River Cruise in less than three weeks

[Joanandjoe]

Wow! In a period of five days, we've gone from having our request for vacation time to take an Alaska cruise turned down (we had a tentative booking on the Regent Seven Seas Mariner for May 30) to booking a river cruise in Holland in less than three weeks. We just booked it a few minutes ago.

Details: Avalon Poetry river cruise in Holland and Belgium, leaving Amsterdam Sunday, 4/15, returning to Amsterdam Sunday, 2/22. Avalon is owned by the parent company of Globus and Cosmos Tours. The 176 passenger ship will visit Arnhem (site of A Bridge Too Far), Dordrecht, Middleburg, Veere (Delta works), Rotterdam, and Volendam in Holland, and Antwerp and Ghent in Belgium. We were in some of these cities (Amsterdam, Ghent, and Volendam) a long time ago - 1971!

We leave Newark on Friday the 13th and return home on Monday, 4/23.

Booking 17 days before we leave is quite a change from our last cruise on the Noordam, when we booked 8/2/05 and cruised on 11/25/06.

[JoeyandDavid]

Joan and Joe Congratulations..... What a wonderful getaway... i know you guys are so ready!!

[KeithnRita]

Congratulations J&J! As Joey said, we know you two are ready for this cruise. Take a lot of photos to share with your Crazies friends.

[mercedes]

Joan and Joe, congratulations on your new booking. I have always wanted to do one of those river cruises, and maybe after reading your review, I will do it.

[Spikesgirl]

Sounds llike a fabulous cruise. Can't wait for you to come back and tell us all about it. We loved our river cruise and hope you will be the same. Congrats and have a wonderful time.

Charlie

[SCIROCCO]

Congrats J&J My Friends

[Mebert]

Joanandjoe,

That sounds like a silver lining to me. Congratulations on your booking. That is one exciting itinerary. I'm sure you'll have everything together in three weeks. You're Cruise Crazies. It will be a piece of cake.

[Joanandjoe]

Thanks, all.

It gets mighty complicated doing things so last minute. We're still arranging our hotels for the day before and the day after the cruise. Our preferred travel insurance provider, CSA, has what's normally a great deal: you get a waiver of pre-existing medical conditions if you pruchase the insurance within 24 hours of your final cruise payment. When, as with our last cruise, you book in 8/05 and make the final payment a year later, that's wonderful. When you book and make all payments on the same day (yesterday), you then need to buy your trip insurance the next day. I'm waiting for a call back from my TA.

We really, really, really need this vacation!

[Mebert]

Joanandjoe,

It sounds like you are really more organized and quicker than you think.

Congratulations on getting everything together so quickly.

[Joanandjoe]

We now have our trip insurance, flights and hotels for both nights. Do we have any CC members in Amsterdam? We used to have a map locater for members, but I can't find it.