This year, thanks to cruising...

[CaptainPedantic]

Over Christmas, me and Mrs Pedantic were reflecting on our first proper year back to cruising since the pandemic, and all the wonderful experiences we have had in 2023... We definitely had started to take cruising for granted before Covid, and we are very grateful to have been able to have so many brilliant experiences this year. Not to mention all the lovely people we have met along the way! 

So as we get close to the end of the year, I thought it would be nice to hear all your cruise-related highlights for 2023 in one thread 🙂 look forward to hearing your stories!

 

[CaptainPedantic]

Here are a few of ours... This year, thanks to cruising, we have:

 

• Bobbed along in a RIB with a pod of humpback whales
• Seen and touched icebergs
• Ridden a horse through a Caribbean rainforest, onto a beach and into the sea
• Zip-lined through a rainforest and a cave
• Swam with a dolphin in the wild (that one was a complete surprise!)
• Snorkelled with turtles, stingrays, so many colourful fish and over a shipwreck and an underwater sculpture park

We feel so privileged to have been able to do these things, and yes while we could organise land-based holidays to do similar things, for us, cruising is the best way to travel 🙂 

[Dobbers]

Sounds like you have had some fantastic experiences and made many good memories . Completely agree that cruising offers up so much more than land based as it offers places you wouldn’t even think to book a holiday to.

 

Our highlights this year are the Loen Skylift, sitting on top of a mountain with hot chocolate and a warm cinnamon bun and the spectacular views.

Another is a train ride into Swedish Lapland.

 

Really need to book another cruise 🤣

 

 

[Interestedcruisefan]

Fast rib ride in Norway and spotting an Eagle

Fish fry at Oistins Barbados

Jetski Safari in  the Caribbean

Every night spent in 710 Club on Arvia and Iona

Headliners theatre shows on the same 2 ships

Iced cocktails in the swim up bar in Caribbean

Mary Mac show in Limelight Club

Spin classes on Arvia (got me into spin on land)

Airport beach in St Maarteen

Replica Amphitheatre in Dominican Republic

Fillet steak in Limelight Bar

 

They all come to mind immediately

[Dorset cruise fan]

Northern Lights, reindeer and snowmobiling in North of Norway.

Being back on Aurora, our favourite 

Definitely not RIBs in our case, husband still suffering from fractured vertebrae 

But a big shout out to staff on Iona who helped him, particularly Anthony from Customer services who looked after us.

Olive Grove, Limelight Club and 710 on Iona 

[Gettingwarmer]

Three cruises this year to the Canaries, Baltic and east coast of USA & Canada, the last two firsts for us. No great feats for us as we are getting older but loved seeing the buildings in Quebec and enjoyed a lobster roll in Bar Harbor and travelling on the rivers and oceans around the world. 

 

[Eglesbrech]

January

Sherry tasting straight from the barrels in Cadiz.

710 on Iona

Great steak in the Keel and Cow

Shooting stars

 

March
Visiting the Sami village and a reindeer ride in the fresh snow

Northern lights dancing for us

Arctic Cathedral

 

April

Iona Abbey

Fingals Cave, Staffa

Tablet

 

May

Harry Potter on the way south
Brandy tasting in Conac

Tasting competition winning cocktails on Sky Princess

Shopping!

 

June

Local market in Ferderika (God Jul)

Kiel week (I missed this as confined to cabin but Oh enjoyed)

Music festival in Bremen

James Bond night with cocktails and Bond tunes

 

July

Sailing through the Sound of Mull

Sea eagles

Drinking good Irish whiskey in a coothy pub in Galway City

Seeing the Skellig Islands

Eating Fatherless Pie

 

November 

Being pampered in the YC

Christmas shopping in Rotterdam

Christmas shopping in Brugge, great chocolate, great beer

Cruising has taken me to many places and to see many things for which I am grateful. We don’t travel quite as far as we used to but still see some amazing things and enjoy some amazing experiences.

 

Roll on 2024!

 

 

[bobstheboy]

Just two cruises for us.

