WORLD CRUISE & TRAVEL Q&A ️ trip report, highlights, future bucket lists & favourite memories ️

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to the Q&A all about our world Cruise today I'm going to be going through all the questions you asked and sharing all of the finer details the good the bad the highs the lows the pros the cons and the nitty-gritty of what it was actually like to go on a world Cruise if you're new around here hi I'm Brogan and I make travel home and lifestyle Vlogs I would love it if you subscribed I make lots of different types of travel videos and the cruise Vlogs have been one of my most popular ever so if you have joined us from that series then thank you and if you haven't seen them I will leave them linked below but in summary and just in case you haven't caught up with everything we went on a piano cruises World cruise on Arcadia between February to April 2024 we actually did 60 of the 100 day trip so we flew to Oakland to join the ship and then carried on all the way back to the UK via New Zealand Australia southeast Asia including Singapore and Hong Kong then we went down to macius and South Africa tenar and back to Southampton it was unbelievable I still can't even fathom that we actually did it we also got married on board which was so amazing I've done a whole wedding Q&A all about the wedding day at se if you want to go and watch that I'll leave that linked below as well and obviously we were on honeymoon and we celebrated my 30th birthday so this really was a once in a-lifetime special trip and we learned so much we already loved cruising before we had been to the Caribbean twice Norway and the Mediterranean we've only ever sailed on piano cruises and we have worked with them before but this trip was our own and we were just so excited to do it and spent about 2 years planning it and organizing it and doing all the logistics Etc so today I'm going to go through all your brilliant questions and hopefully cover everything and I would love it if you'd leave a comment and share any of your favorite moments or favorite Vlog from the series because Ben and I have gone back and forth over which ones we think are the best so that's basically the summary without further Ado let's get into your questions what made you choose the half world and not the full world the world cruise that Pio cruises specifically offer is on Arcadia and it was from Southampton all the way back to Southampton in the UK 100 days and a lot of the guests on board were doing the whole thing but I would say there was a good portion of people like us that came and went or joined later and stayed to the end and so there were lots of options that Pino crues do actually give you if you want to do a leg or a segment so we chose to fly to Oakland we did have a lot of people come and go at Sydney and Singapore and Hong Kong we chose to do it this way because it just worked for us and ticked a lot of our boxes is so the things that we had to consider were budget that was the biggest one obviously if you're doing the whole world Cruise the extra 40 days does make it a lot more expensive so that was the first thing secondly was locations we weren't that fussed about the first 40 days the third was the Atlantic Crossing although it's absolutely fine and we definitely will do it one day because Ben has a thing about wanting to do the Atlantic Crossing I didn't want to do it it is quite long and it's quite a lot of C days and it can be quite rough so I personally just would have rather have skipped the Atlantic Crossing and flown instead which worked better for us the time away from home was another Factor my mom was looking after our dog Bonnie and we also had a house sitter and I had to work out my timings for my work and my commitments around it so 100 days was just that little bit too long for us even 60 days was a real stretch originally we wanted to go away for like 3 or 4 weeks so the fact we already extended it to 60 days was a lot longer in our opinion so there was no need to do the 100 days just for the sake of saying we've done the whole thing and the last thing we had to factor in was just actually the length in general did we want to be away for that long there's a few things to factor but uh we didn't necessarily feel we had to do the whole thing would you ever do a full world Cruise having now done half I think it depends on all the things I just mentioned if I could have the time off if we had the money if the locations were absolute priorities and Essentials Never Say Never I don't think it's necessarily on our radar to do it again anytime soon because we have other trips and other things we want to but we have looked at the South America one which is 75 days it's not necessarily about achieving doing the whole thing more a case of does it go to the places that we want to go to is more of a priority top three moments of the trip apart from your wedding I found this way too hard to write down three so I've done 10 forgive me but I've done my top 10 which even then I was like it was so hard because there were moments that just being on the ocean and cruising was just a highlight and being so far removed from the rest of the world sometimes and my life at home not always being connected and being in a complet different time zone and just waking up and the first thing I did was going out to the balcony in my pajamas and smelling the seaa and looking out to the sea or watching the sunrise they were moments that were so magic and special that I just can't explain but obviously highlights are always going to be those bigger things but keep that in mind because there were moments that I just absolutely loved the first one was the business class flight how could we not include that just to Kickstart the trip I'd never flown business class like that I'd never gone that far I've never been to Australia and New Zealand it was unbelievable we flew with Emirates we did a whole video on it I felt like I was treated like royalty it was amazing and so exciting to start our wedding and honeymoon in that way I couldn't have asked for a better flight and experience for my first time going to New Zealand speaking of New Zealand I put that as like a general highlight I just loved New Zealand the beauty the nature the people the places we visited exploring Oakland the W Island where we did the bikes and the wine we did the hobbiton set I just loved New Zealand so much I'm going to talk about that later but that was a highlight number three was all the animals I just felt so sorry surrounded by animals everywhere we went I loved the kiwi bird in New Zealand the Emu or ostrich that we saw often the zoo or on our safari speaking of animals obviously seeing all the fish and snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef something I've wanted to do for such a long time couldn't not put that in my top highlights the cable car over the rainforest in cans it was beautiful such a great experience so different when we were in Australia going from like Brisbane koala sanctuary and Sydney is a city and then the great bar and doing cans it was just really cool that it we were able to achieve so many different things each spot Hong Kong Disneyland need I say much more about that I'm a huge Disney fan and it's my bucket list dream to tick off all the Disney parks around the world so that was number four out of six for me which is so exciting I just loved it had the best time there Singapore in general just loved Singapore so much Gardens by the bay was an ultimate highlight I loved it in in the day I loved it at night it was so pretty I could honestly imagine just sitting there and reading with a nice book but going into the domes and seeing the waterfalls and the floor and forer it was just amazing everything was amazing seeing the Sydney Opa house for the first time after seeing it every New Year's Eve on telly with the fireworks and in so many films and I had dreamed of going to Sydney so that was absolutely highlight just exploring Sydney being to do that with BJ because he'd already been before so him being able to show me his favorite places and why he loved it so much it was just amazing everything was amazing our first Safari experience could not not mention that in Durban loved seeing all the animals absolutely makes me want to go and do a bigger Safari cuz that was a game reserve and I'd love to do one of The Safaris with the big five and maybe stay somewhere under some beautiful stars like a camping experience just would really like to do that before I die definitely on my bucket list and lastly number 10 I put as Cape Town I will talk about bit more about Cape Town later cuz there's more questions about what surprised me the most but K Town was just so interesting and so much fun I just loved it I absolutely loved it so they were my top 10 we made some incredible memories and we had so many moments that would Pinch Me bucket list oh my goodness this is special so I feel very lucky that I got to do so many and they were just just some of the highlights there were so many more so many more even just like going shopping with benge and so many of the nice meals we had but we'll keep answering the questions CU I'm sure I'll cover it all has this trip made you a more confident traveler absolutely I already feel like I was fairly confident traveler but I'm the kind of traveler that goes to one destination does it and comes back it's very rare we do any sort of road trip or we go to more than one place this trip gave us the confidence to be able to make really great plans in these places to go further to expand what we actually do Ben and I do like a holiday where we sit on a sun lounger and we read a book and we eat good food but this kind of trip made us I think more cultured in terms of trying different Local Foods or being in conversation with local taxi drivers when we're going to a new destination or reading up on history and learning about the places it just made us more well-rounded I think and educated but also confidence to be able to do something similar in the future and already we're doing a UK road trip in July I don't think we would have necessarily had that confidence had we not done something like this this trip showed us that really anything is possible we put our mind to it and the world is so big and there's so much to still explore how did you plan your days in ports you explored without an Excursion or a guide the best way to explain this is actually just generally how we planned our days on land so the easiest way for us to figure out was looking at which destinations we wanted to do independently for example Singapore and Sydney were Nob brainers for us not only does the ship literally dock right there but we wanted to be able to do quite a lot in the time we had then we looked at all our remaining locations and had to work out were we near the town or city or destination or were we further out so was the port further away for example macius the port was about an hour from some of the beach resorts we wanted to go to in that case we had to decide do we want to independently get ourselves to there or do we want to utilize a Pio Cruiser Shore experience and then it was breaking down whether we wanted to do an actual fully organized trip with them or sometimes piano Cruisers offered the opportunity to do it on your own which was basically a bus that took you from the port to the place dropped you off and picked you off again at a certain time and that still allowed us to do things independently but meant that our transport was booked and organized then when we did pick and do a full Shore experience so for example the mud baths in Vietnam or we did the great bar Reef in Australia that was organized as a short experience um and Durban the Safari we did all of those just made sense to us because we didn't want to have to research and find Who does these things it meant that it was all booked and organized and it was with companies that P Cru is trusted and they could just sort it out that was how we planned things we never used external companies to book sh experiences because you can't always trust that they're going to drop you off or pick you up at the right times and I never wanted the ship to leave without us obviously however Cape Town was the only exception where we booked the red bus tour it was hard to make call especially when we did the mud B in Vietnam obviously that's not going to show us and give us a full rounded experience of the country it was more a case if we wanted to do an interesting fun activity that day and we'll have to go back to Vietnam and do it completely differently leading on nicely this question said did you book all your land excursions beforehand and how do you budget for that on top so yes we pretty much booked everything before we left the UK and we budgeted and booked them basically one at a time so every few weeks or every couple of months when we were topping up our savings and we had some money ready to book something we would go on the piano Cruise as well website and see what was available there were some that we had to book really fast like the great bar reef and the Durban Safari there was just no questions we booked them pretty much as soon as we could because we knew they would sell out but for ones that we were like uming and aring over we just booked them as and when we were ready P Cruisers actually ended up adding some so there were times that we would book one change our mind cancel it get a refund rebook something else which is all kind of part of the planning experience I guess the thought that made you surprised the most Cape Town I think for me it was the variety of things to do in the city so you've got table Moun on the cable car we did The Vineyards the nature with the seals Seal Island the Waterfront for the VNA Waterfront felt very like City shopping and then the coast line and Beach and the bus tour everything about Cape Town to me ticked so many boxes as an experience and place that gave us so much to do and so that's why I'd really love to return to Cape Town food was was really high quality we had some of the best meals and food there when we ate at that timeout market and when we went to the vineyard which I'll talk about later and also the price the prices for things were brilliant in terms of the food the experiences like the bus tickets were so cheap and for what we got and the souvenirs um so I just yeah good value for money as well did you wish that you had longer an each stop loved watching your Vlogs thanks for sharing oh thanks so much for watching this is a good question because I think any Cruise you do there will be an element of I wish we had longer or you might go to a destination say do you know what didn't need to spend any longer here got what we needed ticked that box done and dusted and that was pretty much how it was on the world Cruise too because there were some locations like batang in Indonesia that we saw it met the locals went around and felt very much done there and then there were other places like Singapore that I thought I would need longer but actually we achieved quite a lot and leaving there I felt pretty satisfied and content so I thought I'd want longer but didn't actually need it of course there were times where I felt like I didn't want to leave because I was having such a great time and I would have liked a bit longer like Hong Kong definitely because we only were able to prioritize Disney and of course I would have loved bit more time in Hong Kong I really wanted to go up to Victoria Peak and look at the view but actually it was raining and apparently there was no view so times like that if you're staying somewhere for a week and the weather's not good on one of days you can just go the next day you know so there were a few times but most of it I was pretty happy I felt like y seen it done it great let's carry on apart from the seals in South Africa did you see any other marine life dolphins or whales yes we saw Dolphins a few times on the ship not as often as I would have loved um I I don't know why I thought I'd see dolphins every day I didn't see them every day but I did see them a few times and the captain would come over the tanoy system I guess and say um just let you know there's dolphins on the port side or starboard side and so we would all get up from where we were and rush to the window and have a little look so there were moments that we caught like a pool of dolphins and it was so magic are there places you visited that you are 100% planning to explore further the number one place that we absolutely definitely definitely definitely want to go back to is New Zealand I fell in love with it I just loved how beautiful it was and our big bucket list dream trip would be to do the North and the South Island stay in a motor home and and do it all which is the exact trip that we both talked about on our very first conversation on Tinder together so the fact we were able to do New Zealand and start the trip here and get a flavor and get to see it for the first time has given me the confidence to know what to do what not to do on that big road trip that we can now plan for the future which I'm really excited about when you were at Sea what did you get up to so we did get quite a few questions about C days what we did and also if we ever found the C days too long and neither Benji or never found it too long or too many days at se we did like 4 days and 5 days the longest we did was 9 days which was after Cape Town before we got to tenie did ten e for a day and then 3 days and then we were home so we were basically at sea for almost 2 weeks with only one stop which sounds like a really long time but for most of the trip I was basically working and I feel like that's a huge privilege to be able to work and travel at the same time I feel very lucky that I was able to do that I loved working from the Crow's Nest or from our cabin so that was prettyy straightforward Benji did a lot of sport he absolutely loved playing Cricket every day on a cay at 2:00 he also played football and he did De qus and table tennis uh all sorts any kind of sport bench was there I went to a few classes I did some art and I went to a coloring class one day which was so therapeutic just to sit with some coloring pens they had some pre-done coloring sheets I also learned how to do Mac which was like a notot crochety thing uh did some key Rings we went to the cinema we did the headliners theater we probably went to like two or three shows a week wasn't going to one every night cuz not everything appealed to us but we did comedy and singers and some musicals that the headliners Theater Company were putting on there was some really amazing high quality shows and the crew work so hard night in Night Out performing I was so impressed but sometimes we were just happy to sit in a bar listen to a Pianist or somebody playing the guitar we were often in the rising sun which is their kind of Pub space and we did lots of quizzes there but I think the thing we did the most was definitely play board games hours and hours and hours of games lots of big potato games of course played a lot of herd mentality and Dino dump a normal pack of cards but we also did Monopoly and cludo and we made friends who I'll talk about later and we played for like 6 hours of Monopoly one day so that was really productive obviously did some exercise I mostly enjoyed walking around the ship or swimming I didn't love the gym I just didn't really want to be in there much cuz I was having such a nice time doing everything else um but the gym was a good space there was nothing wrong with it I just didn't go in there as often as I thought I would and I didn't read as many books but I was doing a little bit of reading here and there um sunbathing some people say to me like how did you do N9 days at Sea and I'm like honestly are you joking there was so much to do all the time we were easily entertained towards the end of the 9 days I was so certainly ready to get off and be on land again you know but I wasn't ever feeling confined I was totally spoiled for choice for things and obviously we were enjoying a lot of food eating lots of nice things going for like a nice fancy lunch or um doing something we hadn't done before they put a barbecue by the pool or we did afternoon tea there was so many nice things we even did the spa one day as well like loads loads and loads and loads was 2 months too long might sound a silly question but genuinely interested not a silly question we got asked this quite a lot actually and 2 months was perfect for us it did go by fairly fast I will say but at the time when we were in it it didn't it felt like we had so much to do and look forward to and so much going on and it was really exciting so two months was kind of perfect did you ever feel claustrophobic in the room or wish you had a bigger room no I think obviously we were in a mini Suite so we were one below the biggest size room you could get so we can't complain on size of the room because it was huge and you could easily do the whole world cruise with a balcony cabin but the space in the mini Suite was perfect because we had two desks which gave Benji space and me space to do my work and obviously we got ready for our wedding day in there you know we had lots of extra stuff and a wedding dress and a suit so the space was really good I never felt claustrophobic there was always like room to move around nothing felt cramped I was able to fit all of our things in the drawers and space really easily definitely helped that I had like Ikea boxes and ways to store things but never felt like oh my gosh I need to get out of this room I'm getting cabin fever which I thought I might um but I didn't would you have preferred to have been on a bigger ship for that long or was Arcadia the perfect size Arcadia was genuinely perfect and I wouldn't have wanted a bigger ship because the amount of times you're sort of going from one place to another Arcadia was really easy to walk around the whole ship without feeling like you've got to go a mile sometimes on the bigger ships we've been on to get from our cabin to the restaurant was quite a mission it's easy to walk everywhere and you saw people really regularly so we made friends of people and it meant that we bumped into people more and saw the crew and it had a real Community Vibe and sort of like a small village is the only way to describe it there will be people that I absolutely never saw once and then there were people that I saw pretty much every day I'm not sure if a bigger ship would have that same feeling how did you deal with the time differences did they change often in terms of the time zones we were always going backwards so we were always gaining an hour because the way the cruise was going we started off New Zealand and Australia were like