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Thank you everyone for the posts. I know what to expect now. Chantal Lover of Africa 🦍🦏🦛🐘🦓🦒🦁🐒

Please, read the below photo and add at the end of the sentence: OR WHAT YOU WEAR!

Good grief, I am not sure we will enjoy our upcoming cruise on SS. You all sound like little children. I am done reading CC for tonight, too negative… Get a life! Chantal 🦍🦏🦛🐘🦓🦒🦁🐒

Hello all, DH and I will experience our first cruise on SS Spirit embarking in Dubai on Nov 16. After completing all documentations needed by SS, I received an embarkation time for 2pm. i thought it was quite late so I contacted SS and I was told embarkation time is only from 2-4pm. Is it like this on every SS cruise? We usually embark a cruiseship around 11-12pm… But the rules are the rules! We will just enjoy the pool at our hotel until checkout time (noon) and head to the ship afterward. We don’t mind waiting as we are retired and in vacation! Chantal Lover of Africa 🦏🦍🦛🐘🦓🦒🦁🐒

I just googled: Oro Verde. Not the best neighborhood! When we took the gondola, we exited in this neighborhood. It was okay as it was 1pm or 3pm BUT I would not have liked to be there around 5-6-7pm when the sun 🌞 goes down! Google the small hotel we stayed at and you will understand…

Dear husband and I spent 50 days in Ecuador and 10 days in Peru in Oct-Dec 2021. I booked everything myself. First, we flew to Guayaquil from Canada. We stayed 3 nights at: Hello! Las Peñas Siglo XXI B&B. I would strongly recommend it. I do not like big hotels as it is too impersonal. This small hotel was great. You can walk to all major sights from this small hotel. It is located not far from the gondola. The gondola is a must do. Do a round trip over the water and towards to inland… Also, in any country, “When the sun goes down, you go down” (from Fluffy goes to India). https://www.google.ca/search?q=fluffy+goes+to+india&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-ca&client=safari#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:03a9780d,vid:ux8GZAtCN-M At the time, we had to get a Covid test showing we were negative to be able to fly to The Galapagos. We were happy when we received the negative result 24 hrs later. I had purchased a 15-day luxury cruise from a “cruise consolidator/travel agent” in Quito (when I was in Canada). The flights were included from Ecuador mainland to Galapagos. I wanted to start in Guayaquil and fly back to Quito after The Galapagos. We were only 16 passengers on the catamaran (max capacity). We went to all major islands, no repeat … It was incredible. We were able to do that because of Covid: they were almost giving away the cruises as people were still not travelling a lot. Back then, the same stories of crimes in Guayaquil and riots in the prison were shown on BBC. All because of drugs… If you stick to where you should be (tourist sights), you will not see any crimes. Just be smart & assertive! When we arrived in Quito, I asked the “cruise consolidator/travel agent” to have supper with us. Him & his wife met us at our hotel and we had a lovely time. I love getting to know people who enhance our trips… This is why I go out of my way to promote drivers/guides… that display passion in their work. Rodrigo was one of them… We visited many many cities, towns in Ecuador and I would go back any day. My favorite was 4 nights in the Amazon Forest… For me, it was much better than The Galapagos BUT totally different… We experienced an 7.5 earthquake while in Riobamba (Earthquake occurred in Peru). For ‘Prairie dogs’ (we are from Saskatchewan), it was very scary. I had created my itinerary around Riobamba as I wanted to meet “The Ice Man” (Baltazar Ushca). I had viewed a video online from National Geographic about him and his passion made me want to meet him… https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18161337 See photos below Ecuador was outstanding!! As I said, we never had any problems as when the sun goes down, we go down as well! If you don’t want to buy drugs, stick to touristic areas, you will be fine. We visited Quito, Mindo, Papallacta, Coca area, Tena, Banos, Cuenca & Guayaquil. The Ecuadorians were thanking us while we were walking around for visiting their country. This NEVER happened and we almost have visited 100 countries. I am telling you, I loved this trip so much that I would go back tomorrow… Then, we flew to Cusco, Peru. Totally different story with the Peruvians! They would only smile when trying to get $$ from you… After one day, I was missing Ecuador. Machu Picchu was obviously outstanding. Plus, we were basically almost alone (Dec 2021). We could stop as long as we wanted which was not the case pre-pandemic. We had sunny days for both days at MP. Cusco is lovely. Again, you have to be confident and smart when walking around as anywhere in the world. AGAIN, if you dont want any problems, you follow fluffy (Gabriel Iglesias) advise (shown on above link). Enough for now! I am sure people Will want to comment on my post! Be gentle! Chantal Lover of Africa 🦍🦏🦛🐘🦓🦒🦁🐒

