We are heading out for a grand tour of Europe. This trip will be three months. When we tell people we are travelling for three months, we often get blank stares. Some of the questions we get are:

Q: How can you go for that long? 

A: It’s easy. You line up a number of places in a specific region/country you want to see and plan from there.

Q: Is it more expensive?

A: It’s actually cheaper. You only fly out once, so your airfare is amortized over a number of countries/places versus one.

Q: Do you miss home? 

A: At times yes, but we are usually so busy exploring, we don’t have time. We miss family. Video calls are great but they can’t replace in person gatherings.

There are obviously a lot more questions we’re asked but you get the idea. If you have any questions about our travel planning, just ask.  We would be happy to share our experiences.

The genesis for this trip started a year ago, in March 2025, when we were cruising in the Caribbean Sea on an MSC cruise. Looking at what offerings they had in future cruise sales, we started thinking of a Scandinavian / Baltic cruise. This is one area of the world we have never actually visited, unless you count trips to our local IKEA.

Booking a future cruise – you normally get extras thrown in.

We settled on a 11-day cruise at the end of May/beginning of June. The weather would, hopefully, have turned warmer. Given the high latitude, the days would certainly be long. One thing we really liked about this cruise was that it visited many ‘safe’ countries on the Baltic Sea. It was very port intensive, 9 ports in 11 days. Considering the amount of time we would be in port, we opted for an inside cabin since we really were not going to be on the ship very much, other than to sleep and eat. 

During the summer of 2025, I started looking at things we could do before and after the cruise. The highest tourist influx is during the June – August time period. Naturally, that also sees the highest prices. Considering that, I started looking at things to do in that part of the world before the Baltic cruise. 

When is West Bromwich playing?

One of the first things I did was check the West Bromwich Albion football schedule. When you are from Canada, Birmingham seems close to Sweden. Armed with the dates the Baggies were playing, I looked more closely at the map of Europe. Then, one of my regular travel providers offered a great deal on a cruise around the Iberian Peninsula. Starting in Lisbon and travelling to numerous Spanish ports as well as Gibraltar, it was marketed as a ‘Holy Week’ cruise. Easter was right in the middle of cruise and Spain is a very Catholic country. 

The cruise line was one we had not yet tried but have wanted to, Azamara. The price is a bit more than most mainstream lines but almost everything is included. Crew gratuities, drinks and other things, although not internet. It leaves at the end of March, so at the end of the cruise, we would have two months in Europe before our Baltic cruise. Given West Brom was playing various matches at home during that time, I felt fairly confident I could fill our time with new places and adventures. 

Europe is a lot bigger than we think

In Canada, 100 years of history is a long time but 100 miles is not really a long distance. In Europe, 100 years of history is not really a long time but 100 miles is a really long distance. The bookends of our trip were the end of the first cruise in Barcelona, and the start of the second cruise out of Copenhagen, seven weeks later.

Around this time, I noticed a 10-day trip that covered off European capitals. It went from Budapest to Vienna and ended in Prague. That sounded very interesting. The trip started in Canada and included airfare, so it wasn’t an option but it was an idea builder. I looked at travel in the region, both flight and train combinations from various cities. From Barcelona, it made the most sense both price-wise and timing-wise to head to England first. Then we could go to Budapest and start our tour of the European capitals. 

England’s history and sites.

Starting in Birmingham, home of the Peaky Blinders, we will explore for a few days and hopefully see West Brom take on Millwall. Then off to Liverpool where the Fab Four started. Manchester is next, the Industrial Revolution figures large here. Our English phase will end in York, likely the most haunted city in England. A Sunday pub roast dinner is on the menu, complete with a Yorkshire Pudding, or a ‘Yorkie’ as the locals call it. Naturally there is also a York ghost walk after sunset. 

Plans are living ideas and the only constant is change

I was just about to start booking airfares when I met up with some friends at an ale house. The topic turned to travel and someone mentioned Albania and how wonderful it was. I looked up where it was and what was there. All the reviews were fabulous, although many did say you should have gone there five years ago. I decided to add it into the equation and redid my travel plan. A week in Albania and then visit the capitals. It sounds very civilized. 

