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d the sounds will rise: the party Dear Mr. Stoltz,

This week's cruise newsletter begins with a recap of how tourists have been affected by recent events in Egypt. Please scroll down for this week's cruise deals.

On January 25, thousands of Egyptians converged on Cairo's Tahrir Square in what started as peaceful protests calling for the resignation of the country's president, Hosni Mubarak, who had reigned for 30 years.

As the crowds grew, they clashed with police and Mubarak supporters. On January 28, anti-government protesters fought with stones and fire bombs, and police responded with rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons. Internet and cell phone services were largely cut off in an attempt to hamper the organization of protests.

The Egyptian Museum, which houses some of the country's most precious artifacts, was targeted by looters who reportedly entered from the roof through a glass-paneled ceiling. According to Egypt's Antiquities Minister, Zahi Hawass, the looters were after gold and a fictitious substance called "red mercury" that is said to have magical powers and is found in the throats of ancient mummies. Around 70 items were damaged and 18 objects were taken (two have since been recovered). Fortunately, the looters did not access the padlocked room containing the gold burial mask of Tutankhamun and other priceless treasures.

There were attempted break-ins at several other museums around the country, but most were unsuccessful.

As the situation worsened, governments around the world issued travel advisories for Egypt. Advisories were soon changed to warnings, urging non-essential personnel to leave the country immediately.

It's unclear as to how long it took for all tourists to leave the country, or if all of them did leave, but all Vacations To Go customers who were in Egypt when the warnings were issued were out of the country by February 10.

Most of our customers departed on scheduled airlines, though some left on flights chartered by Viking River Cruises or the US government. Thankfully, there have been no reports of tourists being harmed throughout this period of unrest.

On February 11, after 18 days of protests, Mubarak stepped down and handed authority to the military. Protests turned into celebrations, and leaders of the revolutionary movement are meeting with military leaders to discuss the transition to a new government.

Here's a look at how tour companies, river cruise lines and ocean-going cruise lines have responded to the crisis...

Nile cruises that were in progress during the protests continued on to their scheduled destinations, and all passengers on those trips were safely transported home.

In general, escorted tour companies and river cruise lines have cancelled all Egypt itineraries through the end of March. Customers booked on cancelled departures may opt for a full refund, in most cases, or can apply their funds to an alternate vacation with the same operator. A few operators are offering additional discounts for those who choose to rebook.

Most companies have not cancelled April or May departures at this time, but some are allowing customers who hold bookings for those months to cancel and apply the money paid to another trip.

For a company-by-company listing of how tour and river cruise companies are handling cancellations and re-bookings, click here.

Ocean-going cruise lines that visit Egypt typically call on Alexandria, and all such port calls scheduled in February have been cancelled and replaced with visits to Israel, Turkey or Greece. Most lines with sailings that are scheduled to visit Egypt in March and beyond say that they are closely monitoring the situation, but have not yet made any changes.

For a line-by-line listing of how cruise lines are handling future port calls in Egypt, click here.

In a country where 13% of jobs and 11% of the gross domestic product comes from tourism, the impact of these events is severe. According to the Egypt Tourist Authority in New York, 14.7 million tourists visited Egypt last year, generating $11 billion in revenue. Even if the transition to a new government goes smoothly, it will likely be a year or more before Egypt's tourism industry recovers.

As of this writing, the Egyptian Museum in Cairo remains closed and heavily guarded. The country's most popular tourist attractions, the Pyramids of Giza, have reopened to tourists, as have the temples in Luxor and Aswan.

We've already been asked if it's now safe to book an Egyptian vacation this year, and our advice is to hold off for a few weeks. Though the protests have ended, there is still potential for unrest if the transition to a new government hits a snag.

When the time comes to resume booking trips to this amazing country, Egypt will need tourism more than ever.

...Laura VanLoon, Troy Bringle and Alan Fox

Vacations to Go

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If you are considering a Celebrity cruise this year, now is a great time to make your reservation. In addition to the lowest Celebrity prices you'll find anywhere, we have just arranged an exclusive deal for Vacations To Go customers -- shipboard credits of $50 to $425 per stateroom -- on a wide variety of cruises and cruise tours departing in 2011.

Shipboard credits are like cash onboard and can be used to purchase just about anything, from shore excursions to spa treatments to wine and cocktails. Click here for dates and prices.

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Here's a list of specialty cruises, discounts and resources we offer. Some are available only to certain types of travelers, and others are available to all Vacations To Go customers. Click the links below for more information:

Age 55+ Rates
EMT Discounts
Firefighter Discounts
Grand Voyages
Hosted Singles Cruises
Interline Rates
Military Rates (U.

horns,A fireworks and shouts of "Happy New "Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne?"

It is a poem in Scots dialect, set to a Scots folk tune, and an unscientific survey says that a lot of us don't think much about the words, or even know them. The great film director Mike Nichols came to America from Germany as a child, when his family fled Hitler. He had to learn a lot of English quickly and never got around to "Auld Lang Syne": "I was too busy with words like 'emergency exit' on the school bus," he told me. "As a result, I find myself weeping at gibberish on New Year's Eve. I enjoy that."

