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16 - The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday May 20, 2006 Common sense tips for picking the right coach trip I BEAVER TRAILS TO TEXAS: The Juarez family took the Oakville Beaver with them to El Paso, Texas. Here they are standing on Franklin Mountain, with a view of El Paso from the mountains' viewing point. Pictured here are (left to right) Bertha Juarez, Luis Gabriel Juarez, and Eduardo Juarez. Take along a copy of The Oakville Beaver on your next vacation and send it in for publication to Beaver Trails, Oakville Beaver, 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, ON, L6K 3S4 or e-mail to editor@oakville- North American Getaways Holiday House has unveiled its 2006/2007 CityEscapes brochure, featuring a selection of hotels, inns and resorts throughout Canada and the United States along with tours, airfares, car rentals, and attraction passes. Holiday House offers a la carte vacations in 16 American cities from San Francisco and Anaheim, east to New York and Boston, plus attraction passes to Disneyland Resort, Universal Studios, SeaWorld, the San Diego Zoo, NYC theatre tickets and more. New attractions this year include a Hop-on Hop-off tour in San Francisco aboard an original British double-decker bus and Madame Tussauds Wax Museums in both Las Vegas and New York City. City passes are also available in Southern California, San Francisco, for the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Boston, Chicago and New York City. In terms of hotels and resorts, Holiday House offers close to 80 hotels and resorts in the United States, covering every style, budget and location ­ from downtown glitz to desert calm. In Canada, a new addition this year includes sightseeing tours through Gray Line Tours in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. You can visit every city from Victoria to St. John's staying at hotels and resorts, including such landmark properties as The Fairmont Chateau Whistler, The Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac, The Fairmont Manoir Richelieu and The Fairmont Banff Springs. To receive your personal Holiday House CityEscapes brochure, give us a call! Visit McTavish At: www.mctavishtravel.com f you want to avoid airports, hassles, see a lot, and meet other travelers, take a coach. Today's million-dollar coaches are amazing, lots of room, reclining seats, air conditioning, a good audio-video system, emergency on board washrooms, and knowledgeable, helpful guides. If you're dubious, try a day trip, to see if you like it, before taking off for a 28-day tour. And if you thought these trips were simply for seniors think again, there is an itinerary for each and every taste. Check the ads on the travel page for some exciting day and overnight coach tours. There are though some tricks to choosing the right company and tour for you. Gather a bunch of the coach tour books, and look carefully at the day-to-day itineraries. The lowest is not always the best price. Some of the more inexpensive tours use hotels outside the city centres. That means cab fares downtown, or perhaps not being able to wander at all during free time, because it is too inconvenient. Ask how many languages the guide will be using. If the coach company sells all over the world, you might be listening to three or more languages as the guide describes a special site. If you're only sort of interested in architecture, don't choose a tour designed for serious architecture students. That sounds like commonsense, but it is amazing how many people will choose a garden tour and then come back and said, they'd never garden again because they were bored stiff by the hours of garden studying done by the group, when really they just wanted to admire pretty gardens. Check to find out exactly how many others will be on this coach tour, the larger the group, the more waiting you'll do for latecomers. Many excellent coach tour operators like Insight Vacations are cutting back on the number of passengers on each coach, their limit is 40, and the fewer seats mean more leg room.www.insightvacations.com or 1-800-3878490. Look at the itinerary to see if you are going into a famous site or just driving by. Check the amount of free time you're going to have. And think about whether you want to change hotels every night. It can be exhausting. On a personal level I like to have more than one night in a destination so I can wash my undies. A good friend takes old undies and throws them out, she likes to jam pack as much into a coach tour as she can. We wouldn't travel well together. If you're like me, and like to unpack, look at DeNure Tours. They're famous of course for their Florida coach tours, but they do some interesting Europe tours as well. Harry Simons, their Europe buyer and tour guide on the Europe tours takes a very special pride in choosing hotels and showing his passengers special places. Their 12-day Autumn Colours of Scotland settles you in one hotel with day trips, perfect for those who might want to miss a day and do something else. It leaves on Sept. 27, 2006 and costs $2,995 each of two. www.denuretours.com or 1800-668-6859. I've never heard a bad word about Contiki Tours, although I haven't tried it, as you have to be between 18 and 35. As they put it, "The deal breaker of any good vacation is the company you keep. With Contiki, you'll be with 18-35 year olds from all over the planet -- after all, any vacation worth remembering needs willing accomplices and side-kicks!" Their "See America" brochure offers some really exciting trips. Hot air ballooning in Phoenix, and Albuquerque, helicopter rides in the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls and Canadian Rockies, jet boating in Montreal, white water rafting in Alberta and Colorado ... take your pick. Visit www.contiki.com or call 1-800-268-1835. Coach tours aren't just about wheels anymore, some offer cruises on the high seas, others offer excellent prices on river cruises in Europe. Some combine rail travel with the coach. Then there are the coach companies that offer a roundthe-world coach tour on a private jet. Before you book anything, talk to your travel agent about how their clients felt about the tour you've decided to buy. It may not change your mind, but help you choose. You can reach Sam by email at sion10@cogeco.ca. TRAVEL PROFESSIONALS Your guide to local travel experts and the best deals to your perfect getaway! Voted Best Travel Agency Relax... you're with us 221 Lakeshore Road E. wwwhookedoncruising.com Hopedale Shopping Centre 1515 Rebecca Street, Oakville 1 Convenient Location in Oakville: Glen Abbey Travel Inc. 2441 Lakeshore W. Bronte Village Mall Oakville, ON 905-337-2228 (905) 827-1100 fax: (905) 827-4982 e-mail: travel@mctavish.com 146 Lakeshore Rd. E. 905-842-4999 lakeshore@travelchoice.ca 905-827-7272 www.uniglobeglenabbey.com