Best itinerary in South America?

[dbh62ark]

I've been off the boards for a few days (just a long weekend trip and hope you all had a great holiday too) and was pleasantly surprised to see additional information on this post.

 

Kevin, thank you for the notes on the HAL trip to the Falls as well as Rio and Buenos Aires, and I appreciate the information.

 

pkmedical, I'm glad you also were able to book the itinerary you wanted and hope you have a great trip.

 

Dileep, thank you for that information, and we found the same for our trip this year as well as the South America itineraries we've been looking at. I don't know if it's just group space that was held before Celebrity raised prices or what, but I'll take it! And we're seeing similar pricing situations for the other cruise lines. It seems it still definitely pays to shop around.

 

Thanks again for all the great input.

 

:)

Donna

[2greyhounds]

Greetings, well the rug (and the cabin) got pulled out from underneath us on the 11/20 HAL sailing. Obviously it just wasn't meant to be for this year, so Ray and I decided that there is always next year, and for this trip we went ahead and booked an Antarctica trip on the Orlova. We shall try to plan in advance for the next year SA trip, I would like to thank you all for your kindness in pointing me to various directions to get on this sailing. I shall be very happy to update anyone on the Antarctica trip if they so desire. Again, my thanks to all..........Heather

[dbh62ark]

I'm sorry to hear that things didn't work out for your first preference this year, but I'm glad you were able to find an alternative. We would love to hear from you when you return.

 

Have a great trip,

Donna

[xpcdoojk]

Greetings, well the rug (and the cabin) got pulled out from underneath us on the 11/20 HAL sailing. Obviously it just wasn't meant to be for this year, so Ray and I decided that there is always next year, and for this trip we went ahead and booked an Antarctica trip on the Orlova. We shall try to plan in advance for the next year SA trip, I would like to thank you all for your kindness in pointing me to various directions to get on this sailing. I shall be very happy to update anyone on the Antarctica trip if they so desire. Again, my thanks to all..........Heather

 

Too bad, I was hopeful to make your acquaintance. If you don't mind me asking how did the rug get pulled out from underneath you?

 

jc

[2greyhounds]

Greetings, well the tale goes as follows: spoke with TA - HAL fully booked, two choices of waitlist, (paid for the priority, since it would be applied to the booking)....asked him to keep working on it with other TA's because we really wanted this sailing...he called back and said that another TA gave him one of his group space cabins (balcony), a couple of hours later called me back and said that his TA was caught up in a sweep by HAL reclaiming all group space not yet assigned to passengers, since my information was not put in in time, we lost the cabin......obviously this is somewhat abbreviated to the actual phone calls that were going back and forth.....which is why ultimately I decided that if Ray and I could plan for 2006 then we would be more likely to get the sailing/ship of our choice. I usually do not like to 'hold' reservations if I am not positive about the timing, but based on lessons learned, I may do that since it would net me a significant savings on the cost of the room. (I was also told, that for those on the waitlist with HAL that may get lucky, the prices may go up to close to brochure rates!), which could be rather steep.

 

It really is a shame how it all worked out, however I cannot complain about the antarctica piece, I never in my wildest dreams thought that we would be doing that !!! so hopefully with all the penguins that i will see in Antarctica, maybe by the time we get to do the SA cruise, I won't be stressed out about which port of call has the best penguin viewing excursion!

 

I, too was looking forward to meeting you, still there are many cruises out there, and ultimately our paths/seas will cross...........

 

Many thanks...Heather

[xpcdoojk]

yikes, what a story. I know that cabins are often available thru a group, and I can imagine that the prices on a very popular sailing could be at a premium, but brochure prices, shudder the thought. My TA will allow me to book a cruise and cancel it up to final payment, as long as I rebook with them on another cruise with no penalty. The only downside is being without your deposit for a year. I honestly booked my cruise more than 21 months in advance, and I don't think you are too soon to be booking over a holiday like Thanksgiving now.

 

Good luck!

 

jc