The United States has always been a country strongly influenced by English culture and heritage. While early exploration and colonization of the New World was dominated by Spain, with major outposts established in the Caribbean and Florida, England wanted a foothold in this New World. In April 1606 King James I of England chartered The Virginia Company of London, a commercial trading company, with the objective of establishing colonies on the eastern coast of North America. With that charter those English roots were planted in North America. On December 6, 1606, three ships; the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery set sail to America. In 1607, 104 English men and boys arrived in North America to start a settlement. On May 13 they selected a site at Jamestown, Virginia for their settlement, named after their King, James I. This settlement became the first permanent English settlement in North America.
The site for Jamestown was picked for several reasons, all of which met criteria established by the Virginia Company, who funded the settlement. The site was surrounded by water on three sides and was far inland; both meant it was easily defensible against possible attacks by local natives and the Spanish. The water was also deep enough to tie up their ships at the shoreline.
By June 15, the fort was done with a triangle shape and a bulwark at each corner, holding five pieces of artillery. The settlers were now protected against any attacks that might occur from the local Powhatan Indians and could hold off a Spanish attack from the water. Even though the settlers were concerned about the local natives, they understood that they were also dependent on them.
Over those first few years a majority of the original settlers would die from starvation and some by Indian attack, but the colony offered too much potential and by April 1645 the Jamestown colony had over 8,000 settlers.
The site is a National Park along with the battlefield at Yorktown and very near the restored colonial town of Williamsburg in Tidewater, Virginia.
Bucharest, is home to The Village Museum in Herastrau Park that’s dedicated to the history of home life in the various regions of Romania. In 1936 it was one of the first open-air ethnographic museums in the world. In 1936, and today is one of only four such museums. They include Skansen Museum in Stockholm, Bigdo Museum in Lellehamer, Norway and Transilvanian Ethnographic Museum in Cluj, Romania. Any visit to this Romanian Capital should include some time at The Village Museum.
The port of Dunmore East is located very near the city of Waterford and while Dunmore East has a small harbor it is not an industrial port. The larger ships visiting are primarily cruise ships. The town itself is a quant seaside village with galleries, gift shops and restaurants and some nice walking trails along the shore. The villages charm and natural surroundings are well worth spending some time ashore. It is a bit isolated however and transportation options are few. It is also a tender port as there are no docks capable of handling large ships.
Where Your Ship Docks
Large ships cannot dock at Dunmore East and will anchor offshore. Tenders will bring you into an enclosed harbor that serves small commercial boats. The harbor is adjacent to the village proper and there are a number of shops and trails along the shore line.
Transportation – Because of the distance and lack of available transportation this is a port where booking tours thru the cruise ship might be a better option, especially if you want to visit Waterford. The trip into Waterford is about twelve miles and often cruise ships will offer a shuttle service to Waterford. The quickest way to get from Dunmore East to Waterford is a taxi which costs about $35 and takes about twenty minutes. The only other option is a direct bus service departing from Dunmore East and arriving at Lombard Street in downtown Waterford. Buses depart every four hours, and operate Monday to Saturday. Again the journey takes about 20 min.
Money – Ireland (the Republic) uses the Euro and generally do not accept the British Pound. Northern Ireland is separate from the Irish Republic, is part of the United Kingdom and uses the Pound.
Dunmore East is located on the River Suir and as your ship sails in or departs you should get a good view of the Hook Lighthouse on the opposite shore. The area around the Suir and Waterford is home to a number of notable castles with some dating back to the twelfth century and the Viking era.
Attractions – Other than the scenery and the atmosphere of a quant seaside resort village most of the points of interest are located in the nearby city of Waterford.
Waterford itself was once one of Ireland’s most important cities, It was historically a place of great wealth due to its role as a seaport and trading center. Much of this wealth was used to build the city’s public buildings in the 18th and 19th centuries. One of the most attractive and opulent of these is the Bishop’s Palace. A beautiful architectural treasure over 250 years old. It is now a museum with the ground and first floors furnished as a very elegant 18th century townhouse.