 

Jan   14 nights on Iona to Canaries. Not a resounding success. We knew the first 3 days down and last 3 days back wouldn't be warm but hoped for the rest to be winter sunshine, wrong. Poor weather for the Canaries and Cadiz and Lisbon were also below par. Have done this cruise previously and enjoyed fine weather for at least a week but not this time. Never again, we are flying to Tenerife on 6th Jan for 14 nights on Azura, everything's crossed.

 

September   14 nights on Arvia to the Med. No real highlights, been before many times but a lovely cruise, good weather and loved the ship.

[pete14]

On our only cruise this year, the day in November when we sailed towards Alta in the company of countless whales, watching two sea eagles fishing alongside Aurora whilst being mobbed by gulls when we had docked and then sitting watching the Northern Lights to complete the most amazing magical day at sea. 

[Presto2]

Despite a disappointing and frustrating cruise on Britannia in June have thought of the following. It has surprised me ...

 

* The excitement at Keele Services waiting for the coach

 * Queuing to embark again in Southampton.....it was.good to be back after so much time had passed that I got quite choked up

* Flam and the sail out that evening ... it was stunningly beautiful and a fabulous day. We are in Google Maps as proof !

* The Epicurean evening meal

* The choir that joined us in Stavanger.  It made me cry.

* Waffles by a stunning lake 

* A boat trip to see an amazing waterfall..

* Seeing the white cliffs of Dover on the way home 

* The last day sitting in the sunset bar in the sun watching the wake with a good friend and hubby

 

Just writing this has made me think that it wasn't that bad at all ........

 

Happy cruising 2024 everyone 

 

 

 

 

 

[Josy1953]

Only 2 cruises this year

Round Britain March for my birthday

Scandinavia up to North Cape in June for the Summer Solstice

We should have gone to the Canaries in November but had to cancel.

 

2024 booked

1) Spain France and Portugal -Spring

2) Canaries - Winter

Looking for another cruise in the summer but we can't decide exactly where we want to cruise at the moment.

[Waju]

9 hours ago, CaptainPedantic said:

Here are a few of ours... This year, thanks to cruising, we have:

 

• Bobbed along in a RIB with a pod of humpback whales
• Seen and touched icebergs
• Ridden a horse through a Caribbean rainforest, onto a beach and into the sea
• Zip-lined through a rainforest and a cave
• Swam with a dolphin in the wild (that one was a complete surprise!)
• Snorkelled with turtles, stingrays, so many colourful fish and over a shipwreck and an underwater sculpture park

We feel so privileged to have been able to do these things, and yes while we could organise land-based holidays to do similar things, for us, cruising is the best way to travel 🙂 

WOW that all sounds amazing!

[Izzywiz]

2023 was another year full of new and revisited experiences.

These are a few of them:

March - Celebrity cruise round the Horn in S. America from Valparaiso to Rio.

Santiago, Chile, in 36*c

Ushuaia where it was -2*c (packing for these temperature extremes was a bit tricky)

The gorgeous resort of Punta del Este in Uruguay

Ilhabela, Brazil

and beautiful Rio

 

In 

In August we did a Marella cruise and stay with the grandchildren.

Villefranche was a highlight

Then, in September we did a land tour in India followed by a magical Ganges river cruise

The Taj Mahal at sunrise

Prayer offerings on the Ganges followed by a dance group performing on the ship

 

our last trip was a long awaited Safari in Kenya in November.

The Masai warriors performed for us

 

and this amazing leopard stopped and posed for us!

[Harters]

Canaries cruise on Nautica in June, from/to Barcelona. Nothing of significance about the cruise itself. But it was our first overseas holiday for a couple of years or so. Because of medical issues, we were unable to get travel insurance, so no travel. We'd had to cancel a couple of planned cruises, including a celebratory one for our 50th. OK, you can't recapture a lost "special occasion" but it was good to be back travelling again. Since then, a couple of weeks in Mallorca were great. And we're just back from Christmas in Tenerife. Christmas Day lunch in a restaurant on the beach with a steak in front of me. Not a bit of turkey or tinsel in sight. Just lovely.  And an upcoming transatlantic cruise on Vista to look forward to. 

