There are so many cruise options available and the best way to work out which cruises will suit you, and to get the best deals is to click the links above and book online.

Holiday cruises provide the traveler with a very relaxed way to sightsee, and visit multiple ports in the one trip. Imagine watching the sunset over the ocean one evening, then waking up the next day to see it rise over a completely different country, and all without leaving your cabin.

Many companies provide seemingly endless possible combinations for cruises, whether it is a several month adventure, or shorter week long stay, or even a weekend out at sea, there are options of cruises to suit everyone’s taste and budget.

Many companies provide fly / cruise options, which offer excellent value for money, or you can simply book the cruise option and flights and meet the boat at a particular port.


Cruises are available to cover the entire spectrum of price, from budget to luxury, and from tall ships to cruise liners. Many cruises offer all of these options, and the difference is generally the quality and location of the cabin on the ship.

The budget option tends to provide an internal cabin that does not have windows or an ocean view, whereas the luxury option may provide a cabin on the side of the boat with an en-suite and lounge and possible a balcony to enjoy watching the sunsets and sunrises from.

Entertainment on Cruises
Cruises provide such fantastic value for money and are so appealing in this economic climate due to the abundance of specials being advertised and the fact they include; accommodation, transport, entertainment, and meals all in one fare.

Also cruises are available that cross the oceans, or stay on the rivers of Europe, stopping off at major tourist destinations, as well as some not so touristy ports and cities.The quality of the food and wine on cruises is of a very high standard considering the number of people that can travel on the larger cruise liners. The variety of food and the ability to cater for all tastes and nationalities makes them even more attractive. Passengers with specific dietary requirements need not worry!

The chefs on board will happily provide food to cater for people with needs such as; high blood pressure, celiac disease, diabetes, lactose intolerance, vegetarian, kosher, salt free, additive free, or high protein needs.

Whilst cruises sometimes take a little while to get to different destinations, you will never be bored when on-board.

Many cruises often provide fantastic activities such as; casinos, table tennis, aerobics classes, dance lessons, bingo, nightclubs, shopping arcades, gyms, libraries, beauty salons, internet café’s, and not to mention the bars and cinemas available to all passengers.

Many parents may be concerned that travelling with children may disrupt their rest and relaxation time; however they need not worry at all.

Cruises provide special kids clubs aimed to keep them amused while the parents go and play or relax, and can help entertain them between destinations.

Babysitters are also available on cruises, and they will stay in the cabin with the children / babies whilst mummy and daddy enjoy some well earned evenings sharing a special bottle of wine or having fun at the casino or nightclubs.

Imagine visiting seven different Greek Islands, or cruising the coast of Italy and then moving on to another 5 different European countries, all without having to ever carry your suitcase or unpack it more than once during your trip! This is all possible when you decide to book any number of fabulous cruises available online.

Holidays With A Difference!

Sightseeing on Cruises
All cruises provide excellent opportunities to explore and learn about the different cultures and experience amazing sites and the countries and languages they contain. There are organised tours available on most cruises that can be organised on the boat to make things very easy.

Once the ship arrives at a port, there are many tours or opportunities to visit the beach or learn about ancient ruins or visit the many taverns and restaurants in the area. Cruises provide you with the chance to grab a few photographs of the local area, and some postcards to send home to make the friends and family jealous.

The two major expenses on a vacation are usually the travel (fares or fuel) and the holiday accommodation.

These are a set item in your travel budget and while you can make some savings (e.g. cheap flights) they are the two constant costs over which you have little control other than choice of type of fare and lodging. Other expenses such as entertainment, dining, activities and tours are more in your control.

Location
Obviously, the type of vacation you choose will determine the accommodation location to a great extent.  However, if it is too far from the focus of your trip, such as a beach or a ski slope then it may just not suit – after all you don’t want to spend a lot of time going to and from your hotel or wherever you are staying.

If it is a trip to see scenery in a larger area (e.g. Lakes District in the UK), then, perhaps just being near to central is sufficient.  Location can make or break a vacation if you don’t do your research first.


Type Of Accommodation
The type of lodgings will depend on your budget, trip focus, length of stay and location. Nowadays, many hotels and resorts offer a variety of options – family oriented, no kids (!), catering for retirees, sports (e.g. golfing vacations), naturist, cooking (e.g. Tuscany), gay and lesbian, luxury.

And, styles: from 5 Star to caravans and anything in between, including B & B’s, cabins with self catering, chalets, service apartments, pensiones in Rome and motels.

