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Overview: this year we are really fortunate to be able to once again do a full world voyage on a beautiful Cunard ship – it’s roundtrip Southampton for 110 nights. In addition we are doing a 7-night cruise to Hamburg, Rotterdam and Bruges before the world voyage and for this portion we are joined by our daughter and son-in-law from Scotland.   Personal note: a few days before leaving the US I came down with a bad case of flu with a severe chest infection. Visits to the doctor

Once again, we arrived in a freezing London following our flight from San Francisco. Based on our experience last year of struggling with our circus troupe size collection of luggage through Heathrow Airport to the Heathrow Express train, this year we arranged for a very large car and average sized driver to pick us up at the terminal and take us to the Paddington Hilton in London. It took a little bit longer, and cost a lot more, but I feel it was well worth it to avoid the

Following a sea day on the 5 th , with a gala evening requiring the first rollout of the penguin suit, the ship docked in Hamburg, Germany, on Tuesday January 6 th . With the forecast for high temperatures to be below freezing and my current illness there was no way I was going to be able to get off the ship today – all I wanted to do was sleep between intense coughing fits. I managed to get an appointment to see the ship’s doctor in the afternoon, she prescribed antibiotics.

Today we returned to Southampton and said goodbye to Billy and Tracy who are returning to Scotland. Yesterday evening we spent a little time packing up our cabin and today the stewards will move our things down the hall from 7049 to 7099. As we had left two suit bags unopened, and most of our things were on hangers in the wardrobes the move should be pretty easy. Our new cabin is a Club Balcony and allows us to take all of our meals in the Club Restaurant at the same table wi

We had a pleasant 3 day sail from Southampton down to the Island of Madeira which is governed by Portugal and today the ship is docked in the port of Funchal. I saw the ship’s doctor again on Tuesday as my improvement is not forthcoming; she prescribed additional medication and today I’m feeling a bit better, though still coughing a lot.   We’ve been to Funchal a few times before and so today we opted not to do a ship’s excursion and instead took the shuttle bus from the dock

A short overnight sail has brought the Queen Anne to the port of Santa Cruz on the island of Tenerife which is governed by Spain. On previous visits the Santa Cruz we did not find much of interest in the town and so today we are taking a ship’s excursion to the north coast of the island.   After leaving the port our bus headed up into the hills; driving narrow, winding, one lane, precipice-edged roads would be a feature of this trip. Our first stop was at Playa de Las Teresit

Our first visit to the Cape Verde Islands and I didn’t really know what to expect. The country is a republic having gained independence from Portugal in 1975 and sits off the coast of west Africa in the mid-Atlantic Ocean. These islands were very important during the age of sailing ships as a critical watering and provisioning stop for vessels going to the Caribbean or the Americas; ships from Europe would following a gigantic zig-zig course first heading south west down towa

We’ve had a glorious seven day sail south from the Cape Verde Islands to Walvis Bay Namibia. Some might question the value of a voyage with long stretches at sea, but we’ve come to love the sea days and fall into an easy daily rhythm of relaxation, great insight lectures, laps around the deck and excellent meals. But today we are looking forward to returning to Namibia, it’s been 12 years since we were last here and have fond memories that we’d like to renew.   Namibia is on

We awoke this morning to a view of the magnificent Table Mountain outside our balcony window, the tablecloth was not present – meaning there were no clouds sitting on the top of the mountain. Table Mountain provides the backdrop to Cape Town which is nestled in the flat plane between the sheer cliffs and the bay. There has been significant development since our last visit here 12 years ago, not least of which was the proper cruise terminal; last time I remember we disembarked

For our second day in Cape Town we’ve arranged for a guide to take us up Table Mountain and show us around the city. The guide was booked through a website called Tours by Locals, they connect you with local tour guides in many cities across the world – booking and communication through the website was very easy.   As arranged, we met our guide Craig Barrowman at 8:30AM outside the cruise terminal and he quickly walked us to his beautiful 6 seater people carrier. Craig introd

