Background to the voyage

Welcome to our "Europe by Freighter" blog. We have received so many requests from friends to be kept up to date on our voyage around Europe on an Italian freighter that we decided just to start a blog instead of sending e-mails to a list. We don't know how much computer time we will get on the ship, or in the various ports and cities we will visit in the six weeks we will be gone, and by using a blog we can get comments back from you as well.

A little background to this trip. I (Lynn) sailed 500 miles around Michigan a few years ago in my homemade skipjack sailboat with Don Brubaker, and on the way we passed a dozen or so Great Lakes freighters going to one port or another. For some reason I started remembering six years I lived on US Navy destroyers and remembered the excitement of entering and leaving ports around the Pacific ocean. So I did some Googling when I got back to land and discovered that none of the Great Lakes freighter companies take passengers in their owner's cabins, but that hundreds of other steamship lines do. And then I found Maris (freightercruises.com), a booking company that makes arrangements for folks like us who think that freighter travel is a welcome alternative to the over-fed, over-stimulated, and over-luxurious culture of the typical cruise ship.

I was originally looking for a ship that would take us from the East Coast through the Panama Canal, perhaps letting us disembark in Panama City and then we would head back home by bus through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, etc. But most of those routes require their passengers to complete a roundtrip, which makes sense since they want to rent out the cabin for as many days as they can. And most of the routes to and from the US were more costly than I thought I could afford, from $100 to $150/day/person).

 And then I found the Grimaldi line's "Euro-Med" route, which was advertised last fall at $62/day/person for the 35 day voyage.  The only time I could find in my calendar where I had six weeks free of speaking commitments was in March and April of 2008, so we sent in our 25% deposit and booked a voyage leaving Southampton England on March 22nd. And I cashed in 100,000 miles from my Continental Airlines frequent flier account and got us two seats to London.

But it hasn't been all smooth sailing so far, and we haven't even boarded the ship yet. The first thing that happened was that when we were required to pay for the tickets in full the new 2008 fare had risen 6% to $66/day, and in the same four months the US dollar had fallen against the Euro so much that the $66/day was now $70/day. And, not only was the deposit was unrefundable, I really wanted to take this trip. So I "bit the bullet", wrote the check, and waited for the tickets. But then we got an e-mail telling us that the ship that left on the 22nd of March didn't have the lowest fare cabin that we had paid for, so we would have to either pay another $1400 for the higher priced cabin, or go an week earlier. So we changed our airline reservations to get there a week earlier (which cost an extra $159, more bullet biting), and prepared to meet the Grande Euro in Southampton on March 15th.

But then, (hang in there) two weeks ago we were informed that the Grande Euro was in drydock in Sicily and wouldn't be making that schedule at all, and would we be willing to catch the Grande Ellade on March 22nd (our original choice), but with no charge for the higher priced cabin. But that would mean we would have to either change our airline tickets again, or spend 10 days in England waiting to board the ship, either way an expensive proposition. And we would miss the last week of the voyage since we would have to leave the ship in Bristol England at the end of the fourth week to make it home in time for an unmovable speaking engagement. Big-time bullet biting!

But when we replied to Maris that we would indeed take the Grand Ellade (and its more expensive cabin with no additional cost to us) if we could get off in Bristol, they suggested that we meet the ship in Bristol on March 14th, thus being able to complete the entire 35 day, 16 port itinerary after all!  And that is what we are going to do.

So, Wednesday morning at 8:45, we are headed for the Columbus Ohio with Mary Ann Moser (who is flying that morning to Arizona and has offered us a ride to the airport) where we will catch the 1:30 fight to Newark, and then the 6:30pm flight to Gatwick airport outside of London. Once there (at 6:00 am the next day), we plan to take the next train to Reading, and then another train to Bristol, where we will call the port agent for the Grimaldi Line and find out exactly when and where to board the ship

That is, if we can get out our driveway through all this snow!

Wish us well, 

Lynn & Linda