will find all his photo's and also link to his BB Tour 2010 Diary. Or from the home page you can click on the Diary Index and find the BB Tour 2010 diary. Pauline
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Post by Tulips on Dec 29, 2017 15:14:55 GMT
Thanks for the link, Pauline. Lots of great tour tales.
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Pauline
Full Member
Normandy, Brittany & the Loire Valley, WW1 Battlefields and Northern Spain in Sep 2023 with Insight
Posts: 210
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Post by Pauline on Dec 29, 2017 22:08:04 GMT
Yes, and he has a very droll way of writing. His wife Poolsuk is Thai, hence the comments on a number of his diaries about the visa's that she needs. They are a great couple and I have travelled with them on 3 or 4 occasions now.
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Post by solaria on Jan 19, 2018 4:01:30 GMT
Our trips are getting closer! 118 days on the countdown app. AND we gt our 6 day London Passes in the mail today 👌 You can purchase them fir instant download to your phone but what if the phone 'dies' or gets stolen? So the pass card, like the Oyster Card feels better to us. we are also going to get a 3 day pass for Austria but will pre pay and collect them at the airport when we arrive.
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Post by chech on Jan 30, 2018 22:16:07 GMT
Less than 50 days until I head back down to Argentina. Best news....Canadians no longer have to pay a reciprocity fee.
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Pauline
Full Member
Normandy, Brittany & the Loire Valley, WW1 Battlefields and Northern Spain in Sep 2023 with Insight
Posts: 210
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Post by Pauline on Jan 31, 2018 6:39:07 GMT
Exactly 100 days until I fly to Canada with my husband.
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Post by tassiedevil on Feb 19, 2018 6:57:20 GMT
All our tickets have arrived for the Commonwealth Games. Now just have to figure out how to get to each event.
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Post by chech on Feb 19, 2018 11:18:09 GMT
Oh yeah! What events are you going for? I just realized it's February....so I have less than 30 days now to my departure for South America....I gotta go find my luggage....
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Post by californian on Feb 20, 2018 17:37:13 GMT
Enjoy your trips everyone, I am going from weddings to graduations, to another wedding, and more graduations, love my grand children and don't want to miss celebrating their successes, but they are all over the country....I sure hope I will have money left over for another tour one of these days. Write tales, please!
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Post by tassiedevil on Feb 21, 2018 11:24:23 GMT
Oh yeah! What events are you going for? I just realized it's February....so I have less than 30 days now to my departure for South America....I gotta go find my luggage.... I got Artistic Gymnastics, Athletics, Rugby 7’s, Netball, Hockey, Squash, Table Tennis, Lawn Bowls. Also going to the free events, Road Cycling, Marathon and the Walks. Missed out on Track Cycling, Swimming, Diving and Basketball. Basketball was very hard to get as only the finals are on the Gold Coast, the preliminary games are in Cairns and Townsville.
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Post by chech on Feb 22, 2018 1:05:08 GMT
Wow...that's a good chunk of the sports!
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Post by solaria on Feb 22, 2018 22:24:07 GMT
paid the final amounts for our tours today. Now only 12 weeks less 1 day to go! We haven't got our bags out yet but I did try on various items of clothing to decide which I will be packing. I had to throw out a favourite top that I had worn on all previous tours. It is now beyond wearability so a sad day.
Our TA just emailed me to say that when we pick up our documents she has a free cabin bag for us! Cool 😎
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Post by chech on Feb 23, 2018 13:50:10 GMT
Funny how we have our favourite travelling clothes. I come home, launder them and toss them right back into bag.
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Post by solaria on Feb 23, 2018 20:45:05 GMT
Funny how we have our favourite travelling clothes. I come home, launder them and toss them right back into bag. I should have done that! It was such a favourite top I wore it every summer even when not travelling hence its demise. Its hard to find clothes that fit well and don't crease - never need ironing, which is important when travelling but also very important for someone like me who HATES ironing! I have been trying for years to wean Eddie off shirts that need ironing and have succeeded to some extent but he still has styles he likes that require it. And no, he does not iron! Unless you want wrinkles permanently in your clothes! we went on one of our first trips - to Adelaide - because he promised to take me there if I would iron a special pair of trousers for him! The trip did happen - about 5 years later😅
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Post by chech on Feb 24, 2018 1:41:43 GMT
LOL! Two of the shirts I like are plaid button fronts and the style is wrinkled...so perfect for travelling/ On the storm chasing last year, I wore my favourite 3 plaid button front shirts, and after a few days, one guy asked me how I could wear a flannel shirt in that heat...LOL
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Post by chech on Mar 6, 2018 21:33:01 GMT
Two weeks to South America...and the long term forecast has no snow in the forecast here....Yah!
