Monday June 15, 2026
Hi Gang! Wow… what an adventure we had! I said I’d take a few days to collect my thoughts and summarize this trip, but there were so many Wow moments I don’t know where to start! It’s pretty wild when you realize in this one trip we visited 6 continents, 41 countries, 77 ports, had 16 overnights, visited 47 UNESCO World Heritage sites and traveled close to 40,000 nautical miles! Probably more than most people do in their lifetime.
Given all that, I’ll start by saying this was the best trip we’ve ever taken. It totally exceeded our expectations in all aspects. Some of the things we had originally had concerns about (like the number of sea days) turned out to be something we really enjoyed.
Some things we had never really done much, if at all, on other cruises (like playing the passenger games and having dinner with the entertainment team) ended up being some of the things we enjoyed the most.
Some of the ports and experiences (like Auckland, Namibia and the Safari) we loved and are hoping to return to. Others (like Angola, Senegal, and Richard’s Bay, South Africa) were just OK and we don’t feel a need to go back.
But that’s the beauty of cruising… you get a taste of a lot of different places around the world that helps you decide where to return. The other beauty, especially on this long of a cruise, is you unpack once! Sure easier than doing this long of land trip checking in and out of hotels, not to mention the trains, planes and automobiles to deal with.
You may have picked up on these based on my writing but these were our Top 10 experiences and/or ports:
Kruger Safari in South Africa
The Taj Mahal in India
Angkor Wat in Cambodia
Jeeps on the dunes in Namibia
Catching a 130 lb Marlin in Cabo
Swimming w/Sharks in Moorea
Elephant Sanctuary in Cambodia
Auckland/Russell, New Zealand
Seeing the Komodo Dragons
World Cruise event in Hawaii
Things that were harder to deal with than we expected were:
Missing the kids & grandkids
Changing Celsius to Fahrenheit
Determining East Coast Time
Doing Currency calculations
The one thing we learned about this world that really made us sad was there were three countries (Indonesia, Malaysia and the Maldives) that would not let any passengers on the ship from Israel into their country. They couldn’t even stay on the ship while we were in port there.
They had to leave the ship at the port prior to these countries and fly to the next port after these countries at their own expense. I realize there’s still lots of prejudice in the world but until you see it first hand it’s so hard to believe it really happens.
Which leads to one of my final points, and I said this before, that after traveling literally around the world and seeing so many different countries and cultures, it really makes me appreciate the great country we live in. Not many other countries have the freedoms we have. While our country is not perfect, there’s nowhere else I’d like to live. USA! USA! USA!
I’ll leave you with one final travel quote:
The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.
And we are so blessed to be living the dream! And as Regent aptly named this cruise, it really was “The Sense of Adventure”!
So you may not hear from me again until our next trip in Oct to Japan (unless we sneak another one in!) so stay calm and travel on!
The Wandering Italian 