February 19th - Sailing Home: A New Zealand Odyssey Aboard Queen Victoria
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 19 February 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In today's podcast, I'm thrilled to share the unique story of Al and Colin, a couple emigrating from London to Auckland, not by air but via a six-week cruise on Queen Victoria. Their journey encapsulates a love for adventure, a strategic avoidance of jet lag, and an opportunity to fulfil bucket list dreams like witnessing the Panama Canal.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast, which is a very, very special edition, |
| 0:10.7 | because I am talking to two New Zealanders who are emigrating from their previous home in London to Auckland, going home if you like. |
| 0:24.2 | But they're not doing it by hopping on a plane and 24 hours later emerging, bleary-eyed in Auckland. |
| 0:31.8 | They are on, well, I guess, the voyage of a lifetime aboard Queen Victoria sailing from Southampton, |
| 0:41.0 | via Bermuda, Aruba and the Panama Canal, the coast of California, and finally across the Pacific |
| 0:48.7 | to their new home of Auckland. An absolute pleasure to talk to you, I should say, that they are married and I am |
| 0:58.0 | speaking to Al and to Colin. So, well, Al first. Let's do things in alphabetical order. Why would you do |
| 1:06.0 | this when actually, even though New Zealand is a ridiculous distance away, you can get there within a day. |
| 1:12.9 | Thanks, Simon, and great to be on the podcast today. |
| 1:16.1 | So we saw this as a great opportunity for us to find a way of getting back to New Zealand that was different, |
| 1:24.8 | that had some great destinations of which you've just outlined, |
| 1:28.3 | to tick a few things off our bucket list, like the Panama Canal, which we were about to go through |
| 1:33.3 | tomorrow. We've seen the Kennedy Space Center, which was another bucket list. |
| 1:38.3 | So, yeah, there's a few bucket list things along the way, and yeah, what better way of doing it than taking on a |
| 1:47.0 | fair bit of luggage not all of our belongings but I'm sure we'll come onto that and taking 44 |
| 1:53.0 | nights on this elegant ship the Queen Victoria. I'd have to completely agree with our main reason |
| 2:00.0 | was going home in style I I'm doing it differently. |
| 2:03.8 | A few things to tick off the bucket list, including the fact we'd always wanted to do a transatlantic. |
| 2:08.4 | So this was the start of the cruise, got that out of the way. |
| 2:11.3 | And also the fact that we came on board with, I think it was eight suitcases and six carry-on, so we had about 14 pieces. |
| 2:19.3 | The logistics of getting it from London to Southampton and on board, I worked that all out, |
| 2:23.3 | and we got it done. And the fact that you couldn't really do that on a plane, just trying to get that luggage through the airport to be diabolical. |
... |
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