Kissed by the Upgrade Faerie

I've heard of it happening. Someone books an inside cabin, and wonder of wonders, they are miraculously upgraded to a mini-suite before they set sail. 

I figured it was usually because the passengers had lots of days at sea with the particular line. We have 127 days on Princess, 106 on Holland America, 21 days each on Cunard and Norwegian, 12 on Carnival, and a few more weeks on American Hawaiian and Dolphin (two now defunct cruise lines). We have never been upgraded. 

Until now.

The 2022 Viking World Horizons is our very first Viking cruise. And yet, the lovely and gracious upgrade faerie has seen fit to lift us from our lowly V2 cabin (the most economical stateroom on the Star) to a Deluxe Verandah! 

Okay, before I get too excited, let me explain that the V2s and the Deluxe Verandahs are exactly the same size--270 square feet. (By way of contrast, our balcony cabin on the Pacific Princess on the 2018 WC was 210 square feet.) Both V2s and Deluxe verandahs have the same floorplan, complete with lovely balconies. Both feature luxury linens, heated floors in the bathroom, and free Wi-Fi. But the Deluxe Verandahs offer the following extra perks:

• Room access one hour earlier on embarkation day (I know. Big Whoop!)
• Priority shore excursion reservations 67 days before departure (a week earlier than V2s)
• 1 guaranteed reservation at each alternative dining venue 60 days before departure (V2s are not able to reserve specialty dining before embarkation)
• In-suite mini-bar replenished with water, soft drinks and snacks daily
• In-suite binoculars, coffee machine, and a cashmere throw for chilly days 

The thing I'm most excited about is being able to reserve our excursions a little sooner. There is an included excursion in each port which is guaranteed, but we still need to reserve them. And if we want to do an alternate excursion, all the higher category staterooms get first pick. There are a few ports where we know we'll want to do something other than, or in addition to, the included tour. 

Plus our new home on the Star is Cabin 4008, a deck with passenger cabins both above and below it. We would have been on Deck 3 in a V2, with either the main dining room or the theatre below us, both of which might be noisy at times. 

I've been assured that once we're all on board there's a lovely equality among all the passengers on Viking. There are no areas reserved only for suite passengers, as there is on Cunard or the Norwegian "Haven" ship-within-a-ship areas. Even Princess has started the silliness of selling "Club Class" staterooms, which offer a sectioned-off portion of the regular dining room to provide "anytime dining" with a reserved table within a traditional two-sitting restaurant.   

Guess the cruise lines have discovered it's human nature to want to feel like we've one-upped our fellows. As I write this, I realize I've fallen into the same self-centered trap. I'm tickled to pieces to be able to jump the queue a little.

Color me embarrassed. Mea culpa.

But still, I can't find it in me to wish our good fortune away. I'm pleased as I can be to have been bumped up to a higher category. Thank you, Viking!  

Getting Our Kicks on Route 66

The Norwegian and I took a quick camping trip this past week. We drove over to Springfield, MO--about 100 miles away--so we could visit the awesome new aquarium there. Here's a photo montage my dear hubby put together of our trip.



During this time of the virus, we're so thankful to have our camper. It feels like a very safe way to have a little adventure. We were able to keep to ourselves and the aquarium did a great job of screening us (temperature check and masks required) and limiting the number of visitors in the facility at one time. As a result, we had no crowds to fight and were able to explore at our leisure.

Not every exhibit was open. There was no opportunity to swim with the sharks (oh, darn!) and we saw no penguins, but it is a lovely aquarium. It's also an ode to fishing since it's attached to the Bass Pro Shop and houses a Fisherman Hall of Fame of sorts. There were even a number of photos and exhibits about past presidents who were avid fishermen. (And that is as political as I'm going to get!)

We're still chafing a bit over having our travel plans cut out from under us this year. A small adventure like this one really helps.

Have you been able to do something that inspires you, that educates you in a fun way, or makes you grateful to live in this wonderful world this summer?