You may need self catering facilities with a kitchen and washing machine, particularly if taking the family. Other types may be hostels for backpacking, or a chalet or resort style apartment to provide comfort and access to facilities. Knowing the type of Accommodation you want can save a lot of time when searching online.

In Paris try this link for good service Paris hotels

Facilities
Again, this aspect depends on budget – having all the ‘bells and whistles” will cost a lot more than a self catering apartment – which, in many ways may be preferable if traveling with children.

Even caravan parks often have pools and recreation areas for kids, so they may be an alternative for the budget conscious family.  Additionally, there is the benefit of a laundry, and, many parks also have site specific bathroom facilities, rather than communal.

It’s standard to expect a TV in resorts and hotels, but the higher the star rating, the more they have in the way of in-room spas, room service, cable, and gyms, plus on site shopping in exclusive stores.

DESIRE RESORT RIVIERA MAYA

Some factors to consider

• Stay reasonably near public transport – this will obviously depend on the size of the place or city you are visiting.
• The point is that after a busy day of sightseeing, shopping or whatever – why subject yourself to a tiring hike from the station back to your lodgings etc?
• This is more so if you are on a trip that involves vigorous physical activity of some sort. After a hard day on the ski slopes, or a hot day on a beach, or from a cross country walk – do you then want to have lug yourself and your gear a long way back to your holiday accommodation?
• This just takes the restfulness out of a holiday.  You don’t have to stay in a central location (can be prohibitively expensive), but staying near public transport access can give you best of both worlds.
• In rural areas it can be smart to research the layout of the region, note what you want to see and then find accommodation central to that region. One, this allows you to stay at the accommodation longer and take advantage of longer stay rates.
• Two, it also allows you to be free of constant checking in and out – and additionally, you can get a better feel for the locale and the people.  Thirdly, the staff get to know you and this can mean better or more personal service.

What do you do is the public transport is poor or not available – then choose to stay as close to the focus of your vacation (e.g. the beach or golf course) as possible.

Costs / Budget
There are many websites available to research both types and costs of accommodation. It may be advisable to confirm the suitability of your choices with a travel agent – to ensure the veracity of what is said on the web pages!

Check availability, and book early to avoid disappointment during peak holiday periods as the best accommodation can be pre-booked years in advance.

Always obtain an email confirmation of your reservation with a booking number, and re-confirm within the week of your departure. Take copies with you – to ensure that when you arrive you get what you contracted for.

Many discounts and bargains can be found when traveling out of the peak tourist / holiday season. In countries such as Italy.

The start and end of the summer tourist season can provide some great bargains and the weather and climate is still generally perfect for getting out and seeing the sights.

You can also negotiate about rates, even in places like London – when the off season means they are looking for people to stay.  Use sites like Last Minute Hotels and so on – they buy blocks of accommodation to sell at discounts.

If you are going to the tropics, just be sure you aren’t traveling in hurricane season!

Whatever accommodation you decide upon, be it  hotels, resorts, backpacking hostels, bed and breakfast chalets, apartments, or a house, enjoy your holiday and relax in the thought that you have done your homework and found the best accommodation for yourself

No matter where you go, staying in wine country is a wonderful way to see a new place from a different perspective than the usual round of ancient ruins, monuments, museums, galleries and capital cities.

Furthermore, as you will be in rural areas, you could combine the two with another favorite travel option – the golf tour.

Whether it be the Sonoma Valley in California, the Margaret River wineries of Western Australia, the Rhone region in France or any of the many wine regions in Italy, the wine country lifestyle will not only prove to be of great interest, but can be fitted to any budget.

You, of course, can take a packaged tour, but it is advisable to also include time to do your own thing when visiting any wine producing region.  A leisurely pace is best – so that you can both wine and dine to more fully experience the richness of the local wines, with local food – rather than just rush around tasting it all.

One idea is that when you go to a town or region associated with wine production, take the time to meet the locals – perhaps in a bar, at a café, in a restaurant.  From them you can learn many of the ‘hidden’ or not well known secrets about the best wines that are made there.

Listen to what the locals say are good wines and find out what they drink themselves.  They won’t always be the famous labels – but they will be quality and probably much more affordable.

So where to go on a travel and wine vacation?

If it your first time and it’s Europe where you are traveling to – then you can’t go past the Bordeaux region of France.  Rightly renowned for its wines, you can get a wide range of options to fit both your pocket and tastes.

