June 29 – Windsor, UK to CALGARY

Weather – 29º forecast high in Windsor, 23º

Steps – 6,699

Humidity – 75% in Windsor

I’m thrilled to say it was an uneventful travel day home. No delays, no enormous lines, no stress.

It has been a wonderful 52-day long adventure. I’ll have to take a bit of time to let the memories settle and then look back at the blog to remind myself of the all of the things we saw and did. I love writing the blog, but love looking back more.

When we return from a trip we are often asked what the best part was, and our usual answer is that nothing stands out…everything was great. Not this time, far and away, the absolute best was the safari – this will definitely not be our last safari.

We are also always asked when we are away if we are ready to come home or when we get home if we were ready to come home. My philosophy is that I’m ready to come home when the trip is ending regardless of how long I’ve been away. I get my mind around coming home when the end is approaching.

No matter how great time away is, I am always thrilled to be home to my bed, my shower, my laundry machine, my family. I was reminded how few things I need, how much clothes, toiletries, shoes, space. I am inspired to get rid of things I don’t need when I get home from living with all that fits in my suitcases. I wore about half of what I packed, so I didn’t even need all that I brought.

I am also looking forward to getting back into old eating and drinking routines. No matter how great the Regent bread and desserts were…I need to NOT eat bread and dessert at every meal and grab a random cookie. I also need to dry out, no more wine with lunch and dinner every day. I guess that’s why it’s vacation, not every day living.

I didn’t quite get to 100 pages of blog writing I’ll have to end on page 97 - I guess the trip wasn’t quite long enough.Thanks to everyone who came along on this journey with us by reading!

# of flights – 5

# of countries visited – 18

# of new countries visited – 12

# of countries missed – 1

Until next time…

June 28 – Windsor, UK

Windsor Castle

Weather – 30º

Steps – 14,333

Humidity – 53%

We started our day with an included hotel breakfast. The hotel has about 100 rooms. I can’t tell how many are occupied at the moment, but breakfast was not at all busy, which was nice – that’s where the not so busy part of the day ended! It was your typical breakfast buffet fare; a good way to start the day. The breakfast room was right along the river which was also lovely.

Windsor (pop: 31,000) is about 35km from the centre of London on the River Thames. It is popular with tourists because of Windsor Castle. From what we’ve observed, it is a place for day trippers rather than overnight hotel stays. There

are hotels here, but last night, although it was Friday was very quiet…today was very, very busy, and again, tonight wasn’t thronging like during the day.

guard

A visit to Windsor Castle was our main activity for the day. We had to queue for about 20 minutes even though we showed up at our ticket time, it

was just busy. Apparently, there 6-7000 people visit the castle each day during the summer months. This queue was very civilized, it probably helped that there were many, many workers, directing traffic and answering questions.

Once inside the grounds, our first order of business was to get audio guides. We never visit anywhere that offer audio guides without getting them. These were free with admission (£30, which seems pricey to me, but what doesn’t), and were quite good.

mostly St George's Chapel

The 11^th century Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest continually occupied castle in the world.

A visit to Windsor Castle is a visit to 2 main sites - St. George’s Chapel and the State apartments. There is no photography allowed in either of these places and they mean it. The VAST majority of people respected this, but I saw more than

one person sneaking photos (jerks) get caught and made to delete their photos. It would have been nice to have some photos, but it would have made the place that much more congested with people posing. The traffic flow was good.

the Long Walk to the Castle

We heard that the chapel would be busier than the apartments, so we started there. It turned out to be less busy. The remains of many British monarchs are buried here in including Queen Elizabeth II.

Then on to the state apartments – rooms where Royal business happens, hosting dignitaries, awards ceremonies, etc. Here also are former bedrooms,

Christopher Wren Hotel

drawing rooms etc. This is where the crowds were. We had to queue (yet again). This time only about 5 minutes. Inside the state apartments, it was BUSY. Everything kept moving, but there were lots of people.

