Tavelling from Toronto

[letsgoeverywhere]

We are finally concentrating on booking the Magnificent Europe or similar river cruise for 2008 and still have a few questions.

 

Have any fellow Canadians used a US based travel agent through their internet site and were there any drawbacks? We do not feel our local agent is offering anything special - we have a minimum of three and may have as many as seven couples.

 

If you book your own air I think we can still buy transfers from the cruiseline but would it be difficult to arrange your own transportation in Budapest or Amsterdam?

 

Thanks in advance for any comments.

[Wild Blue Yonder]

We cruised on the Amadagio a year ago from Budapet to Amsterdam and did our own air. The tranfers were no problem at all. The taxi in Budapest from the airport to the ship was, if I recall corectly, $ 35. In Amsterdam the ship is docked very close to hemain train station from where a special bus runs to the airport every 15 minutes or so. You could actually walk but with all the luggage we took a taxi. Doing your own transfers is much cheaper than buying them from the cruise line.

[letsgoeverywhere]

Thank you Wild Blue Yonder. Still waiting for comments on using an internet site based in the US by Canadians. Our local agent is using some scare tactics since they cannot match the price. The booking agent has been used by many on this Board.

[paterry]

We live in Toronto and have booked a number of ocean cruises through a travel agent in the U.S. We have had no problem and our tickets have arrived via priority post. I would suggest booking with a credit card that offers some form of guarantee, just in case there is a problem with the company. But if it has a good record you should be fine. I would be happy to recommend the travel agent we use in the states, but he is a cruise specialist and really only deals in ocean cruises.

Good luck - I know however you book you will have a wonderful time!

Pat

[ianj]

We're just southwest of Toronto and have booked the last 5 or 6 cruises & with Travelocity.com, they have a canadian site but it was always less expensive to pay in US dollars. Never had a problem with cruise docs, they have always arrived a few weeks before.

We've booked some flights with them but generally shop around for the best deal from the airlines direct, tickets are almost always etickets.

[letsgoeverywhere]

Thank you so much for the positive response!

[letsgo39]

We are finally concentrating on booking the Magnificent Europe or similar river cruise for 2008 and still have a few questions.

 

Have any fellow Canadians used a US based travel agent through their internet site and were there any drawbacks? We do not feel our local agent is offering anything special - we have a minimum of three and may have as many as seven couples.

 

If you book your own air I think we can still buy transfers from the cruiseline but would it be difficult to arrange your own transportation in Budapest or Amsterdam?

 

Thanks in advance for any comments.

 

We did the Avalon Magnificent Europe cruise Budapest to Amsterdam July 7 to July 22 and booked through affordabletours.Everything worked out great!

[2escape]

Will provide the info when we return home next week, and I can check my file. Happy to oblige, if that is not too late for your purposes.

[lizard14]

No problem. I'm assuming I've got lots of time to look for flights - we have to fly out on May 28/08. But if I could get a good deal, we'd book early.

[letsgoeverywhere]

Felt so reassured by comments here we have booked the new Amacello through Tim for September 2008. Did anyone purchase cancellation insurance? I am told we need to purchase from an agent licenced to sell in Ontario?

[lizard14]

We aren't going to buy separate trip cancellation insurance as we are going to pay for the trip with our gold Mastercard which we pay a yearly fee for travel insurance through it. Even having to pay 4% extra for using the card, it is still cheaper than buying travel insurance. And I just checked the info. from the credit card & there is nothing saying that it only covers trips through Canadian travel agencies.

[letsgoeverywhere]

Lizard14 - we plan to use our gold card too but it has $5000 per account limit and they do not offer top up insurance. We would need to purchase it elsewhere. Any suggestions?

[lizard14]

Lizard14 - we plan to use our gold card too but it has $5000 per account limit and they do not offer top up insurance. We would need to purchase it elsewhere. Any suggestions?

 

I called Tim & to ask him another question & also talked to him about travel insurance. He said you could purchase travel insurance through Amadeus. I'll give you the link below that will take you to the Amadeus webpage with their Travel Protection package.

