Hard-to-Beat Hong Kong Bargain, 2-for-1 Cruises

Hundreds of press releases are issued by international hotels, cruise lines and tour operators each week. From a recent batch, four offers of a budget-priced variety seem especially interesting.

For travelers willing to fling themselves abroad on short notice, the best package price to Hong Kong that we’ve ever seen is currently available from Just Holiday of San Francisco, telephone (888) 397-9988, for flights in September.

The cost is $559 per person, double occupancy, for round-trip air fare between San Francisco and the former British crown colony and four nights of accommodations at the better-than-tourist-class Hotel Metropole on Kowloon. Extra hotel nights (an important consideration when you’re flying all that distance) are $70 per night. You’ll travel on either Asiana Airlines or Korean Air. And you’ll also receive a Hong Kong Tourist Assn. coupon book offering substantial bargains.

In an unusual move, Premier Cruises is offering special tickets that permit two cruises for the price of one, from now until the end of the year. You pay once and then book two of the following three weeklong sailings: a Southern Caribbean cruise, a Panama Canal cruise or a cruise to the Canary Islands and the coast of Africa. Based on the two-for-one feature, and depending on cabin category, you could pay as little as $599 per person (double occupancy), plus air fare, for each seven-night cruise--a 50% reduction from standard rates.

Premier’s Southern Caribbean cruise is aboard the Seawind Crown from Aruba, sailing to Curacao, Margarita Island, Barbados, St. Lucia and back to Aruba. Departures are every Sunday, through Dec. 27. To the Panama Canal, the ship is the OceanBreeze from Montego Bay, Jamaica, proceeding to Cartagena (Colombia), the San Blas Islands of Panama, transiting the Panama Canal as far as Gatun Lake, then visiting Puerto Limon (in Costa Rica) before returning to Montego Bay, Jamaica. That departs from Montego Bay every Sunday through Nov. 15, and again from Nov. 29 through Dec. 27.

In the Canary Islands (Las Palmas), you sail on the IslandBreeze to Tenerife and Madeira, and then to Casablanca in Morocco, Lanzarote (in the Canary Islands) and back to Las Palmas. Departures are every Saturday from Nov. 7 through Dec. 26.

For more information, call (800) 990-7770.

The Philadelphia-based Home at First has devised an unusually sensible and cost-effective method of experiencing Britain. From Nov. 1 through March 31, book a British country cottage (out of about 1,500 offered in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) for two weeks and receive round-trip air on British Airways and “appropriate ground transportation” (either a self-drive car or a rail pass) for the same two weeks, for a total cost of $1,680 per person, based on double occupancy (from Los Angeles, add $252 to that cost). You also receive airport transfers, an on-site orientation, several guided excursions, a group dinner party hosted by local residents and considerable assistance by the tour operator in scheduling the daily activities of your stay.

Contact Home at First; tel. (800) 5-CELTIC.

Joining the decision of several other high-quality European hotel chains to make moderately priced rooms available to travelers in early fall, the Dutch-based Golden Tulip chain has announced a “Europe a la Carte” program of dramatically reduced rates throughout September, starting at $75 per room (but increasing to $100 a room at some properties) at 44 of its hotels. Discounts at the lowest $75 level are available in such high-priced cities as Munich, Berlin, Milan and Oslo.

For more information, call Golden Tulip; tel. (800) 344-1212.