World Cruise - What Happened To February 17?

We sat down the other day and went over our cruise itinerary again to decide on the smaller excursions we may want to take along the way. To help me visualize our trip, I took my wall calendar and began penciling in the ports and cruise days (days at sea). Everything was going along well until I got to February 17. There was no February 17 on our cruise itinerary!

Instead of February 17 there was a note that we cross the Dateline. Now we've done that lots of times before but never on a ship. It's a first!!

Every time we have crossed the Dateline it has been on an airplane and doesn't seem quite as jarring. Maybe it's because of the jet lag. Their will be no jet lag on this trip. That was one of the inviting details of this trip. We gain an hour through each time zone from Miami through the Canal and across the Pacific until we hit the dateline. Then we lose a day, February 17, but as we continue around the globe, we will gain those 24 hours back one hour at a time.

So I guess, in the end, we still have February 17. It's just that it is chopped up into twenty-four hour pieces and dispersed through the remaining seventy-five days of our trip. I'm  just glad my birthday isn't on the 17th of February!

So You Want To Take A Round The World Trip

It's always been on the bucket list to circumnavigate the globe. That is because we are avid cruisers. For some though the thought of several months on a cruise ship all at one time is overwhelming especially if you have a delicate stomach for sea voyages. I happened to run across an article that was quite interesting from Smarter Travel about things to think of as you plan a Round The World trip.

There are all sorts of ways to book your plane tickets. Airlines offer RTW tickets or you can book your own legs of the journey individually. The article suggests booking business class since in getting around the world you will most likely spend a total of around 50 hours on a plane. He didn't mention how much time in airports waiting for planes but he did say you should plan an extra day here and there for travel.

While searching through the article and later on a search engine, I found that there are several sites that cater to the RTW traveler. Be aware that some are geared to backpackers who live on a minimal budget while traveling. The RTW Calculator site was one. I thought it would be fun to calculate our World Cruise trip if we had done it by plane and car on our own and started entering the places we would go. I immediately got stuck because the first stops in the Caribbean islands aren't on their list. When I saw that Miami, Florida was calculated at a little over $30/night, I realized I was on a site for backpackers.

Another site, The World Travellers Club, gave sample itineraries you can book and estimated airfares. Using some of that information, I tried calculating how much our trip would cost if we were to go the air/land route. Keeping it an apples-to-apples comparison, I could only calculate travel, accommodations, and food and at that it would be an estimate. All of the other things like excursions and nightly entertainment I set aside. I also had to consider our comfort level for accommodations as well. We are definitely not hostel and backpacking travelers.

Our RTW cruise

When I got done, the air/land looked a little cheaper but it required a lot of work. Schlepping luggage from place to place and lots of reservations to keep in line unless we wanted to be daring and take our chances on accommodations and car rentals being available for us. Having to search out places to eat each night on a budget and wondering if the food quality was good. I'm wondering where we would have stayed in Madagascar? And certainly getting to Easter Island would probably have been a bit pricey. So in the end perhaps the air/land would not get us to all the places the cruise does.

On the other hand, the air/land would get us places we couldn't reach by ship. Do I see another RTW trip in the future?