Around the World. Special Edition - Itinerary Change

In a surprising turn of events, in the very final week of this 6-month adventure, our journey has had another itinerary change!

Updated Schedule

• Day 176 / July 1: At Sea Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

• Day 177 / July 2: New York, New York Boston, Massachusetts, USA

• Day 178 / July 3: At Sea

• Day 179 / July 4: Charleston, South Carolina At Sea

• Day 180 / July 5: At Sea

• July 6: Disembark in Miami, Florida

As to why we had this change, there was an unexpected technical challenge that required the crew to complete essential repairs to one of the ship's propulsion systems. Ultimately, because of the time it took to complete the repairs, we stayed in Halifax overnight and woke up to celebrate Canada Day still in Canada!

The other major change of cancelling both planned ports and replacing with Boston has to do with the distance from Halifax to New York. With the late afternoon departure on July 1, we didn't have enough time to still get to NYC on July 2, but need to make a refueling stop in order to continue on through to Miami. From there, we'll continue on down to Miami in order to maintain the original disembarkation schedule.

For many guests, this change created logistical headaches as they were planning to disembark the ship in New York or Charleston because those ports were closer to their homes than the port of Miami. For me, I didn't have plans in either port and only have a car rental waiting for me when we get to Florida with no major appointments in jeopardy. Ultimately, this change does not impact me in the long run.

As I'm typing this, we are on our way to Boston, cruising south along the eastern coast of North America. When I finished the Week 25 Wrap Up, we were still sitting in the Halifax harbor without any update as to the plan. Quoting my Storytelling teacher, "Write from the Scab and not the Wound", was because we didn't have much information on what was going on and that caused quite a bit of uncertainty, which lead to frustration. Naturally, I wanted to make sense of the situation and to come up with my own contingency plans for various outcomes given we're returning home after 6-months away. Without official word on the options nor experts in this situation, there were tons of rumors flying around the ship and on social media, which didn't help the aggravation.

Additionally, because I was supposed to be Cruise Director for the Day (which has been postponed due to this situation), some passengers thought I had the inside scoop or that I had some kind of authority to communicate what was going on. While I have a lot of great personality traits, historically one of my biggest negative traits is how reactive I can get when I don't know something that people expect me to. Because of this, as soon as we were given the clearance to go ashore again, I headed out to a coffee shop that seemed to be hidden off the main street a bit. There, I was able to upload some more Port Recap videos to YouTube and work on some projects that I knew how to do.

In my Vista Today Show interview, I mentioned one of the primary reasons I'm on this trip today is because of a major burnout event a few years back. After which, I've spent significant time bringing my mental health back to steady state, learning some coping techniques along the way. Knowing that I still don't have complete control over my immediate reaction in these situations, the isolated coffee shop was the best option to, for lack of better words, calm down.

After the coffee shop stop, I wandered a bit along the waterfront with a plan to find a quite corner at the brewery across from the port in order to continue to upload videos, while also listening for any updates from the ship's PA system. However, once I got there, some friends invited me to join their table, and we spent the next few hours enjoying each other's company in the wonderful warmth of the sun.

We returned to the ship, as required, by 2:30 pm. I'll admit, we were very much expecting to hear another announcement that would allow us to stay ashore a bit longer, but it didn't come. Once back in my cabin, I finished the Week 25 Wrap Up, still anxiously awaiting an update. We didn't receive the official word until after 5pm, which was we'd depart Halifax at 6pm and follow the schedule outlined at the beginning of this post. Part of me really wanted to just continue to hide away in my room, but again, the power of the community we've built on this ship came to my rescue as I was invited to join a bottle share in one of the lounges.

For the rest of the night, we enjoyed pizza dinner with the Solos as a Farewell event, a comedy show, and a dance party for Canada Day.

With our final roll-back time change, I found myself awake at 5am and decided to write this Special Edition to document the itinerary change and reflect on where my head has been. Ironically, I also started watching Apollo 13, which I chose over Pearl Harbor. I'm sure that's another topic I should explore... (wanting to watch a happy-ending after a catastrophe), but I'll save that for another day .

For now, I'm off to finish laundry and maybe take a nap!