roaming_kiwi58

The links in the previous post give you all the info you require. Travelanni is very helpful, and we used her notes to visit Schwerin last year. We were docked in Warnemunde, so we had to get a train to Rostock first, then change for Schwerin. Having visited the castle, cathedral and the town we caught a train back to Rostock, where we spent some time before catching another train back to Warnemunde. We bought the train pass in advance.

It was a great day and the German trains are easy to negotiate. We weren't interested in doing the long trip to Berlin either - too much time travelling. We really enjoyed Schwerin.

Our most memorable experience on a river cruise would be the after hours visit to St Mark's Basilica while on the Uniworld Venice trip last year. An amazing place, and this visit was so much better than our previous time there, when we had to battle with the crowds of tourists. The guide, Susan, was also brilliant.

Many other great experiences during many years of travels would include:

A South American land tour which only came off after years of trying to persuade my husband to go! The trip far exceeded expectations in many respects. Iguacu/Iguazu Falls was maybe the biggest WOW factor we have ever had. Cuzco on Christmas Day was also pretty amazing, with everything lit up in the main square. We had been to Machu Picchu on 24 December, stayed overnight in Aguas Calientes and taken the train out on Christmas morning.

Even though our visit there was decades ago, on one of our early trips to Europe, Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria still comes to mind.

In Egypt seeing Abu Simbel close up, then the view from our cruise boat on Lake Nasser. Luxor was a pretty amazing sight too. On the same trip, Petra in Jordan.

Jokulsarlon in Iceland, where we went on boats across a lagoon full of icebergs, to get a closer look at a glacier.

Going up to Jungfraujoch in Switzerland via the train through the mountain.

We love history and architecture, so many cities of Europe have appeal for us - Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Dubrovnik, Venice. Hard to pick a favourite.

Oh, we count ourselves lucky to have experienced so many of these places!

Agree with Mary Ellen's order of things. When we did this trip over Christmas 2013 we flew into Cuzco from Lima, but did not stay there. We immediately travelled to the Sacred Valley for an overnight before catching the train to Aguas Calientes, where we had another overnight and time in Machu Picchu. Then back to Cuzco, which is the highest altitude of the three, for two nights.

Neither of us had any issues. In Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu we didn't feel any effects at all. In Cuzco we just felt as if breathing was very slightly more of an effort. Nothing like on our trip to Lhasa in Tibet a few years ago, when we felt as if we had elephants sitting on our chests, particularly at night! We took no medication at all in any of these places, though we had gone prepared with Diamox from our doctor. Did not try the local remedies, but kept hydrated.

But altitude affects everyone differently, and there is no knowing how much it will affect you. Age and fitness seems to be irrelevant. If you have adverse effects take them very seriously!

We enjoyed our visit to Peru, and loved Cuzco and Machu Picchu. Worth doing once in your life if you can and are comfortable with the environment.

We also visited Korcula on a land tour, several years ago. There is a lovely old town. Small, but delightful to just wander around. Many restaurant options.

We stayed in Korcula 2 nights and had a half day tour to other parts of the island. Pleasant and picturesque but nothing startling.

We did the Uniworld Venice & River Po last year and a full tour inside the Doges Palace was included.

We have sailed twice with Azamara (once each Quest & Journey) and once with Oceania (Nautica). We were expecting a much better experience with Oceania, but it was very disappointing. Poor service and poor food.

Also Oceania shore excursions are a rip off. We do a lot of DIY, but will sometimes use cruiseline excursions for convenience. We only did one Oceania excursion because we had OBC to use up.

Oceania do have some nice itineraries, and that is the most important thing for us, so we will use them again if the itinerary and price is right. Considering one for August 2016 at the moment. But Oceania would definitely not be our preference.

We are looking forward to returning to Azamara this August, and again for a B2B in December 2016. Are trying HAL in December. Have also sailed Norwegian and numerous river cruises with Uniworld and APT.

We would not consider anything less than 10 nights, as it is not worth the expense and the hassle to get to the start of the cruise, and back home again. In NZ we live so far away from so many places! Prefer 15+ nights. The longer the better, as long as it is port intensive. We have a B2B booked for December 2016 which is 26 nights – looking forward to it!

Strongly agree with an earlier poster about not leaving it too late to travel. We still run a business (which helps pay for all the travel we do!), but it very much limits how long we can be away from home for. This is particularly the case in our winter, the northern hemisphere summer, when we see so many great itineraries in Europe, but we just can’t do them. Not at this point anyway. However, we still try to get away overseas as much as we can every year. You never know what is around the corner, and we are trying to make the most of being fit and able, travelling as much as possible while we can.

