This past August, we took a wonderful river cruise with Tauck Travel on the MS Sprite down the Danube River from Budapest to Bucharest. I brought along my Ta Da Cane Chair with me, because I find at age 79 that I can’t stand for long periods of time while on our travels. This cane folds out into a compact tripod seat. Also, although I don’t usually use a cane to get around, it is a great help on trips when walking over uneven ground or going up steps.
I had my cane with me on our 4 hour bus ride to Transylvania for a tour of Bran Castle, the legendary home of Count Dracula. However, I put it in the overhead bin on our Tauck bus for the trip back to our hotel, and accidentally forgot it there. I didn’t notice my cane was missing until the next day while waiting for our ride to the airport on our way home. I had placed an AirTag on my cane, and discovered by searching on the “Find My” app on my iPhone that my cane was apparently still on the bus some 2 miles away from the hotel. It was too late to retrieve it then, but I checked again on its location when we got home. At that time, it appeared that it was now on its way back to Transylvania on a new tour with the next group of passengers on MS Sprite. A day later, it looked like it had made its way from the bus back onto the MS Sprite, which was still docked on the Danube.
I sent an email to Tauck Travel to see if they could find and return my cane. They were extremely helpful. I was able to give them a link to by AirTag. They searched the ship, but could not find it. Meanwhile, I was able to track my cane while it journeyed up the Danube. After awhile, I realized that my cane was not tracking with the MS Spirit, but instead appeared to be on a different ship, the MS Vivaldi of another river cruise line. I found this out by using an app that tracks the location of cruise ships on the rivers of Europe. How the cane got onto the MS Vivaldi is a mystery..
Well, through the extraordinary efforts of the wonderful Tauck representatives, they were finally able to track down and retrieve my cane when both ships were in Budapest a few weeks later. I told them I was in no hurry to get the cane back, and would appreciate if they could return it to me when it was most convenient for them to do so. Meanwhile, I had been tracking my cane on an almost a daily basis as it traveled up the Danube and onto the Main River, and then the Rhine, stopping, among other places, in Amsterdam, Brussels, and Antwerp, until ending up in Basel, Switzerland. From there, a Tauck representative returning to the USA brought it back to Tauck headquarters in Connecticut, where they sent it back to me by UPS.
Coincidentally, my cane, which I last saw in Transylvania, arrived back on my front porch on October 31, Halloween Day. My thanks to all the fantastic Tauck people who helped in the return of my cane. What a great travel company. This was our sixth Tauck trip, and we have two more coming up next year. And, again, how fitting that the cane ended its two month journey from the home of Count Dracula in Transylvania to my home in Virginia on Halloween Day. What an amazing story of its journey.
Incidentally, I bought this cane after I saw another Tauck customer using one on a Tauck Christas Markets tour several years ago. It would make a great Christmas present for a senior traveler. You can find it on Amazon for about $140 by searching for “Ta Da Cane.”
Attached is a photo of me reunited with my cane and a copy of the letter from Tauck describing the journey of the missing Ta Da Cane that arrived in the UPS box with the returned cane.
