World Cruise: Ft. Lauderdale to London, England December 2025
Our plan for a world cruise started about 30 years ago. Ina kept talking about going on a world cruise at retirement and Jim went along with it until one day, he asked the price. His response was "oh no! you can't have that much money for a cruise!". The next day... Ina opened her private "cruise" savings account and managed to squirrel away enough money to pay for the cruise by retirement! We are going on a World Cruise!
Day 1: December 19, 2025
Woke up this morning a bit overwhelmed and thought, "what did I get us into"! Gratitude to Ellie Ortu for taking us to the Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale to start our journey.
Had to get a couple of pictures before we set sail! Hope our clothes still fit by the end of the cruise!
Day 2: 12-20-25
A whole day at sea. Took us a long time to get all of our "stuff" tucked away in this tiny space! There are a lot of "old" people on this boat. So, just our luck... the refrigerator didn't work, the toilet stopped working at a very inopportune time, and the TV remote didn't work! Everything sorted out by our cabin stewards Wayan and Nick who promptly fixed everything. Only about 250 of the passengers onboard are doing the world cruise. The rest of the passengers will disembark in LA and they will fill the boat back up to capacity of about 930. Forgot to mention that we did attempt to dance last night and tonight. Jody would have been disappointed with our performance for sure! We have many more nights on board to get it right!
Day 3: 12-21-25 Cozumel, Mexico
Country #1: Mexico: First time off the boat! It is about 80 degrees and more humid than home!
Excursion to the Ruins of San Gervasio. This is an archaeological site of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. This pre-Hispanic name was Tantun Cuzamil which was interpreted as the Flat Rock in the space of the Swallows.
Day 4: 12/22/25 Day at Sea
We managed to pick up a few players and won trivia today. Our team included Tracey and Vladin from Indiana and Jim Teslow one of the cruise lecturers. The prize for winning is really just bragging and a mimosa which we can get anytime. We only missed 1 question, and it was one of the easier ones... "how many stomachs does a cow have?" Answer: 4
Day 5: 12/23/25 Day at Sea
We saw a pod of dolphins today from our balcony.
On our way to Cartagena, Combia. A bit of a rough sea today. We saw Mary-Jess perform in concert. She is a past winner of the Min Xing Chang Fan Tian, China's version of the X Factor in 2009. She is from England and is the recording artist who recorded the Downton Abbey theme song.
Day 6: 12-24-25 Cartegena, Columbia
Country #2: Cartegena, Columbia was established in 1533 and is home to about 1 million people. It is a multicultural community made up of indigenous people, Spanish, African and Italians. This is our first visit to Columbia.
Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas is the largest fort in Cartagena, Colombia and is located just outside the historic walled city. It was the largest fortification built by the Spanish on mainland South America, and it protected the wealthy colonial trade of Cartagena of gold, silver and emeralds.
The original old city wall. Originally, the sea came up to the wall but has been filled in from reclaimed land.
Typical street in old town.
When returning to the ship, you have to walk through a zoo. This zoo does not cage the monkeys and birds. We saw the Titi monkey that is native to Columbia jumping through the trees. Wild macaws and parrots were zooming overhead and screeching and peacocks including the white peacock native to Columbia were roaming around.
Day 7: 12-25-25 Colon and Panama City, Panama
Country #3: Panama: It is a very odd Christmas Day! We arrived in the city of Colon.
It was really hot today! Random statue. We had about an hour of "free time" before the bus ride back to the ship. We went in the hotel and up to the rooftop bar/restaurant. Had some great enchiladas with muy caliente sauce.
The "New City" of Panama is full of expense high-rises. They are not affordable to most of the Panamanians.
Inside the walls of the "Old City", rehab of the old buildings is well underway. However, some are still in a very bad state. During Noriega's rule... all these buildings were occupied by squatters and in disrepair.
