One of our evening routines during our World Cruise is to curl up in our comfy bed and watch a movie that’s on our stateroom TV. There are about 50 movies available. Given some of the movies hold no interest to us and there are 124 days of the cruise, we often rewatch movies we’ve seen a number of times. Some of our favorite “reruns” are Top Gun: Maverick, Mafia Mama (of course!), Miss Congeniality. And JJ Abrams’ Star Trek. I’m always a bit unsettled with the scene between Spock and Spock Prime. I mean I really don’t think Spock and Spock Prime should be having a conversation with each other in the first place. But, that’s another story. But the time travel? That’s legit!

When you take a World Cruise, you go around the world. About 24,000 miles around the world. And it requires time travel to accomplish this feat in 124 days. For example, by the time we return from our cruise in May, we will have changed times zones 24 times. We will have crossed the equator four times. And, we will have even skipped a day all together. It’s enough to make your head spin.

We have traveled west since beginning our journey. Always west. When the captain announces a time change, we go back an hour. (Except twice we gained 30 minutes. Go figure.) This is great news in the morning if you want to sleep in. It’s not so great news when you’re ready for bed in the evening and you realize if you change your clock before retiring, you’ll be going to bed at 7 p.m. (Not that this ever happens to us…no…)

And it’s not just the time changes. I’m also confused with just the passing of time in general on a World Cruise. For example, we began this journey on January 4. It was the dead of winter in Paducah, Kentucky, where we live when we’re not traipsing around the world. When we boarded m/s Zuiderdam a few days later, It was 83 degrees. Summer in January! It got hotter and hotter as we journeyed through the Panama Canal on our way to South America. Weeks passed. Eventually it stopped being winter in Paducah and spring arrived (or tried to amidst the bad weather). During all that time, it was still summer for us as we entered the Southern Hemisphere.

Gary and I celebrated our birthdays on this cruise. It seemed like we celebrated twice because we enjoyed all the on-board celebrations (including a cupcake and card from Guest Services) and a cake and boisterous singing in the dining room. It was lovely. Then the next day I started getting Facebook messages from my at-home friends wishing me a happy birthday. I got a day older. Twice.

Even the concept of always “traveling west” is confusing to me. I’ve spent most of my geography life looking at flat maps. The US is on the left. Australia is on the right. We keep traveling “left, but now we’re on the “right” side. Meanwhile, we keep moving our clocks back one hour, but now we’re getting closer to our original time as we do that. Maybe Spock Prime isn’t as ‘illogical” as I originally thought.

We’re tucked into our little cocoon aboard the Zuiderdam, enjoying the freedom of being in a sort of suspended animation. It might not be as dramatic as the starship Enterprise, but it’s our own little time machine. And we like it. As we near the end of our journey (only a little over a month to go!), sometimes I wish I could slow down time. But, then again between the time zone changes, criss-crossing the equator, and trying to keep track of what day it is, perhaps this time traveller should just be content with the pace of the journey and hang on for the rest of the ride. Live long and prosper!