Independent Shore Excursions

A great way to enhance your overall cruise experience is to consider taking shore excursions operated independently of the cruise line.  I am not suggesting stepping off the ship and taking your chances with the countless vendors peddling their services.  Instead, I am recommending that you work with a trusted travel professional to explore the many reputable providers of independent and private group shore excursions.

There are many advantages.  One is simply great choice in customizing your overall experience.  Another is the more intimate experience you'll have.  Rather than joining a group of 50 of your fellow ship guests on a full-sized bus, you'll instead likely be with a group of 20 or fewer on a van or small-sized bus.  Additionally, these small, independent shore excursions often can be modified along the way, or fully customized before you even join your guide.   These excursions often are no more expensive, and many times are less expensive, than comparable excursions offered by the cruise lines.

Our clients sometimes express concerns about the risks involved in an independent excursion provider not returning to the ship on time.  The thought is that the ship will wait for guests who have traveled with the cruise line excursions, but not for guests taking independent excursions.  By working with reputable excursion providers, however, this should not be a great concern.  These providers guarantee your on time return to your ship, or they will get you to the ship's next port of call if for any reason they you do not make your ship before it sails.  In the years we have been in business, we have placed many clients on independent excursions, and never have they been late returning to the ship.

Some of the private group excursions we have customized for our clients have included an amazing tour of the Biblically-significant city of Ephesus, Turkey.  On this private excursion, our guide was a native of the area, and also a Biblical expert.  Because there were only 10 of us on the excursion, the guide and her driver were very receptive to allowing us to remain longer at the stops of our choice, and we were not wedded to a rigid schedule.  We enjoyed a diversion to a fine leather shop, followed by a leisurely and informative tour of the amazing ruins of Ephesus.

Another extraordinary private excursion we have arranged included a 3-day tour of St. Petersburg, Russia, with the same private guide and driver all three days.  Again with a private group of just 10 guests, we were able to customize our tour along the way to linger in the places we desired while spending less time in those places that proved of little interest to us.

When arranging independent excursions, I strongly recommend working closely with your travel professional to ensure you get the most from your experience while ensuring you will be in the hands of reputable, fully licensed excursion providers and tour guides.

Cruise Holidays of Alexandria's Fifth Anniversary Cruise

Cruise Holidays Luxury Cruise Counselors marks 5 years in Alexandria, Virginia in 2011.  Each year, we have invited our clients/friends to join us on our anniversary cruises.  We've been to some extraordinary places -- Alaska, the Baltics, the Mediterranean.  We want our 2011 Anniversary Cruise to be our most spectacular yet, and we're seeking your input.

We've narrowed our search to three destinations and four cruise lines.  The possible destinations are (1) Asia; (2) the Holy Land; and (3) Norway and the Fjords.  We think these destinations are unique, and promise to offer our clients something different.  Regardless of destination, we'll be hosting lots of fun activities, to include onboard cocktail receptions and private shore excursions custom tailored to our specifications, just for our group.  To assure that the broadest number of people can join us, we've select four cruise lines which we believe will offer us an exceptional onboard experience at the best values:  (1) Holland America Line; (2) Princess Cruises; (3) Azamara Club Cruises; and (4) Oceania Cruises.  These are premium and upper premium lines that provide superb on board service, quality cuisine, comfortable accommodations, and affordable rates.

We'd love your input.  Please complete our survey, and let us know which of these three destintations interest you, and what cruise line(s) would most appeal to you.  Also, if you might be interested in the details of our 5th Anniversary Cruises, simply leave us your name and address and we'll mail information to you as soon as we've finalized the details.  If you fill-out the survey and then end up joining us on the cruise, we'll give you a special gift.  Simply click here to complete the survey.

Travel Insurance: Some Real Stories from Real Clients

We often have clients ask whether travel insurance is really necessary. Our answer is always and unequivocally yes! To underscore our point, we thought it would be insightful to offer some real stories from our own travels and our clients where the return on investment for travel insurance paid off handsomely.

• 2006 Mediterranean Cruise. We led a small group of 10 people aboard a Princess Cruise sailing Venice to Rome in late October/early November. We were all booked to travel aboard Alatalia (our mistake -- don't recommend flying Alitalia). Altalia changed our flights repeatedly. Long story short, rather than our original direct flight to Milan with a short connection to Venice, we were routed instead and at the last minute through Paris on United, with a connection to Air France to Venice. The connection time: only 45 minutes. Needless to say, we missed our connection and Air France had no available flights to Venice the rest of the day. We ended up flying to Bologna, Italy, about 2 hours drive from Venice. In Paris, we quickly had to arrange a private large van to transport us from Bologna to Venice in order to make our cruise. When our flight arrived in Bologna, our luggage did not. Travel insurance paid for our transfer from Bologna to Venice (flight delay and interruption coverage) and provided us a daily allowance for our delayed luggage.
  
  
• South America 2007. Our clients had booked a cruise aboard Holland America Line with another couple. Both couples purchased travel insurance. Sadly, 8 days before the trip sailed, the wife of the other couple passed away. The three remaining travelers/clients were able to cancel their cruise and receive full reimbursement for the expensive cost of their cruise. In 2008, another woman who had not booked her cruise through us but had booked through another agency on Holland America Line also sadly lost her husband days before the cruise, but had not purchased travel insurance. She lost the entire cost of her cruise, but is now a client of ours and purchases insurance on every trip.
  