Thank you for catching my spelling mistake! Yes, MOFA and not MONA!!! MOFA is for Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Thank you all for your replies. We will be in Damman, Saudi Arabia for less 9 hrs. I do not agree with the reply “No cruise line can be expected to give precise visa information pre cruise as not only can it change…”. They could give the info I mentioned and then say: it is your responsibility to obtain the accurate visa for your needs! Yesterday, I emailed the below 2 photos to SS so we will see if they care about their customers and provide the info. I will buy the $10 visa with MOFA and if it is not good enough, I will stay on the ship!!! Chantal Lover of Africa 🦍🦏🦛🐘🦓🦒🦁🐒

Hello all, This will be our 1st SilverSea cruise: Nov 16-25 from Dubai. We are going to be in India & Nepal for a month before the cruise. It is time for me to work on getting my eVisa for Saudi Arabia. After reading a lot on cruisecritic, I found out some people applied for their eVisa through visa.mona.gov.sa for only US$10. It is a special eVisa for cruise ship (called maritime and available only since 2021). Others applied for their eVisa through visitsaudi.com but there is no option for cruise ship and the price is closer to US$100. I contacted SilverSea and the young agent told me to visit visitsaudi.com. After mentioning visa.Mona.gov.sa, she put me on hold for a long time. She later told me my issue was escalated but I should still use visitsaudi.com. I reinforced the fact that maybe SilverSea was not aware of this new eVisa when cruising… I really hope Silversea will investigate this new maritime eVisa which costs only $10. Anybody knows anything about this? Thank you Quote

Hello all, This will be our 1st SilverSea cruise: Nov 16-25 from Dubai. We are going to be in India & Nepal for a month before the cruise. It is time for me to work on getting my eVisa for Saudi Arabia. After reading a lot on cruisecritic, I found out some people applied for their eVisa through visa.mona.gov.sa for only US$10. It is a special eVisa for cruise ship (called maritime and available only since 2021). Others applied for their eVisa through visitsaudi.com but there is no option for cruise ship and the price is closer to US$100. I contacted SilverSea (before figuring how much an eVisa would be on both sites) and the young agent told me to visit visitsaudi.com I am wondering why SilverSea did not inform me of visa.mona.gov.sa! Do they know about this new maritime eVisa you can obtain for only $10. Anybody knows anything about this? Thank you

Did it work? I am planning to apply on this website http://visa.mofa.gov.sa for our SilverSea cruise in Nov. I know I am in advance, but I want to apply now… Thank you for updating your experience. Chantal Lover of Africa 🦍🦏🦛🐘🦓🦒🦁🐒

Hello Gudgiggle, i am so glad my post was helpful to you. I had totally forgot about this post! This brought back memories as Japan was one of our best vacations ever. i hope you will spend many days in Kyoto as it is a gem. Usually, my posts are about praising drivers/guides as an independent traveller, it is sometimes difficult to find them. Our latest trip, Africa (Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana) treated us so good. I posted praise about our drivers… We even helped our now ‘African son’ starting in own business by helping him being his own stretched LandCruiser… He needed a break in life and we are happen we gave it to him. This is what life is all about! Chantal Lover of Africa 🦍🦏🦛🐘🦓🦒🦁

I hope this info can be helpful. I posted this in May 2023 after Hello Kappy65, I was searching for my cruise (apparently not on the roll call!) and came across your post. I thought I would share with you what I posted this in May 2023: “Hello all, I love writing info on great drivers/guides for independent travellers. I have been blessed in my life to find many with great passion. We travelled for 7 weeks in Feb-March 2023 and I would like to share 2 with you from South Africa. JOHANNESBURG: After lots of research on TA, I fortunately found Moses Molepe. He owns mtmtours. He was very quick to reply to all my emails. I arranged for him to pick us up from the airport (he was waiting for us at 2am as our flight was 2 hours late) and 2 full day tours (Pretoria & Diamond Mine — Johannesburg & Soweto). I love quality/price and he is just that! He has been driving/guiding for many years but you can see he loves his job. He also dropped us off at the airport for us to fly to Victoria Falls. I booked Moses about 6 weeks before our arrival. Trust me, you can not find better. moses@mtmtours.co.za +27 11 766 5417 He drives a very nice van. CAPE TOWN: As CT was our last stop on our epic holiday, I slacked off and had not arranged a driver/guide. After our arrival at our accommodation, the owner of the condo gave us the name of Godfrey Manual. I contacted him and AGAIN, we were blessed with the expertise, gentleness and great quality/price of this guide/driver. Godfrey toured us for 3 full day and dropped us off at the airport. He really became a friend and we will miss him. You can reach Godfrey Manual at info@impresstours.com +27 83 261 9597 Godfrey drives a very nice van. The Canadians!😎 P.S. If you need driver info for Victoria Falls, Kasane, Safari in Tanzania and Safari in Uganda, send me a message…” I hope people will discover Africa in general. It is a very special place. Chantal An African Ambassador 🦍🦏🦛🐘🦓🦒🦁

