Jim's Bucket List Travel

07/19/2026

06/09/2026

Four days before our next cruise 🛳 with NCL.

05/19/2026

Cruising No-Nos

After more than 25 cruises over the years, Michelle and I have seen just about everything imaginable at sea — the good, the bad, and the downright unbelievable and ugly. Most cruise vacations are relaxing, fun, and filled with wonderful memories. But every now and then, passengers make decisions that leave the rest of us shaking our heads and wondering, “What were they thinking?”...

After more than 25 cruises over the years, Michelle and I have seen just about everything imaginable at sea — the good, the bad, and the downright unbelievable and ugly. Most cruise vacations are relaxing, fun, and filled with wonderful memories. But every now and then, passengers make decisions t...

05/09/2026

Is it worth it to fly Business Class on international flights?

The short answer is YES. As a senior traveller the thought of 10 to 14 hours is an economy class seat with a cold sandwich thrown at you by an overworked cabin attendant is depressing.

On our way back from Thailand, we flew Singapore Air in business class and actually slept in the fold down bed for most of the flight. For our last trip we flew from Barcelona to LAX on Lufthansa and had four small meals over the 15-hours of flight time. We use consolidators to book our international flights to get the best deals and to save costs. This may mean a stopover but with a business class seat you get to sit the business class lounge and relax. For example, flying from Bangkok to LAX we had to make a stop in Singapore. When travelling from Barcelona to LAX we had to stop in Munich.

We would recommend using Lewis Eldi at Business Class travel (888) 315-7838.

05/09/2026

Michelle and I just returned from a three-week vacation beginning in San Juan and sailing on the Norwegian Epic to Sapin. We spent three days on San Juan and took a cooking class on local dishes. The Epic is an old ship that get bad reviews, but we loved the ship and the crew. We had great weather on the cruise and only ran into rain when we got to Spain. We then spend four days in Barcelona where we again took a cooking class on making paella. We stayed on the old part of town and thus were able to walk everywhere. We spent the morning at the new Picasso museum which is a must see. We hired a local guide to walk us through the exhibits.

05/06/2026

Last week we sailed the Norwegian Epic from San Juan to Barcelona. Great weather for most of the crossing with rain only when we got to Spain. While the Epic is an older ship we found it comfortable and easy to access the venues. The food was at best a 3 in the common dining areas but really good in the speciality dining venues.

Our big complaint was when we landed in Barcelona we had to stand in line to clear customs for 6 hours. Norwegian placed the blame on Spanish customs but no matter this placed a stain on the trip.