  
• Mediterranean 2008: Our clients booked airfare through an online provider. The airline, Austrian Air, required paper tickets. Our clients did not have them when they arrived at the airport on a Saturday evening, and Austrian Air remarkably refused them boarding and offered no alternative solution. They watched the plane depart from the gate. Travel Guard insurance has a dedicated flight assistance department. Travel Guard stepped in, immediately went to work, and rerouted our clients to get them to Europe and their cruise, one of the many supplemental benefits to buying travel insurance through a company like Travel Guard.
  
  
• Caribbean 2007. A client booked on a Caribbean cruise. She purchased travel insurance. After final payment but before departure, she broke her arm and was unable to travel. The insurance reimbursed her the full cost of her trip.
  
  
• Baltics 2008. We led a group of about 30 aboard Oceania Cruises on a 14-night Baltic cruise that included three full days in St. Petersburg. On the first day in St. Petersburg, as we were walking along the pier aside the ship to make our way through Russian immigration, a client made a mistake and one of her legs fell through a gap in the pier scraping her skin from her shin and causing significant bleeding. The cruise line's medical personnel escorted her from the line to the onboard medical facilities, baddage her wound, and she was good to go for that day. On day three of our visit in St. Petersburg, the same client fell from a stool the tour guide used to assist people's entry onto our van. This time, she scraped her skin off to the bone, and needed emergency medical treatment to suture her wounds. The ship's doctor stictched her wound and provided her medication for the injury. Travel insurance picked up the entire cost of the medical treatments.
  
  
• Baltics 2008. On the same Baltics cruise, another client lost her wallet with credit cards. She immediatly called Travel Guard, who handled cancelling her credit cards and provided spending cash to assist the client on the remainder of her voyage. Travel Guard, like many independent travel insurance companies, offers remarkable assistance that goes beyond just the basic coverages.
  
  
• Mediterranean 2009: We led a group of 84 on a remarkable cruise of the Mediterranean aboard Oceania Cruises. Much of our group was booked on British Airways, routing through London Heathrow. On the return flight, nearly all of our luggage got left at Heathrow because of a baggage system failure (10,000 bags were left in Heathrow that same day). Because of the enormity of the problem with British Airways, our bags were significantly delayed in being returned to us. Travel Guard insurance offers a baggage tracking service that takes the burden of regularly calling the airline off the traveler. Travel Guard took responsibility for tracking my luggage, and sent me an e-mail every day on their efforts and provided a status update. I received my luggage 5 days later.

These are a sampling of real stories that provide an overview of the many benefits of travel insurance. As these examples show, travel insurance goes well beyond just covering you for the cost of your trip should you have to cancel. Good coverage also protects you against baggage loss and delay, flight interruptions and missed connections, lost wallets, medical treatment, and medical evacuation should that be necessary. The best companies, like Travel Guard, also offer invaluable incidental services like luggage tracking and a dedicated flight department that will assist you 24 hours a day with last-minute flight rerouting if you flights is cancelled or you miss a connection.

Cruise Holidays of Alexandria strongly recommends travel insurance, and offers our clients insurance through Travel Guard, who we firmly believe is the best in the industry.

Livorno: Italy's Gateway

Livorno Italy is a popular port on a Mediterranean cruise. It's no wonder. Livorno provides easy access to so many popular, historic, and famous sites in Italy. Among these are Florence, Pisa, and Tuscany.

For our recent wine cruise with Pearmund Cellars, we chose -- what else -- Tuscany and specifically the Chianti Wine Road. This excursion was perhaps the best excursion I have ever taken in my life. Many of our fellow cruises shared that assessment.

Although the bus ride from the port into Tuscany and the wine region was long -- about 2 1/2 hours -- it was well worth it. Our first stop was Castello Di Verrazzano, a famous winery that sits high atop a hillside. The setting is absolutely picture perfect, with vistas of the rolling hills of Tuscany below, dotted with Cypress trees, wild flowers, and all the colors you associate with Tuscany. The day of our visit was a Sunday, and the winery, normally closed, openned especiallly for us. Filipo, one of the winery's employees, served as our humorous and knowledgeable guide. After a tour of the winery, complete with a look at its 800+ year old cellar, enormous collection of wines, and production facilities, we came to the highlight of our visit -- the lunch.

Oh the lunch! Castello Di Verrazzano has a full restaurant onsite with stunning panoramic views from the windows that line all three sides. What awaited was nothing short of a veritable feast. From 10 courses that consisted of proscetta, brusetta, cheeses, pastas, salads, and desserts, to 5 varities of wine with unlimited supply, it was truly delicious and delightfully unexpected. After lingering over the views and the good company, we reluctantly left more than an hour behind schedule to visit our next winery, Castello Vicchiomaggio.

Regretably, we only had a short time to enjoy our second visit. Nevertheless, we made the most of it. From a quick tour of the stunning grounds, to being served yet more food, to a marvelous tasting of premium wines, our group left full, satisfied, and regretting we had to leave.

Collectively, I believe we all agreed a return visit to Tuscany is high on our agenda.