We’ve been looking forward to today for a long time as we are going on a safari and we have such fond memories of our last trip to South Africa when we did a 3 day safari near Krueger National Park.   Since 2021 the official name of the town is now Gqeberha a tribal name for the river that flows through the town (almost impossible to pronounce as it incorporates a “tongue click”), but everyone still uses its older name or P.E. for short. As we drove through Port Elizabeth, I

Today we’ve been in Durban on the eastern side of South Africa and there is not a lot to report. We opted not to go on any of the ship’s shore excursions and instead took the shuttle bus. Strangely, the shuttle bus did not go to the city center, which looked to be quite substantial with modern high rise buildings, but instead dropped us at a Marine World place close to the beach. The attraction differed from typical water parks; in fact it was like a small shopping mall with

Two days ago the captain announced that due to projected bad weather the ship would not be able to stop at our next two ports of call: Reunion and Mauritius islands and that we would be changing course to go north through the Mozambique Straight between the African coast and the island of Madagascar. The announcement also included the promise to look for replacement ports; so now it feels a bit like we are on the “lost ship”.   Today the captain announced that Cunard had been

We’d been looking forward this unplanned stop, the first of the replacement ports due the bad weather over Reunion and Mauritius. Even though the Seychelles is mainly known for luxurious beach resorts, not really our cup of tea, the town of Victoria looked like a nice place for a stroll.   The Queen Anne moored just north of the tiny Ile Au Cerf, about 2 miles from the port in Victoria on Mahe Island, and operated a tender service, using the ship’s lifeboats to get passengers

Not wanting to miss the opportunity catch a tender boat, as occurred in the Seychelles, we made sure to be first in line this morning and boarded the first tender to leave the ship. The Maldives is a unique country consisting of 26 atolls stretched across the equator and an average land height of less than 5 feet above sea level: it’s the smallest country in Asia. Many of the tiny atolls are the location for beach resorts with small hotels and cabanas on stilts over the water

The island of Sri Lanka lies to the southeast of India, in fact it’s so close that a bridge has been discussed for many years but continues to get rejected by Sri Lanka due to concerns related to national sovereignty, immigration, and cultural integrity. Columbo is the capital of Sri Lanka and is located in the southwest of the island, it is also a major trading port. Our scheduled arrival time was 8AM but due to another ship being in our berth we did not arrive until 10:30AM

When I was growing up in England there used to be kids TV show, it was a series of stop-action animated shorts featuring these pink knitted mouse-like creatures living on a moon near to earth and it was a big hit. Today is our second visit to Port Klang and each time we come I hark back to my childhood, sat in front of our black and white telly, trying to understand this weird new show called “The Clangers”.   There is not much to do in the vicinity of the port, it’s surround

We’ve been to Singapore a few times and so we didn’t feel the need to run around and see all the sights, for this reason I’m going to combine both days in Singapore into a single blog entry.   Orchard Road is one of the major shopping areas in Singapore; along this long stretch are several malls, many interconnected via airconditioned underground walkways. For our first day we planned a leisurely stroll through the shops, picking up a few essentials. We took the ship shuttle

Like Singapore, we visited Hong Kong a number of times during my working years – so our plans for the next two days are somewhat subdued. Hong Kong continues to captivate me. Though it is Chinese, it retains a unique identity, with its British legacy still visible despite gradually fading. The city exemplifies how humans adapt to some of the highest population density in the world. Above all, the vibrant energy of Hong Kong is palpable—it truly hums with activity.   For this

We were awoken in the very early hours this morning by the strong smell of fumes pervading our cabin – welcome to Manila. There were a couple of tugs watching over the Queen Anne’s approach to the harbor and somehow their clouds of diesel smoke were seeping into the ship, even with all the doors closed tight. However a few hours later, even after we’d docked and the tugs had thankfully departed, when I ventured out onto the balcony, I could see a haze of smog hanging over the