Starting Out

Well what happened was, when I retired and my wife Barbara sadly passed away I had to decide do I stay at home with the cat (Loulabella) or do I carry on with my life and do something that we had always talked about and wanted to do?

Meet the Cat

 

The what, was to travel, see places and meet people, enjoy different cuisines, experience different cultures, in short have our gap year at the other end of our lives, but with a little bit of luxury thrown in, cruising was the answer.
Just after Barbara received the diagnosis of having advanced breast cancer and all the horrible treatments that she had to face with some dread, but confronted with extraordinary amounts of courage, we decided that what was needed were some achievable goals and targets to get her through, a light at the end of the tunnel. We decided that the height of decadence would be a cruise and blow the budget. This we duly did by booking two weeks in the Caribbean with the sadly missed Ocean Village booking a balcony suite. To get us to Barbados in style we booked premium seats on the flight out and before we had reached the end of the runway we were tucking into champagne, needless to say the whole event was a great success and was the filip that was need to head into part two of her treatment programme. It was to be the start of a way of holidaying that we both fell in love with, a floating hotel of quality that whisked you away to a new port every day.