Then I had another idea. My Mom was born in what is now Poland during WWII. It was occupied and, by birth rite, she is a German citizen. I thought, why not go visit Poland and see what is there and take in some of the history? The town where she was born was cleaned off the map during the destruction of the war, so visiting it was not an option. All of my kin folk have immigrated to Canada after the war. No one is left in the old country other than very distant relatives whom I’ve never interacted with.

I looked at various tours of Poland and settled on a self-guided three-city tour. One area I chose to skip was the concentration camps. I visited Dachau post-university during a European tour. I also visited the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands in 2025. That is the place where Anne Frank was boarded on a train to Auschwitz-Birkenau. For me, that is enough for one of history’s darkest moments.

Almost there!

While this was all going on, summer 2025, we were looking for a new home and finalizing our fall trip to the Far-East. Japan, Australia and the Philippines were all calling. Juggling the two trips in my head was becoming a chore and I decided to finalize the agenda, as much as I could, for the spring of 2026. 

Another change

About this time, the cruise line we are travelling with for our Baltic cruise, sent an email saying the dates of the cruise had changed. I was literally about to purchase airline tickets from Warsaw to Copenhagen to arrive in time for the start of that cruise. We normally book non-refundable flights and this would have been the case if we had received their email a day later. Instead of starting in Copenhagen, the cruise would start in Warnemünde, a 2 ½ our train ride from Berlin. The cruise was also being shortened by two days and we would receive a prorated discount.

In the end, the change did not work out so badly. We are now able to visit Berlin for a couple of days before the cruise. We also do not need to fly to Copenhagen, but can take a train from Berlin to Warnemünde. Our planned time in Copenhagen before the cruise will now be a few days after the cruise. We will still return to Canada from Copenhagen.

Where and how we will travel

Our trip will start with us leaving home and travelling to Vancouver to spend a few nights with my mom. Then we will fly to Porto, Portugal. We wanted lie-flat pods for the long-haul intercontinental flight so we booked the upgrade. Yes, it was more expensive, but YOLO. 

A cruise will take us from Lisbon to Barcelona, where we will board a flight to Birmingham. Numerous trains and a car rental will be how we get around England. We timed our departure from the UK based on when we could get a direct flight to Albania. I have since learned that many people actually fly to Corfu and take the short ferry over to Albania. There are many more flights to Corfu with better times. 

When our self-drive trip of Albania comes to an end, we will fly to Hungary and then it is train travel throughout Europe. In total, there will be eight trains, taking us to some of Europe’s grandest capitals. Given the length of time we are on the continent, a Eurail pass would not be cost effective. Our last train ride on this trip will take us from Berlin to Warnemünde. Here we will board another cruise ship, which will take us to Copenhagen.

Returning to Canada

Upon ending the cruise and Copenhagen, we will fly to New Brunswick and spend some time with Callum and Anne who are expecting their first child. Then, some 12 weeks after we left home, we will return to British Columbia. It will be great to get home as the summer weather will be kicking in. Yes, we will have missed some of the familiarity that makes us so comfortable but we will have seen and learned so much. For us travel is not so much a vacation as it is a way to see and explore new things.

Thanks for reading.

Feel free to leave comments or contact us by the link above.

Cam and Meg

In the fall of 2025, we saw a really good offer for a cruise at the end of January 2026. The cruise is one we had done before, LA to Mexico and back to LA. There are three ports of call: Cabo St Lucas, Mazatlán, Puerto Vallarta. Seeing as we were going to be in Victoria for over three months during the long dark winter, we decided it sounded like a good idea.

Once we booked it, we reached out to a number of friends and family to see if anybody would be interested in joining us. My sister jumped on it and booked the same class of cabin that we had booked. Our cabins were ‘guaranteed balconies with obstructed view’. For the extra price, an unobstructed balcony was simply not worth it, at least in our opinion. The cruise was paid for and time marched on until just a week before the cruise.

