verohar

We just did this trip in May of this year.  We left the ship in Cochin and reboarded the ship in Penang (the other way), as we visited Mumbai first, before Cochin.

We used Kaimur Holidays in Agra.  We reserved our own flight arrangements and hotel arrangements in Agra and New Delhi, (stayed at amazing 5 star hotels), but Kaimur Holidays would have also made hotel arrangements for us.  Kaimur Holidays picked us up from the Airport, and drove us to Agra to spend the evening/night, (seeing some sites in the afternoon) and we were first to see the Taj Mahal in the morning sunrise.

After our day visit in Agra, they drove us to New Delhi, where we spend the night and the next day toured New Delhi with them.  We spend the night again, and flew back and met the ship the next day.  Much more relaxing than the ship excursion, saw much more, no where near the ship's price and a private tour to do exactly what we wanted to do.     

Even if you use another Tour company, I would highly recommend spending the night in Agra for the very early Sunrise view (no other tourist there) of the Taj Mahal  the next morning and spending another night/day to visit New Delhi, before returning to the ship.  Well worth the planning, the savings, and the experience.

Da!!!! I see you are a travel blogger! Ok, the profession suits you!

What a class act you are!! To respond to everyone's comments with personalization!

Your review is worthy of dollars. Have you thought of being a travel blogger?

We will be cruising in Singapore next year, and your pictures and comments are not only informative, but entertaining. We have friends in Atlanta that we are trying to convince to "see the world" and travel with us. I am sending them a link to your review as, hopefully, motivation to get their butts in gear!

(By the way, we have had the same occurrence of people wanting to take our picture with them. At first we found it strange, but now we have almost come to expect it when traveling to what we consider exotic locales. It just means that they find that YOU are the exotic one!)

Can't wait to hear more. With the amount of details and pictures you provide, this is going to be a long thread! Thanks for all the work.

Excellent! Very detailed and informative. I have already found five things to note. Keep going........ This is FANTASTIC !!!!