Best Laid Plans

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On January 4th, 2020, a couple of weeks after retiring, we took off for a two-month trip to celebrate our retirement.  This was to be our first winter away from the harsh Canadian winter.  We travelled to New York City where we boarded a 20-day cruise that would take us through the Panama Canal and end in San Francisco. While it wasn't our first time sailing through the canal, it was our first time visiting some of the countries that we stopped in.  The weather was perfect, the company was great, and our 20 days onboard the Norwegian Dawn was amazing.




We arrived in San Francisco on January 24th where we started to hear some rumblings about a virus that was starting to circulate in Asia.

We rented a car for two weeks and took our time driving from San Francisco to San Diego.  We had  done this drive once before - taking only two or three days to do it, so this time we wanted to make sure we weren't rushed.  We wanted to be able to stop in places along the way and stay for a couple of nights. We enjoyed it so much more this way.  We were more relaxed and felt we had the time to enjoy the magnificent scenery.  Hopefully, in a future blog post I can share more on this part of our adventure.


By the time we reached San Diego, we started hearing more reports on the Corona Virus, now being called Covid-19. The Diamond Princess was experiencing an outbreak in Japan and the ship was under quarantine. 
We received communication from Holland America assuring us that they were taking all precautions necessary to ensure the safety of the passengers.



On February 8th we boarded the Holland America ship and set sail for a 16-day trip that would take us back through the Panama Canal and ending in Fort Lauderdale.  We stopped at many of the same ports as we did on the first cruise, so this time we just enjoyed a more relaxed cruise.  The highlight of this cruise, for me, was definitely visiting the Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica.  We were fortunate enough to spend some time with two of the cutest baby sloths.  (yes, baby sloths are actually called baby sloths - unlike many other animal species that have different names for their babies.)




We arrived back in Fort Lauderdale on February on February 24th. and returned to Canada that same day.  By then there was a least one more cruise ship experiencing an outbreak for Covid-19.

Within three weeks of us returning, the virus had spread around the world and Canada, along with many other countries, began to close their borders. There were more cruise ships that were stuck at sea, with sick people on board. The world began to go into lockdown and it would last a lot longer than anyone expected.  All of our future travel plans would be put on hold for almost two years as the world navigated the Pandemic.

We felt very blessed to have had such a wonderful two-month adventure before the shut-down.  Our memories and photos would help carry us through until we'd finally be able to travel once again.  

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