The Twilight Parade … a Chinese New Year highlight.
Travellers’ Good Buys for the week beginning December 23
From January 24 to February 9, Sydney will welcome the Year of the Horse with the city’s biggest-ever Chinese New Year program.
Highlights will include the
Festival Launch at Belmore Park, which will be transformed into a bustling night market; the Twilight Parade from Sydney Town Hall to Chinatown
; Crossing Boundaries, an exhibition at Sydney Town Hall
, featuring sculpture, installation, ceramics and performance; the
annual Dragon Boat Races; and a series of Lunar Feasts at local restaurants.
Visit www.sydneychinesenewyear.com.
Cruise Express is offering its longest-ever cruise package — a 180-day World Odyssey on board Oceania Cruises’ boutique 680-passenger Insignia.
Insignia will sail from Miami on July 8, 2015, and take guests to Europe, through the Suez Canal to Asia and back around the Indian Ocean to South Africa and the remote, rarely visited ports of western Africa before returning to Miami on January 4, 2016, after Christmas on the Atlantic and New Year’s Eve in the Caribbean.
It will call at 102 ports in 52 countries, including many smaller ports little visited by larger ships, such as the isolated villages of Nuuk and Qaqortoq in Greenland,Muara in Brunei, the tropical islands of Mahe and La Digue in the Seychelles, Luderitz in Namibia, BomBom Island in the Republic of Sao Tome and Principe off the western, equatorial coast of central Africa, Abidjan in the west African country of Ivory Coast and Banjul in Gambia.
Prices start at $49,990 per person twin-share, including return flights from Australia to Florida and a night in Miami. Free unlimited internet, free laundry service, $1500 onboard spending credit per person and gratuities are also included.
Phone 1300 764 509 or visit www.cruiseexpress.com.au.
Popular Italian-owned line MSC Cruises will bring one of its ships into Australian waters for the first time when the 2550-passenger MSC Orchestra sails from Dubai to Fremantle in early 2015.
Ports of call on the 33-night voyage will include Mumbai, Cochin, Colombo, Phuket, Langkawi, Singapore, Benoa (Bali), Cairns, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.
Australian prices start at $3299 per person twin-share.
Phone 1300 028502 or visit www.msccruises.com.au.
Helen Wong’s Tours’ 2014-15 Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar program features prices only marginally higher than those for 2013-14.
The lead-in 12-day Glimpse of Vietnam itinerary is priced from $3460 per person twin-share ex Australia, just $10 up on previously available.
‘Helen’s Choice’ bonuses include a dinner cruise in Saigon, a cyclo tour of Hoi An’s historic old town, dinner in the exclusive Hanoi Press Club and an overnight stay on the Baitho junk in Halong Bay.
Phone 1300 788 328 or visit www.helenwongstours.com
