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Now if you’ve got a spare £1,549 down the back of your sofa and want to get away from it all why not get on a ROL cruising around the world.

The round-the-world cruise is of course the ultimate in travel aspiration though as I’m constantly reminded SHE has already circumnavigated the globe as a child.

Coming back from Australia on a working ship under the stewardship of her parents and visiting Tahiti, enjoying a Neptune crossing the Equator party and going through the Panama Canal.

For the rest of us we need to save our pennies for a lifetime although thankfully our friends at ROL are keen to help us out by cutting the price.

Panama chat

Pitching Arcadia’s official 2026 no-fly Grand World Voyage from only £99 per night it all hinges on that magical Panama Canal crossing.

You will, of course, be 100 nights at sea with six overnight stays and a full daytime transit of the canal.

Now your cruise which sets out on January 2026 will take you from Southampton to an atlas of countries (you do the counting!)

You’ll see Seville (from Cadiz) and one of the most beautiful harbours in the world in Valletta in Malta.

And get your first canal under your belt with a transit of the Suez and take in the Middle East and the Gulf.

Before your first overnighter in Dubai.

Asia and Oceania

You’ll dip your feet in the Sub-Continent in Colombo, Sri Lanka , take in south-east Asia before another overnighter in Singapore.

And that’ll set you up for your city-hopping odyssey of Australia and New Zealand before going all tropical in Fiji.

Say Aloha, or Howiya to Hawaii with another overnighter, in Honolulu.

Aperitifs in the New World

Sign of the times: Jimmy in old Los Angeles

ROL clearly don’t want to make waves with the Californians by getting involved in the big debate of whose city is better.

So they’ll get you off board in San Francisco and Los Angeles for overnighters.

Give you a sight of Manzanillo, Mexico, that unforgettable passaged through the Panama Canal, and a taste of Caribbean life.

SHE likes to regale us of when she visited Curacao, where the sea is as blue as their liqueur, although I hit back with Bridgetown, Barbados.

You’ll see both.

Before you head across the Atlantic and touch ground on the westernmost part of Europe, the Azores.

Early bird

Now what you need to know is that you’ll get on-board spending money of up to £1,910 if you pre-book by 8pm next Wednesday, October 18 to secure the lowest price.

And you’ll be on a ROL cruising around the world.

Magellan’s sail 500 years. And we will sail 500 more. Yes, it’s half a millennium since Ferdinand Magellan became the first man to sail around the world.

And set in motion the ultimate bucket list, the round-the-world cruise.

Which 450 years later my future Mrs M replicated, albeit another route, and through a now built Panama Canal.

As her family came home on a working ship from her father’s commission in Australia.

Ferdie’s bucket list

For Ferdi, in truth, he didn’t fulfil his bucket list.

He kicked the bucket in the Battle of Mactan in the modern-day Philippines so never did make it back to Seville.

And it was left to Juan Sebastian Elcano to complete the journey.

And isn’t it always the way, you complete the boss’s work and they still get all the credit.

Magellan, we obviously know from school geography and history.

Strait up

And he has his name carved into the map of the world in the Magellan Straits.

The strip at the foot of Chile between the Atlantic and the ocean he modestly named not for himself but the Pacific.

He took the name from the Spanish and Portuguese Mar Pacifico which means peaceful sea.

Now it may have taken 300 years for the first round the world cruise, Cunard’s RMS Laconia, we have been catching up since.

And there’s a swell range of cruises for next year to get away from it all.

Fair winds

So if you wanna stop the world because you want to get off then we’d like to put you onto the cruise specialists.

They’ll do the heavy lifting for you for the Cunards, Princess Cruises, MSC, Royal Caribbean Celebrity Cruises et al.

And that just leaves you to turn off the heating, put the key in the latch and take off.

Because wasn’t that just what Magellan would have done… and he didn’t have any fuel costs to worry about.

Because he worked on wind power, ah… Magellan’s sail 500 years.

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On a ROL cruising around the world