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Fall & Winter 2024

septembre - décembre 2024
Combo trip journal ... including time with family in Türkiye; a Viking river cruise (Eastern European Capitals); more family time in Türkiye; and a TransAtlantic Cruise back home on NCL Encore. En savoir plus
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  • Fall & Winter 2024

    No Set Plans As Yet

    23 janvier 2024, Australie ⋅ ☁️ 63 °F

    Our 2024 Southern Hemisphere summer/fall travels — winter/spring back home in Colorado — brought us Down Under ... where we disembarked our cruise in Hobart, Tasmania yesterday to begin a 3½-month overland trip around Australia.

    Our Northern Hemisphere spring/summer travels will see us at home in Colorado. We are debating taking an RV trip or doing day-outings near home while we recuperate from our grand adventure Down Under. Decision TBD.

    Our Northern Hemisphere fall/winter travels will take us to Europe as they tend to do every year. That we will spend part of the trip with family in Türkiye is a foregone conclusion. As for the rest of our time overseas? Those plans are very much TBD at this point.

    Regardless of what we decide to do between September and December, this FindPenguins trip will share the story of those travels.

    Let the planning begin!

    [TBD, by the way, means "to be determined" ... just to clarify for those not familiar with the acronym.]    En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Fall & Winter 2024

    Eastern Euro Capitals with Viking

    31 janvier 2024, Australie ⋅ ⛅ 77 °F

    We're still in Tasmania.

    Should have been overnighting in Bicheno! Instead, we kept going and arrived in Prospect Vale … a suburb of Launceston.

    The change in plans gave us downtime this afternoon to work on 2024 travel plans for fall/winter.

    In 2022, we canceled our Swiss Alps to Paris river cruise with Viking. The reason? Concern over river levels during August. The cancelation did not hit us in the wallet. Instead, we were given a voucher for the entire fare … with a use-by date of 20 July 2024.

    So, today we deposited a French balcony cabin on the two-week long "Capitals of Eastern Europe" itinerary on the longboat Kadlin … a mid-October sailing on the Danube River ... Vienna, Austria to Bucharest, Romania.

    We are excited about finally dipping our toes into Eastern Europe!

    Keeping fingers crossed that there are no water level issues to deal with.    En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Fall & Winter 2024

    Airfare: USA to Türkiye via Canada

    21 février 2024, Australie ⋅ ☀️ 72 °F

    We've moved on from Tasmania to mainland Australia.

    At present, we are camping at the Bathers Paradise Caravan Park in Esperance, Western Australia. We spent today at Cape La Grand National Park ... words fall short of describing this amazing place. (Look it up if you don't believe me. Or check out this footprint that I published earlier today ... https://findpenguins.com/8pccjefaitoru/footprin….)

    But our sightseeing today is neither here nor there. At least with regard to our future plans.

    Instead, let me write about what we worked on this evening ... airfare to get us to Türkiye for the first part of our fall/winter trip. Didn't anticipate making a purchase. But a good deal on business class tickets changed that pretty quickly.

    We will once again fly to İzmir, Türkiye via Toronto, Canada as that gateway offered the least expensive fare. As always, there will be a layover in İstanbul before we reach our final destination.

    This time, however, we will be flying to Toronto on the same day as our Turkish Airlines [THY] flight instead of the day before. Makes sense actually ... and saves money. TK18 isn’t scheduled to depart from Toronto until 8:40p. Our United Airlines award tickets from DEN [Denver International Airport] will get us to Toronto by 3:11p. Plenty of time to make the connection.

    Plans for fall/winter are starting to take shape!    En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Fall & Winter 2024

    NCL TransAtlantic Back Home

    22 février 2024, Australie ⋅ 🌬 88 °F

    Moved north from Esperance to Kalgoorlie today ... still in Western Australia. What a difference 235 miles makes.

    Where Esperance is known for its turquoise waters on the coast of the Great Australian Bight, Kalgoorlie is known for its gold ... specifically for its Super Pit mining operation. We'll be touring the mine tomorrow.

    In the meantime, we put another logistics ✓ on our fall/winter travel plans ... this time to get us back to the USA.

    Fly or cruise? Quick or slow? We prefer to do a TransAtlantic cruise when possible, so slow is our usual modus operandi.

    But I had a dilemma this time.

    We had already stolen time away from our family visit in Türkiye by booking a river cruise in mid-October. Would we be able to find a westbound TransAtlantic leaving later than the usual October-November time frame?

    As it turns out, there were several from which to choose.

    After a lengthy debate, we settled on Norwegian Cruise Line's [NCL] 12-day sailing on Encore ... from Southampton, England to Miami, Florida … departing on 3 December.

    The ship is much bigger than what we prefer for cruising port-intensive itineraries. But it will work for a TransAtlantic with just a few ports of call. This particular itinerary has just three stops — Vigo, Spain; Lisbon, Portugal; Ponta Delgada, Azores (Portugal).

    It’s been ages since we were last on an NCL ship, so I really don’t know what to expect … except perhaps that there will be a lot of nickel and dimeing. Anyway, we booked a category BB veranda, so we’ll have someplace to hunker down if all the activities around the ship get to be too much.

    The bonus to this TransAtlantic is the price. Less than airfare in economy ... and much, much less than business class tickets. Yes, it will take longer to cruise back than it would to fly. But we are retired … we have the time to dally.    En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Fall & Winter 2024

    Cha-Ching: Viking Paid in Full

    27 février 2024, Australie ⋅ ☀️ 79 °F

    The news in Perth today — as we start to wrap up the RV trip that brought us clear across Australia — was the temperature.

