Never Would I Ever...

May 18, 2026 

Home for over a year now...

“I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.”

― Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

We had some outstanding times on our 2025 WC with Viking. The staff was incredible. Our room stewards spoiled us rotten and our wait staff in the Restaurant made every meal feel like a family event with their attentive and friendly demeanor. Patricia, the assistant cruise director, ran a mean passenger choir rehearsal. In fact, it was the first time I've felt like we made some real music on board instead of just fooling around. We were blessed to have the fellowship of over 20 other Christians throughout the voyage for Bible studies every sea day and Sunday evening church services. The itinerary was amazing, touching exotic ports like Komodo Island, Bali, Singapore, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and several African countries where we took multiple game drives and saw 4 of the Big Five! Our overnight in Sydney allowed us to go to a fabulous performance of La Traviata at the iconic Opera House. 

By any measure, this was a world class voyage. And yet...

There were differences between our 2022 and 2025 that left us a bit unsettled. With the exception of Patricia, the on board entertainment team didn't begin to match the 2022 staff for talent. Perhaps it was a case of one head chef to another, but the food quality seemed to have slipped a bit. Many of the on board enrichment speakers were excellent--informative, thought-provoking, and often entertaining. But there was one who made it his mission in life to denigrate Christianity each time he took the stage. He had been a seminarian studying to be a Catholic priest, and for some unnamed reason, abandoned the church to wander throughout Polynesia emersing himself in every ancient rite and tribal belief. Because I've always enjoyed comparative religious studies, his descriptions of those practices were interesting. However, he never missed an opportuntity to denounce Christianity. Fiercely. 

Clearly, he had suffered a wound at the hands of the church, but I couldn't help ask myself if Viking would have allowed a speaker to denounce Islam, or Buddhism, or Hinduism with the same vitriol. 

If that was the end of it, I wouldn't feel as if we were a particularly unwelcome demographic. However, we had to beg for a place and time to hold Bible studies. And even then, we never knew when the location would be suddenly appropriated for another event or even a crew training activity. Though meeting times for Rotary and other service clubs, Friends of Bill W, and Friends of Dorothy appeared in the daily ship's printed schedule, we couldn't even get them to post the two Easter services (both of which were very well attended by passengers and crew alike.)

In 2022, our church services were started and led by Aaron, our cruise director, until passengers started taking more of a planning role. One of the assistant cruise directors sang a special for one of our services. One of the talented pianists had his schedule altered so he could play for the hymns. 

In 2025, a gifted pianist asked to have her schedule altered so she could attend and play the hymns. She was denied. 

I wonder if the difference is that Viking is now a publicly held company instead of family owned.    

I won't lie. It left a sour taste in my mouth. 

But "never would I ever" say I won't consider another Viking voyage. There's more good than bad to tip the scales in Viking's favor.  

And by good, I mean the people.

******

Quick update on our last year---

When we picked my mom up at my sister Linda's in May 2025, she had decided she enjoyed living with family instead of alone at her house. So she moved in with us! (Something I'd been trying to convince her to do since we lost Dad.) We helped her sell her house and all my sisters came and helped us empty its contents. This was a huge blessing for us, and for mom as well. She'd have been devastated by a sale of all her "treasures," but seeing them go off to my sisters was much easier.   

We have loved having Mom with us and my sister Jennifer admitted she was jealous of the time we were enjoying with her. So when Jenn came back to visit in March 2026, she took mom home with her for a visit. It worked out well because she'd already agreed to take care of mom while we celebrate our 50th anniversary in May 2026, so Mom will have a nice long time with Jenn.

Because the DH and I are leaving tomorrow to begin our trip to Seattle so we can board Cunard's Queen Elizabeth for a 12 night Alaska cruise! This is our 4th voyage to the 49th state, once with my parents, once with friends, and once with all our kids & my parents, but this is the first one we'll be making alone. 

Seems fitting since 50 years ago it was just the two of us heading out together, doesn't it? 

More later...       

London, the Last Port

 May 5, 2025

Greenwich, England

Time to say goodbye. --

I'll go with you to countries I never saw and shared with you, now, yes, I shall experience them.

I'll go with you on ships across seas which, I know, no, no, exist no longer;

it's time to say goodbye. -- with you I shall experience them.

~Andrea Bocelli

Our last port day started with a leisurely cruise up the muddy Thames. Our berth was the most unusual tie-up we've ever experienced. The Sky was snugged up next to a cement wharf in the middle of river. We debarked onto this solid base, then boarded a smaller vessel that took us for the four minute, straight shot trip to the disembarkation spot on the bank of the river. (I fretted a bit about how this arrangement would work when we actually had to leave the Sky on the next day with all our carry-ons and medical equipment in tow but I worried for nothing. It ran like clockwork. However, we were ever so glad we'd paid to have our big suitcases shipped home via Luggage Forward. We're enough to deal with just on our own!)

