Today I have been excited all day. Mainly because I am finishing packing for a trip to Europe leaving tomorrow for a Med cruise!
While I have been on several cruises since covid, they have taken me only as far as the Caribbean, Mexico and Bermuda. This will be the first time that I’ve been back to Europe since the covid shutdown in March 2020 and my life has changed considerably since then.
The biggest change is that after losing my beloved husband of 37 years– who traveled the world with me, clocking thousands of sea miles along the way – I met a wonderful fellow who has traveled extensively, but for work, not for pleasure. And we got married just last month and this is going to be our honeymoon!
We begin by driving five hours to the Detroit airport, then fly to Atlanta and then fly on to Venice, Italy. I can’t think of a more fascinating place to begin John’s first real traveling on the continent. We spend a couple of days there and then board Windstar’s Wind Surf and will sail down the Adriatic seacoast visiting Croatia, Montenegro, Corfu visiting Corfu and other Greek islands and ending up in Athens.
While I have sailed on just about every small ship cruise line, I have never experienced Windstar so am looking forward to the sailing experience. While much has been written in recent months about the four small ocean ships that that the company acquired from Seabourn and converted for Windstar’s use…not so much attention has been paid to the line’s signature sailing experience.
I have long been a fan of Star Clippers sailing ships and have traveled with them several times, I am looking forward to discovering how Windstar approaches this unique mode of cruise travel.
Another change for me is that we are bringing along some new travel accessories…N-95 masks, lots of hand sanitizer, home covid tests, CofixRX nasal spray and Air Tags in every bag. Apple introduced the tags this year and they have become a popular way to track your bags should they ever go astray.
John and I each just did a home covid test to make sure that we continue to be negative and both passed! We are well aware that covid is still with us and will be for the foreseeable future so we intend to be cautious.
See sailings here Windstar Cruises (cruisecompete.com)
Heidi, Editor-In-Chief
