Season 9: Around the world in 1?? days!

Welcome back!  Thank you for joining us again for our ninth season of extended cruising! Regardless of whether you’re following along to escape reality for a few minutes each day, or to get information about the ports we’ll be visiting, or find out about living (temporarily) on a ship, or even just to see what disaster befalls us this year ;-), I’m so happy you’re here.

When was the last time we did something for the first time? This year, when we will literally travel eastward around the world by plane and by ship. I’m not entirely certain how long it will take (after all, it’s us), but, as God is my witness, even if something happens (after all, it’s us) and we have to fly home the long way from Europe, we’re gonna do this! We’ll be covering a lot of new territory, and I know it’s going to be a challenging experience, but there is something very exciting about visiting so many new and exotic locations, and at the same time very comforting about seeing most of them by ship. 

Sources: below

Do you know how we’re always changing our plans mid-trip, extending and re-arranging and sometimes incurring financial penalties to cancel future travels because we discover how much we’re enjoying our current one?  I’m not certain it’s an improvement, but this year we changed plans before we even left home. Our original plan was simple: board the Sapphire Princess in Southampton, England on October 21 and disembark the ship in Shanghai, China on January 5. 

Though we've loosely talked about traveling in Southeast Asia for years, this adventure was not on our radar until we were cruising on the Golden Princess last season. As we talked with our fellow passengers, most of them from Australia, a 28-night repositioning cruise from Rome to Singapore on the Sapphire in November, as well as the nearly identical one from Singapore to Rome last March, came up time and again. We also heard lots of good things about the ports in Southeast Asia (which, as you can tell from looking at the map below, is as close to Australia as much of the US is to the Caribbean). It sounded promising, and G and I discussed it for a few days. I checked cabin availability and he ran around the Golden looking at the location of the same cabins on that (nearly identical) ship to determine which we might like best. After about a week of consideration, I booked five back to back (B2B) Sapphire Princess cruises one evening while sitting in the Princess Theater waiting for a show to start.

I thought we were done with cruise booking then, and by early summer I actually started spending time on port planning (yes, me!). Things were progressing nicely; we had made our first final payment and I had even gotten two of our required visas when G took a long hard look at that 28-night repositioning cruise and balked. I knew change was imminent when the first thing he said to me the morning before that cruise’s final payment was, “Are you okay with all the sea days on that cruise from Rome to Singapore?” For those not married to men, let me translate that for you. What he was telling me was that he was NOT okay with all those sea days (17 out of 28) on the repositioning cruise and he was looking for me to agree so that changing our plans would be a mutual decision. Frankly, though there were a lot of sea days, I was more concerned with the limited amount of time we’d have in Dubai, which, based on the research we’d already done, was turning out to be the big draw of that cruise for us. 

That’s how we found ourselves just hours before our second final payment was due spending day and night figuring out what else we could do to fill 28 days. Our first thought was to spend some time in Europe, then stop in Egypt to see the pyramids, then spend a few days in Dubai and finally fly to India to see the Taj Mahal (since we already had the India visa) before re-joining the Sapphire Princess in Singapore.  After reading several reviews, it became apparent that, for what we were willing to spend, our Egypt and India visits would involve too little sightseeing and too much of being escorted from one buying opportunity to another. We’re on the downward side of accumulating stuff; shopping trips, even exotic ones, are not for us. 

It was sheer luck when a quick check of the website CruiseTimetables.com showed us a perfect solution. The pieces fell into place and we canceled one cruise and booked two cruises, two overnight flights and a stay in Dubai in its place. Instead of 11 port days and 17 sea days, we’ll have 25 port days and just three sea days. The budget was busted and we may kill ourselves in the effort but the end result was tailor-made for us. 