We have been to St Petersburg twice.

First time in 2009 we had three days there as part of a river cruise. We did not enjoy St Petersburg that much, preferring Moscow, where we also had three days. A still vivid picture in my memory is from standing in Red Square around midnight, with the GUM building and St Basil's cathedral all lit up - a real WOW sight!

Last year we returned to St Petersburg as part of a Baltic Cruise. Again it was three days. We booked a 3 day package with TJ Tours. Not private, but there were still only 4 of us in total. The guide was brilliant, fluent and knowledgeable, talked about anything and everything. The sights were great - we saw inside a number of buildings we only saw the outside of the previous time. We got so much more out of our second visit to St Petersburg, largely because of the guide we had.

We love to travel and see different places, love history, architecture. But does one ever get a truly balanced view of any place you visit? Difficult IMO. We just make the most of what we are able to do and feel honoured to be able to visit such amazing places.

We stayed there for two nights pre cruise August 2014.

Very convenient. We used the bus from the airport to Piazzale Roma, and walked everywhere else, including all over Venice and to the start of our cruise at Santa Marta pier.

Staff at the hotel friendly and helpful. Breakfast good - the breakfast room is small, but we obviously avoided the busy times both mornings.

Our room was small, but we have had many smaller in Europe! We were on the corner and had views over Piazzale Roma in one direction and down a canal the other way. Clean and adequate for the two nights we had there. I do not remember A/C or lack of, or whether it was an issue. We had windows that opened.

Wifi included and worked well.

We would return to this hotel again if we ever find ourselves needing accommodation in Venice again.

We have done several Uniworld river cruises and they have always provided maps for every stop. Usually A4 size maps produced by Uniworld, but occasionally local tourist board maps. We have always found the Uniworld maps to be clear, easy to read and very adequate for the purpose, with major sights and berthing places marked, plus meeting points for pickups.

I have always done my research before leaving home for info on what we want to visit in any free time we have.

We booked with TJ last September for a 3 day tour. I booked one of their standard packages, as part of a group they put together. Yes, they put together a group for us - but there were still only 4 of us. It was a truly brilliant 3 days and such good value! But I guess it was the luck of the draw - I was certainly expecting a slightly larger group!

Personally, I do not think you can go wrong with any of the well known tour companies in St Petersburg, whether you book a "private" tour for just your immediate travelling companions, or as one of the groups organised by one of the "private" tour companies.

No competition in our book - definitely Ephesus.

However, if it was my first visit to both, I would do both - but then we are not beach people. And you can't really compare Ephesus and Olympia, in my opinion.

We have done Ephesus twice, would not do Olympia a second time, but happy to have knocked it off our bucket list.

Just our experience....

We flew into Singapore 3 times between December 2014 and March 2015. Once from Christchurch, NZ, once from Sydney Australia, and once from Siem Reap, Cambodia. We had blood pressure medication for both of us, as well as pain killers and anti-nausea drugs. I always carry our medications in their original packaging, with all the chemist details attached, plus a list of prescriptions relevant to each of us. We just walked straight through Customs - there were staff there, but nobody stopped us to look at our bags or their contents, or ask us any questions about what we were carrying.

We are well travelled and in our opinion Iguazu/Iguassu/Iguacu Falls would probably rank as our number one WOW experience anywhere in the world. Machu Picchu is pretty amazing and worth doing, but there was something about Iguazu which put it right at the top. I think something to do with the fact it is dynamic and constantly changing, rather than static. And the sheer size of it. You should do both the Argentinian and Brazilian sides of the falls, as they are quite different views.

We are booked to return to Iguazu for a second visit next January (we were first there in December 2013), but we are unlikely to return to Machu Picchu, which we are just happy to have ticked off our bucket list!

But everyone is different and there is no predicting whether a place will have that same impact that Iguazu had on us.

We visited St Petersburg last year - we had 3 days there as part of our cruise, and used one of the major companies ashore for an excellent 3 day package.

In our experience on the first day it was quite slow to get through Immigration, and we were on a relatively small ship - less than 700 passengers.

I noted the timings in my trip diary for the first day in St Petersburg:

7.30am Ship berthed

8.20am We exited the ship, in the first couple of dozen people after the ship was cleared for disembarkation. We were met straight away by our tour guide, but had to wait for the other two members of our group, who did not come through immigration until 9.05am.

We had been given a meeting time of 9am, but we got off the ship as soon as we could because we didn't know how long immigration would take.

There were still plenty of others disembarking after 9am.