No question about it, when DIY, you have to plan ahead before your trip. But the upside is that you can travel for 7 week instead than the typical 2-week much inflated tour. I am so glad we booked directly with a driver in Uganda and not a tour as it was at least 50% cheaper than a tour sold in Canada or USA. Something with Tanzania. As we were not doing safaris in South Africa, Victoria Falls and Chobe (only day tours which does not equal a safari for me), we just had great drivers… as mentioned above. DIY is so much more rewarding in my humble opinion. An African Ambassador!🦍🐘🦛🦓🦒🦁 P.S. Zambezi River sailing was very disappointing for us after touring Uganda and Tanzania. However, we enjoyed the outdoors, okay drinks and the ambience.

Hello Heartfelttraveler, We used Owen (beautiful van): +263772226132 owensadya84@gmail.com We stayed at Elephants Hills because the rate was great and we wanted to see wildlife on the property. The hotel is a bit tired but the employees were outstanding. We saw monkeys, wild boars, bush bucks from our balcony and from the pool. The brekkie was super good… We flew from Johannesburg to VF and then VF to Cape Town with 2 different airlines. Sorry I can’t remember but they were both good. Enjoy Africa!

Happy Easter everyone, in regards to travelling in general, quality/price always win. I only worked 20 years so my pension was penalized and is small. I need to be smart to be able to travel more than 2-3 weeks. I could write a lot about it but I have difficulty to pay over US$1,000/night/person for a genuine expedition cruise knowing my level of happiness would not rise accordingly compared to a 22-night cruise with HAL (for example) US$250/night/person. I always use the “fulfillment curve” when I analyze what I want to buy but I call it quality/price. As I have seen many penguins right beside me in Cape Town at 2 locations, elephants two feet away from our truck in Kasane, Botswana, many cats (lions, leopards and cheetahs) only a few feet away in Tanzania, I can not say FOR ME that I would receive a lot more fulfillment with a genuine expedition cruise. Now, if the price would not be 4x more than HAL, I might consider it but still… I know it might be difficult to understand me… This book ‘Your money or Your Life’ has a huge impact on my life. https://www.coachcarson.com/your-money-or-your-life/ I think every child should read it. Now, I decided to change my signature. I always used to finish with The Canadians!😎 but from now on, it will be An African Ambassador!🦍🐘🦓🦒🦁

Me again!! Anybody met great taxi driver or guide/drive in Chile and Argentina? I try to hire drivers for the day instead than going on tours. This is what happened in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Victoria Falls. I am still messaging all of them on WhatsApp. This really enhances our travel experiences. Please share names if you know anyone in Chile and Argentina that could help enhance our experiences there. The Canadians!😎

I just requested this book from my library. Hubby is looking forward to read it. The Canadians!😎

Wow, wow, wow! Great info out there. I know when I investigate/plan our future trips, I sometimes over think… We just came back from Cape Town and saw lots of penguins at 2 different locations. I think you can not get tired of looking at wildlife. We surely did not this winter in Uganda, Tanzania and Botswana. I think I am decided: the HAL 22-day on Jan 29 or 7. I was looking at Jan 29 but after reading the penguins viewing “dropping” in Feb, I am considering Jan 7. I wanted to start from Chile anyway but I did not want to fly during Christmas season… Time will tell as I do not want to buy our cruise now… I have researched all port of calls and Chile and Argentina with Lonely Planet so I already know lots about these 2 countries… Oct-Nov 2021, hubby and I and another couple spent 50 days in Ecuador and 10-day in Peru in Dec. We were blessed to find a tour operator living in Quito and booking with him. We purchased a 15-day catamaran (8 rooms) cruise in The Galapagos. I didn’t think we could afford 1-week luxury catamaran cruise (I was looking at “basic” catamaran) but this TO came back with an unbeatable price: US$4,000/person for a luxury cruise. Keep in mind nothing was selling at the time due to Covid… The usual price (pre-Covid) was US10,000-$12,000! I love building relationship with people that help us enhance our vacations. We met him and his wife for supper when we returned from our catamaran cruise in Quito. I have great memories of our evening getting to know him and his wife.. Well, thank you again everyone for helping me with my decisions. Bye for now! The Canadians!😎

Again, Thank you everyone for your great posts. OlsSalt, I will get the book from our library as it sounds like a great read. Tupper10, I tried to send you an email through CC but the option was disabled. Can you email me the name of the website please? chantalanddennis at hotmail dot com Thank you again. The Canadians!😎 P.S. Actually, I want to do both as I believe cruising the Chilean coast will be rewarding as well. Maybe I am wrong…