Waterford was originally established by Vikings and was a major Viking settlement for hundreds of years. In 914, the great Viking adventurer and pirate, Regnall, established a base here and built a Longphort or ships haven. In 918, Regnall took a fleet of ships and left Waterford sailing for York and he became the first Norse ruler with the title ‘King of Waterford and York’. The name Waterford is derived from its Viking name Vadrarjfordr meaning “haven from the windswept sea”. The City was captured by the Anglo Normans in 1170 and the Vikings were expelled. After that Waterford was raised to the status of Royal City owing allegiance to the Anglo Norman King of England, Henry II.
When visiting Waterford be sure and spend time visiting the Viking Triangle, a cultural and heritage area. The Viking Triangle is surrounded by 1000-year-old Viking walls. It is the ‘old town’ of Waterford and is just a short walk from the city’s shopping mall area. The Viking Triangle is an interesting place, with narrow streets and alleys to explore. Inside are a number of attractions of Ireland’s past, including the House of Waterford Crystal, the award winning Medieval Museum, Bishop’s Palace and Reginald’s Tower.
Waterford glass blower
The House of Waterford Crystal provides a fascinating glimpse into the workings behind the famed glassworks that put the city on the international map. Consisting of a manufacturing facility and visitor center, it’s now one of the top attractions in Waterford and is best viewed as part of a guided tour that provides a close-up view of the process behind the finished pieces of cut glass.
Christ Church Cathedral, also referred to as the Cathedral of The Holy Trinity. This church is Waterford’s principal Protestant place of worship. Constructed in 1779 on a site known for a cathedral dating back to 1096, the Cathedral is a centerpiece of Waterford. It was on this spot in 1170, where the legendary Norman king, Strongbow, married Aoife, daughter of Diarmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster, thereby forming a great alliance.
Reginald’s Tower is a historic round stronghold tower in Waterford. It is located at the eastern end of the city quay. The tower has been in use for different purposes for centuries and is an important landmark in Waterford and an important remnant of its medieval urban defense. It is the oldest civic building in Ireland and it is the only urban monument in Ireland to retain a Norse Viking name. Just outside, to the right of the tower entrance, is a 40 foot Viking Long Boat with a red sail named Vadrarfjordr – the Viking name for Waterford. This accurate Viking Longboat was built by a group of Waterford men. The keel and planks of the longboat are of Irish oak, mostly sourced from a mill in Carlow, and the sailcloth is a canvas weave. The Vadrarfjordr longboat is modeled on famous Viking ships found at Roskilde, in Denmark.
The Viking Triangle has lots craft studios, cafes and great places to eat and a real sense of history. Waterford’s motto is ‘Urbs Intacta Manet’, which means The Untaken City.
In the annals of travel there have been a number of great tragedies.
The Hindenburg Disaster
The air disaster at Tenerife
The Vegas hotel fire
The Tsunami at Ao Nang, Thailand
Along with a number of ocean liner sinking disasters that include;
The Lusitania
The Andrea Doria
The Costa Concordia
But one tragedy seems to be a true legend and stands out from all the rest. The sinking of The White Star Lines RMS Titanic. After more than one hundred years the story still holds our attention. It has been the subject of a half dozen movies and numerous books and even much speculation even over just what music the band was playing when the liner slipped below the sea.
There are at least four museums; Belfast and Cobh, in Ireland along with two in Orlando, Florida. In addition to the museums a popular tour is to the cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia where many of the passengers and crew are buried.
The Titanic tragedy remains of interest for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was the maiden voyage of what was promoted as an unsinkable ship. Next it was a disaster that could have been easily avoided and with the loss of life aggravated because she didn’t have enough lifeboats. Additionally, a large number of wealthy and famous people died in the disaster but equally a larger number of of lower class passengers were prevented from using the lifeboats. The Titanic sinking caused a number of countries as well as companies to change policies regarding safety at sea.
