Alan & Paula

As a “Cadet” in the ‘Community’ and a newcomer to World Cruising (forthcoming Aurora R901) I have found some of the contributions made, especially the one by Mike C.  titled World Cruise in the Destinations forum, extremely helpful. So being a good ‘Cadet’ I thought I would share some of my experiences in the less obvious and less enjoyable areas of preparing to be away from home for a relatively longer period than normal. They might make you think, but remember they are MY experiences, they may not be the same for you.

Travellers Cheques – Thinking of how to pay for my On Board account I considered using my Mastercard. The difficulty with this was that we will be required to settle our account at the end of each ‘Sector’ - 5 in all. This left me with wondering how to pay off each monthly statement as they arrived at home, wishing to avoid hefty interest charges if I didn’t. So I decided to look at using Sterling Travellers Cheques or a combination thereof. As it happens I am off to Spain for a fortnight and need some TCs anyway, so I rang my High Street Bank’s foreign exchange dept (who use Travelex to supply) to order some. Just by chance I asked them if there was a max. limit on what I could order at any one time as I might need a larger sum in January, and to my concern they pronounced that they are limited to a max. of £2,500 in any one 90 day period.  To cut a long story short it turns out that if I order over the phone where I am required to use a debit or credit card to pay for them this limit applies, however if I talk directly to my local branch there is no limit, or not one that would concern me.  Makes sense doesn’t it!!!!!!!!

Car Insurance – Not wishing to leave my car idle for three months I decided to add my eldest to my policy so that he could drive it occasionally. No problems there, however, once again you lift a stone and you don’t know what you may find. This time in conversation it turns out that my car insurance policy does not allow me, as the primary car owner, to be out of the country for more than 3 months in any one year, or as they put it I had to be in the country for min. 9 months. In this case they made an exception and accepted my 93 days, but what happens for the rest of the year. Something I will need to address when I get back, or perhaps just keep it to myself. Sometimes ignorance is bliss!!

House Insurance – A similar theme to other types of insurance policies, limits on the number of days away, max. 90 days seems the norm. Also watch for the definition of ‘Occupied’ mine means someone staying overnight not just popping in to feed the budgie.

Travel Insurance – I thought it would be straight forward but it turned out not so. I found most travel insurance policies have limitations of 45, 60 days etc. very few will do 90+ days. However there are some about but take a little searching for, having achieved that, I then found that the real constraint was finding one that would cover you for the full cost of cancellation should (heaven forbid) you are unable to go. This is where the premium costs take off , to cover just the actual ticket costs for two of us (26k+) the premium quoted was approx. £1100. The alternative was to take the risk and go with an insurer that would cover to the sum of 10k for a premium of approx. £200, leaving me with a 16k shortfall if the worst happens. The choice is Yours!!!    All other areas, Emergency Medical cover, Personal Liability etc. were ample on most policies.   A good starting point for me was “Martin’s Money Tips”

Apart from the odd challenges like those listed above, we have found the whole experience of planning a trip like this very enjoyable, especially the shopping part so my wife says.

Alan & Paula

That is what we did, making sure of course that your current account has sufficient funds, before you travel, to accommodate this. We did not go on line once in 3 months, (security etc), to check our balance, having made all these prior arrangements.

If you require any more advice please post questions and I will be happy to answer.

wolfhound