 

http://www.amadeuswaterways.com/reservations.asp?page=tvlpro

[letsgoeverywhere]

Just to let you know our friends called Amadeus directly and was told they could not sell insurance to non-US residents. We have just purchased top up from RBC and our friends are using PC Financial.

[lizard14]

Thats good. As long as you've found some insurance. When I talked to Tim, he told me what Amadeus charges for insurance & I did the math & decided it was slightly cheaper paying the extra 4% with our credit card. We have a $15,000. credit limit on our credit card, so that will work. Whatever works to help you have peace of mind!

[letsgoeverywhere]

Just to clarify, our cc limit for charges to the card is well above the cruise cost but the maximum liability they will pay out for a cancellation claim is $5000 per account - don't you love the fine print! My husband and I each have a card with different numbers but it is the same account and as such we had to top up coverage.

[lizard14]

Yep, you're right about the fine print! Ours has a $5000 CAD limit too. I've already paid the $800 US deposit with the credit card. We have the travel medical coverage already through my husbands business and would mainly be needing trip cancellation coverage. I called our bank (BMO) & to get trip cancellation, you have to first pay for medical coverage which we don't need. I just talked to someone at CAA & we could get coverage through them for $387. My husband has coffee every morning with a retired insurance broker who does alot of travelling so he's going to talk to him about it. At least we don't have to make final payment until Feb. 29th so we have time to look into this. I think we'd probably pay the plane tickets through the credit card & get coverage for the trip through CAA or someone else.

[ianj]

We booked a trip to Mexico last year through 'vacationoutlet.com' in New hampshire and although I wasn't too impressed by their service, fortunately we paid for trip insurance with a company called Berkleycare in California (first time we've ever bought trip insurance).

Somebody must have been looking after us because my wife became ill and we were forced to cancel. Berkleycare handled it all efficiently and we received full refund for flights and vacation, all refunded in US dollars.

[jwelsh2]

Hello Traveling from Toronto. Hi there, Just wanted to mention that we have heard it only takes 5 cabins to obtain a group rate with Viking. Your agent might consider setting it up. Good luck.

[letsgoeverywhere]

Thanks jwelsh2, we have four cabins confirmed and are working on number 5!

 

We are also interested in a reply to the airfare question posted by lizard14 to 2escape.

[2escape]

We are home now and have had a chance to check our file. We booked a Delta direct non-stop flight from JFK to Budapest for $325.75 USD pp. Our flight was in mid-October 2006, and we secured the booking in late February 2006. We booked online with www.airfarestore.com . We flew AC to LaGuardia and took the shuttle to JFK.

Hope this helps...:)

[lizard14]

We are home now and have had a chance to check our file. We booked a Delta direct non-stop flight from JFK to Budapest for $325.75 USD pp. Our flight was in mid-October 2006, and we secured the booking in late February 2006. We booked online with www.airfarestore.com . We flew AC to LaGuardia and took the shuttle to JFK.

Hope this helps...:)

 

Thanks for the info! Wow, thats a steal! And its quite a bit ahead - almost the time frame that we're at now. How complicated was it taking the shuttle from LaGuardia to JFK?

[cmthomas]

2escape, thanks for the link. I just checked my airfare for a river cruise in 6 weeks (air already purchased last February) and they came in $200 pp less with all taxes etc included. I booked mine on Cheapseats. Flying on United/Lufthansa. So much for Cheapseats. I now have a NEW place to look and book!

 

Clarence:)

[2escape]

It was easy to find the shuttle location. We had just missed one shuttle, so had to wait about a half hour, but we had lots of time between flights. We checked online (www.nyairportservice.com) and had the info on timing, cost ($13 USD one way pp) etc.. Not many people on our shuttle (it was a weekday, late morning as I recall) so it was easy to manage our luggage.

[letsgoeverywhere]

Thanks for the flight info 2escape. We will start checking flights as soon as next year's dates become available. I see Air Transat flies to Amsterdam from Toronto but we would then need a connection Amsterdam to Budapest for the start of the cruise. Any comments would be appreciated.