We walked down to the "beach" of the Pacific Ocean. As you can see, this is at low tide. The marina had boats sitting on their keel waiting for the tide to come in. On the Atlantic side, the tide rise/fall is about 2.5 feet. On the Pacific side, the tide rise/fall is 18 to 20 feet.
The officers and staff sang us Christmas Carols with a sing-along.
Day 8: 12-26-25 Panama Canal, Panama
This is our first time to go completely through the Panama Canal. We did enter into the canal from the Atlantic side previously where we parked in the "lake" and exited back out the East side.
Jim filmed a time lapse going into the Gatun locks. The canal was built by the US government starting in 1903 and finished in 1914. The Canal brings in $15,600,000 dollars per day. Which is about 40 ships per day.
Jim met a fellow USNA alumni, Dave Kruse class of '81.
Centennial Bridge: built in 2004 commemorating the centennial of Panama separating from Columbia in 1904.
Day 9: 12/27/25 Day at Sea
Our team won the trivia today. We got 14 out of 15 with our closest competitor at 11 correct. Our only missed question was "what part of a dog's body sweats"? Answer is their paws!
From our balcony at sunset. Very picturesque indeed!
Mary-Jess performed her last show and leaving the ship tomorrow.
Day 10: 12/28/25 Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Country #4: Costa Rica: This is our first time on the Pacific side of Costa Rica.
From our balcony with the town behind us! We took a bus tour to the town of Esparza.
Mass was in progress at the Catedral de Puntarenas Catholic Church.
This little boy who has autism and they found him to have a natural ability to play the marimba.
The dance troupe performed original Costa Rican dances. The tour was really not much other than the church and the children. There wasn't much to see or explore at the port.
We dance until midnight today!
Day 11: 12/29/25 Day at Sea
Lazy day today. Jim's vlog:
Day 12: 12/30/25 Acajutla, El Salvador
Country #5: This is our first time of visiting El Salvador. This is a new port and they are really trying hard to get the cruise industry business. El Salvador is the "land of volcanoes" with 242 volcanoes but only 10 are active. The active designation means that they haven't erupted in 10 thousand years.
We took a 1.5 hour bus ride to Cerro Verde National Park. The Izato Volcano behind us is the youngest of all the volcanoes. We hiked through the national forest and eventually found this view. The lake behind us is Lake Coatepeque of volcanic origin and is 50,000 years old.
We decided to take the shuttle into town with our trivia friends, Traci and Vladan Jovanovic, to have some local food. As we came into the town, it was very poor appearing with lots of people around. Some passengers opted to stay on the bus and return to the ship. We went to this "restaurant" that was full of locals. They spoke very little English and we spoke very little Spanish.
The pupusa is a traditional and popular street food here. It is a stuffed cake made from cornmeal or rice flour, filled with cheese, beans and fried pork. There were also community coleslaw and salsa. Thanks to Traci for the pictures. The kids were laughing at us for eating with a fork. The locals eat them with their hands.
Pupusas being prepared right on the street. Total cost of the meal for 4 people (3 pupusas each, 2 beers, 1 bottled water and 1 coke) was $8.70. The haven't learned how to upcharge the tourists yet!
We were entertained by what looks like a military band while we were getting ready to set sail.
My selfie at sunset on our balcony in El Salvador.
Day 13: 12/31/25 Day at Sea on New Years Eve
We awoke to rough seas today. This has limited our activity until about 5pm when we reached calmer waters.
The New Years Eve Celebration kicked off with entertainment from Jobie Quirante.
Fun times with the Viking Band. Perry on keyboard, Edwin on guitar, Rox on bass, Mark on drums, and Speedy and Varvee vocals!
Selfie with Varvee! She has an amazing voice! Counting down soon!
Ice sculpture at midnight they pushed the 5 into the pool and replaced it with a 6. Jim got a video on his recap but for some reason the video cut off as they pushed the 5 into the pool. Goodbye to 2025 and hello 2026!
