An Unexpected Journey Folkestone, United Kingdom

Folkestone, United Kingdom

It was a foul day. Pouring with rain, howling wind and gales. We were confined to the house and feeling a bit down. Our plans for the coming winter were well underway: back to Goa in early January and remain there till mid March. There is the possibility that we will include a visit to Rajasthan at the end of this period if our eldest daughter Lucy, wants to do that, but otherwise we will stay in Goa.
Then….. quite unusually and by chance I decide to check my spam filter on Btinternet. Looking into the folder there were the usual raft of emails offering me drugs, Viagra, Penile extensions, money loans etc. But…… at the top I noticed an email from cruise.co.uk offering a big discount on Arcadia’s World Cruise. I moved the email into my inbox and pulled it down to my laptop to read. I could hardly believe my eyes. The offer was for 2 nights in a hotel in Hong Kong, a tour, transfers to the ship and then a 51 night cruise back to the UK taking in calls in Beijing, Japan, South Korea and a host of other locations. Beijing has been on our bucket list for a while. Bob has been to Japan but I haven’t and he’s been dying to visit with me for over 20 years. We’d completely discounted another long cruise in 2016 after our holiday in 2015, due to cost. But this was an amazing offer. £2500 each for the whole trip. We were tempted…… we did some sums…… taking the cruise would mean we would stay outside the UK till early May avoiding central heating costs altogether plus the other costs of being at home ie food, petrol. we could use points to fly from Goa to Hong Kong avoiding UK departure tax and fuel surcharge. Saving cost of flight back from India…… the figures became more attractive.
We mulled it over some more and then we made the call and booked!!!! Literally cannot believe we’ve done it. Of course it is half the length of the one we did in 2015, but even so it is a long sea journey which we know we enjoy so much. And its less than half the advertised price. We didn’t want to keep our good fortune to ourselves so we emailed the offer to Mick and Maureen a lovely couple we met on Aurora this year. Yay! They’ve booked too!. So we already know people on board.
Shall now make enquiries regarding a 2 day private tour in Beijing so we can maximise our time there. So very excited. And just think: if I hadn’t looked in my spam filter I would never have seen the special offer! It must be meant to be.