Trece

We're on Ocean Princess at roughly the same time you're on Azamara and we'll be in Inchon two days after you. I've been looking for a guide company in a hit or miss fashion for two reasons: a) I've not found anyone on my thread interested in sharing tours and b) I'm not having much success with Japan, which is where the bulk of our cruise is, so I've been focusing on that country (one Japanese company quoted me US$1500 for a day tour! can you imagine?). Anyway I contacted Happymize and like you have to qualify my comments by saying I have not used them yet - but the "front office" experience has been extremely positive. Your itinerary appealed to us so I requested the "Sandra Martinez" itinerary! Anyway I just wanted to thank you for your response to the original post, it's been a big help to me. If you think you might be posting on Cruise Critic or could possibly e-mail me from your ship with any insights into your tour before I do mine, I wouldn't say no!! :) Thanks again for your post!

Seafun, Thanks for appreciating what a thrill this was for me! Though even for you I cannot post the photo DH took, because it's so AWFUL. I look like the groupie that I felt like! Our guide did try to arrange for us to meet him later in the tour (she had called him from Luxor & we were returning to Cairo at the end of the tour), but at the time he'd had a head or eye injury (I can't remember which) and had just returned to Egypt from having it treated in the US. He was most apologetic about still feeling under the weather, can you imagine? It was truly an amazing experience. P.S. If we ever share a repeat visit to Egypt, I promise I'll bring the photo for your private viewing LOL. :D

....because it was one of the thrills of my life and not too many people can appreciate it - but last year when we visited Egypt with OAT, our guide's family was old friends with Dr. Zahi Hawass. When I and another tour member acted like Dr. Hawass groupies when she told us this, she whipped out her cell phone and CALLED him, and we BOTH got to speak to him personally. That voice!! That passion!! Just like you see it. He asked us a lot of questions about our feelings about Egypt etc. It's still a highlight! DH took a photo of me on the phone talking to him, isn't that silly? :D

I'm glad to have been of help - I know I was floundering a lot when it came to research on this port. I do want to add that we were there in late September, so you are going to encounter a different situation in the summer, probably a lot more crowds (local as well as ship), for example. Be sure to check on cruisecal.com to see what other ships may be in port the same day so you see what some of your competition might be! Don't forget July 1 is Canada Day, venues may be closed or altered, and I'm guessing people may link their own vacations to the holiday like we do with July 4. You have a number of considerations we didn't have (unfortunately, none of them positive!) when it comes to tight timing. :eek:

BTW - are you from Boston?

Two If By Sea - First of all, please clarify in advance whether that crafts market in the terminal building is there all the time. We weren't told about it, we just stumbled on it when we returned, so there was no pre-planning involved in our seeing it.

Yes, we did also start with the fort. I don't feel we had enough time there, but I usually feel that way in any port! I suggested researching the tours offered there because I think you'll get the highlights quicker, and then give yourselves time to roam around. The costumed guides are really neat and they are happy to pose with you. As I understand it, during the summer months the tours are often & plentiful, then as fall approaches the number of tours drops, and I believe there are a few weeks at the end of the season where there are no tours at all & the site is entirely self-guided. You have to allot time to the fact that you are not dropped off on site, technically. Diane drops you at the visitors' center, where tickets are purchased, then you have to take a bus to the actual entrance of the site. The buses run often, but obviously it is a "time eater" to have to do this, ditto on the way back. There's no choice about this, it's nothing to do with Diane. Also, if you're tendering as we did, additional time is lost to the tender process. I realize I'm backtracking here a little, it's just that your available time isn't necessarily what it seems.

She called ahead from the car & reserved tickets for the Miners' Museum. I'm thinking that it was sometime about 1. There were no ship tours there at the time, basically it seemed to be just people with their own cars. Our guide was "Abbie" (yes, this is a male), a retired miner, and his presentation was WONDERFUL. Ask for him. The walking inside the mine is a little treacherous, I'd suggest a small flashlight would be helpful (don't bring something huge because it'll ruin the atmosphere). You have to wear a hard hat & cape. The website is minersmuseum.com.

You can do all of this and still have time for the crafts (if you've determined they will be there) if you skip lunch. I don't think the Miners' Museum restaurant offered takeout. The menu is on the website if you're interested. We had had a hot buttered rum and a cookie at Louisbourg - it's as if you are eating in a local tavern of the period - I'd suggest that and you'll be fine until you are back on the ship. If you eat at the museum restaurant, nice as it is, you'll be rushed.