Finding our Tribe

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." ~ African Proverb

When I was a kid, our family moved around a lot. I attended three different grade schools, three different middle school and high schools. After graduation, I attended a college before finishing my degree at a university. Once I married my DH--whom I think I will start calling "the Norwegian" for the purposes of this blog because one of my sister-in-laws thought DH meant "Damn Husband!"--he and I strapped on our traveling shoes. Over the last 44 years, we've lived in nine different states, all four continental US time zones. You'd think I was an old hand at jumping into new situations and making friends right away.

You'd be wrong. 

The Norwegian and I are both introverts by nature. Don't get me wrong. We like people. A lot. But it takes us a minute to get our bearings in social situations and to "find our tribe." You know what I mean. Others who share a love of some of the same things you do, who seek answers to some of the same big questions about "life, the universe and everything" that also bedevil you. 

When you board a ship with the intention of sailing around the world, you are essentially moving into a new little village. Your stateroom is your address. Your neighbors are in the cabins next door, and over head, and under foot. There may be a ritzier neighborhood on other decks, but the whole ship is your backyard. Once the deck is swaying under everyone's feet, there's a lovely sort of equality that settles in. (At least it does on Viking ships. There are no areas restricted to only certain cabin classes or require additional fees for admittance.) A big part of an extended cruise experience is the engaging conversations, the mutual discoveries of meeting and getting to know new people, the making of new friends.

Still, like calls to like. People tend to gravitate to others who are interested in the things they like as well. Bridge players find each other. Social dancers hit every ballroom lesson offered. When we were on the Pacific Princess, we had a built-in "tribe" in Table 60, our assigned evening dining and made fast friends with that jolly group around a table for eight. We got to know the other singers on board in the passenger choir. We joined a trivia team for a daily ration of humble pie. We started seeing some of the same people on our excursions. And even before we boarded, I'd made some online friends through the CruiseCritic.com roll call for our cruise. 

Kristy & Dave in Croatia

It was on that message board that I first began to realize I really liked Kristy and her husband Dave. She's a retired kindergarten teacher and Dave's an astronomer who volunteered to lead some stargazing while we sailed. I sincerely hoped we'd find each other among the other 600 and some-odd passengers. 

We actually ran into each other on the hotel shuttle as we were heading to the pier for embarkation that first morning! 

The Norwegian, me and Kristy singing in our bathrobes at the Sydney sail-in

This was a friendship that was meant to be. As I suspected we would, Kristy and I clicked like magnets. When one evening we started finishing each other's sentences, Dave gave us a fish-eyed look and said, "You guys are starting to scare me."

But evidently we didn't scare him too badly. He and Kristy have also booked a cabin on the Viking Star for the 2022 Viking World Horizons! The Norwegian and I have a grand start on discovering our new world cruise "tribe." We already have someone to hang with while we scope out the floating village of the Star. When we were on the Pacific Princess, we ended up on so many of the same excursions as Kristy and Dave without an ounce of pre-planning because our interests seemed to line up. We spent lovely, lazy days talking and laughing together.

I can't wait to do it all again on a different ship with an even more exciting itinerary! (And I know for a fact that not having formal nights on the Viking Star is real selling point for Dave!) 

And now, one more traveling quote especially for a kindergarten teacher: 

"As soon as I saw you, I knew that a grand adventure was about to happen."--Winnie The Pooh

A Brave New World in 2022!

It is with trembling pleasure that I announce we have decided on our next grand adventure. (Drumroll, please!) The DH and I have just booked a cabin on 2022 Viking World Horizons!

It's 119 days from Los Angeles to London, but we'll actually be on board for 121 days and won't disembark until the Viking Star reaches Bergen, Norway on May 11, 2022. (The ship is being repositioned and the cruise line threw in the extra couple of days gratis.)

I'll be honest. I've had my eye on Viking itineraries for several years now. It seemed like they were going everywhere I wanted to be! The 2022 World Cruise is no exception. Out of the 48 ports we'll be visiting, 32 of them are new to us. On this voyage, we'll start by saying hello to some old friends--2 Hawaiian islands, Bora Bora, Moorea, and Tahiti. We'll visit both islands of New Zealand (in 2018, we only touched the northern island) and spend time cruising its lovely fjords.

