Point of Interest: Major Itinerary Change
We had a great day in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii today. Can you say “whales! Whales! WHALES!!”? But more on that later. I am am now four ports behind on my blog and will continue to work on the Honolulu, Oahu, Kahului, Maui, and Lihue, Kauai, then today’s Lahaina, Maui posts. Honolulu is a tough one, but the rest should get easier – not as many pictures…
The sad news of the day is we were informed that due to a reluctance to open many of the Asian countries our itinerary has been substantially revised. Whirled! (We heard several days ago that a Viking world tour already did the same thing.)
This current segment ends in Papeete, Tahiti, and instead of proceeding to Tokyo we are turning around and heading back to Los Angeles. The itinerary then takes us back through the Panama Canal, into the Caribbean, across and through the Mediterranean, then up to Scandinavia, then resumes the normal itinerary in England and Ireland. Whirled!
If you refer to the Pre-cruise posts you will remember seeing this as the “new” itinerary then:
Embarkation Itinerary
It is now day 30 of our 196-day journey. While every day on this ship is a new cruise record for us, we have only seen three new ports, and two of those are on a US state – Hawaii! Whirled! We have repeated a port on this cruise already (San Diego), and now we will repeat many more! Whirled! Here’s the new “new” itinerary that was on our stateroom door this morning:
This is not the “World Cruise” I planned and expected. It’s not even going around the world. Whirled!
I would have been much happier just continuing to go west and see what we can see from the ship when we stop for fuel and supplies, even if we couldn’t disembark due to COVID restrictions. Yes, if we stay on this cruise we will see new ports of call (assuming they are open for us), but we will also see many of the ports we have already seen and selected this cruise to see something else. Whirled!
We are weighing our options and will make a decision before Papeete on whether we’re staying the course and continuing the trip, or cancelling and disembarking in Los Angeles.
More to come on this. In the meantime I’ll keep working on the next posts. Next up Honolulu.
Mahalo!
