Roadtrips the ticket to major sports events

In the meantime, even as you read this column, I will have boarded the Avalon Tapestry for my first river cruise. For the next week, I will be sailing through parts of Europe, along the Rhine from Basel to Amsterdam. I look forward to recording and reporting my experience soon after my return.

QUESTION: I'm a big NASCAR fan so I have a couple of questions. First, do any travel companies arrange tours to NASCAR races? And secondly, being a widower, do they have accommodations for single travellers?

ANSWER: There definitely are tours that arrange NASCAR races and accommodation, etc. One of the best actually is headquartered in Winnipeg.

You can book almost any sporting event you are interested in through most travel agents who work with Roadtrips, a local company that has been specializing in sport and major event ticket packages for almost 20 years. Want to take in the Masters? They can do it. How about the World Series or a regular season league game? No problem! Maybe it's Wimbledon, the Champions League final, or the Monaco Grand Prix? Over the years they have built an impressive menu of options for any year, any event, any place.

As for your second question, single supplements as they are called have long been an irritant to single travellers of all ages. While some properties at least try, most don't do anything significant to make it easier on singles. In your case, you can stay in a hotel in most cities where there is a NASCAR race and hotel rates will almost always be single or double occupancy at the same price. But on a pre-structured tour package it will still come to you at a heavy financial penalty for travelling alone.

QUESTION: We are going to London this year and wonder if it is advisable to purchase theatre tickets in advance and from whom?

ANSWER: As in the previous question there are excellent companies who have solidified their reputations in providing West End London Theatre tickets for a long time, in this case more than 200 years. The company is called Keith Prowse, a British company that has been in the business of selling tickets since 1780. While they also do major sporting event packages they are used by travel agents here and elsewhere confidently.

They are now part of a major European corporation with offices around the world. They are likely the largest provider of tickets for inbound visitors to any of the countries of Great Britain, but also do Broadway ticket sales as well as many of the international programs that Roadtrips markets too. The current economy has hurt London theatre in a similar way it has affected all of the country.

You may want to take a chance on purchasing some of your tickets on the day of the performance from the Half Price Theatre Ticket Booth located in the clock tower building in the southern part of Leicester Square. I would not recommend this if you have your heart set on seeing specific shows, but if you are flexible it is an excellent means for saving a lot of money.

There are some downsides, but having used the service myself, I thought it was a really good option. Firstly, tickets are in fact half price, with a 2.50 pound service charge added on. They usually have a good selection of shows but the tickets are strictly what they call 'top-of-the-pile', which means you take what you get and sit in those seats as great or bad as they are; but when we used the service the seats were not bad at all.

And finally, tickets are sold at that price only on the day of the performance. For many this is not the perfect way to plan a holiday, but for the budget conscious it is excellent, and with fewer people visiting London, your choice of shows and seats may be better than usual.

QUESTION: Has there been a reduction in the number of Alaska cruise options out of Vancouver?

ANSWER: Not too drastically this year yet but there definitely has been a reduction. Already Carnival Cruise Lines, Princess, Royal Caribbean, and Holland America have either cut back on sailings, put ships into the Port of Seattle instead, or completely eliminated itineraries to Alaska until the economy improves. Many more of the changes will come into effect for the 2010 season. For years Vancouver was seen as an attractive tourist destination and an ideal location from which to launch the Alaskan adventure. These recent changes will hurt Vancouver's economy immensely. Most of the clients on Alaska passages are American, and it is felt this move will make connecting flights to Seattle easier and less expensive.

As a spokesperson for one of the cruise lines suggested, it allows guests from the western regions of the United States to drive to Seattle making the entire vacation more affordable. For Canadians the drive to Seattle is an easy one with a number of commercial options available. Nevertheless, it is not a good omen for the future when actions like this are taken because it can take years to re-establish the previous connections again.

Forward your travel questions to askjourneys@journeystravel.com. Ron Pradinuk is president of Journeys Travel & Leisure SuperCentre and can be heard Sundays at noon on CJOB. Previous columns and tips can be found on www.journeystravel.com or read Ron's travel blog at www.thattravelguy.ca.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 18, 2009 E2