After that, we'll sail across the Ditch to return to Tasmania (a place I fell in love with in 2018) but this time, we'll pull in to Hobart on the south side of the island. Then we'll skirt the eastern and northern shores of Australia where we hope to see the Great Barrier Reef. Last time we sailed around the southern and western coasts of Oz, so this will be new territory before visiting Komodo Island to see the dragons--I kid you not!

We'll spend 3 days in Bali! (There are actually 11 overnights on this itinerary--many more than most voyages.) Then we'll sojourn in southeast Asia, touching Java, Vietnam, Singapore, and Thailand.  From there, we slip through the Malacca Strait to sail into Myanmar--a new port of call for Viking. For The King & I enthusiasts, Myanmar used to be called Burma and was the home of the ill-fated Tuptim in the Rogers & Hammerstein musical.

We'll visit Sri Lanka and then three ports in India (Thank heaven, the Indian visas we secured for our 2018 trip are valid for 10 years! If you've followed this blog, you'll remember our trials and tribulations with the online process and the cumbersome paperwork we were required to assemble and send.)

In the Middle East, we'll call at Oman and Aqaba, Jordan. Last time we visited Wadi Rum (filming location for both Lawrence of Arabia and The Martian) This time, we'll make the trip to Petra to visit the Nabatean ruins made famous in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  

The next stop is a HUGE draw for us--Egypt! Can't wait to see the Temple complex at Karnak.

Then we'll have 2 days to visit Israel. I know it will be different than I've imagined it, but just to walk where my Savior walked the earth will be...oh! I can hardly see my keyboard because my eyes have teared up. Suffice it to say, like Emily Dickenson, "my soul stands ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."

Continuing the biblical theme, we'll go on to Ephesus and Athens, 2 of the apostle Paul's stops. We'll visit the isle of Rhodes and overnight in Istanbul.

I actually set one of my historical novels (Silk Dreams) in Byzantium (Istanbul's ancient name) during the time when the emperor hired Vikings to serve as his personal guard. (I know. Sounds so strange I'd never dare make it up, but that exactly what the Varangian Guard was!) It will be interesting to see how much my research and imagination managed to capture of the real place.

Then we'll spend time in Italy, Monaco, Spain and Portugal before heading for Great Britain. The lithe Viking Star will cruise up the Thames to Tilbury for London.

From there it's off to Norway and then flying home--Business Class, which I need so I can plug in my portable oxygen concentrator while we're in the air.

To say I'm excited is an understatement! The only downer is that there are over 500 days until we head for LA. But the flip side of that is, I have over 500 days to research, to plan, to dream...

As always, I invite you to hop in my pocket and come along for the ride. Viking provides free wifi on this trip, so I'll be blogging all our adventures as we're having them. So if you haven't already, you might want to sign up to receive my posts by email. (See the "Follow by Email" widget in the right hand column of this page)

That way you'll never miss a minute!

It's Been a Minute...

"May you live in interesting times..." ~ Old Chinese Curse

The DH's home church in northern Iowa

The world has spun quite a few times since my last post and we've all found ourselves in interesting times indeed. Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, none of our lives have remained the same. We all wash our hands more. We check in on elderly relatives more often. We stay home more. For a while, we tried to do church via Facebook and Sunday School using Zoom. It's not the same. Graduations, weddings, funerals--all those milepost events that call us to community have been transformed into shadows of themselves.

And, of course, our travel plans have changed. At first, we tried to stay optimistic about the Alaskan cruise on the Ruby Princess we'd booked for ourselves and 6 family members. 2020 was going to be our year of sharing our love of travel with our loved ones. Then when things got more dicey, we cancelled the May sailing and moved to a September 12th departure, still hopeful. The pandemic grew and the entire Alaskan season was cancelled on all cruise lines. So our 8 person holiday was squashed.

We had booked a 19 day Princess cruise out of LA at the end of September, but we canceled that, too, even before the CDC extended the no-cruising ban. We'd hoped to squeeze that cruise in because we were booked for the 2021 World Cruise on the Island Princess and we wanted to hit the elite level by the time we hit LA.

Then when we decided that the 2021 sailing probably won't go, we booked the 2022 Princess WC. We held onto the 2021 reservations just in case, but I liked the 2022 itinerary better anyway. It meant waiting longer, but without a vaccine, I don't think it would be safe to embark.

