As a four-decade Certified Travel Agent, international airline employee, researcher, writer, teacher, and photographer, travel, whether for pleasure or business purposes, has always been a significant and an integral part of my life. Some 400 trips to every portion of the globe, by means of road, rail, sea, and air, entailed destinations both mundane and exotic. This article focuses on my worldwide cruises and crossings.
My lifetime Cruise Program, which spanned the 18-year period from 1991 to 2009, entailed 27 voyages on 24 ships operated by 11 cruise lines to 17 regions, 49 countries, and 114 ports-of-call. During 205 days at sea, I sailed almost 60,000 nautical miles. The journeys themselves have been subdivided into geographical region.
The east coast of the United States, for instance, was covered with both northerly and southerly itineraries.
The first, with Holland America's Rotterdam, departed New York on a ten-day cruise that took it to Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Maine, and then to Canada, specifically Noa Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec, plying the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City and Montreal. The second, with Norwegian Cruise Line's Norwegian Dawn, paralleled the eastern seaboard on its seven-day sailing to Orlando and Miami in Florida, and then amended its course to a more easterly one to Nassau and Freeport in the Bahamas, before returning to its port-or-origin.
Sunset boat florenceThe West Coast was also thoroughly covered by sea. Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas, for example, threaded its way from San Diego to Vancouver, with ports-of-call in San Francisco and Astoria, Oregon, before charting Canadian waters to British Columbia, while Princess Cruise Line's Regal Princess undertook its seven-day Alaska Inside Passage itinerary from Vancouver to Juneau, Skagway, Yakutat Bay, and Sitka.
Hawaii, in the Pacific, was covered with a multiple-island circuit on the Norwegian Star, specifically Oahu, the big island of Hawaii, Maui, and Kuai, before assuming a southerly heading to the almost equator-equivalent, three-degree north latitude location of Fanning Island in the Republic of Kiribati, its mandatory foreign port-of-call.
Other than the Bahamas, Bermuda counted as an Atlantic Island destination-in this case, on Carnival's Pride for a seven-day sailing that included three nights at port for daily sightseeing of an equal number of the British island's areas.
Three Caribbean island cruises-one to the Eastern and two to the Southern Caribbean-provided considerable coverage there.
The first, with the Grand Princess, departed Ft. Lauderdale's Port Everglades and touched bases in St. Thomas, St. Maarten, and Princess Cays, its private island.
The second, with Celebrity's Constellation, set sail from San Juan and traveled to the Dominican Republic, Barbados, Grenada, Antigua, and St. Thomas.
The third, with the Caribbean Princess, once again had a San Juan origin, but sailed to Aruba, Bonaire, Grenada, Dominica, and, for a third time, St. Thomas.
Two Mexican itineraries entailed a single-day one from San Diego to Ensenada on Starlite Cruise Line's Pacific Star, and the more traditional single-week one with the Sea Princess-in this case, from Los Angeles to the Mexican Riviera destinations of Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlán, and Cabo San Lucas, reminiscent of the one weekly plied in The Love Boat television series, which sparked considerable cruise interest.
South America was circumnavigated with three 14-day journeys.
The first, on the Royal Princess, departed Ft. Lauderdale and hopscotched its way to St. Barthelemy, St. Lucia, and Barbados in the Caribbean, before venturing to Devil's Island in French Guiana, crossing the equator, and penetrating the Amazon River in Brazil to Santana, Santarem, Boca da Valeria, Parintins, and Manaus, covering 3,236 miles.
The second, originating in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and operated by Celebrity's Infinity, ultimately arched its way around the tip of the continent at Cape Horn, which provided northerly access to the Beagle Channel of Darwin fame and the southerly entrance to the Drake Passage. Its ports-of-calls included Montevideo in Uruguay, Puerto Madryn in Argentina, Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, Ushuaia in Argentina, and Punta Arenas in Chile. Continuing its trek up the west coast, it plied the Strait of Magellan and the Chilean Fjords, offering close inspection of Skua Glacier, before sailing to Puerto Mont and terminating in Valparaiso, both in Chile, completing a 4,070-mile cruise.
The third, of equal duration and on the same ship some two years later, departed Valparaiso, but alighted in La Serena and Arica, both in Chile, before continuing to Callao, Peru, and Manta, Ecuador, in the process crossing the equator. An easterly transit through the Panama Canal took it through the Miraflores Locks, Gatun Lake, the Gaillard Cut, and the Gatun Locks, during which time it was subjected to an 85-foot change in water level. The final four days of its journey took it to Cartagena, Colombia; Montego Bay, Jamaica; and Ft. Lauderdale, its terminus, ending a 4,505-mile journey.