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Required Increased Tipping On Cruises Ups Your Total Cost


Many cruise lines keep raising what once was a voluntary tip choice by passengers. By tradition, if and when service in your cabin, at dining tables and bars was adequate, you could choose to tip 10 to 20% of the bill. Or if dissatisfied, leave nothing at all.

An example of required tips, now calling them gratuities, Norwegian Cruise Line is raising the required tip per-day for cabin service from $13.99 to $14.50. Other cruise lines are issuing similar rules. The same applies to Norwegian onboard bar purchases, automatically applying 18% to those bills. When booking your next cruise, find the real amount of out-of-pocket charges that will be added to the advertised price. Ask your travel agent to tell you the actual cost you’ll be required to pay.
China: Super Luxury Tangula Train to Tibet PDF Print E-mail


Agatha Christi and Hercule Poirot would be jealous of China’s contemporary and very luxurious version of the Orient Express. Starting in Beijing, the Tangula high-speed train travels more than 2,400 miles north and to increasingly higher terrain to Lhasa in Tibet.

The Tangula consists of 12 sleeping, two dining and tail-end observation cars. Accommodations are for a total of less than 100 passengers in roomy, double-bed suites. Of course, each suite comes with a personal butler, and as the train races upward in the Tibetan mountains, personal oxygen equipment is provided for those who may need it in the rarefied three-mile-high altitude.

Basic rates range upward for a one-way trip from Beijing to Lhasa from $3,300 per person for the four-night trip. There are many extra charges, including wines, interpreters, souvenirs and legal documents. Hercule could never afford it on his detective’s salary.
For more information, check with your favorite hometown or online travel agency, or go to www.mircorp.com/tour_tangula.asp
 
 
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