Cruise ships always seem to have an emphasis on food and as the ships are provisioned at ports around the world, local cuisine can be featured with all the natural and fresh ingredients available. In Asia, where their spices were once the currency that inspired world exploration, the resources are vast and exotic. Recently I…
Continue reading →When Dean and I visited the behemoth Takashimaya department store in Singapore, as wide-eyed tourists we were an easy target for Ruben, the young Nespresso Club trainee. He showed us their coffee machines and taught us how to make the perfect cup of coffee in the manner, he explained, in which every Asian aspired to…
Continue reading →Singapore has been described as “Asia for beginners” because it is too safe, too clean, too air-conditioned. Having never been to Asia, I will take that at it’s word. It is all that and more. The people are polite and cordial, English is commonly spoken, the economy is strong (translate that to mean “expensive”), and…
Continue reading →Air travel has certainly changed since my first flight to Paris with my sister on that long ago summer trip to Europe. We are all too familiar now with heightened security, the impending danger of liquids, gels, shoes, and belts. But even onboard, the changes seem dramatic. The second leg of our trip, a twelve-hour…
Continue reading →Bags packed……check. At the airport……check. Passed security…..check. Waiting to board…..
Continue reading →We just received our final travel documents…again. We still have the documents from the original six-month version of our trip that were already in the mail at the time it was cancelled. This new official document is actually more of a book, about 120 pages spiral bound. It is the bible for our cruise, tailored…
Continue reading →I’ve been having this subliminal fear that our trip could be thwarted again, that the ship would not be repaired on schedule or have enough time to make the long, slow journey from San Juan to Singapore. Do the math. 11,900 miles at about 16 or 17 knots per hour. That’s about 28 days without…
Continue reading →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…
Continue reading →The day before Christmas Eve, we received a phone call from our travel agent informing us that Oceania had sent the following announcement by email to travel agents and passengers of our Around the World Cruise: Dear Insignia Guest and Travel Partners, We finished our initial repair assessment for Insignia and expect the ship will…
Continue reading →We have news that Insignia is now headed to San Juan where she is expected to arrive on December 22 and will go into dry dock for repairs. She appears to be sailing under her own power with a “restricted manoeuverability” status at a speed of about 7 knots. Oceania has informed us that we…
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