118 days to go! Cruises, fuel charges, balconies...

The price of the cruise has dropped and fuel charges have been dropped from most providers as well!  We can get the balcony at a senior price for less than we booked the inside cabin!  Amazing!  I am on the Meet & Mingle list with other Royal Caribbean travelers and they talked about these discounts so I put them into play with Todd at Cruise Vacation Outlet!  A balcony is a great treat and we love having it, we just could not justify the expense at first.  So, now we have an UPGRADE for LESS!   This along with the rising US$1 with respect to the Euro will increase the stretch for our budget!  Every little bit helps! 

First and Last Hotel Information Has Arrived!

It is an exciting day for us because today we received the names and locations of our FIRST and LAST hotels on the Rick Steves portion of our Europe trip.  They look pretty great, fancier than we anticipated them looking.  We will be at the Ambassador City Centre Hotel in Haarlem, right near Amsterdam for the beginning of the tour.  It is great to get this information along with complete, detailed instructions on how to get to the hotel from the airport, which is just 30 minutes away by bus!  Our last hotel is in Paris, Hotel Beaugency we will be contacting this hotel as we want to spend an extra night there after the tour is finished.  This extra night will give us a chance to do some catch up on travel journals and to savor those last moments of the tour before heading south of France to visit the cousins.  We will return to Paris at the end of our trip to spend  week in Timeshare property just out of Paris but we will also enjoy staying in the heart of the "City of Lights" too.  

European Rail Pass~135 Days Until Departure!

We haven't had a lot of time to plan things due to holiday company and caring for "Uncle" in our spare time.  However, we are are almost ready to purchase our Rail Pass.  We have planned out our days of rail travel and specific trips.  I called Rick Steves Travel yesterday and they confirmed our thinking about which pass to purchase, and that actuality that buying a pass does save us at least $200-$400.  There are a lot of "ins-and-outs" that are somewhat unknown to us, such as last minute travel discounts certain days of the week, etc.  We are glad to have someone with knowledge and experience to call for advice on this.  We will be getting a Saverpass 2nd class ticket.  There is little difference with a 1st class ticket other than seat configuration; 3 plush seats per row in 1st class,  4 skinnier seats per row in second class.  Either way we can sit side-by-side and we don't need "plush" seats!  We want to purchase the pass before the end of the year as the price go up in January.  The pass is good for six months from the date of purchase and good for 30 days after the first use, which in our case will be May 23-24, after the scheduled tour with Rick Steves Travel.  In addition, we will need to book reservations two to three months out to be sure we can be on the particular schedules we have planned for.  Thankfully Rick Steves Travel can advise me on that too.  Departure is coming up so quickly for us!!!