Making Up For Lost Time

After everything we’ve been through, who’s saying no to a postpandemic world cruise or grand voyage offering months at sea?

- JUDI CUERVO

THEY SAY THAT WE MAKE PLANS AND GOD LAUGHS.

Well, God must have been doubled over in knee-slapping hysterics when last year’s lockdown coincided exactly with my retirement date.

Gone were my lavish retirement party and, even more heartbreaking, two Caribbean cruises along with my ideal post-retirement part-time job: a two-day-per-week greeter position at the New York Cruise Ship Terminal.

If my calculations are correct, COVID-19 robbed me of about 40 days at sea … and now it’s time to make up for it (and then some) using the money I saved during a year in relative quarantine together with the freedom of my retirement.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’m talking about a world cruise or grand voyage. As a freelance cruise writer with 45 years of sailings under her belt, there’s little in the nautical world that intimidates me, but swapping my typical 7, 10-, or 14-day jaunts for a sailing that is measured not in days or weeks but in months sent me scurrying for advice and first-hand accounts we could all use.

World Cruise … or a Grand Voyage?

A world cruise is just that: a circumnavigation of the globe that can last nearly 200 days! Some world cruises, like the 180-day one aboard Oceania Insignia in January 2023, are port-intensive, while others offer a tremendous amount of sea days as they navigate from one area of the world to another. In fact, more than half of Queen Victoria’s 108-day world cruise in January 2022 is sea days!