In the meantime, we waited for Princess to refund our Alaska cruise. 60 days went by after we canceled. 90. Still nothing. Repeated phone calls from our TA and from the DH, but all we heard from them is that they have to do all refunds "manually" and it's taking longer because there are so many. In the meantime, our final payment for the 2021 World Cruise began to loom on the horizon. We can't justify sending Princess more money until they prove faithful with what we've entrusted them with so far.

Finally in frustration, we called our travel agent yesterday and asked her to cancel both the world cruises we were still booked on.

So now Princess owes us for several deposits in addition to the fully paid Alaska trip.

It makes me sad, because we've always had only positive experiences with Princess in the past. I hope they'll get things together soon because we can't be the only frustrated guests.

But our travel woes are trivial compared to the suffering some are enduring because of the pandemic. So many have become ill. Even more have lost their livelihoods. I hope and pray we see the light at the end of the virus tunnel soon.

In the meanwhile, we've rediscovered the joys of our back deck. It's not a balcony looking over the bounding Pacific, but it's pretty good.

Here's the DH with our hibiscus, the little piece of Hawaii we enjoy at our doorstep each summer. This hearty plant really loves Ozarkian humidity!

And at least one member of our family is tickled pink that we're landlocked for a while. Charlie is ecstatic to have the DH, the Source of All Joy, home for the time being.

But Charlie is destined for disappointment eventually. We're cooking up some new travel plans I'm really excited about. I'll be sharing them with you very soon!
 

Doing the Paperwork

"I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list." ~ Susan Sonntag

Our world cruise is less than a year away and not only do we need to be ready to go, I need to make sure the world is ready for us to come! 

Our papers need to be in order. 

Our passports were new in 2019 and we have the required book format instead of a passport card. We also opted to get the non-standard 52 page one to make sure we have plenty of space. Some countries require an entire page be devoted solely to their stamp. (It was a source of surprise and mild sadness to me that not all countries actually stamped our passport in 2018.)

Princess collected and retained our passports for some parts of the 2018 world cruise. In many cases, the ship presented our documents to the local authorities to streamline the process. In other places, we had to present our passports ourselves, and let the authorities scan our fingerprints upon entering and exiting their land.

In addition to our passports, some countries on our 2021 itinerary require visas for entry. If we don't have proper documentation, Princess could deny us boarding next January without refund or recourse! I do not blame the other countries of the world for requiring us to submit information to verify our identities before allowing us to visit. Even though our intentions are nothing but good, they are all sovereign nations and have every right to control who crosses their borders.

Here are the countries for which we'll need visas or something extra:

• Australia--Piece of cake. We can register online for an ETA (Electronic Travel Authority) closer to our departure from the States. The fee is nominal (AUD$20) and we have to print out our confirmation to present before boarding in Ft. Lauderdale. 
• Indonesia--We actually don't need a visa to visit Bali. Americans receive a free entry stamp, but we must have TWO blank pages in our passports for them to stamp for entry and exit. 
• New Zealand--This is new. We didn't need an NZeTA in 2018, but we'll need one before we board this time. Once we arrive at our first port in NZ, we'll be deemed to hold a visitor's visa. It'll cost NZD$12 for the eTA and another NZD$35 at the time of application for an International Visitor Conservation & Tourism Levy.  
• Sri Lanka--Even though it's located close to India, I doubt we'll have to leap through nearly as many hoops as we did to get our Indian visa in 2017. Before we leave home, we can apply for a FREE Transit Visa to cover our one day stay.
• Jordan--A visa is required, but this friendly middle eastern country will issue all cruise passengers one without fee upon our arrival!

But passports and visas aren't the only papers we'll bring with us. We'll make photocopies of our credit cards, passports and drivers' licenses in case of loss. We'll bring our travel insurance policy and our Medicare and Supplement cards. (One of the reasons we opted for a Medicare supplement instead of Medicare Advantage is that a supplement will pay in 2nd position to our travel insurance for a medical emergency abroad.)  

 After losing some passengers on our last trip, we decided we'll bring our durable power of attorney for each other and finally make ourselves fill out an advance directive or Living Will. Though the DH and I have talked with each other about our end-of-life concerns, there's no need to burden a loved one with decisions in a crisis if we can provide a written expression of our wishes.

