Now, normally when I write up one of these blogs – that also happen to be newsletters for subscribers; thank you if you’re a subscriber – they fall into one of two categories: either we’ll have just come back from a cruise and will want to get some details down while they’re still fresh in the memory (given that the write-ups won’t be published for a long time); or they’ll be summary posts covering the latest travel write-ups. But that’s not the case here. Firstly, we haven’t just come back from a cruise. Secondly, there have been precisely zero travel write-ups since the last time I posted one of these pieces. So what gives?
Well, I’ve been busy both with work – that’s that thing that some of us need to do in order to pay for trips – and with processing photos from the Caribbean cruise we were on last month, and the truth is there was a little bit of post-cruise blues that’s sapped a lot of inspiration but which is hopefully lifting now. Not quite enough to pick back up from the 2024 British isles cruising travelogues I was in the middle of just yet but enough to want to write something. And I do have some news that I haven’t shared yet so let’s just see if this kickstarts the writing habit again.
We have another cruise booked, making use of one of two future cruise deposits with Princess Cruises that were close to expiring. As I write this the other one has just expired and been refunded, which is something I never thought would happen with these things as we’re always booking trips, but that’s what happens when a cruise line pushes a brand new ship we couldn’t care less about heavily and ignores the itineraries to new places and novel experiences that are what we’re after.
So, looking ahead to October 2027 – yep, nearly 700 days away which is also fairly shocking for us – we’ve booked ourselves on Majestic Princess heading up to the very top of Norway for some possible aurora-spotting and definite landscapes to be wowed by. We haven’t cruised on Majestic before (and have only seen her once on our cruises which was when we visited Alaska in 2023) which is part of the appeal because she’s got a unique layout in the Princess fleet with her sanctuary pool and club space arrangement. We normally book forward around deck ten on ships but we’ve shifted higher to nearer that pool area for convenience – it’s an indoor pool and we like a swim – and because higher angles are often more spectacular where Norway’s concerned.
The itinerary only adds one port we’ve not cruised to before – Molde – but does include an overnight in Tromsø and we very much enjoyed Tromsø earlier this year (especially its brewery) so that’s attractive to us too. And we like to make sure we hit Norway every few years because it’s just so damned pretty.
Our future cruising plans are looking a little sparse for us with just the two in 2026 to look forward to and two in 2027 as well.
- March, 2026 – Norwegian Jade – Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico.
- October, 2026 – P&O Ventura – Madeira, Tenerife, La Palma, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Spain.
- April, 2027 – Ambassador Ambition – France, England, Guernsey.
- October, 2027 – Majestic Princess – Norway.
2027 is likely to fill out a bit more but we’ve got very little left to play with in 2026 as that first cruise is eating up three weeks of annual leave on its own. That said, it should be fantastic.
We’ve finished planning for that Norwegian Jade cruise – our first with the cruise line – and we’re really excited about everything we’ve got lined up. We’ve booked into a 5-star hotel in Lima for four days ahead of the cruise (not much more than the single night we had in Puerto Rico at an okayish location) and we know we like Lima anyway so this will give us a great chance to do some exploring locally there. Looking forward to looking around Barranco and we’ve got breweries and historical sites all mapped out already.
We’ve got planned sightseeing and excursions lined up too on most of the eleven port stops and we should be visiting ruins from five different cultures of South and Central America while also satisfying other historical, architectural, artistic, and brewery-based loves of ours. We’re particularly looking forward to Antigua Guatemala as it looks utterly gorgeous nestled among volcanoes.
We’re really hoping we like Norwegian Cruise Line and Jade as some of their older ships do some fabulously interesting itineraries that other lines don’t seem to come close to matching (well, not affordable lines anyway). The ship looks to have a great variety of bars and restaurants and the itinerary and its length should mean the demographic aboard will suit us well.
Our waiting game right now is for the late 2028 Asian itineraries to start appearing so we can see about a twentieth wedding anniversary cruise back in the region where we had our honeymoon. Until we know that and know the sort of cost we’re looking at we’re being a bit cautious with cruise-booking right now. We haven’t completely ruled out a river cruise in China just to be a bit different and have our eyes on one particular company who post some decent stuff online but they don’t seem to have any European-based agents to work with at the moment that gives us some pause.
So, barring a lottery win don’t expect any new booked cruises to be mentioned in these blogs for a while but hopefully I will soon get back to covering past travels on the site once more before long.
Those cruises sound amazing, especially the one that goes to El Salvador. We’re not doing any cruises this year or next, but we’ve booked a cruise with Heritage Expeditions for Jan-Feb, 2027. It goes to the NZ and Australian sub-Antarctic islands and McMurdo Base on the Ross Sea. So, it will be our second Antarctic cruise, but it goes to areas of the continent that we’ve never been to before. It leaves out of Christchurch, which is only a short hop from Wellington, so that’s another bonus: no long-haul flight to endure and pay for. The boat looks really nice, and it’s small enough that we will be able to disembark rather than having to stay on the boat, like the big cruise lines have to do. This coming year, we’re probably doing a lot of little trips around NZ;, as I need to bank a lot of peace for the 2027 trip.
That’s great to hear. I did look at smaller New Zealand lines with an eye on what you could potentially do following your move down under and I think I checked over Heritage Expeditions just to see what they offered. Looks a great trip and right up your alley but well outside our spending bracket unless that elusive lottery win fairy pays us a visit.