plus 10 hours or something ahead and so every time we moved along and sailed close to the UK we were going likeus 5 - 4 3 2 1 never had had to adjust to any sort of times massively because an hour give or take it we were you know it was just when we went to bed so bench and I would change our time zones on our phones the night before and then just sort of set an alarm but it was really clear in the Horizon and they gave you a little card in your room that told you when they were changing and when the clocks were changing how did you plan your currency for each country we had to consider which countries we're going to be using card for and not need any cash even though we could in somewhere like Australia we still wanted a little bit of cash if we were going somewhere where we want a short experience it was less likely we'd need any cash for that country because everything was organized for us but again if we wanted to tip the taxi driver coach driver or we wanted to buy any small souvenirs at the port and it's unlikely they have a car machine so there were times where we just had like 20 English pound worth of that currency just like a small amount just in case we did get cash for quite a lot of places and I use this little folder that I got on Amazon I'll leave it linked below the folder and the clear wallet but I did show this in our planning video so you may have already seen this but as you can see they're now empty wallets and I used a little label maker and I had New Zealand Dollars Australia uh Indonesia Philippines peso Hong Kong dollar Malaysian ring South African rand some euros we also had English Pounds which we used to tip some of the crew and American dollars that's how we did our money in currency and we always use monzo when we're traveling because monzo is my choice of bank for a lot of my accounts and I just think they're fantastic how do you use data on your phone abroad did you get an eim or a package so I'm on an e international roaming plan which means it worked in New Zealand and Australia with no extra expense so for the first two weeks we were out on the trip it was amazing because we were just on our normal data when we were on land when we were at see we were using the wifi so we were never on any sort of package for that and then for the countries where my e data wasn't included we basically had to decide do we actually need data day like if we're on a short experience going to a mud bath in Vietnam we're not really going to need any data because we can either connect to Wi-Fi when we're there or we'll be fine off it for 5 6 hours or if we were on land and doing our own thing like in Singapore and Cape Town we definitely needed data especially for maps you can actually download Google Maps apps for certain areas but it was just much easier for us because we were also researching like Instagram accounts or looking at things online or Googling history things so we did want data for that we used an app called air Alo I think I will leave my referral thing below use my code I get a few dollars you get a few dollars something like that um but if I go on to my eims my archived ones I used one in the Philippines oh Singapore and then yeah it just comes up like this is very hard to sort of fully explain and teach you but essentially follow all the instructions is a little confusing I definitely found it confusing but once you get it going it's really great and then you can top it up and so I would buy like one gig or 5 gig however much you need and it works as an eim so that's how we did it really really good app really recommend it not sponsored just that's what I used and it worked perfectly I would definitely use it again did you need to sort any visas for your trip or does The Cruise Company help with that so before we left we had had to have New Zealand cuz we were obviously flying into New Zealand so that was a no-brainer and we had to have Australia and I applied for those in advance very easy to do and then I also did apply for Singapore and Indonesia in advance but we didn't have to do those in advance they did them on the ship for you if you'd already done it at home then you didn't get charged for it but if you needed to have it done the cruise ship would do it for you and then charge your onboard account sometimes it was like 10 15 20 something like that and there were a lot of times where we had to follow certain protocol for passport control so we'd have to take our passport somewhere to be stamped or they take them from us on the ship or whatever and a lot of the times we had to go through security and passport control at the terminals as well in terms of visas we didn't actually need as many as I thought we would and any we did need the cruise ship and Company pmo cruises basically um helped us and it was very easy to follow what was your favorite foods on the crew main dining room we loved the beef wellington on celebration night it every time we saw in the menu we all got really excited cuz it was just amazing we were calling it beef well the beef Well's on the menu tonight was so good expended it for breakfast obviously that was my favorite breakfast the lunches were amazing we had a beautiful spaghetti bnise the cheese and onion tart a lot of the Baggett and sandwiches in the main dining room were just perfect but I also really loved the pool bar they had chicken sandwiches they had like a Subway style sandwich station by the pool which I really enjoyed and the buffet I made up a lot of my own salads which was really nice Buffet also had an omelette station and I enjoyed eating breakfast with B by the pool in the morning it was so nice also some people asked me about what it was like to eat on board and did we get bard of things and do you know what there was a lot of variety and a lot of choice and everything was really tasty there were definitely things that were hits and misses that I preferred but that's very normal and I did feel like it got a little repetitive towards the end but again that's kind of a given there were moments where I just wanted a piece of toast or a bagel for dinner and um although that probably could have been possible if IID asked around sometimes I just didn't really need or want anything complicated which is where the buffet came in handy but then I preferred eating in the main dining room over the buffet so you know swings roundabouts so that was the food on the ship I also wrote down our favorite meals and snacks and food that we ate on land so Hokey Pokey ice cream in New Zealand was absolutely amazing honeycomb crunchy bits really creamy ice cream that just felt so fresh and nice loved it steak and chips at Depot in Oakland we ate there twice absolutely loved our meal there steak that we had at six head in Sydney that was some of the best steak and the most amazing special date night dinner ever I absolutely loved it there beef wagu fried rice in the crystal Lotus restaurant in Hong Kong Disneyland was absolutely amazing and we've been dreaming about that ever since and also the waffles that we had for breakfast in the Parks absolutely beautiful loved those noou quala had an amazing meal there with the black misu cod and the sushi and the dragon fruit cocktails go and watch our Vlog from that if you haven't seen that meal we had amazing and lastly Simon's restaurant at group constancia in K Town the pastor was divine the quality was so nice and the wine that we had with it and we were a bit giggly at that point um again if you haven't seen our C toown Vlog go watch it if you are in a couple can you have your own table at dining or do you have to sit with others so this applies pretty much across the fleet I think but I'm speaking from the experience of Arcadia but I'm pretty sure we've done this on the other ships too is you get a choice between a set dining time or Freedom dining set time is basically your guaranteed a table and you get a choice of either 6:30 or 8:30 p.m. lots of people do this Choice it's there's two levels to the merian restaurant the Set dining time people are on Deck three of the restaurant and on Deck two downstairs is freedom dining and freedom is when you can literally go to the restaurant whenever you want or whatever time you want to get seated however it does get very busy and you might often get a buzzer to tell you when you can come back other ships that Pano Cruisers have their Fleet do have an app where you can virtually Cube but they don't have that on Arcadia so we were on freedom dining because there were times we wanted to eat early there were times where we wanted to eat late I don't like eating at a de set time I just eat when I'm hungry and there were times where I definitely wouldn't have wanted to have been boxed into a time when you get to the restaurant you then have a choice between eating on your own or sitting with a group so you don't have to it's completely personal choice I would say 90% of the time we ate on our own as a two 5% we ate with some friends that we made on board so we would turn up as a group of four looking for a table of four or the final 5% we actually ate in a group setting and how it works is they have tables for six or eight and it means you don't have to wait so you can kind of go straight up but they wait to fill the whole table so once they filled all the seats around that table then everyone can order and it gives you the chance to sit with essentially people you've never met or spoken to before and if you're feeling like you want to socialize or get to know some other people it's a really nice way to do a meal we met some lovely people had some great conversations we really enjoyed a lot of the sit down group settings but we didn't do it that often just because we are fast to eaters and a lot of them would eat for like 2 3 hours and it would just take too long was there anything that you took and didn't need or also didn't take and then needed I actually think I packed pretty well I know a lot of you watched my three-part packing series and thought that I packed an excessive amount but let me tell you I think I packed very well did have some excess shoes that weren't necessary too many flip flops because I ended up living in Crocs when I was walking around the ship Crocs were the best and I'm certainly always packing Crocs for Cruisers now or trainers when we were on land because I needed to make sure that I had good walking shoes cuz we were doing loads of steps so I didn't really wear my flipflops much I had too many of those things that we needed but didn't have not really the only thing we really end up buying was a washing up brush to clean our water bottle what was the average age on the cruise did you feel young and did you make any friends I think when people have asked me this question it's it's very obvious that most people that want to travel for 2 months and go away for a long period of time are either two ends of the age Spectrum roughly obviously there's not going to be your young early 20s kind of couples or people on board because ultimately they're going to choose a cheaper option and and there's certainly going to be a lot more retired people so statistically if we're thinking about it yes there weren't many 30-year-old couples like us that are in a position that can go away for that long however let's not forget that we were essentially digital Nomads because we were working we were still working we didn't actually take two months off work but