    Not that the temps were above normal ... as they have been on and off during the past few weeks. Quite the opposite, in fact. With just two days left before summer turns to autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, it was five degrees below the norms. That’s a good thing!

    Returning to the campground after today’s sightseeing in Perth, I went online and paid off our river cruise on the longboat Kadlin.

    Yes, that’s slightly earlier than warranted. However, the next couple of days promise to be busy ... what with preparing to return the RV and moving to our AirBNB apartment in the city. It would not do to overlook the payment and lose the booking.

    I already have the new invoice showing the cruise paid in full.

    Another ✓ goes on our fall/winter travel plans.    En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Fall & Winter 2024

    Finally: THY Flying from DEN

    3 mai 2024, États Unis ⋅ ☀️ 72 °F

    The news is not unexpected! It just took a year or two for it to become reality.

    We learned of the commencement of the long-awaited THY flight from DEN to IST [İstanbul International Airport] early in April … while we were still in Australia.

    But bookings were not scheduled to open until 29 April. As well, we already had tickets via Toronto. “Best,” we thought to ourselves, “to wait until we get home in May to tackle what might be a complicated change.”

    We got home two days ago. And this morning, Mui and I sat down to discuss our options.

    On the minus side, our booked fare via Toronto was cheaper. And there could be a fee should we decide to cancel.

    On the plus side, flying DEN to IST nonstop would be easier. And it would eliminate the UA connection to Toronto … with the bonus of getting the miles — and taxes & fees — credited back for that flight cancelation.

    As we were debating the pros and cons of making the change, Mui asked if the schedule change we had received for the Toronto-İstanbul flight in February might work in our favor?

    True, THY allows no-penalty-cancelations when they make a schedule change. The question was … had we accepted the change already? I couldn’t remember. So, I logged into our booking.

    There it was. Highlighted by a red banner was the schedule change … and the offer to rebook or cancel the tickets if the new schedule didn’t work for us. Of course, there was no real problem with the schedule. But THY was giving us a loophole of which we could take advantage.

    As soon as I received confirmation of the cancelation and notice of the refund back to the credit card, I went to work rebooking the new tickets — DEN-IST ... and on to İzmir, our final destination in Türkiye. Choosing to fly a few days later than initial planned even netted us a bit of savings. Good deal!

    Once I had confirmation of the new THY tickets, I logged into Mui’s UA account and canceled the connection from Denver to Toronto. The miles are already back in his account; the refund back to the credit card is underway.

    Happy travelers we are!    En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Fall & Winter 2024

    NCL’s Military Appreciation Pgm

    7 mai 2024, États Unis ⋅ ☀️ 63 °F

    Saved a bit of money on the Encore TransAtlantic!

    We were still in Australia when we booked this cruise. Before doing so, I had checked for any discounts and came across their Military Appreciation Program. But it required Mui to verify himself through ID.Me to qualify.

    Didn’t want to mess with it then. So, the agent suggested getting the verification when we returned home. A simple phone call to NCL would then get the discount applied.

    We did that today.

    Admittedly, since our fare was low to begin with, the savings don't add up to much. Nonetheless, the re-faring falls into the “every cent counts” category.    En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Fall & Winter 2024

    Pre- & Post River Cruise

    8 mai 2024, États Unis ⋅ ☀️ 59 °F

    We always try to add time before and after a cruise ... be it ocean or river. The longer the better ... if we can swing the days.

    Before we could do so for the Eastern European Capitals river cruise, however, we had a few things to consider.

    First, how much more time we'd be stealing away from our family visit in Türkiye. Second, airline schedules ... especially important in this case because the budget friendly options we were considering had limited schedules to/from our embarkation and disembarkation ports.

    Today, we managed to bookend our river cruise with the appropriate dates. We'll be spending six days in Vienna prior to embarking the longboat Kadlin. And we'll stay on for two extra days after we disembark in Constanta and Viking transfers us to Bucharest.

    Now we just need to purchase our airfare and book our accommodations.    En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Fall & Winter 2024

    Vienna Pre-Cruise Logistics ✓

    9 mai 2024, États Unis ⋅ ☀️ 48 °F

    Our pre-cruise departure from İzmir to Vienna is set for 9 October.

    We'll be flying out of ADB nonstop on SunExpress. It's not often that we find a flight that works for us without having to go through İstanbul. Thus, this booking is worth its weight in gold.

    We've got our pre-cruise accommodations lined up as well.

    We prefer renting an apartment rather than booking a hotel if we are going to be in one place for more than two-three days. AirBnb gave us what we were looking for. That the apartment is a penthouse is a bonus! As is the accessibility of public transportation.    En savoir plus

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  • Fall & Winter 2024

    Bucharest Post-Cruise Logistics ✓

    13 mai 2024, États Unis ⋅ ☁️ 70 °F

    With our departure from Bucharest set for 30 October, another set of logistics for our river cruise got completed today.

    We were hoping that we could fly SunExpress nonstop back to İzmir. Unfortunately, this late in the season, the airline is no longer flying from Bucharest.

    Instead, we will be flying Pegasus Airlines ... with a layover at Sabiha Gökçen Airport [SAW] in İstanbul.

    Accommodations are all set as well.

    Since we're in Bucharest just two nights post cruise, we opted to book ourselves into the JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel. Convenient because this is where Viking is putting us up for one night after we transfer from Constanta, our debarkation port, to Bucharest.

    With our pre- and post-cruise logistics completed, I can now turn my attention to planning our sightseeing in the Eastern European countries we will be visiting on the cruise.    En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction