All good things come to an end and that is now the case for this momentous cruise. As expected we were off the ship right at 9AM (some of the last to go because we were on an independent exit). The cruise industry has evolved the disembarkation process over the years to where it is quite efficient and not overwhelming with hundreds of people emerging and trying to find their luggage at the same time. These days groups of maybe 50 people are called to exit and thus it is much easier to find your luggage which is neatly grouped by color code in the cruise terminal.

Upon our exit we easily found our local tour guide, Claudia, an American lady who has lived in Cape Town for 25+ years, who loaded our luggage into her into her ample sized SUV and off we went for a partial day of sightseeing before going to the airport for our flights. When hiring her (tours by locals.com) I indicated we had already seen the major sights (Table Mountain, Robben Island, the colorful buildings/culture of Bo-Kaap, the nearby wine country, Cape of Good Hope- normal attractions covered by guided tours) and asked that she show us some of the lesser known attractions in the city, which she did, including a fascinating museum dedicated to Bishop Desmond Tutu who might be as important as Mandela when it comes the dealing with apartheid in South Africa, the Castle of Good Hope, a former 17th fortress now a museum and a visit to a tea shop we were learned about different types of local teas and their medicinal properties. We even got in a bit of shopping at the local African market where we managed to pick up a few mementos of the area. As requested she delivered us to the airport about three hours before our scheduled flight(s) home, which leads me to relate a story about our complicated trip home!

Steps for the day: 9,420.

One of the benefits of cruising with Regent is they include business class seats on flights when flying internationally. I initially selected a pair of flights on Qatar Airlines through Doha with only a several hour layover in Doha between flights. We had never flown on Qatar and they have a great reputation so I was excited about the opportunity to try them. Unfortunately, months later they changed their departure times which would have required us to spend the night in Doha before flying to Seattle. That did not seem bad EXCEPT it so happened that the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament was going on at this time and there were absolutely no rooms available anywhere in the Doha area, so we had to change to a set of flights on Turkish Airlines through Istanbul.

Turkish Airlines have a good reputation and the flights would be on new 787s so I did not feel bad about the change, EXCEPT that our flight to Istanbul arrived at 6AM (after a 10.5 hour overnight flight) and our connecting 12 hour flight to Seattle did not leave until 3:30PM. Yvonne is not able to easily sleep on flights so I knew she would not be a happy camper when we arrived in Istanbul and would be facing that long layover, even though we had access to a business class lounge. I did a bit of research and found that the new Istanbul airport had a hotel located on the air-side (after security) of the terminal where we could book a “day room” to get several hours of sleep in real beds and shower before catching the connecting flight. I had a bit of a problem finding the hotel (had to ask several locals for directions) but once there, we were able to get a good 6 hours of sleep, and a shower before visiting what turned out to be the most elaborate Business Class lounge we have ever seen! It had a “Wow” factor, with multiple freshly made food offerings and relaxing seating. I almost hated to leave! The lounge overlooked the main terminal area that reminded us of the Forum at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. It offered an opportunity to shop in every high end designer shop you could imagine, along with dozens of restaurants and bars. It is quite a glitzy airport!

Thankfully, the rest of the trip home was uneventful, and our luggage arrived with us! There were no other flights landing when we did so getting through immigration/customs in the USA was quick.  Thus ended what had become the longest cruise we have ever taken and my quest to visit 100 countries of the world. Time will tell how many more countries I might be able to add to my list before my travel days end.

Epilogue: This is not a cruise for everyone and not an itinerary that one would likely repeat.  Visiting some of the third world countries we did makes me appreciate what we have and living where we do.

Normally we travel with friends and I was a bit concerned that traveling alone would be a lonesome endeavor. Surprisingly, the cruise line made it easy to meet and dine with other similar people traveling alone. We met some very interesting like-minded travelers from around the world.

A parting travel comment from an anonymous source: “Travel. As much as you can. As far as you can. As long as you can. Life’s not meant to be lived in one place.”….need I say more!