Travelers' Intercom

March 2012 issue

Recommendations in Wales
From a trip to Wales and southwest England that my husband, Jim, and I took, here are some recommendations of low-cost lodgings.
June 2004 issue

Online cruise agency recommendation

I would like to recommend an online cruise agency that I use, iCruise.com (127 W. 25th St., 12th Floor, New York, NY 10001; phone 888/909-6242). I have booked three cruises with them and find them very efficient and reliable.

Their pricing is very competitive and their website is very easy to navigate. It offers a “Price Tracker” feature (accessed by clicking on “myIcruise”) which will notify you by e-mail if the price on your ship goes down. I saved $200 per person using this feature to book our last cruise, a March 21, ’04, sailing of the Norwegian Dawn. The savings of $200 per...

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June 2004 issue

Hanoi’s transformation

A reader in the March ’04 issue, page 48, correctly places Hanoi on the “Favorite Cities” list, but to state, “Hanoi, on the other hand, has changed very little in the past 30 years,” is inaccurate. The changes we noted between our trip in February ’93 (the year before the U.S. established diplomatic relations with Viet-Nam) and trips in October ’02 and March ’03 were monumental.

In 1993, traffic in Hanoi consisted of mostly bicycles, some motorbikes and few cars. Also, accommodations were sparse. Our hotel reservations were mysteriously canceled and we were rebooked in a downtown “...

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September 2012 issue

Global Entry program ‘how to’

Going through passport control and Customs when reentering the United States can involve long lines — not our favorite way to end a wonderful trip. Recently, my husband and I eliminated the need to stand in those long lines. Interested?

While in the passport control areas of airports, we had noticed the signs reading “Global Entry.” This is “a US Customs & Border Protection program that allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers.” Coming back to the US from a cruise in April ’12, we decided that there are now enough participating entry points to make the...

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July 2004 issue

Day cruise in Fiji

My husband and I began planning our January ’04 trip to Australia and New Zealand about a year ahead. Several people mentioned that a stopover in Fiji would be a good way to end it. About that time, we read about a “Whale’s Tale day cruise.” We had our trip coordinator, ElderTreks (Toronto, Ontario; phone 800/741-7956), check it out and then made arrangements to include it in our trip.

On the morning of Jan. 22, we were picked up at our hotel in Nadi, Fiji, at 9 and entertained on the short bus trip by Mike, who was to be our guide for the day. We went through the check-in process...

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July 2004 issue

Budapest dining, train

• The restaurant Karpatia Etterem es Sovozo (Inboda Ferencier Tere 7-8, Budapest, Hungary; phone 0036-1-317-3596) is located in Buda, not far from the Danube. This elegant, old restaurant has it all: a variety of excellent food plus ambiance, music and reasonable prices (at least, for Americans and Brits).

The cost for dinner for five people, including wine, dessert and tip, was 29,200 florints (about $26) per person in April ’04.

The musicians, who strolled to different tables part of the time playing requests, played everything from “Hora Staccato” (my favorite) and...

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January 2012 issue

Italy villa, France cruise

For our 50th anniversary, my wife, Judy, and I took our children and grandchildren (11 people in all) for a two-week vacation in Italy.

I rented Villa Aquilea (contact Jim and Katie Edmunds, 3585 Longwood Ave., Boulder, CO 80305; phone 303/494-1581 or, during the season, to Italy at 011 [39] 333 668 8968), which I read about in ITN (April ’10, pg. 71). The rental price for the week we stayed there, June 18-25, 2011, was $6,800.

Located high on a hillside overlooking the charming walled town of Lucca, Villa Aquilea was built more than 200 years ago. The three-story...

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August 2004 issue

District Six Museum, Cape Town

In Cape Town, South Africa, the District Six Museum (25A Buitenkant St.; phone 461-8745) memorializes an important chapter in that country’s history — when an entire neighborhood was bulldozed at the height of apartheid. Being a civil rights activist, on my trip in March ’04 I was attracted to this museum.

Forty years ago, Cape Town’s Sixth District, near Table Bay, was a mixed-race, multiethnic, working-class neighborhood. An estimated 60,000 people — Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Hindu — lived there. Several times the white supremacist government had ordered the district to be...

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