Best Of
Re: Capetown Restaurants
And, when your hubby gets tired of shopping, take him here- its also on the V&A waterfront: 
AlanS
Re: Upgrade to a Gold Riverview Room at Fairmont Le Château Frontenac
I can't answer yet (we are going in September) but we did upgrade. We are going a day early and using the Gift of Time to extend our stay in Quebec. I don't know when you are planning to go but I would be happy to answer your question about the upgrade when we return. (Edit: I just saw your other post saying that you are going at the end of August. Enjoy!!)
judy05
Re: Arriving early
Arriving early has a few plusses, as I see it:
1. some time to get un-jetlagged (though not an issue for Canada)
2. in the event something goes wrong with your flight plans, added leeway to get there for the start of the tour.
3. time to wander the starting location on your own, pre-tour.
The other qualifier for Gift of Time is you have to book by the end of July of the previous year. For example, there's just a few days left to qualify for GoT for 2025 bookings.
BKMD
Re: Arriving early
Good point regarding booking deadline. I edited my previous post to include it.
Re: Arriving early
FYI - the free night at the start or the end of the tour is known as the Gift of Time. It is not given to first timers with Tauck. And is given to repeat guests, subject to availability of the hotel and booking deadline. It doesn’t matter whether or not you use a travel agent.
Re: The Alps
My first Tauck tour was a tour of the Alps in 2011. It began in Zurich, traveled through Switzerland, with a couple of stops in
Germany and Austria, spent a day in the Dolomites and wound up in Vienna. I've also done the current "Switzerland: Europe's Crown Jewel." Both were great, but I think that if I were to take one now, it would be the one that went to the Dolomites. Those mountains are so different than the rest of the Alps. I've also done several river tours. I think that you see more on land tours than river tours, though the convenience of unpacking and repacking once on a river tour is a plus. Personally, I prefer "seeing more" to the minor problem of packing and repacking -- but I'm a firm believer in "each to his or her own."
MCD
Re: The Alps
We've done both the Swiss Alps River Cruise Bern to Amsterdam and the land tour Ultimate Alp & Dolomites -- while they were both amazing - I'd have to say the Ultimate Alps and Dolomites was better for seeing the Alps - plus the tours and food along the way were amazing.
Re: Forum bug
Back to forum issues- On and off for the past few weeks, I have noticed that there appears to be a random problem with the bolding of titles of un-read posts on the forum home page listing.
When I start going through unread posts, once I read a post, and go back to the listing, the title no longer appears in bold type- that is normal and as expected. However, sometimes after having read only a few of the new (bolded) posts, the title of all remaining un-read posts lose their bold type. I and others observed this issue several months ago. I haven't contacted Tauck IT yet, because I am not certain that it is a forum software issue or a software (cookies, cash, etc.) issue with my ageing laptop. I suspect it is a forum software issue.
Has anyone else experienced this??
When (in what order) did you sign up for a trip? In general you can also generally tell by your reservation number . . . I posted this several years ago, but here it is again if anyone forgot.
Our reservation number for Normandy, Brittany, Paris, and Loire Valley tour last year was: NB 3602018
NB = code Tauck assigned to this tour. Will often be three letters, e.g. GTA = Treasures of the Aegean or include extra # or additional characters, e.g. RCX2C06020 = 6 Dec 2022 departure for XMAS Mkts on the Rhine,
3602 = last digit of departure year, month, and day - 2023, June 2.
018 = order in which you booked. This is not absolute, since couples (and groups?) only get one reservation #. However, if your reservation number ends in 001, you can be certain you were the first to sign up. Over the years we were a "1" for K&T and Best of Ireland, and a "3*" for Classic Italy and J&E. *It is also possible for you to be first on the guest list if someone booked ahead of you but subsequently cancelled.
AlanS
Re: Sports Coat
SeaLord. I can’t believe you don’t know about non iron clothing For example, I have non iron linen shirts. My husband has a fantastic wool blend white tuxedo jacket that you can put in the washing machine, just a couple of examples. I learned about fabrics back in High school. The first thing I do when choosing clothing is to see what it is made of. I can ‘feel’ how a fabric will perform. A tip I have is when you see something you like on the rack, gently squeeze a piece of the garment in the palm of your hand, if it is a creased up ball, don’t buy it! For packing for tours, everything is rolled, simple!
Even our Africa clothing is none-iron. These past two years, I’ve been making costume for theatre, I think I know my fabrics and sensible clothing for tours.
British
Re: The Alps
We've taken 10 Tauck trips, all land tours. If I had not been to most of these places already, I would take this one:
https://www.tauck.com/tours/swiss-alps-tour?tcd=da2024&filters=q:alps
Besides the Alps, the Dolomites are also spectacular.
Once we get through all the other places we've never been, I'd like to go back and do it, and at least one river cruise.
Wan