If your ship berths at 8am, disembarkation may not start until 8.45am, and if you have a number of people in your group, and a large number of passengers to disembark and be processed by immigration, then 9.30am could well become a realistic start time for your tour.

The tour guides will be familiar with the ships, their size and the berthing times. They adjust start times accordingly. Our tour order was adjusted from the draft itinerary in order to maximum the time we had. It was very well organised and the guide was excellent.

Hopes this helps!

We did a cruise with APT on the Amalotus in December. We had two nights in Siem Reap after the end of the river cruise. On the last day in Siem Reap we had "Freedom of Choice" excursions in the morning. There were about 8 different options to choose from, one of which was an elephant ride around the Bayon Temple. We were transported to Angkor by tuk tuk, then had about 35 minutes on an elephant. You could get your photo taken if you wanted. We enjoyed it very much. It was a different view of one of the Angkor temples from up there on the elephant, and it was quite relaxing.

Note, however, we were on a trip with APT, which included land and river cruise. We started in Hanoi for 2 nights, then had 2 nights on a Halong Bay cruise, flew to Saigon for 2 nights, joined the Mekong cruise for 7 nights, then finished with 2 nights in Siem Reap. Everything was included in the package, and there were no optional extra excursions, though there were choices of which excursion you wanted to do on a number of occasions.

There were people on the Amalotus who were only doing the river cruise, and they did not have the pre cruise time in Saigon or the post cruise time in Siem Reap. Though I believe there were people who did the cruise plus the time in Siem Reap, who had the the same options as us in Siem Reap.

All the options and inclusions were clearly stated in our documentation.

So I don't know what package you have bought? Anyway, if you have to do the elephant ride on your own, all you need is transport to the Bayon Temple, where people were just joining a queue for the elephant ride. The concierge at your hotel would be able to organise a tuk tuk for you. It would probably also be useful to know how busy the elephants were at any specific time - like when our big group showed up, so you don't have to waste time in a queue. I am sure your hotel could help with this.

Also note, our elephant ride was not at sunrise - it was mid morning. We went to Angkor Wat for sunrise the previous day and it was a big disappointment - not worth getting up at 4am! But we stayed on after the sunrise for a tour of Angkor Wat, which was absolutely amazing and well worth the visit! The sunrise was disappointing because of no colour in the sky - and there is no knowing in advance whether you are going to strike it lucky there!

Sometimes I think it is good luck rather than good management whether one gets bitten or not! Also time of year may make a difference. The biting insects usually love me, in whatever country I am in, and any bites I get nearly always get infected, with resulting swellings and weeping sores.

Last December we spent 3 weeks in Vietnam & Cambodia, on a land trip, with a Mekong River cruise. I didn't use insect repellent in Hanoi, Halong Bay or Saigon, with no issues. On the Mekong River cruise, the insects were obvious, particularly around dusk, so the insect repellent came out. The last couple of days in Siem Reap/Angkor I didn't use it and didn't see or feel any biting insects.

Last month we did a cruise from Singapore, visiting ports in Thailand and Malaysia. We had 3 days in Singapore prior to the cruise, and I got done on the first day, in the middle of the day! After that I took no chances and kept using repellent, though the insects weren't obvious at any port we visited. I don't know if I would have had a problem without the repellent.

I was more worried about dengue fever than malaria. Good idea to have insect repellent on hand!

We stayed at the Ibis on Bencoolen, which we were very happy with. Nothing flash and rooms are quite small, but clean and the hotel is conveniently placed for what we wanted to do - as I said we walked just about everywhere. Also used the trains a few times. Helpful and friendly hotel staff, free unlimited wifi. We got a good nightly rate via the Accor website.

No, you would not be handy to anything if you stay at an airport hotel, as the airport is quite a way out from the central city. This Ibis is easy to get to by train from the airport. Bugis metro is about a 5 minute walk from the hotel. The trains are cheap and easy to use. There are also plenty of shuttle and taxi options, if you are happy to pay more. There are eating and shopping options nearby the Ibis on Bencoolen. Note there is another Ibis in Singapore (Novena) which is much further out.

On our Uniworld Venice cruise we had three different mooring places, including Marittima.

When we boarded the River Countess was at Santa Marta. Then we moved to Riva dei Sette Martiri. When we returned to Venice towards the end of the cruise and for disembarkation we were berthed at Marittima. Riva dei Sette Martiri is a great spot, with good views and a pleasant walk to St Mark's Square. The other two were not special, without interesting views. At Marittima you really do get swamped by the big ocean cruisers! Uniworld are of course at the mercy of the Port of Venice

Hi Los_Pepes

We booked a category 3 stateroom on the Casanova deck, for the Venice trip, but were upgraded to a category 2, because we were previous Uniworld travellers and the boat was not full.

