Category: 2025 Long Cruise

Today we are at sea all day in international waters in the Caribbean. This means we get to explore the ship and watch the ocean go by.

And we get to explore on-board activities- fitness classes, art classes, ballroom dance classes, singing groups, casino, pool, spa, and, of course, eating.

I did take a fitness class in the morning and in the afternoon I was really sore.

Our room is on the 7th deck, the fitness center is on the 9th, the library is on the 10th, and places to eat are on the 5th and 9th deck. So there is plenty of opportunity to take the stairs which I do (sometimes).

Our cabin is 216 square feet and it has two twin beds, two end tables, a desk with chair, a wall-mounted TV and a small couch. Now we have to get all our luggage(see packing post for quantity) into it’s very small drawers and cabinets.

We managed because we put all our empty suitcases plus half of our clothes under the beds. When we are about halfway through the cruise we’ll swap our currently in-use clothes with the under-the-bed clothes. By then, I”m sure we’ll be happy to have a new selection of clothes to wear.

Jennifer has the knack of walking past the wall-mounted TV without causing bruising. I don’t. She gets the bed that requires walking by the TV multiple times a day.

We flew from San Jose California to Miami Florida on Friday morning and our cruise leaves Miami on Sunday. We just wanted to be sure we arrived with all our luggage in time to get onto the ship. We figured we were being over-cautious since it’s only a domestic flight.

There was a bad winter storm in the US and we saw lots of folks running in the airport, many missed their flights and had to re-book. At our hotel we met folks that were missing members of their group because of the flight disruptions.

Our flight was quite smooth and all our luggage arrived at the airport with us- very happy news and well worth the little extra time in Florida.

We spent the time at a hotel near the airport and on Sunday took a hotel shuttle to the port.

Our hotel was 5 1/2 miles from the port and it took us 2 1/2 hours to get to our ship! Our driver said it was the craziest he’s seen this season. There were 9 cruise ships in port and we calculated they held a total of 30,000+ people- no wonder it was crazy.

We’ve been collecting packing lists from everywhere- the cruise line, the tour operators, on-line blogs, and notes from our prior trips. There is a lot of stuff to bring.

Besides ship clothes, excursion clothes, work-out clothes, and fancy clothes, we also need personal supplies, stuff to do on board (computer, needle-point, craft work), first aid kit, swim suits, shoes, sun screen, camera gear, charging cables and chargers for electronic gear, travel converters, lots of cash for tipping….

Now it’s time to actually pick what we’re putting in our bags- it’s very difficult task but we manage. We know we can do laundry on-board the ship but we need enough clothes for at least awhile and then enough so we have some choice so we don’t get tired of what we brought.

We each end up with one huge suitcase, a large duffel bag, a carry on bag and a ‘personal item’. My total luggage weight is 138 pounds, Jennifer’s is only 113 pounds.

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 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!