We enjoyed our first world cruise in 2019 so much that we decided to do another one. While on the 2019 cruise we booked the world cruise scheduled for 2021. Because of Covid-19, that itinerary was moved to 2022. Early in 2021,they released the itinerary for 2023 which we also liked and we did not think that the 2022 cruise would be sailing so we booked the 2023. We kept the 2022 booking thinking it would be cancelled and we would get additional credit. They ended up moving the 2022 itinerary to 2024. We are are still deciding if we will also do that cruise (it goes up the Amazon, Hawaii, Japan, China , India, Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean) but we waiting to see what the 2025 itinerary will be.
Though most of Africa has not been on our bucket lists, we have wanted to at least set foot on our 6th continent. After a couple of stops in the Caribbean, we pass through the Panama Canal and sail towards the South Pacific Islands. We will visit some new places as well as ones that we visited in 2019 and a trip to Australia in 1990. We are excited to get back to New Zealand and Australia and this time we will visit the south side of Australia, including Tasmania, and on to Perth on the West Coast. Then we sail across the Indian Ocean to Africa. There we are scheduled to visit 18 ports in 13 countries. After sailing up the west coast of Africa, we do a quick dip into the Mediterranean then on to a number of counties in Europe. We enjoy these very much. We have been to most of them before but we will have first time stops in ports in Spain, Portugal, France, England, Scotland and Norway.
This map and a detailed itinerary can be displayed using menu options on the right side of of the screen on PCs and tablets or a drop down menu under title on smartphones.
Our ship, the Zuiderdam is one of four Vista class ships in the Holland America Line. These ships are named (in Dutch) after the 4 points of the compass - Noordam (north), Zuiderdam (south), Oosterdam (east) and Westerdam (west)