Belfast is famous as the shipyard that built the Titanic. At that time the Harland and Wolfe Shipyard was one of the worlds largest and employed thousands. Today much of the area of the old shipyard has been turned into a memorial to this one ship featuring the drydocks, the slip way, the tender and a museum that was built to match the giant ocean liner’s height and size.
Titanic Museum, Belfast
The Cobh, Ireland connection is that it was the great ships last port of call before she set sail across the Atlantic and sank. Cohb was called Queenstown at that time and was where the last passengers boarded the ship for its intended journey to New York. Of those one hundred and twenty three, only forty four survived. Today, the original buildings, streets and piers of a century ago are still standing along the waterfront including the offices of the White Star Line which today are the Titanic museum.
Going up the Danube River from the Black Sea the river passes through some of its most remarkable scenery. The Iron Gates of the Danube River refers to narrow gorges with high granite walls that divide Romania and Serbia. The term “Iron Gate” was first coined by The Times of London in 1853.
The Roman Emperor Trajan had this marker erected to commemorate the construction of the road to Dacia through the gorge more than 2000 years ago. Archeological surveys of Trajan’s road indicate that large bore holes were drilled into the rock face of the cliffs and timbers were inserted to allow sections of the road to literally run across sheer walls.
This stretch of the Danube separates the southern Carpathian Mountains from the northwestern foothills of the Balkan Mountain range.
This section of the Danube was always a treacherous transit famous for sections of rapids and large whirlpools. In the 1960’s, governments built a massive lock and dam system to help control the river and make it safer transit. After the dam project, the river flowing through the Iron Gates was raised 130 feet that calmed the water and a hydro-electric power plant was built. The system includes two locks some 50 miles apart.
Iron Gates Mesolithic Art
Archaeologists working on a number of sites in the gorge have named what they have found the Iron Gates mesolithic culture. It indicates actual settlements from 15,000 to 7,800 years old. One of these sites is the most important archaeological site in Serbia and maybe all of Europe. It’s Lepenski Vir, the oldest planned settlement in Europe, located on the banks of the Danube in the Iron Gates gorge. The archaeologists’s discoveries have pushed back the dating of European organized culture by a few thousand years in Europe. A number of burial sites have been uncovered bearing woven clothes decorated with shells, bits of rock and pieces of antler. The site has also produced carved stone images, stone tools and pottery shards.
A recent incident and a conversation with a traveling friend highlighted the confusion and importance of international travel insurance. To begin most people consider travel insurance too expensive and on top of that they see it as very confusing and there’s truth in those beliefs.
Please note that this is written with a focus on American travelers but we are also aware of similar plans offered in Canada and other countries, but you will need to explore options based on your home country.
There are a number of different categories and types of travel insurance that apply to a number of travel plans and that can complicate the insurance decision. Generally, insurance is available to cover problems in five specific areas:
Trip Cancellation and Interruption
Theft of Property
Health and Accident coverage
Medical Repatriation
Life insurance
In truth, most travelers we talk to are too casual in deciding on travel insurance. This article will focus on three main areas:
First is a concern about having to cancel an expensive trip at the last minute and losing deposits and prepaid money.
The second is travel interruption caused by missing air connections or a cruise sailing.
Lastly are medical cost concerns while being out of the country.
One area that requires attention is exactly what are the conditions where the coverage takes affect and where it doesn’t apply. Insurance policies are very specific legal documents and all too often coverage we thought we had doesn’t apply in too many circumstances. Just recently in the news were a number of travelers faced with giving up their travel costs or putting their health in jeopardy because of the Covid pandemic.
As the Corona virus started spreading around the world and countries started closing their ports, cruise ships and their passengers were placed in a difficult position. Initially cruise ships started adjusting their itineraries instead of canceling cruises. Passengers that were worried about their health and wanted to cancel their cruise or were even acting on the advice of the government, soon discovered that insurance companies were concluding that those concerns were not covered by the cruise cancellation insurance and offered no refunds.