[ButterSpoon]

Well, in 2023 we went on our first cruise ever! Just your basic Greek Isles affair, family group of 9. I don't think most of the relations really took to cruising over any other holiday style but I can say that (as I'd always suspected), this year thanks to cruising my husband and I have discovered how amazing a holiday it is and have already booked our second one. Just us two next time, though 😉

On board most of the family just lounged by the pool for a week, but we embraced the inherent cheesiness and tried to sample a bit of everything going on. Even made it to the silent disco which was great fun, my husband does NOT dance and it's always made me a bit sad because I love it. But because we were on holiday he threw caution to the wind and joined in with me and it will honestly be something I remember forever.

Outside of the ship we saw plenty of stunning sights of course. Made it to the Acropolis which his dad had especially been looking forward to for years, we got lucky there as they'd had to close it the week before due to heatwaves. And we would definitely head back to Kefalonia for a longer stay. After booking our cruise route was changed to include Kotor and that turned out to be the most beautiful place I think I've ever seen in real life.

So much stuff, and that was just from one basic seven-dayer on an older ship! Can't wait to see what our second one brings!

Edited January 1 by ButterSpoon

[Izzywiz]

Welcome to the wonderful world of cruising Butterspoon. We were also captivated by our first cruise in 1992 (Limassol to Israel, Egypt and the Greek Isles) and haven’t stopped cruising since. We have been lucky enough to cruise all over the world where we have seen the most amazing sights, experienced such diverse cultures and activities and met so many interesting people from all walks of life. All this and we took our own bed with us and only unpacked once!!

Unfortunately, old age and health issues are causing us to slow down now but we have our memories. 
I hope you enjoy your second cruise as much as your first one 🤞

[Sarnia 432]

So nice to look back and think of the highlights,

 

January - The pristine beauty of Antarctica, an amazing start to the year

 

April - “cruising” the Leeds/Liverpool Canal (does this count!)

 

June - Norway, in particular the Olden Skylift.  The top was covered in cloud, but as the Skylift broke through the clouds at the top, the views of the snowy peaks in bright sunshine with blue skies were just WOW!  great day, walking the trails at the top with a friend we made on the cruise.  The clouds cleared and we had magnificent views.

 

July - Skagen, Denmark.  Weather not so good, but had a great long walk along the beach from Højen to Grenen and back to the ship.  The rain poured down just as we left the beach, but we put on our waterproofs and carried on!

 

September - Juneau, Alaska.  Had a lovely walk up the Perseverance Trail.

 

October - Papeete, Tahiti.  Another great walk, this time out to the Flowerpot rock.  Had the most amazing ice creams from the gas station on the way back!

 

November - Brisbane, Australia.  Private VIP tour of the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, excellent day, great fun.

[ButterSpoon]

16 hours ago, Izzywiz said:

I hope you enjoy your second cruise as much as your first one 🤞

Thank you so much, we're very excited to put all the things we learned into practise. The family member booking our first one made...let's say "some mistakes". And since none of us had ever been cruising before we had no idea what to expect, but will be pros our second time around 😀

Sorry to hear you're having to slow it down a bit yourselves, time catches up to all of us eventually I suppose and we just have to hope we've made the best of it. Which it definitely sounds like you have!

[Harters]

1 hour ago, ButterSpoon said:

time catches up to all of us eventually

We did our first cruise, with P & O, in 1988, and did a couple more, with the last being in 1997. We'd become disenchanted with the formality - I don't go to restaurants that require jackets and, by then, certainly didnt want to wear one on holiday. So, we didnt cruise after that till 2015. That year, we did a four (?) day cruise from Miami, with Norwegian,  as part of a wider trip to Florida. I suppose that gave us the bug again but it took a couple more years before we discovered Oceania and realised you could have a more upmarket experience without the formality. We've now done two cruises with them (2018 and 2023) and a third is planned for later this year. Whether we continue with cruising after that is another question but we will look back on good memories