Two If By Sea, I agree the more you know in advance, the better - I'm like that too - there are enough unexpected moments during travel as it is, better to be prepared for what you can be. If you have any other questions, let me know! :D

Sue1898 - My friend and I have come up with a classification system for guides we've had. We try to determine in advance what class they fall in, but we often are at their mercy. Only in countries where guides are regulated and you can ask "do you have a guiding license?" are we ever sure. To us, there are the "drivers" that basically take you from Point A to Point B to Point C. Yes, they do talk, and you learn about life in the area, some history etc. but you are on your own at the sites. And then there are the "guides" who basically are with you every step of the way & accompany you on site. We'd had very little information about Tartan in advance - but she's definitely a driver, not a guide, according to our classification. One expects to pay less for a driver than a guide. Diane was our highest quote for the entire cruise, and once the tax was added (everyone else had included it) she was far & beyond the highest. I say this with the understanding that local economies are different & one factor is that what you pay in a place where there is a lot of competition is not necessarily what you pay in a place where there aren't a lot of choices.

I know you'll both have a great time!!

Two If By Sea - Well, that's another kindof funky twist to our day, but with tours things are always played by ear a little bit so I'm not complaining about this, just stating fact. When we first started corresponding, the only place I knew we wanted to see was Louisbourg, and I asked for suggestions for the remainder of the day. SHE suggested Baddeck, Bras d'Or, and also said we could probably get to part of the Cabot Trail (ours was a 9-4 tour). We specifically said we did not want a full sit down lunch (enough food on the ship!!) but rather a quickie stop somewhere. She provided a rough outline of the day, including timing, and all seemed fine.

When we were picked up, she seemed a little vague on what we had discussed, and again, we tend to go with the flow, since we feel we are paying guides for their knowledge of the local area. We went to Louisbourg first and DH and I absolutely loved it, it's just the kind of place we like, and I would go back again if we return to Sydney. When we met up afterwards (as I indicated, she does NOT guide you, she just leaves you) she seemed to no longer want to go to Baddeck etc. but she suggested the Miners' Museum. Sounded neat to us (though why it wasn't suggested when we were planning our itinerary, I don't know), and she called ahead to reserve tickets for a particular tour. I thought we would stop for a bite as we had requested but now that we had a tour time, we had to keep going, which was fine. The Miners' Museum was very poignant and interesting and something we'd never done anywhere, so it was a good choice. Again, however, she doesn't accompany you, but the museum provides a guided tour.

At that point, however, I guess it was too late to get to Baddeck etc. as planned, so she decided we should eat at the Miners' Museum - but this turned out to be a full long sit down meal (nice restaurant, I might add - great food - nice owners) - we treated her (which we had mixed feelings about once the tax thing was sprung on us :rolleyes: ).

So - it was a fun day and a learning experience, but it bore little resemblance to the plans we'd made - which was OK, we got to Louisbourg and that's the main thing I wanted to see - but I don't know why she suggested certain places only to alter the itinerary at the end - there were no weather issues or anything like that - I do suspect we expended a lot less GAS on the itinerary we ended up with than the one proposed.

I'm not sure what month you'll be there, I understand Louisbourg has different policies about guided tours within the site depending on the time of year, so check in advance and be sure you join up with one. I hadn't really researched this because I thought Diane would be accompanying us, and found out when it was too late that there were guided tours. It's very neat because the guides/staff are all in costume.

You'll love both places.

Had I known we were only going to do two things, and were going to spend a lot of time on lunch, I'd probably have requested a shorter tour, OR would have spent more time at Louisbourg. Also, the port terminal building had a crafts market set up inside & there were some neat regional crafts. I would have allotted time for seeing that had I known. Also, considering that Louisbourg and the Miners' Museum aren't that far away (they are not nearby by any means, but certainly not as far as the Cabot Trail) and considering we really didn't receive any actual guiding, and admissions were not included anyway (be sure you research admissions to those sites, they were not inexpensive), I might have looked into the cost of hiring a cab for a certain number of hours, just as a comparison.

I don't want to imply it was a bad day because it most definitely was not! There was just a little more hindsight involved in this day than most other tours. If there's anything else you want to know, don't hesitate to ask. I can't stress enough that we loved Sydney.

Sue 1898 - I agree with you about the website.

Both of you - I can't say I'm surprised to hear you have both been told there is availability on the same day. ;)

Two If By Sea, That's good to hear. Even if she didn't respond to my e-mails when we got home, perhaps she realized that she hadn't in fact included that information in our correspondence, and got her act together. I do wish she had responded, it really would have been the appropriate thing to do and I don't think we would have been left with such a negative impression, and frankly, I'm self-employed and if someone had pointed out to me that I had failed to include something critical like that, I would have offered to refund the money. And if she HAD included it that information and I and my friend had just missed it, you would definitely think she would have responded and pointed out to us that we should be more careful, and we would have eaten crow. Her failure to respond was really the critical point.

I do think it's probably illegal to represent a sales tax being a higher rate than it really is but that's between you and her!

Have a great time! Sydney really is a wonderful place and believe me I didn't let my unhappiness with that issue sour me on Sydney or Nova Scotia. It was a great port and I'd love to go back!

