Travelling On

wishingthemortgaheaway

You've worked hard to enjoy your retirement. You've even planned week that early retirement because 'needs must' was able to happen.

'Adventure before dementia' remember.

apple_muncher

yay! to choosing a cruise!

Karmacat

Thanks both! Okay, these are the rules:
- maximum 3 weeks, from 2020 onwards.
- nothing that goes through the Straits of Hormuz (!)
- nothing in local midsummer. No monsoons or hurricanes :rotfl:
- no upfront price that includes all excursions (that one's for me, because I'd probably need to sit some things out).
- last minute would be fine, but NB sister and her daughter have a trip provisionally planned, can't mix them up!
- tricky rule about countries: if we want to see a particular country in detail, don't do a whistle stop (unless its such a huge city as Jerusalem or Cairo, where there'd always be something new to see).
- below a certain price, it doesn't much matter where we go, eg revisiting somewhere known, simply because its so keenly priced.
- ultra poshness not encouraged, eg a different gown every night (yep, there are cruises like that) - we stick out enough anyway in different ways).

To investigate: all-in holidays that *don't* include excursions; river cruises (especially the Nile). Notes to be made at the time!

beanielou

Happy cruise hunting
A family member went on a cruise of a lifetime on the Queen Mary & loved it.

Karmacat

The Queen Mary berthed next to us on one of those cruise holidays last year! Enormous compared to us, but sooooo beautiful.

wishingthemortgaheaway

That's some shopping list. Good luck.

Karmacat

wishingthemortgaheaway wrote: »

That's some shopping list. Good luck.

Thanks It gets complicated towards the end, true enough :rotfl:

I'm up quite early :eek:

I was going to go out, but I feel like getting stuck in with garden and house stuff, clearing the backlog. I'm partway tempted to use up the tin of white paint on the 2nd coat, for the area by my desk ... I doubt I will, but I'm tempted :rotfl: Ta-da list will come later.

Watty1

Looking forward to the cruise research .....I couldn't even manage a 2 night camping break so I've no idea how I'd find animal care for 14 + nights.... so will travel along via your diary

Karmacat

You're welcome! I just posted on your diary about your camping trip falling through sorry to hear it. I like catsitting for my nephew, but when I needed catsitters myself, for my own cats, there were some bad moments - one time I was away for a weekend, and there was a mixup with the dates, and my catsitters didn't show up at all, the cats were really distressed when I got back I'm sure my nephew thinks I'm weird for insisting on knowing their return flight details - but if I see that their flight's got problems, I can pop back up really quickly.


Right. Off to do garden-y things

teapot2

Karmacat wrote: »

You're welcome! I just posted on your diary about your camping trip falling through sorry to hear it. I like catsitting for my nephew, but when I needed catsitters myself, for my own cats, there were some bad moments - one time I was away for a weekend, and there was a mixup with the dates, and my catsitters didn't show up at all, the cats were really distressed when I got back I'm sure my nephew thinks I'm weird for insisting on knowing their return flight details - but if I see that their flight's got problems, I can pop back up really quickly.


Right. Off to do garden-y things

Happy gardening and cruise potential exploring. I 'get' the cat sitting angst, I haven't had any problems with BOFB, he has a lovely cat sitter who comes twice a day when I'm away. She always visits before and goes over the dates writing them in a book to double check them and whether anything has changed. If I want, she also texts me every couple of days about how he is doing. Its not cheap but worth it for my peace of mind and his comfort.