The screen and television writer Aaron Sorkin, who this year, with "The Social Network," gives Paddy Chayefsky a run for his money, says that every year he means to learn the words. "Then someone tells me that's not a good enough New Year's resolution and I really need to quit smoking."

"Auld Lang Syne"—the phrase can be translated as "long, long ago," or "old long since," but I like "old times past"—is a song that asks a question, a tender little question that has to do with the nature of being alive, of being a person on a journey in the world. It not only asks, it gives an answer.

It was written, or written down, by Robert Burns, lyric poet and Bard of Scotland. In 1788 he sent a copy of the poem to the Scots Musical Museum, with the words: "The following song, an old song, of the olden times, has never been in print." Burns was interested in the culture of Scotland, and collected old folk tales and poems. He said he got this one "from an old man"—no one knows who—and wrote it down. Being a writer, Burns revised and compressed. He found the phrase auld lang syne "exceedingly expressive" and thought whoever first wrote the poem "heaven inspired." The song spread throughout Scotland, where it was sung to mark the end of the old year, and soon to the English-speaking world, where it's sung to mark the new.

The question it asks is clear: Should those we knew and loved be forgotten and never thought of? Should old times past be forgotten? No, says the song, they shouldn't be. We'll remember those times and those people, we'll toast them now and always, we'll keep them close. "We'll take a cup of kindness yet."

"The phrase old acquaintance is important," says my friend John Whitehead, fabled figure of the old Goldman Sachs, the Reagan State Department, and D-Day. "It's not only your close friends and people you love, it's people you knew even casually, and you think of them and it brings tears to my eyes." For him, acquaintance includes, "your heroes, my heroes—the Winston Churchills of life, the ones you admire. They're old acquaintances too."

But "the interesting, more serious message in the song is that the past is important, we mustn't forget it, the old has something for us."

So does the present, as the last stanza makes clear. The song is not only about those who were in your life, but those who are in your life. "And there's a hand, my trusty friend, and give a hand of thine, We'll take a right good-will draught for auld lang syne."

To Tom Coburn, a U.S. senator from Oklahoma, the song is about friendship: "I think it's a description of the things we lose in our hurry to do things. We forget to be a friend. We have to take the time to make friends and be friends, to sit and tell stories and listen to those of others."
More Peggy Noonan

Read Peggy Noonan's previous columns

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Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana said he always experienced the song as celebratory and joyful until something happened in 2004. Mr. Daniels was running for office, and it became a new bonding experience for him and his father, who followed the campaign closely: "He loved my stories from the road." The elder Daniels died unexpectedly in August, "50 days short of my election as governor." At a New Year's party, the governor-elect heard the song in a new way. Ever since, "I hear its wistfulness."

Lesley Stahl of "60 Minutes," enjoying one of the great careers in the history of broadcast news, thinks of childhood when she thinks of "Auld Lang Syne": "I see New Year's Eve parties going way back, all the way back to when we were little kids and you had to kiss someone at midnight and you had to sing that song." She interviewed Mark Zuckerberg recently. "Maybe in the age of Facebook you don't lose old friends," she says. "Maybe it's obsolete." Maybe "they'll have to change the song."

For the journalist and author Marie Brenner, the song didn't come alive until she moved from her native Texas to New York City, in the 1970s. That first New Year's in town, "Auld Lang Syne was a revelation to me. . . . I thought, this is beautiful and maybe written by a Broadway composer, by Rodgers and Hammerstein." She saw people singing it "on the street, and at a party in a bar downtown." There was "this gorgeous moment when everyone seemed to know the words, and people looked teary and, yes, drunk." They played the song back in San Antonio, "but it took me coming to New York to really hear it."

The song is a staple in movies, but when I asked people to think of the greatest "Auld Lang Syne scene," every one of them had the same answer. Not "When Harry Met Sally," not "Out of Africa," not, for film buffs, Charlie Chaplin's "The Gold Rush." The great "Auld Lang Syne" scene in cinematic history is from "It's a Wonderful Life," which Mr. Sorkin puckishly describes as "Frank Capra's classic tale of an angel who takes up the cause of a progressive in order to defeat a heartless conservative. It's possible I'm misinterpreting the movie, but the song still works."

The scene comes at the end of the film. Friends surround George Bailey, recently rescued by an angel. Someone bumps against the Christmas tree and a bell ornament makes a sound. George's daughter says, "Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings," and George looks up and winks. "Thanks, Clarence," he says, as the music swells. God bless the baby boomers who discovered that film on TV after their elders dismissed it as Capra-corn.

Tonight I'll be at Suzie and Joe's, with whom I worked at CBS News in auld lang syne. I'll think of some who won't be entering the new year with us—big, sweet-hearted dynamo Richard Holbrooke, and Ted Sorensen, counselor to presidents, whose pen was a terrible swift sword. I'll take a cup of kindness yet for them, for all the old acquaintances in this piece, and for the readers, for 10 years now, of this column. We mark an anniversary. Thank you for being in my life. Happy New Year.

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Bon voyage

Remember at LiquidHorizons cruising is a way of life!

Conrad Stoltz
Publisher/Editor
stoltz@liquidhorizons.com

Updated April 5, 2011