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What are the best vacation options for cruisers while we can't cruise, or even don't want to cruise for a while. I look at the 6 very best alternatives to cruising that draw on the best parts of cruising, what makes a cruise vacation and avoids some of the things that cruise passengers prefer to avoid on their cruising vacation. These are all things that I have done and feel are a great alternative to a cruise vacation right now.
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#CruiseVacation #VacationOptionsDuringCovid #VacationTips
00:00 Start
00:40 Water Options
02:20 RV Caravan Options
03:36 Curated Trip Options
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0:00
you're about to discover the six best
0:02
vacation alternatives
0:03
when you can't or don't want to go
0:05
cruising including what lets you pack
0:08
and unpack just once the things that
0:10
incorporate the best parts of cruising
0:12
without the worst and
0:13
one or two rather unusual ones that i
0:15
think cruisers will like i'm gary
0:17
bembridge
0:18
and i've been taking a look at what we
0:19
can do when we can't or don't want to go
0:21
cruising i ask people in my channel
0:23
about their plans for cruising and
0:25
surprisingly two-thirds of people
0:27
are not sure if they are going to go
0:28
cruising for some period of time so
0:30
we're all looking
0:31
for alternatives to cruising vacations
0:34
so i've taken a look
0:35
at what i think the six very best
0:37
alternatives for us who love cruising
0:39
are of course cruising is all about
0:42
being
0:43
on the water so are there any
0:44
alternatives that are open to us
0:46
that involve going on the water there
0:47
are actually three quite exciting
0:49
alternatives
0:50
first of all river cruising so when we
0:52
talk about cruising most of us think
0:53
about ocean cruising but river cruising
0:55
is operating
0:56
certainly across europe there are a
0:57
multitude of rivers you can cruise on
1:00
whether that's the dwara in portugal the
1:02
ryan the danube
1:04
and all the rivers are opening up so you
1:05
can go river cruising quite extensively
1:07
in europe of course
1:08
if you're traveling from the us or
1:10
australia we do need travel restrictions
1:12
to be lifted before you can do that
1:13
however if you are in the united states
1:15
you can also go river cruising as that
1:17
starts to open up
1:18
it's opening up particularly in the
1:20
mississippi but there are cruises right
1:21
down
1:22
in florida you can go and also in the
1:24
east coast inland where you can cruise
1:26
all the way from
1:26
jacksonville right up to baltimore so
1:29
river cruising is definitely an option
1:30
to take a look at
1:32
secondly if you are in europe
1:33
particularly in the uk
1:35
in france or in holland or you have
1:37
access to those countries
1:38
barge cruising is opening up so in the
1:40
uk you have the
1:42
narrow barges but certainly places like
1:44
france you have those great barges one
1:46
of which i went on last year with crossy
1:47
europe
1:48
where we cruised in this magnificent
1:50
barge which holds up to 16 people so
1:52
barging is a big opportunity european
1:54
waterways has opened up
1:56
where they offer the chance to actually
1:58
charter entire barges yourself so
2:00
six or eight of you can go as a family
2:02
unit off barging if you're worried about
2:04
mixing with other people
2:05
cruising on lakes is also a great
2:07
opportunity this is particularly
2:08
relevant if you're in the united states
2:10
where there are some amazing cruises
2:12
around the great lakes which are opening
2:14
up take a look at
2:15
victory cruise lines because they offer
2:17
a myriad of lake cruising options
2:20
one of the great things about cruising
2:22
of course is you can unpack
2:23
and pack just once so what are our
2:25
alternatives here there's one really big
2:27
one that is taking off enormously and
2:29
that's
2:30
traveling by rv or by caravan i read
2:33
some data other day that the sale and
2:35
higher of
2:36
rvs those mobile motorhomes has grown by
2:39
over 180
2:40
in the us and we've seen the whole
2:42
explosion around europe of both rvs and
2:44
caravans the great thing about that is
2:47
of course you you have effectively a
2:48
cabin like you'd have on a cruise ship
2:50
you can move around different ports
2:52
without packing and
2:53
unpacking uh obviously there's a bit of
2:55
setup the great news about those is also
2:58
you can travel as a family unit
2:59
the actual caravan parks or rv parks
3:01
already are socially distancing because
3:02
you have a little
3:03
patch of ground but also it's a very
3:05
social activity so you'll find there's
3:07
lots of people being very friendly so a
3:09
lot of those things that you get on
3:10
cruising with a sense of community
3:12
and being together so it captures all
3:14
the good things about cruising
3:15
ability to move around see different
3:17
places with unpacking and packing just
3:20
the one time a group of friends of mine
3:23
just last year
3:24
actually hired an rv and traveled the
3:25
whole way across
3:27
canada over a couple of weeks so this
3:29