we did meet some friends they've taken a sabatical from work it was their very first cruise that they had ever done and they did the 400 day and they're now currently back in Asia doing barley and Indonesia and the Philippines they're having an amazing time we're actually going to see them in a few weeks they both took time of work to be able to go and do it so it's certainly possible and we weren't the only young couple the four of us were pretty much the only younger couples but there were people we met that were 10 years or 20 years older than us so didn't feel like a massive age Gap and we had some really great conversations and people were you know generally like Fit and Well and feel felt young so it wasn't like it was all people that in Zimmer frames I think everyone assumed everyone was like really old but that's just not the case a lot of the people on board are very adventurous and wanted to see a lot of the world and so they were sort of in the same mindset as us so therefore of course we're all going to get on cuz we all think and feel the same also you've got to remember that there are crew on board that are the same age as us and they were obviously working so we can socialize with them in the same way we did with our friends we met but we still got to chat to them and make friends did you enjoy making friends on the cruise or did you you and Benji prefer your own time yeah we loved making friends and the friends we made their names are Heidi and Dan were the loveliest couple we are so similar they got married the year before and they're pretty much the same age as us they are so sweet and we loved loved loved spending time with them I think pretty much most of our Black Tie nights we spent with them and we did karaoke and all the games days we did with them hours and hours and hours playing ball games we often got mistaken for crew that happened quite a lot did you experience seasickness or have any tips for managing it so I get asked about this a lot and I find it really hard and I get really uncomfortable talking about it because I have a metaphoria which is a phobia of sick and vomiting so I'll keep this light I always say to people that it's it's kind of inevitable part of a cruise holiday but it's also similar if you were to goone on a long car Journey it could be really bumpy it might be a flat Road it's the same with a ship it might be choppy Seas it could be completely flat like when we went to Norway the Sea and the ocean was just so calm barely felt any movement ever whereas on Arcadia we traveled a much longer distance of course there were times where the Seas were rougher and the ship is smaller so you do feel it a bit more but I think I felt a little seasick I think there were two or 3 days total that I actually ended up taking some medication and the seasickness medication kicks in really well and works really effectively and then after that I basically had had my sea legs and I was used to it if you're going on a cruise and you're worried just get the medication lots of people say to like look out on the horizon that helps or if you've got any Ginger biscuits that can help and my brother often likes um fizzy drinks everyone's different and it's completely subjective to what seed and what type of ship and where you're going and all that jazz is the entertainment limited on a long cruise or is it the same as any other it's the same we had some amazing entertainment on board I was actually really impressed with the quality variety I think maybe on a bigger ship you've obviously got more things like arvia has an escape room for example whereas Arcadia obviously doesn't and some of the entertainment was certainly tailored towards an older demographic when I was looking in the Horizon each day I would say that there was stuff in it that I thought this is just not my cup of tea however there was always something that I liked and I didn't always participate either and we didn't always see everything so yeah the quality and the variety was brilliant I can't complain like there was so much to see and do I loved it also on this ship they got really creative with stuff that was going on so we had things like a talent show that loads of guests participated in which was so hilarious we also had things like build a ship on a ship so there were groups that built these little ships out of caro boxes and materials and then they put it in the pool and we could see if it was floating or not um we had a whole day celebrating crossing the Equator and so they did a whole celebration where lots of the crew were doing games and that made it really fun and really interesting uh I really enjoyed stuff like that the crew worked really hard to keep us all entertained it all seemed awesome but there had to be at least one thing you both disliked I never want to be negative or moan because I'm fully aware that this was an epic epic trip if I had to say one thing it would probably be other guest we had someone take out our wet clothes from the dryer that were finished and left it in a basket on the floor and that was really frustrating I really didn't like people securing towels and they're not actually sitting on their beds all day very frustrating not washing hands at the sink to go into the restaurant or the buffet or whatever that was a silly annoying thing that just I couldn't fathom why someone wouldn't want to wash their hands so there were moments where it was the other guests never anything the ship did or the crew just other people why is that always the way what is the one thing that you will remember from the ship crew a the crew guys I wish I could talk to you all day about the crew they were unbelievable work so hard away from them their families