The Sojourn won. Waiting another year was OK. The different itinerary was OK. Not that there is anything really wrong with Bolette, the temptation of being on the Sojourn for a whole 90 days was just too great. Yay!

I canceled the Fred Olsen cruise and booked with Seabourn.

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Although I must admit I preferred the Fred Olsen itinerary – I mean how exotic is it to go to Saudi Arabia? 90 days floating around Africa on the Sojourn was just way too enticing. I started reading up on all the ports we were going to visit. It is going to be such a great cruise.

Then world events intervened. Our stops at the ports in Israel were cancelled. I was very disappointed, but this was not unexpected.

The next itinerary change, however, was unexpected. As a child in Kenya, Mombasa was certainly my happy place. I was so excited about going back there, it was one of the ports about which I was most excited. So, I was not thrilled when we opened the email saying that Mombasa had been cancelled for “operational reasons”. The email implied that I was meant to be very excited about the prospect of us spending 3 whole days in Zanzibar, instead of visiting Mombasa, but I was not. Zanzibar is an interesting port which I have visited several times, but I must admit the prospect of 3 days there did not in any way, shape, or form fill me with an abundance of joy. But there it was. No Mombasa.

Meanwhile things didn’t seem to be going so well with the Suez Canal. However, the Bolette was still sticking to her original itinerary. Maybe things would have sorted themselves out by the time we set sail.

We were not so lucky as the Bolette. The email from Seabourn arrived saying that our around Africa cruise had been cancelled, and we had been booked on the new itinerary. I compared the old and new itineraries. We had lost 10 ports and the Suez Canal. I cancelled our planned shore excursions in Egypt and Tunisia and let my friends in Malta know that we would not be stopping by to see them after all. Our original booking included free first class airfare, the new booking only offered business class. Not a big deal, and we did get some extra on board credit, but I had really looked forward to the circumnavigation of Africa. I loved the concept of going “all the way around” Africa, now, as Brian put it, we were on a yoyo cruise – down the west coast of Africa from Barcelona to Cape Town, up the East coast to the Seychelles, back down the east coast to Cape Town, and finally back up the west coast to Barcelona.

However, we are still going to be on the Sojourn for 90 days, there are 11 new countries for us to visit, quite honestly I really have no complaints.

Let the search for shore excursions begin!