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places january 1978 page 3 you fake your hotel along with you on a cruise by mel thomas to my way of thinking there is no place i would rather be than ontario in the summer but once labor day has come and gone and there is a decided chill in the morning air my thoughts turn south and to warmer climates where all you have to worry about is overexposure to the sun not whether the anti- freeze in your cars radiator will withstand the mornings subzero temperature and its still not too late to grab a few days or weeks in the sun all it takes is a call to your travel agent now some people swear by florida and thats fine but you can only visit mickey mouse and his friends so many times before the excitement begins to wear a little thin others head for jamaica or trinidad but there are more and more reports about surly waitresses and short changing bartenders as the people of these islands feel increased resentment towards wellheeled vacationers so i hesitate to gamble two weeks pleasure on the chance of having a miserable time but you can have the best of both worlds a visit to exotic sunny places and the knowledge that even if you run into poor service you wont be there long enough for it to ruin your whole vacation i the answer is to book yourself on a cruise and more and more ontarians are doing that every year that way you get to visit two three or even a half dozen sunny destinations and you take your hotel along with you cunard lines used to have a slogan and probably still do that stated getting there is half the fun on a cruise getting there is almost incidental most of the fun is on board ship whether its a cruise or a regular voyage between two points ship travel has a lot going for it from the moment you step on board you are surrounded by scores of people whose job it is to see that you enjoy yourself if youre like most people youll be operating on a fairly limited budget so you probably will have booked one of the less expensive cabins this will mean that your quarters will be a little cramped shipping companies have a knack for making cabins look a lot bigger in the brochures but that really isnt all that im portant because youu be spending relatively little time in your cabin anyway your time on board can be spent in a variety of ways nightly dancing is featured in the ships ballroom there are first- run movies costume parties bridge tour naments a wellstocked library enough to keep even the easilybored busy of course unlike many vacation resorts where the host or hostess has to justify his or- her existence by constantly coaxing you to take part in a rhumba marathon or whatever you can do as little or as much as you want on board your cruise ship nobody bothers you if you want to spend the entire cruise playing scrabble in your cabin feel free to do so or if all you want to do is lie out by the ships pool and soak up the sun no one will think anything of it like most vacations your diet will take a beating on a cruise ship many cruises bill themselves as a gour mets delight and live up to that promise with as many as five dilferent meals a day including a midnight buffet breathtaking elegance and if youve never before gone anywhere by ship your first meal aboard will be quite an experience the dining room looks like and for that matter is an elegant restaurant where themaitre d the waiters the wine steward and even the busboys are there to see that your every whim is attended to the menu looks like an abridged version of war and peace and what makes it particularly tempting is that since meals are included in the price of your ticket you dont have to worry about receiving a bill that would rival the cost of the montreal olympics you can make yourself feel a little less guilty about all those calories by promising to get up early every morning and jogging around the deck or working out in the ships gym and of course you wont another enjoyable feature of cruising is that there are various ports of call where you can spend the day ashore bargain- hunting for souvenirs and seeing the sights you can arrange for an escorted tour before docking or you can go it alone at your own pace like the man says how much you enjoy your cruise is entirely up to you the opportunities are there you just have to take advantage of them one thing is certain after a week or two in the sun the rest of this winter will be a lot easier to take tropical beaches are just one of the pleasures of a caribbean cruise both have advantages package tour or solo the choice is yours by tom douglas package tour or go-it- alone this is a question that we all must face when were planning that onceinalifetime holi day and like everything else in our society there is no easy answer to this problem each method of travel has its advantages and disadvantages the first drawback that springs to mind when you give consideration to the package tour is the 15 countries in 14 days rat- race that was satirized a few years ago in the movie if its tuesday it must be belgium that title by the way was lifted from an ex ceptionally welldone cbs documentary of several years previously in which one harried tourist asks a companion on a whirlwind tour what country it is that theyve just arrived in by tour bus if its tuesday says the equally harried second tourist referring to his timetable it must be belgium and yet its amazing how many people want exactly that kind of package at least until they get into the middle of it they figure that this might be their only chance to see europe or south america or wherever and they want to cram in as much as possible if this is your feeling as well then such tours do exist and youll no doubt get your moneys worth but be prepared for a hectic schedule stopping at the louvre in paris for instance just long enough to snap a photo of the mona lisa and the venus di milo therell be long drives bytour bus to get you to y f that particular city the next time you must also remember that when you go on a tour youre stuck with the other people on it for the duration your travel agent can make sure you get with a group which shares some of the 5- jjj the next country and while the tour companies try to make these rides as comfortable as possible a bus ride is still a bus ride some drawbacks there are several other disadvantages to the package tour you should keep in mind while deciding how to spend your travel dollar if you find a city you par ticularly like you cant just tell the rest of your group that they all have to spend an extra day there all you can do is make a mental note to spend your entire vacation or a goodly portion of it in same interests and is made up of people within the same age bracket as yourself but there are some definite advantages that a package tour has over going it alone in the first place because a tour means volume bookings it is probably much cheaper to travel in a group than on your own also if you are travelling during the peak tourist season a loner may find it difficult to secure a room on the spot and youll envy those tourists who arrive by tour bus and are whisked right into a reserved room the individual traveller also has to worry about making his own airplane train or bus connections in each country he visits and this means more often than not that you will have to have a fair working knowledge of the language and the monetary system on a package tour your planning has been done for you the tour com pany very likely has been in the business for many years and knows what the average traveller wishes to see they can save you muclu precious time which you would spend trying to find the sites that interest you on your own i have gone both routes the package tour and the individual itinerary i suppose if i were asked to advise the noyice traveller i would suggest that he take the package tour the first time and perhaps even the second then decide after that whether hed like to strike out on his own lone adventure there really is something exciting in the knowledge that you are in a strange country all by yourself and that you have to rely on your own initiative to make the trip a success youu no doubt run into difficulties but thats part of the adventure and youll be amazed no matter where in the world you are at just how friendly people can be i remember for in stance not realizing that november 1 all saints day is a holiday in many european countries my companion and i arrived in venice to find all the banks closed and no place to cash our travellers cheques a sympathetic car dealer who had remained open for business listened to our tale of woe and cashed one of the cheques at an inflated rate as it turned out but he would have been out of pbcket if the cheque was no good i also have fond memories of a motel owner on the sunshine coast in queensland australia who put us up for the night after we had had an accident with our motor scooter we had to ask him to trust us for the motel bill payment until we could get to a bank in brisbane travelling on your own affords you a better op portunity of meeting the people of the country youre visiting as- well one moroccan businessman i met on a bus between rabat and fez made my trip to north africa most memorable because he took great delight in showing me the sights i also owe a debt of gratitude to a japanese student who insisted on becoming my tour guide on a train trip around the northern portion of japans main island of honshu of course you have to be careful in selecting these travelling com- 1 panions j list as there are people here in ontario who would take ad vantage of a trusting visitor from another country there are un desirables in other countries who are more interested in the contents i of your wallet than in being hospitable as you become a more seasoned traveller you develop a sixth sense that tells you whether or not you should trust people but as with many things the best rule of thumb is when in doubt dont anyway if the farthest you have ever travelled is to buffalo or montreal and youre planning your first overseas adventure my advice would be to go the package tour route but if that 15 countries in 14 days pace doesnt appeal to you your travel agent can set you up with something of a more leisurely nature and if youve tried your wings once or twice and youd like to strike out on your own your agent can still give you invaluable ad vice on how to make advance preparations to cut to a minimum the chances of any foulups whatever method of travel you ultimately choose theres a whole world out there and your vacation choices are literally endless bon voyagel i i