The visit lasted about 2 hours. I suppose we could have stayed longer if we wanted, but I’m not sure what else we would have done. There were a few

cafés, but they were pricey and not super charming.

just finished our visit

Once done with the castle, we wandered a bit further and saw the Long Walk – it is pretty much as advertised…more of a long road really that stretches 2.5 miles from (or to) the castle.

Eventually the heat got to me, so it was time for a pint and lunch. We looked for someplace different than where we had a pint yesterday but ended up back at The King and Castle. We knew there was outdoor shade here. We could easily have sat inside out of the heat, but no where has great AC here and under the trees, the shade was lovely.

dinner with a bit of a Castle view

One thing that wasn’t lovely was the smoke. I think we’re spoiled at home with having no smoking on patios. Here almost everywhere allows smoking outdoors – apparently there are no laws against it, but places can decide to be non-smoking, no where did that we could see. As I said, we could have gone inside but coped with the smoke.

We did a bit of shopping and back into Tesco for more water and snacks.

Dinner was at a ‘French’ place on the river. Great location, but kinda oversold themselves. After was a short walk before heading back to the hotel for one last sleep away from home.

June 27 – Lisbon, Portugal to Windsor, UK

Weather – 29º in Lisbon, 27º in Windsor

Steps – 14,196

Humidity – 79% in Windsor

The 42 days on the ship were over today. We left the ship at 730 and were at The Christopher Wren hotel in Windsor by 3PM.

so many swans

Typically, we would have taken a taxi or Uber to the airport, but as we are now big deals, having travelled more than 400 nights with Regent, we receive a private transfer to the airport – no looking for an Uber, no piling onto a coach with a million other people. This was delightful.

lawn bowling

  We left the ship, found our luggage in the terminal, someone pointed to where our car was waiting with the driver holding a sign with our names.

The ride to the Lisbon airport is only 20 minutes, so it would only have been about $20-$25 – not a huge savings having the ride, but the convenience was a huge saving.

where to next?

Once we got to the airport, the ride didn’t stop there. We were handed over to a guy who took our bags and us to the check in area. At first we thought this was overkill, but it turned out we were dropped off a distance from check in and it wasn’t all that well marked. We could absolutely have done it ourselves, but this was nice.

no exciting chips, but BILTONG!

The woman who checked us in, said the line for immigration would be long, expect about an hour – what??? She couldn’t be serious. Just as we were told, it did indeed take an hour – just in time to board the flight, well, not a flight, but a bus to our flight.

Security was a breeze – maybe 5 minutes, totally normal - it was immigration that took so long.This whole immigration ordeal was incredible! There seemed to be no reason for the line to be as long as it was. Thankfully, it was very civilized – no pushing or shoving, it wasn’t hot, and we weren’t stressed. We were so thankful that we were told. Other people were not so lucky. We were shocked there was no kind of notification or sign that it would be so long. Some people came to the line and had no idea it would be this long. We’ve been in plenty of immigration lines, and I’d have to say this one was BY FAR the longest.

Castle and Queen Victoria

Some people tried to appeal to the workers saying their flights were soon, but they were basically told that, everyone is in the same boat. There were a few times when a worker would try to find people who were going to a flight leaving right now, but otherwise, it was just wait your turn.

The 3-hr flight was nice, uneventful. Actually, I had one of the best airplane meals I’ve every had. It didn’t sound like anything special…stewed lamb and potatoes, but yum!

We took a cab for the 20 min ride to Windsor - £45 – not cheep, but OK. The hotel is on a pedestrian street, so we had a small walk with our luggage, but it was fine. The cab driver helped us until we saw where we were going, and we said we were fine.

back of Windsor church

The hotel is in an ideal location. We are here to see Windsor Castle.

front of Windsor church

It would have been nice to be home today, but it’s tricky getting a flight home from Lisbon to Calgary on the same day as the cruise ended. There are no direct flights, and 2 flights wasn’t going to work on the same day.

This is why we are in Windsor - it is close to Heathrow airport and seems good for tourists. We’ve been to London before, so didn’t see the need to go all the way there for only one day.