for so long I honestly don't know how they do it some of them are at sea for like 9 months and there were loads of moments that crew did special things for us especially on our wedding day we had a wonderful reception manager called sujit who I talk about in The Wedding Q&A and he just helped to coordinate or the wedding day with his colleague Trina and together they made the day so special obviously the captain was an absolute Legend we had Captain Matthew Nichols he was so nice he did our wedding sne um but all the crew down to like the ladies that checked us in for the restaurant each night they knew our names they were calling us Mr and Mrs L didn't have to ask for our cabin number anymore after like a week because they knew as soon as we walked up to the desk they remembered they remembered everyone's names and Cabin numbers and then obvious would have a way to take us to our table um but I think the crew member that left the most impression on us was certainly procrash he was our cabin host and we were spoiled he was the nicest person ever he went above and beyond for us so many times and he knew exactly how I liked the cabin he would always bring us ice I think on the first day around 6:00 Benji asked if he was able to get us any ice or if we could get it ourselves and he was like no problem I get it for you and then every day after that he either asked us if we wanted some at 6:00 bang on the door or if we weren't in the cabin he'd go and do it for us and put it and leave it in the room it was acts like that little things that were big to us like really really lovely service and everyone was so friendly and um we loved like the entertainment team they were brilliant there were so many people that left a lasting impression and I wrote lots of slips compliment slips and put them in the box and reception cuz I wanted everyone to be praised for their hard work but it makes me really emotional cuz it was just without the people that do all that you we would never have had the experience we had so of course we're very grateful I nearly forgot that the people that worked in the shop as well I loved Shing to them I loved it oh there were so many there were so many crew they were all so nice so nice probably cuz I was constantly popping in and buying things in there still no I love chat them it was really good any big life realizations while you were away so many some that were deeply personal so I won't share all of them but when you have that amount of time to think and process and just be with yourself sat on the balcony looking out to the sea no noise around you it's it gives you a lot of thinking time it was certainly good for the soul I think because we just got married which is kind of like normal to think about what's next Once you just get married anyway but like having that combined with obviously sadly losing Bond me and grieving her and thinking about her a lot um both before and after she passed but it had us thinking a lot about our life and what's next and would we ever move move house it had us just talking a lot deeply about where we see the next few years for us both what our visions and goals are many many realizations just a really good reset and opportunity to sort of think deeply which I appreciated did it really begin to feel like home and was it weird to leave yeah it did it really felt like home we felt so comfortable I think is the best word everything was on board we had everything we needed bar our dog and obviously the home Comforts we really did have everything we could want and it was such an amazing way to travel and I'd never had to backpack or worry about lugging my stuff around everywhere I loved it I felt so happy all the time really relaxed like everyone kept saying to me you look so relaxed and I think it's changed me as a person as well you know like I've come back feeling like I think and feel differently about a lot of stuff and a lot of people said to me you're in like a married Bliss bubble and you seem very content but I actually just think it was the trip shaked me um changed my life it actually genuinely changed my life and I really feel really emotional saying that it's true really is true so yeah was really emotional leaving um because I couldn't believe I'd done it I couldn't believe we made it happen why am I getting emotional we're home on English soil coming back into Southampton was mindblowing actually I couldn't believe we'd gone from New Zealand all the way back home wild to me absolutely wild but yeah knowing what you do know now Broan would you do anything differently and the answer is so easy absolutely no there was nothing I would have changed nothing I would have done different it was the perfect trip for us we thought so long and hard about it it was honestly amazing I've been filming for so long and genuinely I could talk about this trip all day so I hope I've covered a lot of the things that you wanted to know thank you so much if you did choose to watch the Vlogs and support us if you've subscribed and stuck around for everything else then I appreciate it a lot it's really lovely to have you here benj and I have big dreams and big plans and big visions and I really hope that we're able to continue fulfilling them and doing more and more more and that is all we really want out of our life at the moment is just to keep seeing and going places and um bringing you along for the journey so thank you very much I hope you have a lovely rest of your day and I'll see you again in our next ones we're off to disam Paris next if you're Disney people so stick around for that um and then our UK road trip okay big luck bye [Music] I

2024-05-29 11:29

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