Guaranteed cabins… You never know what you will get.

One week before the cruise we still had not been assigned a cabin. We called the cruise line and were told cabins can be assigned at any time up to an including boarding. With that in mind, we just waited. Two days before the cruise was due to depart, we received an email from the cruise line offering us a “downgrade” offer. Normally cruise lines, airlines, car dealers et al are interested in ‘up-selling’ you. It stands to reason if you pay a higher amount, they will make more money.

This time, it appears they ran out of obstructed balconies. Maybe they were out of all types of balconies? A quick check online showed the cruise was sold out. The deal they were offering us was giving up our guaranteed obstructed balcony for an inside cabin. In exchange for this, we would receive a full refund of the fare in the form of refundable travel credits. We could use these travel credits on board the ship during the cruise to purchase things, services and anything else we wanted. Any value that we did not use would be mailed back to us in the form of a cheque. The only thing we still needed to pay for was the port fees and taxes. 

How much is a balcony and an ocean view worth?

There is no denying it. A balcony is a lot nicer than an inside cabin. We talked about it for a bit and called my sister who received the same offer. It seemed an easy decision and we both decided to take the cruise line up on their downgrade offer. We were quickly switched over and assigned an inside cabin. Our onboard account now showed refundable travel credits for the full value of our fare. The cruise now cost us less than $200. Whoot whoot. 

Travelling to the cruise ship.

We flew from Victoria to Calgary and then to Los Angeles. Funny thing was my sister, who lives in Calgary, flew from Calgary to Vancouver and then on to LA. You never know what you’ll get with seat sales, points redemption et al. Once in LA, we took the metro to our hotel and met up. Dinner was a Thai restaurant we had been to before and was just as good as last time. On Saturday morning, we woke up to brilliant sunshine and pleasant temperatures. As we were going to be on a cruise ship for a week, we decided to go for a walk along the water. We have always enjoyed walking the Long Beach boardwalk and today’s hour and a half walk in the sunshine was no exception.

Boarding cruise ship

We made our way to the cruise ship and got in line for embarkation. The only way to describe it is like being herded onto a cattle car. This is one area that Princess Cruises fails miserably at compared to other cruise lines. Although it did seem tedious, from the time we arrived at the cruise ship terminal it only took us 30 minutes to get on board the ship. We explored a bit and then had a quiet civilized lunch in the main dining room. This was followed by getting access to our state rooms where we unpacked. Fully exploring the ship came next and then the 3 PM sail away. 

That evening, I decided to try one of the fancy drinks. I’ve never seen or tried butterfly tea before. Princess has made a martini out of it. They bring you a highball glass with the drink in it and a shooter glass with lemon juice, which you add yourself. It changes colours from purple to blueish when you pour the lemon juice in. As I added the lemon juice there was a slight colour change. It was, however really good and extremely potent so one was enough for me.

That evening, after a good dinner in the main dining room, we went and watched the show which was a musical trio that did cover songs from the 60s to 90s. Then, on our way back to our cabin, we popped in and did the ABBA trivia. It was a good decision to stop there because we ended up winning. The prizes you get for winning are mostly symbolic and certainly not life-changing. We each got a little blue notebook to go along with the bragging rights.

Our first Sea Day 

Our ship sailed south into Mexican territorial waters as we headed to Cabo St Lucas. The ship had the typical events for a day at sea including trivia, exercise classes, and various other events. We moved around the ship meeting up my sister and her husband and going our own separate ways throughout the day. One of the events we did was attend the veterans social. Princess cruises normally hosts a veterans get together where they toast veterans.

There were about 30 or so veterans there, we all took turns standing up, stating our names and what roles we had in the military. The majority of the individuals were from the United States and surprising number for Vietnam veterans. It was nice to meet some of them, share some stories and realize how much we all had in common serving in the military.

Not all shows are created equally.

Our first night at sea was the formal night. It turns out this is the only formal night during the seven-day cruise. We were decked out in our spiffy outfits and attended the Captain’s champagne waterfall. It was good for people watching. The champagne they provided, which truly wasn’t champagne, was pretty dismal. We ended heading back to our cabin to get some of Prosecco we had brought on board. We had our dinner and headed to the show.