We checked in, unpacked a little and headed out to wander. Windsor is very touristy –
kind of like Banff. The Thames River is super close to our hotel, so we walked along it for a bit, watched the enormous swans, wandered some more, watched lawn bowling, and found a pub. We had wished the lawn bowling had a pub - it was interesting to watch.

Then we picked up some snacks and water and went back for some hotel down time.

In the evening, we wandered again and found some Italian for dinner.

June 26 – Lisbon, Portugal

Weather – 19º when sailing, 29º in Lisbon

Steps – 14,304 (that’s what happens when we are on a walking tour)

Humidity – 87% when sailing, “I-was-drenched%” in Lisbon

Today is the last full day of the cruise. It’s always a bit sad to say good-bye to people you’ve become friendly over the last 40 days…40 days is a long time. More annoying is the packing. I don’t know why I hate it like I do, but I can’t stand packing. I was determined to get it done as fast as possible – 30 minutes, I was done.

Other than packing we spent time on the deck.

perfect place to blog

Often the last day of a cruise is a sea day, or at least a partial sea day. Today was partial, we arrived in Lisbon at 3.

sailing in under the bridge

It is interesting to be in Portugal considering the countries we’ve visited on this cruise that were former Portugal colonies. We’ve been to Lisbon a few times – the first in 2006, I just check the blog. We’ve only stayed on land once, the other times were on cruises.

 

Our tour this afternoon was completely on foot. We met our guide, Andre, in the terminal and followed him throughout Lisbon’s narrow streets for the next 4 hours. This was a perfect tour for us – walking, food, drink, listening, learning – loved it!

statue with flags in the distance

Other than the heat I loved it. Lisbon is going through a heat wave. It was 29º today, apparently that is about 6/7 degrees hotter for this time of the year. This weekend it’ll be 36º - I’m glad I’m leaving.

massive old church

Lisbon rises right up from the river – the river seems like the ocean, but it’s not. We sailed from the ocean into the river – same water. Because of this, it is a hike from the port to the top of the old town. then we meandered through the streets and ultimately down to the river by the end of the tour.

We saw churches, ancient Roman ruins, the tram running back and forth, and many tuk-tuk tours. Although people live in the old city it is also very touristy.

ginjinha 

We made 3 stops for food and drink. The first was for meat, cheese, marmalade, a port wine, and a lot of water – lovely. Second, we stopped outside à Ginjinha Espinheria. à Ginjinha Espinheria is a tiny bar that serves ginjinha – a traditional Portuguese sour cherry liquor. We didn’t even see inside the bar – people were standing outside drinking and there was a line. Lucky for us, Andre skipped the line and brought out a tray for us. It was kind of as expected…a bit sour, a bit sweet, a bit boozy.

random buildings

Then we kept wandering, listening. BTW, we used earpieces and Andre had a mic. This was ideal. There’s no way in the skinny streets we could have heard half of what he said. It’s rare that we use, these…like basically never, but they’re great.

that's a public elevator!

The last food/drink stop was for cod fritters - Pastéis de Bacalhau, cod, potato, parsley, fried. We expected a small golf ball sized one or 2 bite thing – nope…it was a multi-bite situation.

By 7:30 we were back at the ship, took a quick shower and were out for our final ship dinner. We never request a particular waiter, a table by the window request…yes, but never a specific waiter – we like to get to know everyone. However, this being our last dinner, we wanted to sit with Dhiraj. Luckily, he had an open table. It was a lovely last meal.

Candy Lisa candy store

We were back in the room by 10:30, had our suitcases in the hall shortly after to be taken into the terminal for us to pick up tomorrow and we were in bed.

random buildings

June 25 – AT SEA, Cruising the Atlantic Ocean

cool looking sky today

Weather – 22º

Juan

Steps – 4,665

Humidity – 85%

Krew Kapers was the highlight of the day…a highlight of the cruise! Throughout this cruise, the theater has been more or less half full most nights – tonight it was PACKED! People really want to see the crew on stage. Krew Kapers is basically a crew talent show. About half were solo singers, all ok, but Juan was shockingly great. We are somewhat familiar with Juan because he is part of the team that runs the tech parts of the shows. He’s a pretty average Filipino guy, with an average speaking voice, but when he opened his mouth to sing Josh Turner’s Your Man – WOW, WOW, WOW! I think I may

krew dance

have gasped - he was incredible. I felt like I was a judge on The Voice when an unassuming contestant stepped on stage, and then he started… to sing. If he could get some time off of the ship, he’d be perfect for Stampede! A terrific baritone voice.