We are not in the habit of booking balconies or suites because we feel we do not spend enough time in the cabin to make the cost worthwhile. We do avoid the bottom deck on river cruises (on 3 level boats at least), because I believe they are noisier, and you are just too low in the water! We were very happy with our category 2 (I think we got a bigger window than we would have in category 3).

No, there was not much cruising on this trip, and when we cruised across the lagoon it was raining, windy and quite unpleasant. Otherwise we would have been up on the top deck, where we would usually go for 360 degree views. We were happy to be in the very pleasant inside public areas sometimes.

In a nutshell I personally would not find a balcony value for money on any river cruise, but of course everyone has their own likes and habits when cruising! Enjoy!

We were in Phuket earlier this month on Star Pride. We tendered in Phuket - to the floating jetty at Patong Beach.

Depends on your interests, of course.

We just got back last week from a cruise which started and ended in Singapore. We had 3 nights pre cruise and 1 night (2 full days) post cruise in Singapore. Could have easily filled another 3 days, at least.

We like to walk - a lot - some days we did 20kms on foot on this trip! Wandered various interesting areas of Singapore - Chinatown, Little India, Kampong Glam, Civic District, Fort Canning, Merlion Park and along the river, checking out the temples, mosques and all the other interesting buildings that around every corner. So many different things to see in such a small area.

We did the Singapore Flyer on a previous visit to Singapore, so didn't do it again, but it gives you some great views of the city.

We loved the Gardens By the Bay, even though we didn't get in the domes this trip. The Skyway through the Supertrees was great.

The Zoo, Night safari and Botanical Gardens are highly recommended. These we also saved for next visit!

If you like theme parks, there is Sentosa Island - not our cup of tea, we gave it a miss.

There is of course plenty of shopping! We found a completely different array of clothing available, compared to what we can get in NZ. We preferred malls like Raffles City to Orchard Road - again preference. The 24 hour Mustafa Centre was a mind boggling experience! If you do go up Orchard Road and you are into history make sure you walk up Emerald Hill Road, which is a lovely pocket of old houses.

http://www.yoursingapore.com/en.html is the official Singapore tourism website, with lots of ideas for you. I also recommend a good guide book, such as an Eye Witness guide. I did heaps of research via books and internet before we went.

Unusually I did not note in my trip diary what time we left St Mark's Basilica, or what time we got back to the ship, but I have dug out the Uniworld daily program and it states that the "late night snack" after the return to the River Countess was at 8.45pm. This was more than a snack, but we did not partake, having had an early buffet dinner before the departure to the St Marks!

We walked back to the ship, and were still first back. There were water taxis for those that didn't want to walk, but the late evening stroll through St Mark's Square and along the water's edge to Riva Sette Martiri where the River Countess was berthed, was lovely.

The after hours visit to St Mark's Basilica was a highlight of the trip. As well as the Basilica being free of other tourists, we got to go in the crypt, which is not usually open to tourists. We also had an excellent guide for the evening, Susan.

If they are consistent with their timings you should be able to make a 9pm concert. Enjoy!

Don't know whether this response is too late for you, but we just returned a couple of days ago from a Windstar cruise which had a stop in Port Klang.

We did a tour with the cruiseline. It was called "Skybridge Twin Towers & City Drive" and was US$99pp. We left the ship at 8.45am and got back at 4.15pm. The drive in and out from Port Klang to Kuala Lumpur took about an hour. Traffic was steady - we did not get jammed up anywhere.

Our tour included

- the National Monument

- Petronas Towers (included going up to the viewing levels on the Skybridge at levels 41 & 42 and up to level 86)

- time (about 45 minutes) in the 6 floor Suria shopping centre attached to the Petronas Towers

- time at the Central Market for shopping and lunch (we passed on lunch and went wandering around Chinatown, which is adjacent to the Central Market)

- walk a couple of blocks from the market to the confluence of the Klang & Gombok Rivers, where KL started as a settlement

- walk another block to Independence Square (Dataran Merdeka), which has notable buildings overlooking it, such as the Sultan Abdul Samad Building

We enjoyed this excursion and were happy with the KL highlights we saw during the day, and the free time we had to do our own thing. It was also an easy option, given the distance between Port Klang and KL.

We thought Padua the least interesting of the places we visited in the Venice area, but that of course was just our opinion. There were others who loved it! I can't comment on Chioggia, as we didn't spend any time there, but there were others on our trip who enjoyed the place.

Whatever you decide to do, enjoy! I am sure you will - it is such an interesting part of the world.