This is the landing page for a two month trip including two cruises, one crossing and more than a month of rambling through Europe.

This trip has taken longer to put together than most.  We are on our way we are still putting it together. Still putting it together after we’ve started is common McClear practice.  Once my parents, grandparents and I started on a drive from Jersey City to Lake George in Upstate New York.  We ended up in Miami Beach.  With our kids we headed for the South Dakota Black Hills but found ourselves in Churchill, Manitoba, on Hudson’s Bay.  We do know how to read maps; we just roll that way.

We started planning this trip while we were on the April 2024 eclipse cruise.  We thought it would be fun to do something like that with the kids.  In August 2024 I put a refundable downpayment on four staterooms for this month’s trip.

Then in April 2025 on the Pole to Pole cruise, we realized that we had not seen enough of Barcelona so we decided to book a cruise adjacent to the eclipse cruise, just for us, starting in Barcelona with some days before the cruise to see the city.

Several months later, since the cruise ended in Athens and Greece is close to Albania we thought we may as well drop in to see friends, and since Albania is close to Serbia… wait, we lived 27 months in Bratislava, why not?  The kids decided to spend some after the cruise in Greece.  It’s more important to soak up Hellenistic Culture than to attend the first week of school, (we certainly made that choice for our kids, Taiwanese culture, Japanese culture, the unique culture of Skagway, Alaska) so we pushed our timeline for the rest of the Balkans back. 

On Memorial Day Cunard held a flash sale on Queen Mary 2 crossings.  What the heck?  We booked her home for Mid-September.  QM2 docks in New York so let’s stop and visit cousins in New Jersey.  We are still working out some of the stops between early and mid-September.

What started as a two week trip in August ended up being a little over two months stretching into October, a work in progress.  It’s balancing Alaska Airlines (OK, Atmos now), Marriott Hotel (Both Belgrade and Bratislava have hotels that must need filling, they are a bargain on points), and American Express points, trying to spend as few Yankee dollars as possible.  Having 5 Holland America stars, Gold status on Cunard (We’ve kept records of cruises a very long time, Cunard actually gave us credit on trips we reminded them we took with my mother in the 90s), and lifetime Titanium with Marriot, helps keep costs down (free breakfasts and “snacks” at cocktail time in the concierge lounge that we substitute for dinner, laundry and half price drinks on HAL)  I once joked that the best part of our retirement account was the backlog of points from travel we did in our 40s and 50s before points disappeared.  We’re bringing down that balance.  I wish I could consolidate all the nickels and dimes I have left on various mass transit cards collected from around the world.  I have bits and pieces of Georgian Lauri, Czeck Crowns, British Pounds, German Marks, and Austrian Schillings. I wonder if they still convert to Euros?

cWe flew Alaska airlines and One World to Barcelona in Business on points.  Alaska is flying 787s to London.  They don’t have Chester on the tail but rather a new “Aurora” livery.  We chose our departure day based on the day where it cost the fewest points, a day earlier than planned, but then we have points for the hotel.

While the plane is beautiful and the service and food great it was not as comfortable as I had wished.  Business Class seats are arranged to make conversation difficult and the lay flat sets are not long enough for a Cover 6 feet.  Your feet go into a little hole for that final stretch to flat, but to quote Fats Waller “Your Feet’s too big”.  Because of the size of the foot/leg hole I couldn’t bend my legs to fit.  No lay flat for me.  The seats are that new thin foam that is not very forgiving.  So, I flew awake.  But I had chosen a window seat.  On 787s Alaska darkens the windows. I could not see out to look at stars or for the aurora.  Over Greenland, I love looking out at the disappearing ice. It was light outside, but not according to the windows.  Each window had a control so you can brighten it but they had disabled them to keep a dark cabin.  Usually, I open the shades a crack to be able to look out, not on a 787.  So, I contented myself with a John Sandford crime novel and the map on the screen in front of me.  When the crew decided it was dawn, which means in enough time to serve a full English Breakfast, the windows lightened and the lights in the cabin changed in kind of a neat way to adjust us to a new time zone.

In London a wheelchair was supposed to meet us at the ramp.  There was none so we went out and found one, which took us from terminal three to terminal five, roughly the distance from London to Manchester, I think.  We took off right over Windsor Castle.  One person commented that the take offs must annoy the Royal Family.  My Irish ancestors have been annoying the Royal Family for 700 years so I felt I was doing my part. 

In Barcelona there was no wheelchair at the gate.  I don’t need a wheelchair, but do occasionally use a walker, which was in checked luggage. I have a weak right lung which tires me while walking, and trouble standing for long periods of time, like at customs. Luggage trolleys make a good substitute, no problems.  As it happens, there was no line at Schengen border control even though British Air apologized in advance for the long line we were sure to endure.   The hotel bed felt good.

The posts from the summer follow: