Archive for the 'Tours & Cruises' Category
Newport Beach’s Christmas Boat Parade: Plan ahead to cruise in its midst
November 18, 2009 3:21pm
If you’re not going to be in the popular Christmas Boat Parade in Newport Beach, then one of the next best places to see the lights and action may be aboard a Hornblower yacht.
On five consecutive nights, Dec. 16-20, the Christmas Boat Parade Dinner Cruise, put on by Hornblower Cruises & Events, sails “right through the middle of the entire parade,” said the company’s director of marketing, Sara Copping.
And if you want one of these prime lookout spots, you’d better plan ahead. These cruises sell out every year, usually one or two weeks before sail date, said Copping.
The cruises last from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and cost $115 per person (pre-tax). You’ll get a glass of champagne upon boarding, a four-course seated meal and live entertainment. Read the rest of this entry »
Grand Canyon deal: Travel to the rim by rail this winter
November 2, 2009 5:58am
Complement your trip to Grand Canyon National Park with a ride on the rails through Arizona’s wintry landscape. Every morning from Williams, Ariz., a Grand Canyon Railway locomotive departs for the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, a journey of 65 miles one way. Among various ride-stay packages available is the following deal that gives you a little bit of everything.
Deal: The three-night “Canyon Limited Plus” package costs $364 per person, pre-tax, based on double occupancy, for stays Nov. 1, 2009 through Jan. 2, 2010, and $304 per person Jan. 3 through March 14, 2010.
For that, you get two nights of accommodations at the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel and one night at Maswik Lodge, near the South Rim. Plus, you’ll get round-trip, coach-class train travel, a narrated motor-coach tour of the South Rim (lunch provided), and two breakfasts and two dinners per person at the Grand Depot Café. Read the rest of this entry »
Dodgers cruise to the Mexican Riviera with Steve Garvey, Mariano Duncan and 2009 teammates
October 30, 2009 3:14pm
Dampen your post-season Dodger blues with a seven-day cruise on the Mexican Riviera out of Long Beach. It will feature former first-baseman Steve Garvey, first-base coach and former infielder Mariano Duncan and broadcaster Steve Lyons.
Interior staterooms start at $855 per person, but book soon: The cruise embarks Nov. 15. The trip, aboard Carnival Cruise lines, includes stops in Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlán and Cabo San Lucas. Also included are photo sessions, cocktail parties and Q&A sessions with the former ballplayers.
The ship returns to Long Beach on Nov. 22.
–Chris Erskine, Los Angeles Times deputy Travel editor
[The home runs may be over, but Dodger fans can celebrate aboard a special cruise; photo by Christina House/For The Times]
Tour the San Francisco Bay — and often— with Red and White Fleet pass
October 24, 2009 5:55am
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This one’s for frequent visitors to the San Francisco Bay area. If you like to take to the waters when you’re in town, check out the following deal by the Red and White Fleet, which offers unlimited tours on one of its popular cruises for over a year, if purchased in 2009.
Deal: Buy a Red and White Fleet season pass and board the one-hour Golden Gate Bay Cruise as many times as you like. If you purchase it this year, you get an especially good deal, as the pass is valid from the date you purchase the pass to Dec. 31, 2010. It costs $50 per adult, $30 per child (age 5-17). Without the pass, you’d pay $22 per adult, $16 per child, for a one-time cruise ticket.
Having launched in 1939, the Golden Gate Bay Cruise is a classic tour around the bay, now narrated in 12 languages through headphones. It goes under the Golden Gate Bridge and circuits Alcatraz Island, leaving Pier 43-1/2 eight or more times daily. Read the rest of this entry »
German Rail Pass deal: 20% off, plus free Berlin tour
October 22, 2009 5:57am
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall — it fell on Nov. 9, 1989 — Rail Europe is offering a special deal.
Deal: Buy a four-day German Rail Pass at a rate that is 20% less than regular pass prices. Plus, you’ll get a voucher, valid for 24 hours, for a Berlin City Sightseeing Tour thrown in free. Valued at $25 per adult, the tour is on a hop-on, hop-off, double-decker bus.
The rail pass, good for first- and second-class travel, is valid for four days (not necessarily consecutive) in a month. The discounted passes cost $301 per adult, $151 per child (6 to 11 years old; kids under 6 are free), for first-class seats, and $231 per adult, $116 per child, for second-class seats.