shows you that you can really have a
3:31
fantastic
3:32
time doing an rv vacation and recreate a
3:35
lot of the things that you have with
3:36
cruising
3:37
the third thing that cruising does of
3:38
course is cruising is a kind of a
3:40
curated
3:41
travel experience the itineraries are
3:43
chosen you're given a range of
3:45
activities to do
3:46
your accommodation is all organized you
3:48
have to worry about dining because
3:49
that's all laid on
3:50
so what is the best alternative for that
3:52
a really great alternative and something
3:54
that i've done
3:55
a number of times is to actually go on
3:57
an escorted
3:58
tour now there's two different ways you
4:00
can do that one of the ones which is the
4:02
most classic one is a bus
4:03
escorted tour so i've been on a score of
4:05
tours with companies like
4:07
titan travel for example out of the uk
4:10
i've also done some with latin roots but
4:12
you can also do those domestically
4:14
if you don't want to travel
4:15
internationally and across borders the
4:16
great advantage of
4:18
a escorted tour is you have a tour guide
4:20
and a driver
4:21
the whole activity is laid out the
4:23
excursions are included
4:24
they've normally sorted out all your
4:26
dining options you'll find that
4:28
accommodation is all sorted so you
4:29
basically can sit back
4:30
go with the flow and pretty much like
4:32
i'm cruising you don't have to make many
4:33
decisions another alternative which is
4:35
one that
4:36
really appeals to me enormously is you
4:37
can also do that by train
4:40
so there are companies for example great
4:42
rail journeys
4:43
where they organize a huge wide range of
4:46
escorted tours but
4:47
using trains instead of buses so for
4:49
example you can travel a whole way
4:50
across the united states
4:52
using a combination of different trains
4:54
you can travel around
4:56
the uk europe wherever so again it's the
4:59
same
4:59
approach you have a tour guide all your
5:01
accommodations organized or
5:02
excursions organized everything's
5:04
bundled in as a cost so definitely
5:06
take a look at escorted tour options
5:08
with it's internationally
5:10
or even domestically definitely a
5:12
fantastic alternative
5:13
i've had some brilliant times on
5:15
escorted
5:16
bus and train journeys for me another
5:19
one of the appealing things about
5:20
cruising is the sense that you're
5:21
traveling on these magnificent
5:23
and significant forms of transportation
5:25
so of course it could be as exotic
5:27
as something like the queen mary 2 which
5:29
is a big classic and the only liner in
5:30
the world
5:31
where you can whisk between the uk and
5:34
the us on the classic transatlantics but
5:36
it might also be that you want to go on
5:38
a really
5:38
modern and new ship like the whole
5:40
celebrity apex celebrity ed ships or the
5:42
certain ships that you just really like
5:43
or you enjoy the big massive resort
5:46
ships that you would have on royal
5:47
caribbean or norwegian
5:48
or whatever it is but it's around the
5:51
ship itself the transportation and of
5:52
course
5:53
there are also some amazing things you
5:55
can do when you can't go
5:56
cruising a lot of those i would also
5:58
recommend you focus looking at
6:00
trains there are some phenomenal train
6:01
journeys and certainly as a cruise lover
6:03
i've been on some incredible
6:04
train journeys so for example in
6:06
australia going on the gan
6:08
all the way from darwin right down to
6:09
adelaide through the center the red
6:11
heart
6:12
of australia going to places like alice
6:14
springs you can also do the indian
6:16
pacific where you go from perth
6:18
to sydney in europe you've got of course
6:21
the famous orient
6:22
express in south africa you've got
6:24
robots rail which are these beautiful
6:26
old carriages pullman carriages from the
6:29
30s 40s and 50s which have been
6:31
recreated and restored you have the blue
6:33
train
6:34
as well another iconic trip all around
6:36
the world you have classic and famous
6:38
trains you have the trans
6:39
siberian express through russia you have
6:41
the eastern orient which
6:43
travels through thailand of course with
6:45
international travel restrictions
6:46
at the spring time you may not want to
6:47
do some of those exotic ones but you may
6:49
find close to you there are some classic
6:51
and
6:52
famous train journeys so for example in
6:54
canada
6:55
you have the magnificent rocky
6:56
mountaineer which is one of the most
6:58
magnificent
6:58
journeys that i've been on depending on
7:00
the type of trip you choose you're
7:02
either going to have those where you
7:04
sleep on the train so
7:05
you actually sleep across the whole time
7:07
on things like the gan
7:08
the indian pacific rovers rail blue
7:11
train
7:12
you'll find on some other trains where
7:14
you actually don't sleep on the train
7:15
overnight you actually get off the train
7:17
and stay in hotels next to the station
7:21
itself
7:21
so for example on the rocker mountaineer
7:23
you travel on the train during the day
7:25
you get off in the evening to go and
7:26
stay in a local hotel get back on the
7:28
train
7:28
and the same is also true often with
