Hello sailor
A seven-night cruise from Shanghai on Royal Caribbean's massive Voyager of the Seas (below right) to Kobe and Nagasaki, Japan, Jeju Island in South Korea, and back to Shanghai is on offer from a reasonable HK$8,600 per person, twin share, at TLX Travel (better-known until recently as Travelex). While quite attractive at first glance, this price is for an interior cabin, so you'll probably want to upgrade to a promenade cabin (HK$10,100), ocean view cabin (HK$11,100) or balcony cabin (HK$12,600). On top of that there's about HK$3,500 to pay in port service fees, fuel surcharges, prepaid gratuities and other miscellaneous charges, but these prices include round-trip flights to Shanghai with Cathay Pacific, one night's pre-cruise accommodation at the Intercontinental Puxi, and seven nights' full-board accommodation with entertainment and extensive leisure facilities. Voyager of the Seas is one of the world's largest cruise ships and can carry more than 3,100 passengers, so don't expect an exclusive cruising experience. For more details, visit
www.tlxtravel.com.
Vietnam views
An Intercontinental resort has just opened near Da Nang on the central Vietnamese coast with predictable claims about 'redefining the luxury resort experience', but if the handful of reviews already posted at Tripadvisor are to be believed, it's certainly an exceptional property. The Intercontinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort (top right) is located on the Son Tra Peninsula, known to United States troops as Monkey Mountain during the Vietnam war, when it was home to a major radar and communications facility. Today the area is a national park, known for its scenic beauty and fine beaches, and the resort promises panoramic sea views from all 197 rooms, suites and villas - the smallest of which is a fairly spacious 70 square metres. The signature restaurant is La Maison 1888, which has Michelin-starred chef Michel Roux's name attached to it. Opening rates start at US$220 a night, with breakfast, Wi-fi access and free shuttle buses to the airport and historic town of Hoi An. Direct flights to Da Nang from Hong Kong are no longer operating, so the easiest way there is via Hanoi with Vietnam Airlines.
Cheers Johnny
Along with the Bates Motel featured in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, the Overlook Hotel, which was the setting for Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, is one of the more memorably unpleasant tourist facilities in movie history. But while the Bates Motel was only a movie set (it still stands as an attraction at Universal Studios in Los Angeles), the hotel that was used for the opening exterior shots of the snow-bound Overlook - Timberline Lodge - is this year celebrating its 75th anniversary. Most of The Shining was actually filmed in Britain with recreated interiors and a mock-up of the hotel's forbidding exterior, but the Timberline's management still requested that Kubrick change the number of Room 217 to a non-existent 237, so tourists wouldn't be too scared to sleep in the former. Located about 100 kilometres east of Portland, Oregon, at Mount Hood, the Timberline is offering some rooms for US$75 to mark the anniversary. This high-altitude National Historic Landmark offers skiing and snowboarding year-round, as well as guided hiking and climbing. For more details, visit
www.timberlinelodge.com. Just remember to avoid Room 217.
