Day 243: May 29, 2025 – At Sea, in the Pacific Ocean

When I imagined myself on this cruising-the-world thing, I pictured leisurely days in my cabin getting caught up on all the things I didn’t have time to do while on land. My reasoning went like this: I would no longer have to clean house, grocery shop, cook, shovel snow, mow the lawn, rake leaves, do my laundry, scrub toilets, stress about car or home repairs, or drive. Surely I’d have heaps of time on my hands?

I had a long project list planned. I would sort through 20 years’ worth of files on my backup drives. Process & tag thousands of photographs. Create photo books. Read books that have been on my reading list for years. Catch up on writing reviews for all the places I’ve traveled to. Thoroughly research my next destination. Do some tweaking of my blog templates.

Yet here I am, 8 months later, and I’m behinder 🙂 on all these projects than before I embarked.

In reality, being a world traveler is a full-time job. On port days, I’m out the door as soon as the gangway opens, usually between 8-10 AM. I spend most of the day exploring. Some days, I’ll return to the ship for lunch, then go back out again. Other days I’ll stay in town until the all-aboard call in late afternoon. Sea days become our weekends, when we can sleep in. But they’re also chock-full of things to do. There are dance classes, and craft classes, a fitness center to work out in and presentations about upcoming ports. It doesn’t help that I’ve also volunteered myself for several onboard projects. Yes, I know I need to learn to pace myself, and I don’t have to disembark in every port. But so far I haven’t been able to implement that lesson.

Back home, my meals would take no more than 30 minutes. Now, even if I stay on board, they stretch into hours over leisurely conversations with my fellow shipmates.

Though this could be considered slow travel—unlike normal cruises, we spend more than one day in many ports—it feels like we are hurling our way through the world. Those 4 months of cooling our heels in Belfast seemed agonizingly endless. The last 8 months at sea zipped by in a flash.

I vastly overestimated how much free time I would have. Yes, I know, it’s a good problem to have. Not complaining. Just reporting on the reality of residential cruising.