Even if the cost of insurance is significant, everyone should consider and evaluate what potential financial risk there are versus the actual cost of the insurance policy. With a long cruise the cost could be very high and while the insurance could be costly the loss could be even more significant if you have to cancel or should simply miss a sailing.
One area where many people leave themselves seriously in jeopardy involves international medical emergency insurance. Far too many people falsely think that their health insurance will cover them when they’re out of the country but the truth is that is rarely the case. Unless your health insurance specifically indicates that it covers international travel you are risking a catastrophic loss. In one example we know about a retired couple traveling in Europe believing that Medicare and their supplement insurance covered them. They learned the terrible truth after a serious stroke left them with a quarter of a million dollars in medical bills. Another couple we know just made a one day trip over the border into Canada to visit with friends. Several days later the medical expenses after a heart attack added up to almost $100,000 with no reimbursement from Medicare.
When booking a cruise one option is cruise insurance. Because many cruises involve international destinations these cruise policies provide medical cost reimbursement (up to specific amounts) and property theft and loss protection. Some also, but not all, cover the cost of medical repatriation. While cruise insurance is convenient you do have other options for insurance that could be less expensive and provides more coverage.
Airports often have outlets for inexpensive short term air travel insurance but it is mainly focused on the life insurance component and not on medical costs or trip interruption which is usually the airlines responsibility.
SpecificSituational Considerations
Cruise OnlyInsurance – Say you are taking a Mediterranean cruise with flights into and out of the sailing port. A cruise insurance policy usually provides an appropriate amount of coverage for your cruise trip. Most cruise policies also cover medical expenses if you need care in a local clinic or hospital while a passenger on the cruise with some covering medical evacuation and repatriation. The same policy usually extends coverage while on booked cruise/land packages and the flights to and from the cruise port.
Cruise with an extended land itinerary – If you are taking that Mediterranean cruise but then plan to go off on your own for a couple of weeks in Europe, chances are that cruise policy will terminate on disembarking the ship. For that reason you need to understand that you will not be covered for medical emergencies above the international coverage and limits of your American health insurance policy which can often be zero. For retirees Medicare does NOT cover international medical care. If you opted for one of those no cost Medicare regional groups you have no international coverage.
Frequent InternationalTtravel – If you are a frequent international traveler it is most important to analyze your risk and how much you are comfortable paying for insurance. You have options of buying a complete medical plan (Geoblue) , a medical evacuation plan (EA+) or a complete annual insurance policy (Allianz, Amex) that offer some coverage in virtually all areas. One caution is that most annual policies only provide coverage while on trips of less than 60 days each.
In our case we take a number of cruises and international trips a year and our biggest concerns are medical emergencies and evacuation, so we keep an annual MedEvac plan in place. Our Medicare supplement insurance offers adequate (we hope) medical coverage for now and we will buy cruise policies on individual trips if it is a long and costly cruise.
Annual Travel Insurance Policies – There are complete annual travel policies, which should be considered if you travel internationally often. Generally they have lower limits of coverage, especially in areas like trip cancellation and property loss. For example, most annual policies limit cancellation protection to $2,000 per year. To the right is a recent annual generic quote provided by Alianz for a typical retired couple.
Special Note:26 European countries require health insurance to visit.
In early 1995 twenty-six European countries signed an agreement that abolished enforcing their borders between member states. As a result the area mostly functions as a single country for international travel purposes, with a common visa policy. Anyone from a country that requires them to apply for the Schengen visa to enter Europe must provide proof of international health insurance. Americans and Canadians along with a number of other nationals do not need this visa to visit and therefore do not need to provide proof of insurance.
The 26 countries in the zone are Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Technically a letter from your insurance company is required, and this needs to mention that you will be covered in Europe for any medical, evacuation and repatriation expenses during your whole stay. The medical expenses have to be covered for at least 30,000 Euros.
This post was prompted by a travel friend contacting me wanting to know what travel insurances we use. We compared notes and kicked around some scenarios and decided it was a good subject to explore in greater depth.
