Diane

Before we go on our long cruise, we better find out if we can even stay in that small cabin without ruining our friendship. We book a short cruise to Iceland with the same cruise company and same size ship & cabin.

About 6 months before the cruise, the volcano in Iceland starts erupting- no spewing lava but lava flows. I don’t want to take a chance and cancel our Iceland cruise and other Iceland travel arrangements.

Closer to the actual cruise date, the outside thermal spa in Iceland we planned to visit now has boiling water and the town we planned to stay in has been evacuated. It would have been cool to see the lava flow but so glad we cancelled the Iceland cruise/trip but we still need a test cruise.

Alaska here we come. Short cruise to Alaska verifies we can travel in a small cabin and remain friends. Sure hope that same success is had during the Long Cruise.

We are now scheduled to be away from home for 4 months. How can I leave work for that long? It’s time to retire….

A couple of changes to the itinerary- There is turmoil in Bhutan and it is replaced with other stops. A port in Vietnam is being repaired and therefore another one chosen…

“since we are in the area” strikes again.

Now that we’ve added the India Tiger trip we have about 10 days after the cruise ends and the India Tiger trip starts…what to do, what to do…

And the winner was a short sojourn to the western side of Australia near Perth

Our key phrase is…”since we are in the area”…..

One of our favorite tour operators(NatHab) was offering a sale on their “India Tiger Quest” tour to see the tigers of India and “since we are in the area” and it was just after the end of our cruise, we signed up to see the tigers in India.

And “since we are in the area” we booked the Taj Mahal extension.

We noticed a cruise on sale that went to more places we’ve always wanted to see…Plus it offered overland trips, where you’re off the boat for multiple days, to inland places we wanted to see like Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the Terracotta Army in China.

Since this cruise was right after our cruise and on the exact same ship…we couldn’t pass it up and added another leg to the cruise- it’s now a 99 day cruise. What have we done! One small cabin for 99 days!

Let’s see where to start…my travel buddy, Jennifer, has always wanted to go on a world cruise and around 2018, she found an itinerary that went to many places she wanted to go and checked if I wanted to join her. She was working and I was working and I wasn’t ready for such a long cruise but I liked the idea.

Fast forward a few years, Jennifer is now retired, COVID has kinda passed, travel is now allowed and we find (as we’re always looking) another great itinerary. It went to places we wanted to go, was on a smaller ship- about 700 passengers instead of 3000-5000 passengers and it stopped for longer times in ports.

Taking a deep breath we signed up for this 77 day cruise thru Oceania Cruises.