Alicia's belly dance

There were also some group dance numbers and one solo belly dance. The folks performing this show aren’t the ship’s singers and dancers, they are the deck hands, the cooks, the room attendants, and the security people. On their off time, once most of us have gone to bed, they rehearse. I try to never miss this second last night of the cruise show. I’m always so touched by them and get more than a bit misty.

At the end of the show, as many crew as are available flood the stage for one last wave.

Saravanan!

Dinner was with the assistant cruise director, Patricio, and another couple from Florida. We had a great time, never once asking each other what we do for a living or if we have kids…it was mostly about travel, but random other topics too – nice.

David - a waiter

The after-dinner guest entertainer show tonight was another singer, this time a woman. Of all the guest entertainers we’ve seen for the past 40 days, 3 have been women, hmmm. Anyway, if I had to pick her set list, I think I could have –

mostly old, one 1934 song. She actually sang an Adele and a Celine Dion song, so I can’t complain about the age of those, but good ol’ Regent performers. She had a good voice, was talented but…

June 24 – Santa Cruz De La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain

Weather – 21º

Steps – 11,680

Humidity – 75%

lovely sail in

After 4 days at sea, we set foot on the Canary Islands. It is obvious that we are no longer in Africa. The busses are ‘normal’, the roads are ‘normal’, the cultural is ‘normal’. I loved being in Africa, but European culture is certainly more comfortable and easier. Even if the language is not ours, it is still easy.

The Canary Islands (pop 2.2 mil) are a chain of 7 main islands in the Atlantic Ocean to

salt pans

 the north-west of Africa. They are part of Spain, but I’m using a Canary Island flag today. The name of the island is not name for the bird, but the bird is named after the islands. The story goes that the islands used to be full of dogs, the Latin word for dogs is similar to canary. There’s another story that that island was full of sea dogs.

We visited three other Canary Islands in 2023.

We are away bright and early, 815 for a wine tour…soon my liver will get a break! We board an excellent coach bus – AC, doors that shut, and a mic that works…I actually miss the reverb.

The bus was PACKED by the time we even got on! The Regent system for tours is to meet in the theatre and wait for your tour to be ready to depart. People can ignore the request to wait to be called and go directly to the bus, but we NEVER do, we always wait…rule followers that we are. Typically, everyone follows the rules too. Today was not typical. We were one of the first ones out of the theatre when our tour was called, by the time we got to the bus it was 75% full! Brutal! However, despite people sprinting 

had to pay for these

for the bus, they don’t head to the back. We, along with another couple are able to get seats apart. Fine by us.

We spent 4 hours this morning driving around the island. Santa Cruz De La Palma is windy enough and hot enough for salt pans. We stop for a few minutes to look at the various pans below us.

obey the sign

Next we make another stop for photos at a lookout above vineyards, a resort, and banana plantations. 42% of Santa Cruz De La Palma’s land is covered with banana plantations. Bananas really are everywhere here, they’re very nice to look at. I didn’t think the world needed more bananas, but I guess it does. Not only are there plantations, but people have banana trees in their own yards.

San Antonio volcano crater

At the furthest point on the island, we stopped at the Bodegas Teneguía vineyard. We tasted 2 of their wines as part of the tour and paid additionally to taste 2 of their ‘special’ wines, made from malvasia grapes, I’ve never heard of these grapes. I had a bunch of Euro coins that I was able to unload – I also tried

to use a 50 centavo Brazilian coin they refused to take…the nerve!