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Post by Tulips on Mar 6, 2018 21:58:06 GMT
Two weeks to South America...and the long term forecast has no snow in the forecast here....Yah! Yay. Another trip! Thanks for,letting me know about the lack of snow. Don't want that when I am there. I'm also leaving in two weeks - this time it's Morocco.
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Post by chech on Mar 7, 2018 11:44:05 GMT
There's a couple of snowfalls on the way...one system for Saturday/Sunday is looking like it'll be snow...and another mid-week is possible. We could get more snow this week than we did all winter (record low so far).
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rita
New Member
Posts: 9
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Post by rita on Mar 11, 2018 15:20:56 GMT
Going on Splendours of Japan - Trafalgar Tours, in May. Think I got the last 2 seats.
My mother wants to see Japan, I think her interest was peeked after our city hopping journey of Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok & Siem Reap, 2 years ago. She will be 74 next month, must have gotten that travel bug from my parents. ; )
Already re-read both the tour tales on the board, now just planning out what to do on our free day since we will be arriving one day early to catch up on the jet lag.
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Post by chech on Mar 11, 2018 18:32:40 GMT
May was a great time to go. If you read my tale, you probably read about my visit to the tower. The views were magnificent. The nice part about Japan is that it is probably the safest country in the world. Taxis are cheap and the drivers are incredible. There was also the market near the tower. It was a nice way to spend a relaxing first day.
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rita
New Member
Posts: 9
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Post by rita on Mar 11, 2018 23:14:49 GMT
Hi Chech. We were debating between May & June and what would fit in my work schedule (being in an accounting dept. I always have to work around our fiscal month end). You mentioned in your tale that it was getting warm, so I called Trafalgar and got the last 2 spots for May that would fit in my schedule. I am looking at the Tower as well. Your tour tale as always, was quite informative. I remember reading it when you first wrote it so first thing I did when we were discussing the tour was go find your tale. We could have waited till Sept or Oct, but then my mom would start worrying about what to pack, where we would be going, eating etc from now till then! For her, the shorter notice the better. Happy Travels!
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Post by Oz-T on Mar 12, 2018 4:02:13 GMT
It’s been four years since we’ve been on an overseas holiday – and five years since our last guided tour (Trafalgar’s Britain & Ireland Grandeur). The reason for this pause in international travel was primarily due to my father-in-law’s terminal disease from which he succumbed seven months ago. Mrs Oz wasn’t keen on being out of the country while her dad needed care and regular visits, although we did squeeze in a couple of domestic holidays. And there were plenty of other activities keeping us busy: a wedding for one of our kids, followed by the births of two grandchildren, the trips to our beach house, planning for the wedding of our daughter and me taking on a new job in the twilight of my career. And I've been (slowly) progressing on writing two books. So I think I need a break.
But as those with international travel in their DNA will readily understand, it’s easy to find any excuse to opt for another international trip. And for us, that option became available to us again last September when we booked our travel, and a return to guided tours. And our destination is a region we intended to visit four years ago (but abandoned due to over-pricing): Greece and Turkey.
I did a large amount of research on this to decide which tour company to use. There were several that I thought would do a great job: Globus, Cosmos, Sun Island Tours, Greece & Mediterranean Travel, Insight, Bunnik Tours, Beyond Travel, Tempo Holidays, Trafalgar and a few others. You would imagine that this would be pretty easy to select a tour, but it soon became evident that it was quite difficult. It was too expensive. Or the dates weren’t suitable. Or the tour omitted something we wished to visit. Or the most common problem: it was incredibly hard to align a Greece, Turkey and Aegean cruise without having large, wasteful gaps in between. Eventually, we compromised for the best fit which was Trafalgar. It’s far from perfect but it’ll do for the mix of destinations, price and timing.
So this is Best of Greece with the Aegean cruise, plus Best of Turkey. Most of the travel will be in June this year. I have spent several months preparing for this in several ways, although Mrs Oz has assured me that practicing the Zorba the Greek dance is a total waste of time. We will see about that.
