Cruises And Vacations With A Twist

The common perception of cruises and vacation sis that of a cruise ship full of partying passengers drinking and dancing their way from one sun-drenched tropical port to the next, where they spend days on dazzling white beaches or endless green pal-lined fairways. This perception is one vigorously reinforce by travel posters and travel magazines, but it does nothing to educate the public about other cruises and vacations which offer an entirely different sort of cruise experience.

Cruising The Great Rivers

While most cruises do involve sailing on the world's oceans, there are equally rewarding cruises for vacations spent on the world's great rivers. Cruises involving vacations on the Amazon and Nile Rivers offer the same shipboard amenities as those in the Caribbean or Mediterranean, yet they also offer vacationers the chance to some of the last pristine wildernesses of the earth. Amazonian cruise vacations will pass through rainforests still inhabited by indigenous people for whom a cruise ship remains an object of wonderment.

While the cruise vacation ships which sail the Amazon may not match some of the ocean-going classes of cruise ships in size, they still provide their passengers with enough 21st century comforts to make the contrast with the surrounding unspoiled wilderness completely obvious. Some Amazon cruises and vacations let their participants share onboard life with friendly shipboard monkeys and crew dressed in Amazonian tribal apparel.

Nile Cruises And Amazon Adventure Cruises

Nile cruise vacations carry their passengers back in time in a different way, by letting them travel the same paths along which the ancient Egyptians established the trade routes which made the Egyptian empire one of the longest lasting in the ancient world. Nile River cruises will take their passengers from Luxor to the Valley of the Kings, where more than sixty Pharaohs were buried, and some of them will complete the journey from distant past to technologically dazzling present with a visit to the Aswan Dam.

Travelers can turn their Amazon cruises and vacations into real adventures by participating in onshore excursions designed to give them a taste of a true explorer's life. They will be transported by dugout canoe way form the main river and along some Amazon tributaries which have yet to be recorded on any official maps. Such cruises and vacations, of course, will cost more than those on standard cruise ships, simply because of the enormous potential for liability, and they are will appeal to only a very small number of travelers. But if you are a true adventurer at heart, and in good physical condition, you will see the rainforest from a vantage point share by very few other human beings!

The hours you spend on your luxury cruise will be empty of pressures, freeing you to relax, play, enjoy new companionship, or revel in much-needed solitude. You will be surrounded by the open sea and your spirit will open to meet it. You can make and change plans as you please, and answer to no one.