Tonight’s show was “Encore”. We thought we had seen the show before and as soon as it started, we realized we had. It was a series of songs with no real plot. On the positive site, the costumes and outfits were beautiful. The music and songs were not ones we really cared for. We’ll have to remember if we ever see this show again to find something else to do during that time.

Our first port of call Cabo San Lucas

The ship arrived at Cabo Saint Lucas at 12:30 and came to anchor. This was a tender port and as we were only here for 6 ½ hours was a bit of a gong show. It takes 2+ hours to get everybody assure and obviously 2+ hours to get everybody back on board. There’s really not a lot of time ashore.

To manage the tenders in the most efficient way possible, tickets are distributed on our first come first serve basis. It started at 11 AM. The previous evening, it was suggested to us by our Matre-d, to lineup for tender tickets no later than 10:15. Craig lined up at 10:15 and was about the 50^th person in line. That was obviously a good place to start because he got tender ticket number eight. That worked out well for us as we were able to eat lunch in the main dining room and then board our tender. We were exiting our tender and ashore in Cabo at 1 PM, 30-minutes after the ship came to anchor.

We wandered for a bit and then grabbed a drink at a convenience store. We carried on to the beach. Walking along the beach we noted that the water was not all that warm. As there didn’t seem to be a lot to do, we started to head back to the ship. En route, we came across a little market and tried some homemade tamales. I’m not sure I would eat them again, but it was a great experience.

Street food – one of our favourites!

The tamales were made by a husband-and-wife team. They were served on a plate and you ate them with your hands (they had hand sanitizer you could use – yes I used it). There were a number of sauces in front of their stand, and I pointed to them and asked questioningly “picante?”. The husband looked at the sauces and said “mucho picante!”. I thought to myself ‘how hot can this be?’ Well… it can be very hot.  As my face turned red and sweat started running down my forehead, my travel companions showed absolutely no compassion or mercy. They were all howling in laughter at my predicament. However, with most things in life, this too did pass. Once finished, we returned to the ship and spent the afternoon playing cards.

Mazatlán, our second port of call

Arriving in Mazatlán, we headed on foot towards ‘El Faro’ – the lighthouse. It was about a 15-minute walk to the base of the lighthouse from the ship and then another 15-minutes as we trekked up to the top. There are 336 steps to the top. This is in addition to the 10 to 15 minutes of hiking up switchbacks. It was +26C and humid so by the time we reached the top, we deserved a rest. The views are the best in Mazatlán.

It was a lot easier coming down than going up. Once at the bottom, we tried to get a taxi to take us downtown. 200 to 250 pesos for the amount of the taxi drivers were asking for. Uber showed it would only be about 70 pesos. Unfortunately, no Uber driver would accept the ride. After five minutes of waiting, we started walking towards downtown but before we got off the isthmus, a taxi pulled up to us and offered to take us downtown for $5 USD.

Once downtown, we wandered through the old cathedral and then found a taco stand where we had lunch. Tapping into the GPS my-city app, we embarked on a walking tour of Mazatlán. I cannot recommend this app enough. The details they provide and the consistent accurate routing from site to site and or place you drop a pin is simply amazing. It has saved us more than one argument when travelling in new locations.

New (to us) areas of Mazatlán

We were excited to see new areas of Mazatlán. As we explored, we drifted back to the ship and just before we headed through security, the cruise ship terminal has a few bars. We took advantage of their liberal pours and reasonable prices to have margaritas and piña coladas. Unfortunately, the piña coladas did not live up to our expectations. The margaritas on the other hand were wonderful.

On our next trip to Mazatlán, I would certainly head back to their malacon area and the other parts of town which we only got to see on a cursory level. There is much more to Mazatlán than we had seen in our previous two visits.

