Year 2000 travelers still have lots of options
Here's a sampling of tours, cruises, and packages that will ring in 2000:
INTRAV's Millennium London, Paris, and the Supersonic Concorde, 12 days, $16,900 per person, double occupancy, including air fare: Fly Concorde from New York to London, Chunnel to Paris, and spend New Year's at the swank George V Hotel, operated by Four Seasons.
INTRAV's Millennium Safari by Private Jet, 21 days, $34,800 per person, double occupancy: Stay in a tented camp in Kenya's Masai Mara, fly by helicopter over Victoria Falls, venture into the bush to see animals in the wild.
Maupintour's Vienna's Imperial Christmas 2000, 12 days, $6,795 per person, double occupancy, including air fare: Visit the Lipizzaner Museum, take a sleigh ride through the Austrian countryside, celebrate New Year's Eve at the Imperial Ball.
Maupintour's Auckland, New Zealand, eight days, $3,025 per person, double occupancy, including air fare: Visit Rotorua hot springs, join a Hangi feast, bush walk on Coromandel Peninsula.
Prasad & Associates' Fiji 2000, 10 days, $799-$8,499 (depending on the accommodation, per person) double occupancy, not including air fare: Go scuba diving, game fishing, golfing, or mountain biking. Fiji is one of only two places where the International Date Line crosses land. The other is in Siberia.
Inti Travel and Tours' Discover Galapagos, eight days, $1,800 per person, double occupancy, not including air fare: Spend New Year's with the UNESCO World Heritage Site's sea lions, marine iguanas, and giant Galapagos tortoises.
Odyssey 2000, an around-the-world bicycle trek, 366 days, $36,000: Start pedaling from Pasadena's Tournament of Roses on Jan. 1, 2000, travel up hill and down across 54 countries, and end up in Pasadena Dec. 31.
Royal Caribbean International's 2,000-passenger Legend of the Seas will cross the International Date Line twice and be among the first and last ships to celebrate the new year.
The line's Rhapsody of the Seas and Viking Serenade will sail side by side under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco at midnight, and several other RCI ships will rendezvous in the Caribbean with ships of Royal Caribbean-owned Celebrity Cruises for fireworks and other festivities.
Fares range from about $250 to $700 per person, per day, for Royal Caribbean, from about $400 to $1,700 per person, per day, for Celebrity, not including air fare.
Silversea Cruises' two 296-passenger ships, the Silver Cloud and the Silver Wind, will depart from Papeete, Tahiti, and Cairns, Australia, respectively, and will rendezvous in Fiji on Dec. 31, 1999. Both ships will cross the International Date Line in tandem. Prices begin at about $2,000 per person, per day, including air fare.
Travel to Israel is expected to double in 2000. Several tour operators specializing in Christian travel to the Holy Land have developed millennium-themed tours. Among them are: Yalla Tours, offering a 13-day tour that includes Christmas Eve in Bethlehem and New Year's Eve in Nazareth ($4,695, including air fare); and Friendship International Tours, with an 11-day tour that includes a desert Jeep safari and a swim in the Dead Sea ($4,152 from Los Angeles, $3,898 from New York).
