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On Thursday, April 30, the 2015 Grand World Voyage came to end at Fort Lauderdale, Fla. After spending 114 days onboard, traveling the globe and making life-long friends, it will be hard for guests to go back to making their own beds and cooking dinner! Along the journey, we followed the adventures of Jeff Farschman, President’s Club member and “World Adventure†blogger; Mariners Gary and Jeanne Frink, Mariners Jan and Dick Yetke, Cruise Critic members John and Diane, and the ship’s Captain Mercer. In this last look at the 2015 Grand World Voyage, we travel through the Suez Canal and Europe before crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Enjoy some highlights of the final leg of the journey, and perhaps we’ll see you onboard for the 2016 Grand World Voyage. TRANSITING THE SUEZ CANAL Our original scheduled date for the transit of the Canal was the 4th April, the day on which I now write. The Canal Authority are involved in a vast dredging and widening project; digging new channels and widening existing ones. The aim is to be able to take larger vessels and also to avoid the one-way system presently in use. Prior to the project, northbound and southbound convoys, (usually of 30 ships or so), would pass each other in the Bitter Lakes. Now however, the Bitter lakes themselves are being dredged and having new channels cut. The result? South and north bound convoys can no longer pass each other and either convoy has to complete its entire transit before the next one can commence. This has led to delays, one is never quite sure when one can transit and the convoy times vary from day-to-day. This was the dilemma I found myself in and, after numerous emails with our agents in Suez and endless calculations, I decided that waiting for the 4th was not an option I cared for, there being no guarantee I would transit and the result would be too appalling to contemplate, missing ports in the Mediterranean. Read the rest of the entry by clicking HERE. — Captain Mercer ASHDOD, ISRAEL: First we headed to […]
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On Thursday, April 30, the 2015 Grand World Voyage came to end at Fort Lauderdale, Fla. After spending 114 days onboard, traveling the globe and making life-long friends, it will be hard for guests to go back to making their own beds and cooking dinner! Along the journey, we followed the adventures of Jeff Farschman, President’s Club member and “World Adventure†blogger; Mariners Gary and Jeanne Frink, Mariners Jan and Dick Yetke, Cruise Critic members John and Diane, and the ship’s Captain Mercer. In this last look at the 2015 Grand World Voyage, we travel through the Suez Canal and Europe before crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Enjoy some highlights of the final leg of the journey, and perhaps we’ll see you onboard for the 2016 Grand World Voyage. TRANSITING THE SUEZ CANAL Our original scheduled date for the transit of the Canal was the 4th April, the day on which I now write. The Canal Authority are involved in a vast dredging and widening project; digging new channels and widening existing ones. The aim is to be able to take larger vessels and also to avoid the one-way system presently in use. Prior to the project, northbound and southbound convoys, (usually of 30 ships or so), would pass each other in the Bitter Lakes. Now however, the Bitter lakes themselves are being dredged and having new channels cut. The result? South and north bound convoys can no longer pass each other and either convoy has to complete its entire transit before the next one can commence. This has led to delays, one is never quite sure when one can transit and the convoy times vary from day-to-day. This was the dilemma I found myself in and, after numerous emails with our agents in Suez and endless calculations, I decided that waiting for the 4th was not an option I cared for, there being no guarantee I would transit and the result would be too appalling to contemplate, missing ports in the Mediterranean. Read the rest of the entry by clicking HERE. — Captain Mercer ASHDOD, ISRAEL: First we headed to […]
Click here to view the article.
