Joan and I first started to discuss what our next travel would be in May and early June of this year (2025). There were still some places we wanted to visit, especially in the far east and Asia, but not excited about significant time in airports and long plane travel.
So I brought up the idea of a year long around the world cruise. I had read about some retired couples living for longer times on cruise ships. Sounded enticing, but Joan pushed back on being gone from family, especially grandkids for that length of time. After further discussion, we looked at some 100 day cruises, but they really did not check many boxes. We found a 180 day cruise that checked a number of boxes, although not all of them, and fit into a good time frame for the holidays and our schedule.
This cruise lacked some bucket list places of Vietnam, New Zealand, Greenland, Japan and South Africa. But did include going back to some places we already visited and were interested in visiting again. Some of these included Peru, Greece, Denmark, Australia , and UAE. We were also interested in getting to Iceland, Honolulu, Singapore, and Thailand.
I also checked out the trip cost and cruise companies. I found good information about Oceania Cruises and it was hailed as the Ritz Carlton of cruise companies with good size cabins, good entertainment and great food.
Joan was convinced, or at least finally agreed that we could be gone for 6 months if we could FaceTime grandkids frequently, and would not miss Izzy’s senior year of high school.
My next post will cover a lot of the planning and check list items, including passports, insurance and Visa’s.