Puerto Vallarta, our last cruise port of call

Arriving early in the morning at PV, we headed to shore at 8:30 AM local time. Our plan has been to head up to San Sebastian, a colonial mining town. We could not arrange a trip before we got there, as no guide was willing to take the chance of us missing our ship. Once ashore, we met a tout who is willing to take us for US$320 (half the price of a cruise ship excursion). The guide was very forthright and said while he was willing to do it, it was not a great idea. Simply put we would spend 4+ hours driving to spend two hours in the town. 

We then decided to head into town on a local bus and see what we could find. While riding the bus we overheard people in front of us talking about their planed hike. They were planning to go to Boca de Tomatlan and, from there, hike to Playa Las Animas. We were told that the first part of the hike was over a number of boulders but then it flattened out. It would be about a two-hour hike and then you could have lunch in Las Animas. 

This sounded interesting to all of us so we tagged along with our new found friends. We had been cautioned the tides were extremely high and our hike started with the first sandbar we needed to cross being completely underwater.

We pushed on…but…

Walking a few hundred metres further we found a makeshift bridge that took us from one side of the river to the other. The first 15 or 20 minutes of the hike was lovely. Great views, wonderful vegetation, and gentle grades. Then the ‘fun’ began. It ended up being what I could only describe as a forced route march in the army. We were faced with going up and down cliffs and boulders – in the end our apps said it was the equivalent of 56 flights of stairs. There were scrambles over boulders, as well as clinging onto vines and ropes to shimmy up and down trails. Everyone at broken a sweat and regular breaks were needed to catch our breaths. 

Up and down and up and down and across the waves and up…

At times the ups and downs took us back to sea level and should have been able to walk across lovely, almost deserted beachs. Here is where the high tides again played havoc on our plans. There were no beaches. Waves kept crashing in covering up what should have been the beach. We had the time the waves so we could run across the small bit of beach and jump onto rocks on the other side to prevent getting our shoes soaked. The trail itself was overall well maintained. I am not sure who keeps the trail up, likely locals who are committed to helping. The one sketchy area was two makeshift bridges that left a lot to be desired.

In the end, after two very long hours, tired, and a bit worse for wear, we arrived at the beach of Los Animas. The high tides had most of the beach covered but we were still able to walk on what was not under water. We took advantage of the local beach front restaurants and then hopped on a water taxi to take us back to Boca. None of us question the 100-peso fee to take us back to the starting point of our hike where we caught a bus back to Puerto Vallarta.

An amazing lunch in PV.

Once back in PV, we decided to find another taco stand and enjoy the local street food. Grabbing some adult beverages at the local OXXO, Google maps recommend a small Mexican restaurant across the road. At times, Google reviews can be questionable, this one totally hit the mark and it will be a place we visit upon our return. La Weltita, a small independent restaurant, serving exceptionally good ceviche, quesadillas, and tacos. Should you find yourself in Puerto Vallarta, I cannot recommend enough to eat at this place. The owner is a lovely Ex-Pat who employes locals and pays them fair wages. 

From there, it was back to the ship, with a quick stop to buy some vanilla at a local store. Unfortunately, the local store did not stock vanilla and pointed us to tourist stores. In the end, we visited Walmart and bought some clear vanilla as it is difficult to find at home. We very much having enjoyed our day in Puerto Vallarta.

Two Sea Days en route to Los Angeles

Travelling back to north to Los Angeles from Mexico the ship provided numerous activities and diversion. You could eat as much as you wanted, play trivia, watch shows, watch movies in your cabin, wander the decks. The bars were always open for any sort of beverage you desired. We took advantage of a wine tasting event, the Captain’s, welcome cocktail party, and lounged around in the sun.  

Having done this cruise a few times before, there is nothing wowing or earth-shattering about it. It is a great break from the cool dark weather of Victoria. Anytime someone will prepare all your meals, clean your room and take care of you for a week, makes for a good relaxing vacation. We have booked a future cruise credit although, at this time, we have not decided when or where we will go. There are other upcoming cruises that are booked on other cruise lines, but we are sure we will travel Princess again at some point in time.

Thanks for reading.

Feel free to leave comments or contact us by the link above.

Cam and Meg