Ordering on the Rail Europe website is straightforward, and no extra fees are added to the above-mentioned prices. At time of writing, the website noted that shipping is free on all rail orders for an unspecified “limited time.” Read the rest of this entry »
Fair Oaks Farms tour in Indiana: For $10, a birthing barn and a giant inflated pillow
October 20, 2009 8:35am
As quirky, off-the-beaten-path attractions go, it’s hard to top Fair Oaks Farms, a working dairy farm with 21st-century flair, only an hour or two from Chicago or Indianapolis. Fair Oaks features 3-D movies, a birthing barn, farm tours, a play area with a gigantic inflated pillow (think trampoline) and a restaurant that serves probably the best grilled-cheese sandwich ever. And the ice cream might be even better.
It won’t break the bank either. Farm tours are $10. Meals are even less (sandwich/soup combo $6.25). And this is not the drab, dusty farm from your third-grade field trip. It is a state-of-the-art facility in a storybook setting.
The birthing barn alone makes this attraction worth a pit stop. All day long, Holsteins in the first stages of labor are brought into a theater, where in an hour or so, they produce a baby calf right before your eyes. As biology lessons go, it is thrilling stuff and, of course, fairly graphic. The entire operation, which houses 30,000 dairy cows, produces 80 to 100 calves per day. Warning: The process may be a little overwhelming for children under 5, though when we were there kids of all ages were in the audience.
7-day Mexican Riviera cruise for $299 from Norwegian Cruise Line ‘Deals of the Decade’ sale
October 6, 2009 8:29am
Norwegian Cruise Line is celebrating its 10-year anniversary of Freestyle Cruising with a big sale. Check out the “NCL Deals of the Decade” sale and find special offers up to 82% off the brochure price. Choose from itineraries that sail to the Bahamas and Florida, Bermuda, the Caribbean, Europe, Hawaii, Mexico and through the Panama Canal.
I had a look at Mexican Riviera cruises out of Southern California and found a seven-day cruise on the Norwegian Star with rates starting at $299 per person.
7-Day Mexican Riviera round-trip Los Angeles
This cruise aboard the Norwegian Star includes calls on Mexico’s Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta. The departure dates that you could choose starting at $299 were Oct. 17, Oct. 24, Oct. 31, Nov. 7 and Nov. 14. Other dates were available at rates that started at $449 per person.
‘Julie & Julia’ foodie tour of France
October 6, 2009 5:56am
Have you seen the movie “Julie & Julia,” directed by Nora Ephron? Read the book?
Much of the film takes off from “My Life in France,” describing Julia Child’s post-World War II encounters with French cooking and eating. The renowned chef was working on the memoir when she died in 2004, leaving it to be finished by Alex Prud’homme.
Now true believers in the “French Chef” can follow her tracks through the land of tripe and escargot on a tour devised by New York-based Tour de Forks, which specializes in culinary excursions around the world, from New Orleans to Australia.
A royal travail with Princess Cruises
October 3, 2009 12:09pm
On The Spot by L.A. Times Travel editor Catharine Hamm
Question: On July 31, we disembarked from the Crown Princess and tried to collect our four pieces of baggage at the cruise terminal in Southampton, England. One piece was missing. We searched for it, but no luck. We had bought a transfer from the cruise terminal to Heathrow, and a baggage handler urged us to get on the shuttle bus so we wouldn’t delay the other passengers. He assured us he would put the bag on the next shuttle. At Heathrow, we waited 2 1/2 hours for our bag, which never arrived. Beginning Aug. 1, we began trying to get our bag back. On Aug. 20, it was found and put on the Queen Mary. On Sept. 2, it arrived — COD. Do you think we should have to pay the $69 for shipping?
– James Salyer, Diamond Bar
Answer: No. I started to write something stronger, but that seemed rude.
Not nearly as rude as Princess, however. Salyer’s original letter detailed a series of miscues by Princess that would make a Zen master’s blood boil. Princess reps made promise after promise that they would follow-up, but most of those promises apparently were broken.
Four-day Baja Mexico cruise in 2010 for $154
September 25, 2009 5:56am
You could easily spend more money staying at home than hopping aboard one of Carnival’s four-night Baja cruises. These short, round-trip excursions from Long Beach stop at Catalina Island and Ensenada, Mexico — just a fun, quick and inexpensive dose of the cruising life.
Deal: On the Carnival Paradise, the trip is available to advance bookers for incredible prices, for certain dates in 2010. Book way ahead for the lowest price I’m seeing, which is for the sailing leaving Monday evening, Nov. 29, 2010 (and returning on Friday morning, Dec. 3). An interior stateroom is available for $154 per person (before taxes and fees; based on double occupancy). After taxes and fees, for two people, that’s a total of $393 — or less than $50 total, per person, per day.
Rest assured, you can still get a good deal not quite as far off. For sailings Jan. 18 and Feb. 1, 2010, pre-tax rates start at under $180 per person. Read the rest of this entry »