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Post by chech on Mar 12, 2018 15:45:35 GMT
Hi Chech. We were debating between May & June and what would fit in my work schedule (being in an accounting dept. I always have to work around our fiscal month end). You mentioned in your tale that it was getting warm, so I called Trafalgar and got the last 2 spots for May that would fit in my schedule. I am looking at the Tower as well. Your tour tale as always, was quite informative. I remember reading it when you first wrote it so first thing I did when we were discussing the tour was go find your tale. We could have waited till Sept or Oct, but then my mom would start worrying about what to pack, where we would be going, eating etc from now till then! For her, the shorter notice the better. Happy Travels! LOL...yeah, it was nice weather for the most part and in the north, there were some cherry blossoms. Does the tour go to Hiroshima?
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Post by chech on Mar 12, 2018 15:53:45 GMT
It’s been four years since we’ve been on an overseas holiday – and five years since our last guided tour (Trafalgar’s Britain & Ireland Grandeur). The reason for this pause in international travel was primarily due to my father-in-law’s terminal disease from which he succumbed seven months ago. Mrs Oz wasn’t keen on being out of the country while her dad needed care and regular visits, although we did squeeze in a couple of domestic holidays. And there were plenty of other activities keeping us busy: a wedding for one of our kids, followed by the births of two grandchildren, the trips to our beach house, planning for the wedding of our daughter and me taking on a new job in the twilight of my career. And I've been (slowly) progressing on writing two books. So I think I need a break. But as those with international travel in their DNA will readily understand, it’s easy to find any excuse to opt for another international trip. And for us, that option became available to us again last September when we booked our travel, and a return to guided tours. And our destination is a region we intended to visit four years ago (but abandoned due to over-pricing): Greece and Turkey. I did a large amount of research on this to decide which tour company to use. There were several that I thought would do a great job: Globus, Cosmos, Sun Island Tours, Greece & Mediterranean Travel, Insight, Bunnik Tours, Beyond Travel, Tempo Holidays, Trafalgar and a few others. You would imagine that this would be pretty easy to select a tour, but it soon became evident that it was quite difficult. It was too expensive. Or the dates weren’t suitable. Or the tour omitted something we wished to visit. Or the most common problem: it was incredibly hard to align a Greece, Turkey and Aegean cruise without having large, wasteful gaps in between. Eventually, we compromised for the best fit which was Trafalgar. It’s far from perfect but it’ll do for the mix of destinations, price and timing. So this is Best of Greece with the Aegean cruise, plus Best of Turkey. Most of the travel will be in June this year. I have spent several months preparing for this in several ways, although Mrs Oz has assured me that practicing the Zorba the Greek dance is a total waste of time. We will see about that. LOL. Awesome! Sounds like a great pick. I met with the TT rep at a local travel show and the first thing I said to him was "what the $*&$* is going on with the website?" And he dropped his head in shame and said yes, they're working on replacing it. Then he handed me all the brochures. I was hoping to do a tour with TT that included four days on a yacht in Turkey. It was only offered for one season! Oh...the city of Antalya is apparently overrun with cats. I expect lots of pics! LOL
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rita
New Member
Posts: 9
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Post by rita on Mar 13, 2018 0:32:06 GMT
No Hiroshima extension - the price got a bit too dear for us. Need the money for next year*s trip.
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taskaz
Junior Member
Posts: 46
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Post by taskaz on Mar 13, 2018 2:11:27 GMT
It’s been four years since we’ve been on an overseas holiday – and five years since our last guided tour (Trafalgar’s Britain & Ireland Grandeur). The reason for this pause in international travel was primarily due to my father-in-law’s terminal disease from which he succumbed seven months ago. Mrs Oz wasn’t keen on being out of the country while her dad needed care and regular visits, although we did squeeze in a couple of domestic holidays. And there were plenty of other activities keeping us busy: a wedding for one of our kids, followed by the births of two grandchildren, the trips to our beach house, planning for the wedding of our daughter and me taking on a new job in the twilight of my career. And I've been (slowly) progressing on writing two books. So I think I need a break. But as those with international travel in their DNA will readily understand, it’s easy to find any excuse to opt for another international trip. And for us, that option became available to us again last September when we booked our travel, and a return to guided tours. And our destination is a region we intended to visit four years ago (but abandoned due to over-pricing): Greece and Turkey. I did a large amount of research on this to decide which tour company to use. There were several that I thought would do a great job: Globus, Cosmos, Sun Island Tours, Greece & Mediterranean Travel, Insight, Bunnik Tours, Beyond Travel, Tempo Holidays, Trafalgar and a few others. You would imagine that this would be pretty easy to select a tour, but it soon became evident that it was quite difficult. It was too expensive. Or the dates weren’t suitable. Or the tour omitted something we wished to visit. Or the most common problem: it was incredibly hard to align a Greece, Turkey and Aegean cruise without having large, wasteful gaps in between. Eventually, we compromised for the best fit which was Trafalgar. It’s far from perfect but it’ll do for the mix of destinations, price and timing. So this is Best of Greece with the Aegean cruise, plus Best of Turkey. Most of the travel will be in June this year. I have spent several months preparing for this in several ways, although Mrs Oz has assured me that practicing the Zorba the Greek dance is a total waste of time. We will see about that. Oz-T how fabulous that you are able to travel internationally again. We have the European Supreme booked and hope to be leaving Australia 8 weeks from today. Our Greek Islands component will actually be at the start of June We had to cancel this trip last year (we were due to go in September) due to my mother's cancer diagnosis. She is stable now and we are hoping that we will be able to go this time but it is always in the back of our mind. So this will probably be our last international trip for now as it's difficult to have the "will we, won't we be able to go" scenario. But never say never. I hope you and Mrs Oz have a wonderful time and I think you should post pics of yourself performing Zorba the Greek
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daphne
Junior Member
LOVE Travelling!!
