In 2018, we took a little cruise, a short 10-day Viking ocean cruise from Copenhagen to Amsterdam via the Kiel Canal, to see if we liked cruising. There were a few incentives offered for booking another cruise while onboard. We gobbled their bait and booked another short cruise which circumnavigated Cuba sailing from Miami. We not only enjoyed the places we visited, but we were also won over by the onboard experiences -- the lectures about the cities we visited, the people, cultures, histories, and art. We enjoyed the subdued adults-only vibe -- no contests, photographers, casinos, or flashy art auctions. We booked another, a 12-day Viking cruise that sailed through half of the Panama Canal. We were on the Viking Star returning from Panama as the world celebrated the dawning of a new decade -- 2020. And we made big plans to continue cruising.
Then the world paused and we put our travel plans on hold for a few years!
Fast forward to 2023. Sherpa had a 4-week sabbatical from his job which we had to use or lose. We used the time to book a Mediterranean cruise beginning in Barcelona and ending in Athens with a few days on our own at each end. This was by far the longest cruise we'd taken and when the month of travel was near completion we knew we were hooked on longer cruises. Thus we signed up for the Viking Sky World Cruise, beginning on January 5, 2025, in Los Angeles and ending 146 days later in New York City on June 19, 2025.
We look forward to posting about our getting-ready experiences over the next months as we figure out how to prepare for a 5-month sojourn circumnavigating the globe.
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