I don't share this to be morbid. It's just a fact of life that on a very long cruise, some passengers will... disembark sooner than others. But my grandpa used to say he'd "rather burn out than rust out!" Everyone who boards is still following a dream, still moving forward, still intent on having another excellent adventure. 

We just need to make sure our paperwork is as ready as we are! Honestly, I'm just as excited as I was in May 2017 when we stumbled on the deal for our first world cruise. Being able to run away with the DH for another incredible adventure is an unspeakable blessing and I'm grateful beyond belief. 

Lightning Strikes Twice!

"Take every chance you get in life, because some things only happen once." ~ Karen Gibbs

With respect to Ms. Gibbs, "it ain't necessarily so." I heartily endorse the first clause in that quote. It's important to grasp an adventure with both hands, but I'm here to tell you that some things--wonderful things--sometimes do happen twice!

When we did our 2018 Round the World cruise, I fully expected it would be a one-and-done trip of a lifetime. Then on board, we met couples who'd done two, five, even thirteen voyages around this beautiful blue ball. Not having been visited by the Prize Patrol, I didn't think another World Cruise was possible for us.

But that didn't stop me from dreaming about it. And researching itineraries and costs for 2021 voyages, which was my original estimate of when a world cruise might be feasible. So many offerings made me drool. I weighed the pros and cons of all-inclusive cruise lines compared to the "Pay-As-You-Go" sort. Because we aren't big drinkers, the all-inclusives mean we're paying for someone else to. And the cruise lines which provided an included excursion in each port often don't offer the sort of thing we'd like to do. (In fact, the blogger I'm currently following on this year's Viking World Cruise says the included excursions are often walking tours near the ship or generic bus trips.) And even if the excursions were unlimited (like on Regent for example,) reservations for them are based on the type and price of the stateroom a passenger booked. Chances are the excursion we'd want would have already been spoken for by the folks in more expensive quarters.

Planning our trip "a la carte" made the most sense to me. And we figured out a way to pay for it.

So in February of 2019, we booked a 97 day 2021 World Cruise on Cunard's Queen Victoria, departing from Ft. Lauderdale and ending in London. We'd sail through the Panama Canal (a first for us!), and enjoy an overnight in Sydney which promised a chance to attend an evening performance in their fabulous opera house. Hong Kong was on the map (remember this was long before the current unrest broke out) and after shooting through the Straits of Malacca, QV would turn south to round the Cape of Good Hope with stops in South Africa and Namibia before heading to London.

Then last July-August, we cruised on Cunard for the first time. The Queen Mary is a magnificent ship and the music/entertainment was absolutely to my taste. We had a wonderful time, but 3 formal nights a week proved too much for us. And I'd been assured that, if anything, the World Cruises on Cunard are even more formal. There were other things that we tolerated well enough for  21 days, but might become problematic for a longer cruise. (See  Things I didn't Love About Cunard.) And because I use supplemental O2 on flights, the intercontintental trip home from London to Missouri began to worry me. I'm required to carry 1 1/2 times battery life for the entire trip. It's not something I want to run out of.

So I started looking again.

By this time, Princess had come out with its itinerary for 2021. We could go round trip out of Florida for 111 days and avoid a long-haul flight. The voyage touches 6 continents, two of them completely new to us. There are six stops in New Zealand (four more than our last visit there) and then the Island Princess will cruise along the north shore of Australia (we skirted the south side last time). The ship will visit Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Oman (all new to us). Jordan is a repeat, but we'd have a chance to go to Petra the next time. (We visited Wadi Rum, of The Martian and Lawrence of Arabia fame in 2018.)

And then I saw the next port of call and knew I'd found the right trip for us. The Island Princess will stop in Israel. I'm a Christian, so the dream of seeing Jerusalem and Bethlehem is a long-standing one. I love visiting sacred sites, even if I don't share the faith that consecrates them. Time out of mind, humans have been reaching up, searching for that sacred Other, looking for glimpses of the infinite in a finite world. The thought of setting foot in the birthplace of my own faith, as well as the other two great monotheistic religions, brings tears to my eyes.