Posts: 58
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Post by daphne on Mar 15, 2018 14:07:13 GMT
It’s been four years since we’ve been on an overseas holiday – and five years since our last guided tour (Trafalgar’s Britain & Ireland Grandeur). The reason for this pause in international travel was primarily due to my father-in-law’s terminal disease from which he succumbed seven months ago. Mrs Oz wasn’t keen on being out of the country while her dad needed care and regular visits, although we did squeeze in a couple of domestic holidays. And there were plenty of other activities keeping us busy: a wedding for one of our kids, followed by the births of two grandchildren, the trips to our beach house, planning for the wedding of our daughter and me taking on a new job in the twilight of my career. And I've been (slowly) progressing on writing two books. So I think I need a break. But as those with international travel in their DNA will readily understand, it’s easy to find any excuse to opt for another international trip. And for us, that option became available to us again last September when we booked our travel, and a return to guided tours. And our destination is a region we intended to visit four years ago (but abandoned due to over-pricing): Greece and Turkey. I did a large amount of research on this to decide which tour company to use. There were several that I thought would do a great job: Globus, Cosmos, Sun Island Tours, Greece & Mediterranean Travel, Insight, Bunnik Tours, Beyond Travel, Tempo Holidays, Trafalgar and a few others. You would imagine that this would be pretty easy to select a tour, but it soon became evident that it was quite difficult. It was too expensive. Or the dates weren’t suitable. Or the tour omitted something we wished to visit. Or the most common problem: it was incredibly hard to align a Greece, Turkey and Aegean cruise without having large, wasteful gaps in between. Eventually, we compromised for the best fit which was Trafalgar. It’s far from perfect but it’ll do for the mix of destinations, price and timing. So this is Best of Greece with the Aegean cruise, plus Best of Turkey. Most of the travel will be in June this year. I have spent several months preparing for this in several ways, although Mrs Oz has assured me that practicing the Zorba the Greek dance is a total waste of time. We will see about that. Oh my word how exciting, we did Best of Greece with 7 day Aegean Cruise in 2016..... stunnnning trip(s)!!!!! We should have gone to Istanbul for a day or two... but there was an attempted coup, so we visited a few extra islands during the cruise, one of which was Samos.... my best so far!!! And because we visited Greece for the first time.... we fell in love with the country and its food and vibe and people and just have to go back... sooo today its 111 days till Greek Island Hopper and Switzerland and Austria... both with Trafalgar. During the cruise... you only have an few hours per island.... so with Greek Island Hopper, we stay for 3 nights in Santorini and 3 nights in Mykonos... we want to experience the nightlife. The cruiseship was the Celestyal Crystal (which I steered for 10 seconds on the way to Santorini!!!)... not such a big ship, but friendliest staff and our TD was the best I have ever had during our 6 trips with Trafalgar. He knew so many people, had contacts on each island, smuggled us first to the busses, contacted the ship if we were late from an excursion to keep us a table in the restaurant... free vouchers wifi (only a few available for free during the time we did not visit Turkey, he ran downstairs when the announcement came in order for us to each have a voucher.... he organized a free dessert tasting on one of the islands etc etc... enjoy!!!!!!
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