Countdown to the 2012 World Cruise

Okay, so why did I choose to spend my last remaining pennies to go around the world on a cruise ship?  I usually laugh and say, “Well, I thought I’d better do it before the world ends on December 21, 2012, according to Nostradamus, the Mayans, and others.”

Actually, I had a World Cruise booked with Holland America back in 2000.  But, that was the year my dad died, and there was a lot going on with the sale of the shopping center and with his illness.  Then, the year after that, all hell broke loose in the Mideast, and cruise ships were “going out and coming back”, but not “going around”.

So, I traveled by RV (motorhome) instead all over the United States, while still taking a cruise every now and then - sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, sometimes with my grandson. 

I like cruises – I like being waited on; I like dressing up; I like visiting the ports of call and seeing different cultures, different landscapes.  I loved the warm, sunny days at leisure in the Caribbean, watching the wide-open ocean world passing by my deck chair.  And, dressed in parka and mittens, I loved photographing the cold, cloudy glacier views in the Inside Passage.   I was awed by the whales in the Sea of Cortez, doubly awed when my grandson was able to reach out and touch one of the mama gray whales.  The amazing wildlife in the Galapagos filled photo albums as we zoomed in with zodiacs to walk among the birds and seals and tortoises; and we all stood on the front deck of that small ship in our pajamas at 2:00 am watching a newly erupting volcano there.

Cruising is akin to traveling by rail.  I love train travel.  The food is always good, the beds comfortably rocking me to sleep.  I can sit by the windows watching the world pass by for hours on end; and, as I’m fond of saying, remarking to someone beside me, “there goes the dinosaur museum…….”, as my pointing finger traces an arc forward, middle, and back as the museum comes into view and then fades from view.  Meaning, of course, that there is absolutely no opportunity to stop and visit the dinosaur museum as the train whisks its passengers quickly along the clackety-clack rails to the next station.

When I was driving tractor-trailer trucks cross-country, I would see dads mowing the lawn while the kids were splashing in a wading pool.  I would see, through the open drapes, a family eating at a dinner table.  I would see farmers plowing their fields.  And then they would be gone, lost in the rear-view mirrors as I rushed on to my destination.

With the RV, I could stop and visit interesting places like a dinosaur museum or a riverboat casino; I could stop at a farmer’s market and reap the rewards of their long hours in the fields.  I could camp at a State Park and sit beside the campfire watching stars flicker in the night sky or I could camp in the desert and listen to the coyotes howl.   At gas stations across the country, I would pull in, fill up, buy a snack, and be back on the road in minutes. And, even though I could park in a small town or city and walk the streets, shop in the downtown areas, and visit historic sites, I was “here today, gone tomorrow”.

Travel, to me, is a lot like being a voyeur; being a kind of non-sexual peeping Tom or “Thomasina”, if you will.  Catching a glimpse of life from truck or train windows or from cruise ship decks - seeing and photographing, perhaps even visiting  - and then moving on.  Even in my RV when I was able to spend a little time somewhere, I was still a voyeur as people in the towns and cities through which I traveled welcomed me and then said goodbye and went merrily back to doing what they had been doing before I arrived, closing that quick glimpse I had into their lives.

A voyeur I will be on this cruise - watching the ebb and flow of the tides, dressing up or down for the cold or warm climates through which we will pass and photographing the amazing scenery of the seven continents, stopping in the ports of call and absorbing the lives and culture of the people and lands we will visit, and then moving on, sailing on, cruising on….

So, here I am, in the “war room”, planning my strategic assault on a World Cruise, a cruise lasting 112 days, visiting 30+ ports of call in a circumnavigation of the seven continents.  The clothes, the shoes, the visas, the shots, the electronics, the luggage, the Dramamine….my, oh my, oh my – how will I cram it all into the small inside cabin that will be my home for four months?  There are many who take this World Cruise annually or biannually, much to my amazement.  They are fountains of knowledge on the websites I visit, and my notebook is full of helpful hints and how-tos and what to bring and what to expect.  My thanks to them – they help make the planning a lot easier.  And, if my enjoyment of this cruise is proportionate to the planning stages, then I am in for a cruise of a lifetime.  Come join me – vicariously, of course – I’ll keep you posted via this blog!  Sorry, I won’t have room for you in any of the 10 suitcases I plan to bring – no, make that 12, no 8, no 6…… help!!  J