Transatlantic Cruise, Part 1: Embarkation and Cartagena

Day 488 (October 29, 2019): Cartagena, Spain

It was a weird feeling to get on that cruise ship. On the one hand it was sad to think that this was the last leg of our trip, but on the other hand we were thrilled to get on board and have nothing to do for a couple weeks. The thought of slowly heading towards home was appealing. As strange as it seemed, we were excited to be stuck on a boat for 14 days. It would be the longest we had ever stayed in the same place during this entire trip. After unpacking our bags in our cabin, we would only have to pack them back up again one last time when we disembarked in Florida. We also had zero travel plans left to arrange for the first time since we left home. Everything was set and we were on our way home.

Moments before going aboard the Nieuw Statendam.

The boat itself, Holland America’s Nieuw Statendam, was a mid-sized cruise ship. It certainly wasn’t one of the massive ones out there, but it wasn’t small by any means, holding around 2,600 passengers and 1,000 crew. Although during our trip, it seemed to be well under capacity, which is probably why we got a good deal on it.  We did feel a bit out of place sometimes. For starters, the average age of our fellow passengers was at least a few decades older than us. Unless you’re retired, who else has time for a two-week vacation like this? We also didn’t have any nice clothes. We each picked up a second-hand button-down shirt when we were in Zagreb, but only one each. And we each only had one pair of well worn shoes. Mine still had mud strains on them from our hike in Yangshuo, way back when we were in China. So there was never any dressing up for anything on this cruise. We also weren't nearly as excited as some of our fellow passengers. Granted, for them this was a big vacation, whereas for us it really felt more like transportation home. Slower, but way more comfortable than a flight.

The pool deck in the rear of the boat.

Sunset right before we pushed off from Civitavecchia, Italy.

Our first full day of the cruise was at sea. The Mediterranean was like glass. There was hardly a ripple on the water. You couldn’t even tell that the boat was moving unless you looked out the window. We didn’t do much that first day. We slept in and got acquainted with our new surroundings. Our room was nicer than we expected. We did spring for an upgrade to a room with a floor-to-ceiling window, which we were so glad we did. We walked all over the boat, mostly to try and find where all the bars were. Unfortunately, we also learned that the bar prices were sky high. Those drinks were going to add up quick.

It was strange to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner all in one day. We almost never had breakfast when we were traveling other than a cup of coffee. I was most excited about the salad bar for lunch because it was always so hard to find vegetables. At dinner we met our table mates, a couple from California and a woman from Quebec. We would get to know each other quite well by the end of the trip. It was also an unusual experience to be having a three course meal for dinner. This was a level of fancy way beyond anything we had ever done on this trip.

Our cabin for the next two weeks.

The next day we arrived at Cartagena, Spain. To be honest, we didn’t care that much about the port stops. We had been to well over one hundred cities on this trip, what could be new about a few more? Although we considered not getting off the boat, it was obvious that we would have had regrets about that, so we got off and walked all around Cartagena for the day. We had not done any research, so we didn’t really know where to go, but we used maps.me to find attractions and points of interest to explore. The highlight was probably the brief chance we had to use our Spanish once again to order a couple empanadas for a lunch-time snack. We also stopped at a pharmacy and at a convenience store to restock our supplies for the next two weeks. It was a really nice sunny day out, so we appreciated the time outside during our walk around town.

We were back on the ship later that afternoon. In the early evening, we started what was to become my favorite routine: picking up a beverage (a cup of coffee in this case) and heading up to the top deck to watch us push off from the pier and leave port, all while the sun was setting. It was always so pretty.

Watching our departure from Cartagena from the deck.