Our excursion today was a visit to the Tower of London. When the kids were 8 & 6, we took our first trip to the UK and the Tower was a highlight. Our girls were fascinated and they surprised the Beefeater who was giving us a tour. Upon finding out we were from North Carolina at that time, he asked the girls if they knew the connection between the Tower and NC. 

"Sure," #1 Daughter said. "Sir Walter Raleigh was in prison here, but we named our capital after him." (Those were our homeschooling years. I was so proud!)

I have to confess however, that this visit without the girls was filled with memories instead of actually focusing on what I was seeing. Of course, it may have been that my homing beacon was pinging pretty loudly by then. That said, we did enjoy seeing the crown jewels, and the suits of armor on display. Something new was a series of wire animals--monkeys and lions mostly--cavorting on the tops of some walls, a nod to the ghosts of Royal Menageries past. 

People have asked me about our experience on Viking overall since this was our second world cruise with the carrier. I suspect that is a subject for another post because our 2022 voyage was so unusual. Traveling in the Time of Covid meant we were cossetted and protected and pampered at every turn. The ship was half full as opposed to at capacity in 2022.

 It's hard to give a definite thumb's up or thumb's down. I will discuss this conundrum in a later post. 

But for now, please enjoy the DH's London montage!

 

Chalk Cliffs and Canterbury Tails (Nope, that's not a typo!)

 May 4, 2025

Dover, United Kingdom

"There is a cliff, whose high and bending head looks fearfully in the confined deep: Bring me to the very brim of it." ~ King Lear, Shakespeare

The iconic chalk of the Dover headland is blindingly white in full sun. Even on this overcast day, it glitters from quite a distance. As the Sky made our approach, a wave of deja vu swept over me. Back in 2012, we did an around the British Isles cruise that also included a stop at L'Havre, France. The chalk face on that southern side of the English Channel is much shorter and less expansive, but it seemed obvious to me then that at one time Brittain was connected directly to Europe.

On this world cruise we had a geologist who gave fascinating lectures. We learned that the "original Brexit" actually took place only about 8,000 years ago, a literal blink in geological time. A cataclysmic event caused the North Sea to rush down across the lowland between the continent and Brittain, separating them permanently in an act of nature as devastating and swift as the one that buried Pompeii. We're taught to think that as things are, so have they always been. However, when it comes to this old blue ball, "it aint necessarily so." Sometimes changes, major changes, happen too quickly for people to even react.      

We took an included tour to the village of Canterbury. Since it was a Sunday, I was so hopeful we'd be able to slip into the worship service, but we arrived too late to join in and would need to ride back to port before we could join a tour of the cathedral later that afternoon. It made me wistful for the freedom to explore independently that we enjoyed on our Seville On Your Own day. 

But Canterbury is a charming village with narrow lanes lined with period homes and businesses. I guess I'd always thought Cat Cafes were an urban myth, but we did come across one in our wanderings! The "Canterbury Tails" was a delight!  

Normandy

 Honfleur, France

May 3, 2025

“At the core, the American citizen soldiers knew the difference between right and wrong, and they didn’t want to live in a world in which wrong prevailed. So, they fought and won, and we, all of us, living and yet to be born, must be forever profoundly grateful.” — Stephen Ambrose, Citizen Soldiers

It has been over a year since we visited the beaches of Normandy. (Again, I'm sorry for the hiatus, but sometimes, life intervenes.) But even with the passage of time, the profound experience of our day in France lingers in my soul. 

The visit began with a lovely drive through the French countryside, green and cool. After the arid countries we'd been in, it was a rest for my color-starved eyes. As you'll see in the photo montage the DH has put together, the homes we passed were charming and well-tended. And to my surprise, many of the private homes flew both French and US flags. As an American I felt unwelcome in Spain. Here, I was deeply touched by the way the French remembered and honored our past sacrifice for them. 

We spent an extended time in a DDay museum at Arrowmanches, learning about the man-made harbor the clever Allied engineers assembled with lightning speed the day after the blood-soaked, but successful landing. Some of the rusting skeletons of the floating docks still dot the coastline. 

The thing that amazed me was that this undertaking had to be planned and launched on the heels of fighting men, without knowing whether or not the landing would succeed.

7000 vessels, 12000 aircraft, paratroopers dropping behind the German lines the night before, over 160,000 men and tons of supplies all converging in a short two days--how the Allies kept the invasion a secret amazed me. Clearly, it could never have happened today in the era of satellite coverage and a 24/7 news cycle. 

No absolute data on the number of the fallen can be compiled, but it's estimated that 2400 Americans died on Omaha Beach alone. 

After our time at the beach, we had a light lunch in a nearby bistro. Then it was time to pay our respects at the American Cemetery at Colleville-Sur-Mer, the final resting place for so many of those who gave their lives on the very beach the cemetery overlooks--"Bloody Omaha."

Solemn, sorrow-drenched, yet surreally beautiful, it is the sort of place where no one has to remind you to speak in hushed tones, if at all. The long rows of crosses interspersed with Stars of David see to that. A cleansing breath of wind in the pines whispered of a far better land to come, a place where no evil can stand.