Voted now!
Thought I had, but dont think I clicked the dot hard enough and was distracted at the time. lol
Vote def for Balkans also, but as I said dont mind. If dates no good I am thinking of Egypt or perhaps China.

Cant wait for the Vodka!
Ps There is a small restaurant in Melbourne called Borsht, Vodka and Tears. It has Polish/Russian food and over 50 different types of Vodka. All this talk of Vodka makes me think that I should book there for my birthday to get ready for Russia.

If the President's Tour should finish up being the Balkans tour, and if the tour is extended to finish in Budapest, then we would certainly be interested in adding on the Hydrofoil river trip from Budapest to Vienna. This would extend the tour for us by another day without Insight having the extra day extension as part of their itinerary and it should be an interesting trip down the Danube via Bratislava.

The hydrofoil runs every day departing Budapest at 9am (with check-in 1 hour prior) and arriving Vienna at 3.30pm

The trip takes about 6.5 hours, has a guided commentary of the sights of the journey (Budapest - Vac - Visegrad - Nagymaros - Esztergom - Sturovo/Parkany/ - Komarom - the Gabcikovo channel - Bratislava - Devin - Hainburg - the Freudenau channel - Vienna) and there is an on-board snack bar with cold dishes and drinks. The 2009 fare is 89 Euro and I feel that it might be a pleasant way to end the tour making it a finish in Vienna.

See: Budapest-Vienna Hydrofoil Lines

Hi Dragon - are you called Dragon because you are a St George man?

I don't think there's much doubt that the trip will be the Balkans tour and I really like your Hydrofoil trip. Here's hoping the dates and prices are okay for me.

That idea sounds great.
I was interested to see that the trip passes Devin Castle. We visited there from Bratislava and it was WONDERFUL. I can recommend it for those going to Bratislava at another time.
Beautiful views of the Danube and the countryside and very historically important area. A very tiny but interesting museum and good signage at points of interest in English.
It will be nice to look at it from a different direction. (If fortunate enough to venture on this trip)I havent been down the danube this far before.

See: Devin Castle Slovakia



3Card3bVienna-Budapest_173.jpg (103 KB, 6 downloads) View from the top of the ruined castle

quote:

Originally posted by margaretc:
Hi Dragon - are you called Dragon because you are a St George man?

Hi Margaret

No I am not a St George man. More of a Nights man.

"Dragon" comes from the fact that I was born in the Year of the Dragon.

Aaaah, that solves that one. My husband has one red eye and one white one so I thought anyone with the nickname Dragon had to be a St George man too!!!!

Well folks, I know we will probably not hear anything back from Insight until about August and I understand the reasons behind that, however I, like many others, am really keen to hear SOMETHING back about the 2010 BB tour.

If we assume that the 2010 BB tour will be the Balkans (and based on the survey results that is a logical conclusion to draw) then a critical issue for us, and I believe a number of others as well, is the question of whether or not it will be extended. This is a very important issue for us and could make or break the tour as far as we are concerned. As a result I sincerely hope that Insight will give this aspect very serious consideration indeed.

To this end there has been a lot of discussion and suggestions over recent months which culminated in a proposal for a 19 day tour which seemed to find a lot of favour both as to duration and places to visit and was listed by Phil as follows:

Day 1: Arrive Bucharest
Day 2: Bucharest - Brasov (via Sinaia and Bran Castle)
Day 3: Brasov - Bucharest (after a tour of Brasov, travel to Sighisoara for a detailed tour, before returning to Bucharest)
Day 4: Bucharest – Sofia
Day 5: Sofia Sightseeing
Day 6: Sofia – Ohrid
Day 7: Ohrid – Tirana
Day 8: Tirana – Budva - Kotor - Dubrovnik
Day 9: Dubrovnik At Leisure
Day 10: Dubrovnik – Korcula
Day 11: Korcula Sightseeing
Day 12: Korcula – Mostar - Sarajevo
Day 13: Sarajevo Sightseeing
Day 14: Sarajevo – Belgrade
Day 15: Belgrade Sightseeing
Day 16: Belgrade - Pécs
Day 17: Pécs sightseeing
Day 18: Pécs to Budapest
Day 19: Depart Budapest

Such an itinerary also gives a number of options at the end of the tour. Where some people could fly straight home, some could take more time in Budapest, some could join a river cruise or some could take the Hydrofoil from Budapest to Vienna with the possibility of an extension of days in Vienna.

So I simply ask that Insight PLEASE give genuine consideration to extending the tour to the program detailed above and, even though I would not expect Insight to do all the planning and costing as yet, an early indication from them to the effect that this would indeed be the tour with details to follow later, would go a long way to helping a lot of people with their planning for 2010.

I agree, Puff. I am already making travel plans for 2010 and any info from Insight on the timing, length and destination for the 2010 President's tour would be quite helpful. Like many others , I am hoping for the longer Balkan tour in the fall of 2010 [I have already booked a trip for June 2010].

T

Dragon,

I'm not sure that it would be best for Insight to jump to a 19 day itinerary for the BB tour without first assessing the level of interest in other tour durations. After all, the end result of all this planning is to have an "economic" coachload of passengers on the BB tour next year.

Perhaps the sequence of actions by Insight should be more along the lines of:

• close the existing tour itinerary poll and announce that the next BB tour will be in the Balkans/Dalmatia,
  
• conduct a new poll of "tour duration" for a Balkans/Dalmatia tour,
  
• using the most favoured "tour duration", modify the existing itinerary as necessary,
  
• conduct another poll on most favoured start time for this modified itinerary,
  
• once a most favoured start time has been determined, conduct another poll on this modified itinerary to determine whether intending travellers would be solos, doubles, triples, etc.,
  
• assuming that there then appears to be an "economic" coachload of passengers for this BB members' tour, refine the itinerary with hotels, inclusions, optionals, etc., and develop a tour price.

It would be nice if the final Itinerary, Prices & Booking Information could be published at about the same time as the publication of the 2010 European brochures so as to enable people to add other Insight tours to their BB Members' tour and book it all at the same time.

phil