Also thanks to a visitor from Reviews.com who directed us to their extensive article on buying travel insurance and if you have questions about specific recommendations I would highly recommend reading this article from Reviews.comHERE.
INSURANCE LESSONS FROM COVID-19
A number of recent travel articles about travel and insurance are now recommending “Cancel for Any Reason” Insurance but this may be a bad choice especially since most major cruise companies, in an effort to get bookings back, have offered last minute cancellations as part of their policy. In comparing “Cancel for Any Reason” insurance it seems that in many cases the premiums do not warrant the limited level of reimbursement so be sure and do the math before buying.
In addition most travel insurance policies will only reimburse you for canceling your cruise under specifically identified conditions. Most of those involve medical issues with you or immediate family. Some policies also provide for work related emergencies. Based on our experience with COVID-19 we now see a number of issues we hadn’t considered when looking at travel insurance.
Our Recent Experience Involving COVID
We were recently booked on a pair of cruises that went from Singapore to Rome with 14 ports of call and had paid in full (inside 90 days). As coronavirus issues began to appear our cruising companions cancelled early on and got full credit towards a future cruise. As things began to get worse we contacted the cruise line and they were no longer agreeing to issuing credits. 48 hours later they cancelled the cruise, gave refunds along with future cruise credits at 125%. After that we contacted our independent insurance carrier and were informed that they weren’t accepting claims involving coronavirus but might consider our air portion because our cruise was cancelled. After that we just contacted the airlines and got future credits to use within 12 months.
Insurance And Travel Advisories
It seems that under standard cancellation coverage, you cannot cancel due to travel advisories from the CDC, State Department or other government agencies. You can’t cancel because the cruise line changed the itinerary, or for fear of terrorism, or concerns about epidemics or natural disasters. Before booking a policy you should now investigate these issues for coverage.
CFAR Insurance
Because of these issues recent travel articles are suggesting that CFAR (cancel for any reason) policies are the answer. If you want the freedom to cancel your trip for any reason at all — and still get reimbursed for travel costs there are CFAR policies available. Looking into this option we’ve discovered many aren’t covering as much as theses articles suggest.
We have another 30 day cruise scheduled in the fall across the Pacific and around Japan so we decided to investigate CFAR policy costs for that itinerary. Our current standard policy covering that cruise cost us about $350. We received a CFAR quote from the same carrier that would reimburse our “deposits” only should we cancel for any reason for a premium of $1,500 but would not offer reimbursement the two weeks before the trip. That exceeds our currently paid deposits by almost $800 with questions about the actual costs, in full, being covered making this a bad deal.
If anyone finds CFAR insurance that makes more sense we’d love to hear about it.
Insurance Is Still Important
We still believe travel insurance should be an important part of your travel plan. Its benefits usually include trip interruption, emergency medical and emergency transportation, travel delay, lost luggage and more but we need to understand there are major exclusions like pandemics, natural disasters, insurrections and government actions.
You also need to understand that in order to file a claim you need to submit documentation. That can include proof of your property loss and its value like purchase receipts along with a police report of the incident. Health claims need doctor and hospital reports and bills.
The burden is on all of us travelers to educate ourselves on things like terrorism, tropical storms and disease outbreaks affecting our vacation destination. Also if you choose to buy standard coverage after an event becomes “known” even if you didn’t know about the situation, your benefits could be severely limited, making that travel insurance policy almost useless.
Because we frequently travel internationally our health insurance does have an international travel component that pays up to $50,000 for each of us with a lifetime cap of $50,000.
We carry an annual medical evacuation and repatriation policy that over the past number of years has seemed reasonably priced to us. The cost for the two of us has been less than $200 for the annual plan and offers $500,000 in coverage. It should be noted that this is not medical insurance and will not pay for doctors and hospitals except for expenses in getting you and your companion home. One of the largest is EA+ Emergency Assistance Plus
The Intentional Travelers 