Bordeaux is France’s largest wine region, yet surprisingly its most prestigious part, the Médoc, is also the youngest. It wasn’t until the Dutch drained this flat, gravelly, marsh in the mid-17th century that the merchants of Bordeaux, keen to compete with the wine trade between Portugal and Britain (this was the time that port was ‘discovered’), planted vines.

History, politics, commerce and engineering have all played their part in shaping the wine that has become synonymous with Bordeaux.

If you go to Italy, then almost any rural area will have good wines – simply base your selection on the type of wine you prefer.

There is no question that wine is synonymous with Italy. Making wine in Italy is like breathing – it is sewn into the fabric of Italian life. There are 900,000 registered vineyards scattered throughout Italy.

Italy is the number one wine-producing country in the world and Italians consume an average of 14.5 gallons of wine per person, per year, making them third in the world for consumption. For years, Italian wines were considered not much more than table wines but they have come into their own in recent years. No visit to Italy is complete without experiencing Italian wine at the source – the vineyard.

If you want something completely different as a tourist experience, yet still include wine and travel, then the Margaret River region of Western Australia is a must.  It is vast country, but this region is easily accessible from the State capital of Perth – and offers many other tourist sights and experiences to vary your wine touring holiday.

And, last but not least, is the rich experience of the Napa Valley in California – where a combination holiday of dining with local wines is a must.

The list of possibilities is almost endless. So how do you decide which destination is for you?  A few factors that can help you are:

• Budget – flights, accommodation, food, tours. Do you want to travel cheaply or all the way up to first class and 5 star.
• The purpose – vacation or business
• Are you adventurous, or do you prefer to stay in your own comfort zone as much as possible.
• Activities – for skiing (& other sports), tours, white water rafting, sightseeing, just plain good old relaxing and so on.
• Your interests – if ancient history and monuments – then don’t go to Australia; if its snorkeling and diving then perhaps Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the place to go.

If It’s Tuesday It Must Be Belgium
Many people, especially first time travelers, try to cram as much as possible into that “once in a lifetime” holiday.  This is natural, as they want to see all those things they have seen on TV or read about over the years. But, it can turn a holiday into a hell-a-day!

So it is good sense to research well before deciding and then planning the trip.  Get an idea of things like

• distances to be traveled and the time used up on planes, trains etc PLUS sitting around in airports or stations
• modes of transport (hire cars, trains, buses etc)
• Time differences ( From the States, you lose a day going to the Southern Hemisphere, but gain it on the return – but not so if you travel “around the world”)
• Tours – see what is actually offered, whether you have ‘free time” to do some sightseeing or shopping at your own pace.

You may be surprised at how much “lost time” there is – and this affects your schedule of hoped for sightseeing and other activities.

Be Practical

Time - how long will the trip be – don’t try and see all of Europe if you only have two weeks – prioritize your preferences – and make sure you plan to see things well and not rush so much you don’t really take anything in and then need a vacation to recover when you get home.  The same applies to the other continents.

Flight time – East coast US to Europe is at least 6-7 hours, but to Australia it is at least 20 hours – plus airport changeover times.  Note jet lag is worst when traveling in an Easterly direction – and the Southern Hemisphere may be on a different day!

Language – perhaps an English speaking country, if it is your first overseas trip, will help you learn the pitfalls and joys of international travel more easily.

People choose their travel destinations for all sorts of reasons

• To meet people of different cultures and experience their lifestyle and differences
• To practice a newly learnt language
• To meet relatives from the “old country”
• To see famous art, museums, places
• For shopping (yes!)
• Pilgrimages (Mecca, Lourdes)
• To play golf at St Andrew’s or watch a major sports event (Olympics, Tour de France, Socer World Cup)
• There are other nefarious reasons which we won’t mention.

Avoid cultural Fatigue
In the long run, for both value for dollar spent and enjoyment gained, it is usually better to narrow down the number of countries to visit.

And, within those places, again narrow down what you want to see.  What is the point of running around every museum in, for example, Rome over a 4-5 day period – - just to say you have been in them? St Peter’s alone takes a whole day to see properly – let alone the Vatican museum!

This is true of most of Rome’s museums and art galleries – and pretty well true for Paris and other major cities,

It is better to see some things well, than all badly!  You will retain more memories and certainly enjoy what you do see better. Your memories shouldn’t be locked into a camera! And, you will also have a holiday – which should be restful!

Whatever travel destinations you consider, prepare for your trip well and you will enjoy it.