Phil,Dragon and INSIGHT. You can add my wife and me to the 19 day tour of the Balkans/Dalmatia. Jim

Good news Jim and I hope it comes off. It would be nice to catch up with you both.

Phil, while your proposal is sound in principle it seems to me that we are running out of time having taken 6 months already with the current poll which has gone through 18 pages of suggestions and variations until we seemed to reach a compromise on a 19 day itinerary. Such a procedure as you propose should really have started months ago.

Even if each new poll was only open for a 4 week period it would still take months to conduct all of the polls and have the time in between for Insight to make the necessary decisions and adjustments before the next poll.

In respect of start dates it’s interesting to note that the first poll for the 2008 BB Tour (2 March 2007) had a majority (38%) in favour of September. Insight then conducted a new poll (23 April) offering choices only of November, June or October and the majority (86%) voted for October. Insight then scheduled the tour for August. I suppose that in the final analysis Insight will choose the date that most suits them.

The poll you conducted earlier this year offered a choice between the 8 months from March to October with the result being an overwhelmingly large vote (47%) for September. On the basis of Insight choosing August last time and your poll vote earlier this year being for September 2010, I am guessing that the most likely date will be August or September.

My real concern is that several BB members have indicated to me that if they can’t soon get some sort of indication as to what is happening with the BB tour then they will be considering alternative arrangements.

Phil,

I totally agree with Dragon's view that we should sinply get on with it, in any event there is no way that Insight will be able to please everybody regardless of what we finish up voting for.

At this point in time there are 20 plus people who have stated an intent to go on the 19 day tour. Hopefully there will be more BBers but once again I would advocate that this tour is offered to all Insight travellers, albeit on a limited availability basis. i.e. after we have all secured our seats. Yes/No ?

Roger

As I said on another thread the other day, I received an email from Insight telling me their USA brochures will be out next month so I am sure their European ones will be at the publisher by now so Insight should be working on our BB TOur. I thinks its time now that we start hearing from them about if they are going to do anything about adding more days to this tour. So Insight if you are reading this can you PLEASE lets us know whats is happening.

Tupps

For several years, Insight's North American brochures have been published in July/August and their European and Eastern Mediterranean brochures in mid-October. I doubt there will be a change to that this year.

phil

quote:

Originally posted by Hornet:At this point in time there are 20 plus people who have stated an intent to go on the 19 day tour.

My count was 20 also plus another 6 possibles that I am aware of.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Dragon:
..... I am guessing that the most likely date will be August ...... .

If this were to be the case then we would need to assume that Insight, and its esteemed passengers, would be entirely comfortable with the 40-45 degree temperatures that are evident at that particular time of the year in many of the regions on this tour.

Now that may be a cool day for for some of you but for us Limeys, well - PHEW !!!

Roger

Hmmmm, not sure where you get those temperatures of 40-45 degrees from.

Looking up average temperatures for August on Weatherbase.com I see they are as follows:

Bucharest – Romania = 21 degrees Celsius
Sofia - Bulgaria = 20 degrees Celsius
Ohrid - Macedonia = 21 degrees Celsius
Dubrovnik – Croatia = 24 degrees Celsius
Sarajevo - Bosnia = 19 degrees Celsius
Belgrade - Serbia = 21 degrees Celsius

Looking up average temperatures for August on BBC Weather I see they are as follows:

Bucharest – Romania = min 15 max 30 degrees Celsius (average = 20 degrees)
Sofia - Bulgaria = min 15 max 26 degrees Celsius (average = 21 degrees)
Dubrovnik – Croatia = min 18 max 25 degrees Celsius (average = 21 degrees)
Sarajevo - Bosnia = min 13 max 27 degrees Celsius (average = 20 degrees)
Belgrade - Serbia = min 17 max 28 degrees Celsius (average = 22 degrees)

Those are nice temps - pleasant for travelling!

And while you are checking the temperature charts, how does September look?

T

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Tully,

We have had a personal experience of an August temperature of 47 degrees in Dubrovnik, for example. Also a Romanian acquaintance from NW Bucharest wishes to advise that temperatures over 40 degrees are quite normal in August - as does the Thomas Cook City Spots - Bucharest publication, which states ...... " Avoid the place in August at all costs unless a desire to swelter in 40C/104F is on your agenda". It also says "The City is deserted at this time as all the locals go into the mountains or to the beach en bloc".

My figures are of course maximums and do not allow for the full 24 hour period or an average taken over the past umpteen years but let us all hope that the averages are proved more reliable if we do indeed get to go in August.

Roger