Thank you for your informative post. I posted this on March 23: “Hello all, I love writing info on great drivers/guides for independent travellers. I have been blessed in my life to find many with great passion. We travelled for 7 weeks in Feb-March 2023 and I would like to share 2 with you from South Africa. JOHANNESBURG: After lots of research on TA, I fortunately found Moses Molepe. He owns mtmtours. He was very quick to reply to all my emails. I arranged for him to pick us up from the airport (he was waiting for us at 2am as our flight was 2 hours late) and 2 full day tours (Pretoria & Diamond Mine — Johannesburg & Soweto). I love quality/price and he is just that! He has been driving/guiding for many years but you can see he loves his job. He also dropped us off at the airport for us to fly to Victoria Falls. I booked Moses about 6 weeks before our arrival. Trust me, you can not find better. moses@mtmtours.co.za +27 11 766 5417 He drives a very nice van. CAPE TOWN: As CT was our last stop on our epic holiday, I slacked off and had not arranged a driver/guide. After our arrival at our accommodation, the owner of the condo gave us the name of Godfrey Manual. I contacted him and AGAIN, we were blessed with the expertise, gentleness and great quality/price of this guide/driver. Godfrey toured us for 3 full day and dropped us off at the airport. He really became a friend and we will miss him. You can reach Godfrey Manual at info@impresstours.com +27 83 261 9597 Godfrey drives a very nice van. The Canadians!😎 P.S. If you need driver info for Victoria Falls, Kasane, Safari in Tanzania and Safari in Uganda, send me a message…” I hope people will discover Africa in general. It is a very special place. The Canadians!😎

Thank you all for your posts. I understand “drive by” cruise versus “expedition” cruise. I wish we could afford the expedition but we can not. My plan is to do a 22-day South America cruise with HAL in 2024 and then see while I am in Argentina what I can found last minute for an expedition cruise. I am from Canada and have enough of the snow and cold already so maybe the 22-day will be enough. I guess, time will tell. We will just tour around in Argentina and Chile on our own if we can not find any other interesting cruise. We just came back from an 7-week epic trip to Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa (Johannesburg & Cape Town) and Botswana (Kasane). We had a FANTASTIC time. If anybody has questions about these counties, do not hesitate to contact me. I will be happy to give you info and maybe this will help you to decide to finally visit Africa. Thank you all The Canadians!😎

Hello all, Can someone explain to me why HAL does not have any cruises in Antartica during winter 2024. The 22-day goes to Antarctic Peninsula (cruising) but it is listed under “South America”. However, the same cruise in 2025 is listed under “Antarctica” and instead than cruising it says “expedition cruising”. Would it change the experience of the cruise? Princess and Celebrity have 16-day and 14-day “Antarctica” cruises for 2024 cruising to Elephant Island, Paradise Bay or expedition cruising. I am confused why HAL cruises in 2024 are not considered “Antartica”. What would you say is the best quality/price Antarctica cruise? Thank you for your reply. The Canadians!😎

Moses’ (Johannesburg) new functional number currently is +27 82 255 0375. Sorry about this! The Canadians!😎

Hello all, I love writing info on great drivers/guides for independent travellers. I have been blessed in my life to find many with great passion. We travelled for 7 weeks in Feb-March 2023 and I would like to share 2 with you from South Africa. JOHANNESBURG: After lots of research on TA, I fortunately found Moses Molepe. He owns mtmtours. He was very quick to reply to all my emails. I arranged for him to pick us up from the airport (he was waiting for us at 2am as our flight was 2 hours late) and 2 full day tours (Pretoria & Diamond Mine — Johannesburg & Soweto). I love quality/price and he is just that! He has been driving/guiding for many years but you can see he loves his job. He also dropped us off at the airport for us to fly to Victoria Falls. I booked Moses about 6 weeks before our arrival. Trust me, you can not find better. moses@mtmtours.co.za +27 11 766 5417 He drives a very nice van. CAPE TOWN: As CT was our last stop on our epic holiday, I slacked off and had not arranged a driver/guide. After our arrival at our accommodation, the owner of the condo gave us the name of Godfrey Manual. I contacted him and AGAIN, we were blessed with the expertise, gentleness and great quality/price of this guide/driver. Godfrey toured us for 3 full day and dropped us off at the airport. He really became a friend and we will miss him. You can reach Godfrey Manual at info@impresstours.com +27 83 261 9597 Godfrey drives a very nice van. The Canadians!😎 P.S. If you need driver info for Victoria Falls, Kasane, Safari in Tanzania and Safari in Uganda, send me a message…