This giant “once-in-a-lifetime” cruise we were planning has so far taken me through every emotion, and I have yet to board the ship. And when we got the news that the trip was to be “abbreviated”, it felt like a balloon, blown up to that anxious tautness just before bursting, that suddenly flew away in a hissing, fluttering frenzy until it gasped, flat and airless. But, I have taken another deep breath and am blowing it up again with mounting hope and anticipation once more.

As I write this, we are about one month from our departure to Singapore. The flight is scheduled for March 16 to Denver where we will stay overnight. The respite will break up a long flight and give us a chance to have dinner with some dear Colorado friends in our second home state. The following day we depart for Tokyo, where we connect on to Singapore and arrive March 19 just after midnight. The phenomenon of crossing the international dateline turns this into a two-day flight. Like Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg, who returns to London after his trip around the world thinking he has lost the bet on the deadline by arriving a day too late, I, too expect to take full advantage of the gift of an extra day. We will arrive in Singapore with some time to get our bearings and explore the city before we board Insignia on March 22 and sail away the next day on our new great adventure.

Our cruise from Singapore to Miami is actually a 109-day segment of the ill-fated Around the World cruise. There will be some passengers who booked for just this segment, those of us who have decided to continue with what is left of our world cruise, as well as others on shorter segments within that time. But, chances are we may share the duration of our trip with quite a few others, which should create a ripe opportunity for interesting and perhaps lasting relationships. Without ever leaving the ship, we will meet passengers and crew from all over the world, enrich our minds and bodies with the vast amenities and activities, create a new routine for living and find our place within this floating community. So, the ship itself should be a unique adventure.

We will visit places we have never been to or imagined, and just a few that we have. We will see the ravages and dark remains of war in Vietnam, Nagasaki, Manila, and Honolulu, tour the Great Wall of China, take a cooking class in Thailand, sail the Whitsunday Islands and explore the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. We will revisit New Zealand and the wine country of Marlborough and Hawke’s Bay, where we spent memorable time six years ago vowing to return. In Tasmania, that seemingly end of the world remote destination, that last stop before frozen Antarctica, we will taste their oysters and wine. We will bask in the beauty and romance of Gaugin’s French Polynesia. We will celebrate a patriotic evening aboard the battleship Missouri, where WWII ended and she now proudly rides at anchor in Pearl Harbor, next to the Arizona’s watery grave of our bravest. 

Upon arriving in Los Angeles we will be joined by our friends Tom and Charmaine, who are booked for the last segment of our trip. Among our adventures we’ll try sport fishing in Cabo San Lucas, explore the beaches and forests of Central America, transit through the engineering marvel that is the Panama Canal, visit the fairy tale bougainvillea covered colonial city of Cartagena with it’s lingering, mysterious dark side, tour the laid back Key West of Ernest Hemingway and Jimmy Buffet, then end in Miami on July 8, 2015.

After all that has happened, this trip has a surreal feeling to it. But my excitement is building again with each breath!