NCL TransAtlantic Back Home

Moved north from Esperance to Kalgoorlie today ... still in Western Australia. What a difference 235 miles makes.

Where Esperance is known for its turquoise waters on the coast of the Great Australian Bight, Kalgoorlie is known for its gold ... specifically for its Super Pit mining operation. We'll be touring the mine tomorrow.

In the meantime, we put another logistics ✓ on our fall/winter travel plans ... this time to get us back to the USA.

Fly or cruise? Quick or slow? We prefer to do a TransAtlantic cruise when possible, so slow is our usual modus operandi.

But I had a dilemma this time.

We had already stolen time away from our family visit in Türkiye by booking a river cruise in mid-October. Would we be able to find a westbound TransAtlantic leaving later than the usual October-November time frame?

As it turns out, there were several from which to choose.

After a lengthy debate, we settled on Norwegian Cruise Line's [NCL] 12-day sailing on Encore ... from Southampton, England to Miami, Florida … departing on 3 December.

The ship is much bigger than what we prefer for cruising port-intensive itineraries. But it will work for a TransAtlantic with just a few ports of call. This particular itinerary has just three stops — Vigo, Spain; Lisbon, Portugal; Ponta Delgada, Azores (Portugal).

It’s been ages since we were last on an NCL ship, so I really don’t know what to expect … except perhaps that there will be a lot of nickel and dimeing. Anyway, we booked a category BB veranda, so we’ll have someplace to hunker down if all the activities around the ship get to be too much.

The bonus to this TransAtlantic is the price. Less than airfare in economy ... and much, much less than business class tickets. Yes, it will take longer to cruise back than it would to fly. But we are retired … we have the time to dally.Read more