Don’t let the hit movie “Titanic” dampen your dreams of taking a cruise in 1998. Affordable and interesting cruise vacations abound for every purse and personality.
Many of Europe’s great ports and palaces will be featured on a June 12-July 2 cruise, Northern Europe & Palaces of the Baltic, sponsored by the Geographic Society of Chicago and Kelly Cruises. The cruise aboard the five-star Vistafjord will be led by Richard Houk, a professor of geography at DePaul University and moderator of the Geographic Society.
Starting in Lisbon, you can choose the best of what each town has to offer: 17th Century buildings in La Rochelle, France; paintings of the Flemish Masters in Zeebrugge, Belgium; Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens; the medieval quarter of Tallinn, Estonia; the Winter Palace and Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg; the Swedish Royal Palace in Stockholm; the weathered dockside of Sassnitz, Germany; the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo; and Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum.
Prices for the cruise range from $4,932 to $7,373 per person, double occupancy (single cabin rates range from $6,938 to $7,278) from Lisbon to Amsterdam. Prices include all onboard meals and entertainment as well as lectures by Houk on the highlights at each port of call. There is a four-night pre-cruise add-on in Lisbon June 8-11 to see “World Expo ’98” in Lisbon for $480 per person, double (single supplement $115). In addition to the cost of the cruise, there will be a separate payment of $175 to the Geographic Society, which is tax-deductible, and mandatory travel insurance ranging from $327 to $471, per person based on accommodations. Call Kelly Cruises at 630-990-1111.
– You have a choice of 21 weekly departures starting May 2 to cruise the French and Italian Riviera from Nice to Portofino, Italy, aboard Windstar Cruises’ Wind Surf–and you can do it at half price if you book before Feb. 28. The cruise features stops in the Italian ports of Portofino, Portoferraio and Portovenere and in the French ports of Monte Carlo, Cannes and St. Tropez. Optional excursions to Florence and Pisa in Italy are available on the cruise.
Half-price fares aboard the Wind Surf range from $2,368 to $3,466 per person, double (single cabins from $4,019 to $6,763) from Nice, including port taxes and fees. Call 800-258-7245 or visit the Windstar Cruise home page on the World Wide Web (www.windstarcruises.com).
Autumn excursions
Who says you have to go to the Caribbean to enjoy a great cruise? Hapag-Lloyd Tours is offering two cruises, Indian Summer and Canadian Dream, that feature the Great Lakes and U.S. and Canadian shores in all their autumn glory.
You’ll cruise Lakes Michigan, Superior and Huron on the Indian Summer excursion, Sept. 24-Oct. 3. The tour embarks from Chicago with stops in Milwaukee; St. James/Beaver Island, Mich.; Mackinac Island, Mich.; Duluth, Minn.; Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario; and Parry Sound/Georgian Bay, Ontario, before concluding in Windsor, Ontario. The Indian Summer cruise ranges from $1,510 to $3,290 per person, double (single cabin $3,150) from Chicago to Windsor. A four-berth cabin is available for $1,160 per person.
The Oct. 3-14 Canadian Dream cruise leaves Detroit for Mackinac Island, and from there on the stops are all Canadian, among them: Thunder Bay on Lake Superior; Sault Ste. Marie, Tobermory and Parry Sound/Georgian Bay on Lake Huron; Windsor, Toronto, Niagara Falls and Montreal, where you’ll debark. The Canadian Dream cruise ranges from $1,730 to $3,290 per person, double (single cabin $3,500). A four-berth cabin is available for $1,270 per person. Call Mariport about Hapag-Lloyd tours at 800-319-9997.
River run
Smithsonian Study Tours is leading a trip to China Sept. 10-28 that includes a four-day cruise on the Yangtze River (now called the Chang). Legendary Landscapes of the Yangtze River starts in San Francisco and heads for Beijing via Narita, Japan. You’ll spend four nights touring Beijing before flying to Xian for three nights in China’s old capital for 11 dynasties. Then it’s to Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, to board the Splendid China in Yueyang for a cruise to Chongqing. Finally, you’ll fly to Shanghai for a two-night stay before returning to San Francisco via Japan.
The Legendary Landscapes tour costs $7,190 per person, double (single supplement $1,646) from San Francisco and includes a welcome reception, all internal transportation, sightseeing and visits per itinerary, visas, transfers and baggage handling. Call the Smithsonian Associates at 202-357-4700, or visit the Smithsonian on-line (www.si.edu/tsa/sst).
Canal cruising
For those in no mood for the high seas, Etoile de Champagne offers six calm canal-barge cruises April through October in Holland, Belgium, France and Germany. You have your choice of five seven-day cruises–Springtime in Holland, Champagne & Brie Cruise, Normandy Cruise, Chablis Cruise and Mosel Valley Cruise–and the 13-day Three-Country Cruise from Amsterdam to Paris. The barges, which sleep 12 in seven cabins, are so big and comfortable you won’t even think you’re afloat.
The Normandy Cruise, for example, starts in Paris with a day cruise on the Seine. On the way north, stops will include Malmaison (once the home of Napoleon), the Giverny home of Claude Monet, the town of Les Andelys (which is below a bluff topped by the ruins of a castle built by Richard the Lionheart) and Mortemer Abbey before concluding in the Medieval town of Rouen.
The price of all seven-day canal-barge cruises ranges from $3,650 to $4,150 per person (single supplements from $995 to $1,150). The Three-Country Cruise cost ranges from $6,000 to $6,500 per person, double (single supplements from $995 to $1,150). A champagne welcome, three gourmet meals daily, a selection of wines with lunches and dinners, open bar, all entrance fees, land tours and transfers as well as detailed information on ports of call are included. Call 800-280-1492.