We used Tartan Tours last fall for a group of four. I've been planning private tours for many many years so I'm familiar with what to ask and how to ask it, and my friend traveling with us has been planning even longer than I have and we both read each & every e-mail to be sure we don't miss anything.

Our tour was adequate, though Diane is more of a driver than a guide (she doesn't accompany you on site). That we could live with because that's something that's fairly unpredictable, and as you both pointed out, there is no website and not a lot of information on Cruise Critic. This turned out to be an issue at the end of the tour when we went to settle up and Diane asked for SALES TAX (I believe it's called HST) of 15% on our tour. This came to over US$50. We were stunned. When I protested, she said she "thought" she had mentioned it in her e-mails (note: this is where a website would have been useful, because there would have been one more source of information). My friend & I looked at each other & knew we had never seen any mention of tax, either numerically or in a general disclaimer, but with the ship departing soon, and not having a copy of each & every single e-mail with us (I print only the most important ones & also type a summary sheet with contact info, phone numbers, prices, inclusions & exclusions etc.) it was her word against ours, so we paid it.

I might add we used a licensed tour operator in Halifax NS on the same cruise and he did not add tax after the fact. I e-mailed him when we got home & he said not only is the tax rate not 15%, he'd never heard of adding it after the fact, that it was "normally" included in the pricing. I gather taxes vary by province in Canada but just as a note, our guide in Quebec did not add tax after the fact either.

When we got home, we each reviewed all our correspondence with Tartan Tours. I save every single e-mail, I still have them in fact. There is NO mention of tax of any kind or any language indicating it would be added after the fact.

I e-mailed Diane and asked for an explanation and received no reply. A second e-mail was not answered either.

I guess one could take the position that you go into a store to buy something and in most places you get tax added to your purchase and maybe I should have known?? Guessed? Asked? But as I indicated, my friend and I and our husbands have taken tours in probably 50 countries total and have never had tax added at all, especially an undisclosed one. There may very well BE tax, but I'm guessing it's folded into the quoted price.

Be sure you have everything documented with this tour operator down to the penny, and bring copies of every single communication.

:D Webegone, I know what Richard meant, it's just that when I read it the first time, quickly, the way it's worded I read it a different way. I was joking. ;) I'm thrilled for him, and I'm jealous too!

We powerful ladies are holding out for the Sisters of Hatshepsut meeting at 11! :D

Sekhmet - eight trips in three weeks? I should be so lucky!! :eek: Don't mind me, I'm just jealous - but when I first read it that's what I thought you meant!

Seriously - I think DH and I are suffering from Egyptosis too, since in anticipation of our 20th anniversary later this year, we replaced our original wedding bands with cartouche wedding bands, and exchanged them at Edfu. And - we have so many papyrus (papyri?) in our house that we had to resort to hanging the two newest ones in the bathroom. :D I think we are in danger of never recovering.

Seafun, I'm another one of your faithful readers, but it was only until your February 15 non-balloon day that my brain cells kicked in and I realized we were actually in Luxor at the same time! We disembarked our ship there on the 12th and then spent three nights at the Winter Palace. We'd done the balloon ride last year on February 14 (OK, everyone sigh, "how romantic") and back in Egypt again this year, we repeated it on February 13. I believe the balloons were also up on the 14th, so it must have been only on the 15th when the winds kicked up. I'm so sorry you didn't get to go! :( It's just amazing! Admittedly it's the luck of the draw what you see. Last year (Magic Horizon) we were over Hatshepsut and Valley of the Kings. This year (Sky Cruise) we were further south so we were more over sugar cane fields. It was different, and interesting, but I'd rather we'd been back over Hatshepsut!

This was our third tour in Egypt (4th time if you consider a day trip to Mt. Sinai from Israel). When we went the first time, I was sure it would be our only time (so many places to see in this world and so forth). However, the magic that is Egypt had us back last year, and again this year, and I know we will go back again, good Lord willing. And since you've been bitten by the same bug, frankly I think you'll go back too, and this time you'll do your balloon ride!

Not to end on a negative note, but during all the discussions about food and so forth, I wanted to remind everyone to watch what you eat on the plane ride home!! DH and I have never been sick in Egypt until last year, when he let his guard down on the Egyptair flight home. Think about it folks! Where does the food served most likely come from! He ate the salad on the plane - I didn't - he barely made it home from the airport before he was violently sick, and violently sick he remained for days. :p

Also, what you want to buy if you do get intestinal illnesses in Egypt is Antinal. We were told our American products are pretty useless against Egyptian bugs. It's an antibiotic but it's over the counter and only costs a few bucks. I'm not big on taking antibiotics even here for all the reasons coming to light about antibiotics being overprescribed, but I understand that our American intestines don't really stand a chance against what they come across in Egypt. It's so cheap I'd buy it at the first pharmacy you see in Egypt, and just keep it on hand. With luck you'll never need it and you can toss it when you get home. :D