Plus we know we like the Princess style of cruising. I complained about too many formal nights on Cunard, but I'd miss them if we were on a less formal line that didn't have any. There will be 3 or 4 formal nights per segment on the Island Princess--rare enough that they will be special and we'll enjoy and look forward to them. And, barring the occasional ventriloquist, we enjoyed the entertainment on our 2018 World Cruise. We loved singing in the passenger choir and playing trivia with our team. We like assigned seat in the MDR. The nightly conversations and friendships we made at Table 60 was a delight. If we cruised on a line where everyone was floating from place to place we'd have basically the same introductory conversations 111 times in a row.

It was sort of a no brainer.

So we called our long-suffering travel agent (Teresa Skeim of Cruise Specialists!) and asked her what it would take to change us from Cunard to Princess for 2021. She got to work and because we were still booking quite early, we got a boatload of valuable perks:

• $1000 off the advertised fare for each of us for a $2000 savings
• $1000 per person OBC (plus $1500 from our TA for $3500 total! That'll buy a lot of excursions!)
• Free airfare to and from Ft. Lauderdale
• 4 complimentary evenings in specialty restaurants
• 4 bottles of wine (We'll have them brought to our table and share them with our tablemates!)
• Upgraded cabin location 
• Pre-paid gratuities (a $3219 value)
• Free unlimited Wifi & Internet (The Island Princess is a Medallion Class ship so it should be faster than we've experienced before and will be a real boon to this blog!)

And then because we'll be Elites in the Princess loyalty program by the time we board the Island Princess, we'll receive these extra goodies:

• Free laundry & professional cleaning (Something the DH said was a must before we sailed around the world again!)
• Shoe polishing
• Priority tender service
• Mini-bar set up in our cabin at the beginning of each segment (We can substitute soda and bottled water for the alcohol!)
• Afternoon tea upon request
• Canapes delivered to the stateroom on each formal night
• Upgraded bathroom amenities

It almost seems we got an all-inclusive for the price of an a la carte! 

Of course, I'll update you on all our preparation and plans as we get ready for this twice blessed trip of a lifetime. Just think! Only 351 more days to go!

2020 Travel Resolutions

"Life is either a daring adventure or it's nothing at all." ~ Helen Keller

I used to make resolutions at the first of the year. But they often dissolved into nothingness. For example, my resolve to keep a diary when I was a kid. Apparently, I had nothing but a bunch of January's in my past.

So now instead of resolutions, I make plans. And these are my travel plans for 2020:

January--The DH and I will make a quick overnight trip to Springfield, MO (about 100 miles away) with our friends Joy and Mike. (If you've followed this blog, you may remember them from our 2017 Alaskan cruise on the HAL Eurodam, and our excellent adventure together to view the solar eclipse totality near our town!) We have tickets to see Les Miserable.  In the past, we've enjoyed this incredible show in both London and New York. I'm sure a traveling troop is still a "can't miss" performance. The music, the story, the conflict of law and grace and other metaphysical questions--it's an epic show that I'll think about for weeks afterward.

May--We'll be leading our entourage (my parents, our daughters and daughter-in-law, and my nephew) on a 7-day Alaskan cruise round trip out of Seattle. Everyone has their passports, and seating assignments on our flight. When we get within 50-60 days or so from departure, we'll download the Oceans app and learn what "Medallion Class" cruising is all about. IWe've always gone to Alaska in September before. I think I'm most excited about seeing Glacier Bay in spring.

June--It'll be time to tune up the camper and head to northern Iowa for the DH's family reunion. We also hope to do more camping this summer, probably close to home, but maybe a bit farther afield.

September--The DH caught a terrible respiratory bug in 2019 and it hit just before Halloween. He's only now got a voice back. Because it didn't respond to antibiotics or antivirals, one of the many docs he saw for it suggested it might have been allergic at first, then an opportunistic secondary infection moved in. In case it was seasonal allergy related, we plan to get the heck out of Dodge this year. We're booked on a 19 day cruise out of LA to the Panama Canal and back! It'll be just the dose of sunshine we need before winter settles in.

Then on January 3, 2021, we ....

...to be continued!