In a few days we’ll fly to London, spend two nights in the city and then, on Sunday, October 21, take a shuttle about two hours south to the port of Southampton. There we’ll board the Sapphire Princess for a 10-night cruise that will take us down the west coast of Europe and into the western Mediterranean to Civitavecchia, the port for Rome. We’ll disembark the Sapphire and spend one night in Civitavecchia and the next day board the Norwegian Spirit for a 10-night cruise to the Greek Islands. We’ll return on the ship to Civitavecchia where that same day we’ll board the (pinch me!) Pacific Princess for a 12-night cruise ending in (pinch me again!) Venice. We’ll next fly to Dubai where we’ll enjoy four days before continuing on to Singapore. There we’ll re-board the Sapphire Princess for over five weeks of cruising in Southeast Asia and disembark in Shanghai in January. From Shanghai, we’ll fly to Hawaii for several weeks (and sleep for at least one of them, I suspect), and complete our around the world adventure when we finally fly home. 

Whew!

58 port days (plus Hawaii), 41 different cities, 22 sea days, 20 countries, 5 overnight flights. 

Crazy ambitious, or just plain crazy?

Source:  MapCustomizer.com

As thrilled as we are with our new itinerary, we understand what we’re in for. Especially in Asia, this will be big city cruising, where the pier is often more than an hour away from the city centers. Languages, currency, certainly the cultures will make this season much more difficult than our months in Australia and New Zealand last year...but infinitely fascinating too. We are also facing the reality that we are quickly running out of cruises during our winter months that go to places we’ve never been. The fact that everything between Rhodes, Greece and Shanghai, China (as well as a few ports in Europe) will be virgin territory made these cruises especially appealing. 

European ports 

Dubai, UAE (24)

Asian ports

 

We’re excited to be back on the Sapphire Princess, a mid-sized ship very similar to the Golden Princess. I took a 31-night transpacific cruise from Los Angeles to Sydney on the Sapphire in its inaugural year, 2004, and we did the same cruise in reverse on its identical sister ship, the Diamond Princess, in 2006.  I thought the ships were particularly beautiful (I’m anxious to see if my favorite Asian music box/sculpture is still just outside the Lotus Spa), and, of course, we loved the Terrace and covered Calypso Pools. While we are firm fans of small ships like the Pacific Princess, we felt very comfortable on the Golden last year. With about 2600 passengers, these ships are large enough to feature lots of dining and entertainment options but are not oppressively sized.

Sapphire Princess

Source:  https://www.penguincruiseparking.co.uk/cruise-ships/sapphire-princess

The Norwegian Spirit is a new ship for us. In fact, we’ve only taken one NCL cruise in the past, and it wasn’t a favorite, but we are intrigued by the Spirit’s port-intensive Greek Islands itinerary (9 ports in 10 days!), and the ship’s smaller size (carrying about 2000 passengers).  In a sense, the ship will be like a ferry, carrying us from Greek island to Greek island while we sleep.

Norwegian Spirit

Source:  https://www.seascanner.com/ship-norwegian-spirit

And, finally, have I mentioned we love the Pacific Princess?  I know I have, but have I mentioned it lately? We can’t wait to see the refurbishment that was completed on the ship during last year’s dry dock. Stepping on the Pacific Princess is exactly like coming home, and to be one of its just 680 passengers is a real treat. It’s cruising the way it used to be (and the way I wish it always was). 

Pacific Princess

Source:  me!

As for where we’ll be staying in Dubai...well, you'll have to keep following along. Just one hint: our 35th wedding anniversary was last month, and unless you consider our working together to set up our new iPhones that day to be romantic (I don’t), rest assured we’ll be making up for that in a special way while we’re in Dubai. 

I think I’m most looking forward to that.

Around the world and a milestone anniversary...

Life is good. :-)

Sources:

1) https://www.visitlondon.com/

2) https://www.booking.com/hotel/ae/burj-al-arab.html

3) http://www.singapore-guide.com/

4) https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/qs-best-student-cities/paris

5) https://www.worldtravelguide.net/guides/asia/thailand/bangkok/

6) http://www.visitgreece.gr/en/main_cities/athens

7) https://www.iexplore.com/destinations/hong-kong/travel-guides/far-east/hong- kong/overview