7:30
many of the royal scotsman journeys
7:32
through scotland so take a look at big
7:34
iconic
7:35
forms of travel one of the options you
7:37
could have within this whole category
7:39
is bear in mind there's a number of
7:40
famous ships that have turned into
7:42
hotels
7:43
so in dubai you can stay at the qe2
7:46
the old famous classic qe2 which has
7:48
been turned into a hotel
7:50
in holland you have the absolute famous
7:53
rotterdam which is one of their famous
7:55
classic ships which has been turned into
7:57
a hotel and of course in the u.s you
8:00
have the original queen mary
8:01
which is down in long beach so there is
8:03
choice of actually staying on a ship
8:05
even though you're not heading out to
8:07
sea another key aspect
8:09
for me anyway when i go cruising is the
8:11
fact that whichever place you go to
8:14
there is a myriad of different things
8:15
you can do
8:16
a wide range of excursions you can do so
8:18
you'll go to a specific port a specific
8:20
place
8:21
and you can go on activity excursions
8:22
you go on cultural excursions
8:24
you can go and find out more about the
8:26
culture the food whatever
8:28
it is whatever your interests are and
8:30
one of the things that i've certainly
8:31
been doing a lot of and
8:32
doing in you know many many weekends
8:34
away is
8:36
finding places that are not that far to
8:37
travel to and going for a kind of a city
8:40
or a country or a destination break and
8:41
effectively recreating
8:43
that whole port kind of experience what
8:45
i've been doing and what i've found
8:47
is i've been avoiding the big hotspot so
8:49
avoiding going to the beaches and places
8:51
like that
8:51
where there's gonna be lots of people
8:52
and looking for hotels are
8:54
dotted around the country or locally
8:56
that are doing deals we'll find as
8:57
hotels are opening up you're gonna find
8:59
that fantastic
9:00
deals so they normally include you'll
9:02
find often a dinner
9:03
a bed and breakfast rate so similar to
9:04
being on a a cruise where you have your
9:07
meals and accommodation included but
9:08
then what i'm doing is picking a place
9:10
and then effectively building a range of
9:12
excursions so assuming it's almost like
9:14
an overnight
9:14
in a port so for example recently stayed
9:17
near oxford and did things like going to
9:18
blenheim palace
9:19
went and explored the old castle and the
9:22
prison on another excursion went on a
9:24
big cycling
9:25
excursion all around down through the
9:27
various canals
9:28
and the waterways there went out on a
9:31
sort of
9:32
explored the food and sort of went on a
9:34
foodie excursion so picking places
9:36
heading off there doing a kind of a
9:38
combined and a bed and breakfast
9:40
and then building a series of excursions
9:41
a great thing about that is also you can
9:43
help support
9:44
the local economy close to the country
9:46
you live or where you live
9:48
and also many of those tour operators
9:50
which have lost international travelers
9:51
are really excited
9:52
when you go back and try and build
9:53
excursions around the place that you're
9:55
visiting
9:56
one of the big attractions for many
9:58
people on cruising
9:59
is the fact that they're going to a
10:01
resort so particularly if you're
10:02
cruising on things like msc cruisers
10:04
some of their newer ships or
10:06
some of the big new norwegian cruise
10:07
line ships or royal caribbean ships
10:10
there is an enormous amount of resort
10:12
type activities
10:13
crammed onto those ships so of course
10:15
one of the
10:16
alternatives for vacations if you like
10:19
those is looking for all-inclusive
10:21
resort vacations now i guess before the
10:24
whole pandemic las vegas was one of the
10:26
big
10:26
options however a lot of people are
10:28
nervous about going to las vegas so seek
10:29
out and look for
10:30
some of those more all-inclusive resort
10:32
places and there are many companies
10:34
around the world
10:35
that cater for those whether it's
10:37
traveling cross-country
10:38
whether it's within your local country
10:40
but you'll find a resort
10:42
all-inclusive is going to recreate many
10:44
of those things and the reason i say
10:45
that is also
10:46
particularly if you've got kids those
10:48
resort venues
10:49
have kids clubs and so you can recreate
10:52
one of the
10:52
strongest things that i know many
10:54
families like is you have a wide range
10:56
of activities for everybody but very
10:58
importantly
10:58
you have kids clubs while we can't
11:01
cruise or don't want to cruise
11:03
of course we still want to vacation
11:05
until we head back to see
11:07
when we feel it's right for us these are
11:09
the alternatives to vacation that i've
11:11
certainly been looking at
11:13
whilst i can't cruise hopefully these
11:15
gave you some inspiration
11:17
and you find the found these really
11:18
really helpful i'd love to hear
11:20
what you think bear in mind i have loads
11:23
more videos packed full advice and tips
11:25
of all sorts of
11:26
travel and cruising so why don't you
11:28
watch another one of those
11:29
right now
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