Alaska Cruise Tour Before Or After You Cruise?

Though the land portion of both the Denali and the Yukon itineraries can be taken either before or after the cruise, we feel that it's better to take the land portion pre-cruise rather than post-cruise. Why? After several days of traveling around in the wilderness, it's nice to be able to get aboard a ship to relax and be pampered for a while.

Because of the distances that must be covered on some wilderness cruise tour itineraries, passengers often have to be rousted out of bed and ready to board the motor coach by, say, 7:30 a.m. And the day may seem to go on forever, with a stop to view this waterfall, or that river or mountain. Then, upon arrival at the next stop, in the early evening usually, the request is "Hurry and get cleaned up for dinner." By the time you've crawled into your new bed often quite late at night, you're beat. It's a nice kind of tired, as the saying goes, but it's tired nevertheless.

After a few days of that, it's great to get on a luxurious cruise ship, unpack just once and rise when you feel like it, comfortable in the knowledge that you haven't missed your transportation and that you'll still be in time to have a leisurely breakfast.

That, at any rate, is the conventional wisdom, and there's more of a demand for pre-cruise land packages than for post-cruise. Since the lines obviously can't always accommodate everybody on a land itinerary before the cruise (they're hoping to even out the traffic flow by having a like number of requests to go touring after the voyage), it's smart to get your bid in early.

Marleny is dedicated to writing about Alaska Cruises. Click Here [http://cruisealaskavacation.com/best-alaska-cruise-tours.html]. for more information and tips for your trip.

Travelling Europe by Rail - Things to Know Before You Go

Most people have in their long term travel view,a plan to explore Europe. One of the best ways I have found to cover the European continent is by rail. Depending on when you wish to travel, how much time you have for your vacation and how quickly you want to get from place to place will determine which type of train travel is best.

Most European high-speed trains now require you to reserve a seat and if you hold a rail pass usually the seat reservation cost is reduced. However getting the actual train that you want at your preferred time of departure can be the challenge.

Sometimes buying a point to point ticket can work out to be cheaper or a pretty similar price. For example in Italy you can travel from Rome to Florence to Venice picking up cheaper point to point tickets depending on the time of day you travel. If however you want lots of flexibility, and like to get off the beaten track then an Europe rail pass maybe just what you need.

A rail pass is certainly a great way to explore Europe as all passes allow unlimited travel within specified validity boundaries, on the national rail networks of a particular country. Because European countries' passes can vary you just need to be vigilant and check how long the pass is valid for (usually ranges from 15 days to 2 months) and the number of days that are allowed for actual travel (usually between 3 and 10 days).

Deciding how you want to get from place to place in Europe is the next thing. Do you want to go high speed like the ICE train in Germany which can reach speeds of 300 kilometers per hour or, take the slower option on regional trains like Trenitalia in Italy?

European high speed trains have a big advantage in that they are more direct, linking greater distances and reducing travel times by about one third that of regional trains. They also offer more flexibility, more frequent services, more comfort, but are also more expensive and a reservation is a must. Regional train services in Europe are of course cheaper and tend to include more stops and are less direct (maybe a need for train changes). They usually have the older style carriages with compartments that hold 6-8 people but on the plus side you generally do not need to make a reservation.

I have traveled on both high speed and regional trains in Europe and loved both. It really comes down to the amount of time you have to explore, but combining your train travel with a bargain airfare or, depending on your needs even first class airfares, traveling Europe can be a real trip experience.