Our last stop was at the San Antonio volcano crater visitor centre. Here we learned about the volcano that last erupted in the 1600s and the other

more of the crater

volcanic activity on the island. There was an optional hike to a lookout point which we did. WOW, it was WINDY! The guide suggested we take hats as it was going to be sunny, yeah, but the WIND! At least 2 people lost their hats. We saw one person actually scale down the rocky hill for her hat…not the smartest move I didn’t think. The guide panicked and ran to this woman - I don't blame her. All was fine in the end, but it could easily have gone badly.

2 volcanoes in the distance

The cruise port for Santa Cruz De La Palma is very close to the city centre – about a 5-minute walk…this is glorious, so easy. After the tour we wander in to look around and have lunch.

One of Chris’ and my weaknesses is sitting on a European street, eating a wafer-thin pizza, drinking a glass of wine, and people watching – today…mission accomplished.

lunch

We know how big these pizzas typically are, we always share one, but today I thought it might be a bit smaller than usual, given the 8-euro price…

nope…usual size, perfect for us to share. I

until next time...

guess Santa Cruz De La Palma is a smaller town, so smaller prices.

Then on the way back we couldn’t resist another outdoor, on-the-street place for an ice-cold 2.5-euro beer…delicious.

This place was lovely, I could see possible spending more time here, but not

Canary Islands

really sure what we’d do. According to the guide, many people come here to practice hiking…we could do that.

We were finally back to the boat about a half hour before all aboard. It was a lovely sail away.

June 23 – AT SEA, Cruising the Atlantic Ocean

Weather – 23º

Steps – 5,610

Humidity – 78%

Today is another 23-hour day. We turned our clocks forward an hour – this is the second day in a row. This is the last time until we are home on Sunday, then who knows what my body might say about sleeping. According to the clock, we slept late. 

There was an enrichment lecture called “The European Scramble for Africa” we wanted to watch on the TV, so we didn’t get up until even later. 

The enrichment lectures are recorded so we don’t have to go to the theatre to see them live, but on this ship, they aren’t on demand like they are on the new ships.

I eventually found myself at the gym and then did a bit of shopping. I managed to spend all but a bit of our remaining credit. I bought some Neal’s Yard moisturizer and hand balm…both were half the of online price. I’m not sure if this is the case with all of the ‘cosmetic’ items in the shop. I bought a few things last time we had credit and those were less too, so maybe. These are duty free prices - I can’t imagine half of the price is duty, but what do I know??

It was another windy day, so we figured the shelter of our balcony was better than the pool, so we stayed in for lunch.

We saw the comedian’s second show…like last time, it was ok, but not hilarious.

No photos today.

June 22 – AT SEA, Cruising the Atlantic Ocean

a lot of 23s

Weather – 23º

Steps – 4,957

trying not to spill

Humidity – 78%

After our caviar breakfast (it was Sunday after all) it was time for the ship’s country fair. We only watched last time, this time we participated – guess that spice, carry a tray of drinks around an obstacle course, beer-pong (without the beer), guess that destination from the pic – all based on the ship‘s departments. Each time you played you’d get an entry into the raffle…we didn’t win.

I managed to get a pic of Chris trying out for the bar staff…I suppose if he were to need a job, he might feel most comfortable as bar staff, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be the culinary dept, although he did guess that what he was smelling was oregano.

It's a very upbeat atmosphere – the staff seem to be enjoying themselves as much as the passengers. They are working the event of course, but it’s nice to see them out of their usual jobs.

The country fair only last about 45 min, when it’s done it took about 20 minutes to have the pool deck back to normal. We sat at the pool for a bit, but it was quite windy, so back to our sheltered balcony it was.

getting the job done

Maddie and Jonah

We realized we have a bit of shipboard credit remaining, so I checked out the shop. I would have done this long ago but was sure we’d used up all of our credit. This is a nice surprise. I didn’t buy anything but will eventually – I will not leave money on the ship! The end of the cruise is nearing.

There was another predinner music event put on by 2 of the ship’s singers…we went…it was entertaining.

Another tidbit of excitement for the day was Chris getting his shoes shined. We’ve always known they will do your shoes but can’t remember ever having use that service before. Chris put his shoes outside our door last night and today Saravanan brought them back looking beautiful – in a bag no less!

Lori - you're right it is!