I’m truly blessed.  As the youngest of six children, growing up in a modest neighborhood in Montevideo, Uruguay, during the 1960s, I dreamed of one day being able to explore the world.  That dream definitely came true.

Most people would’ve predicted that my life would be lived in the Uruguayan capital of my birth.  Our parents, who were everything to us, had passed away too soon.  My father died in 1961 and my mother only a year later, leaving three girls and three boys alone to take care of themselves.  I was a month shy of my fourth birthday when my mother died, but my oldest sister was 25.  She and my two other sisters, the oldest in the family, raised the three boys.  It would seem like I had a very sad childhood, but my oldest sister was like a mother to me, and it was exciting growing up with all those siblings.

As a child, I used to daydream about being an airline pilot or an astronaut.  The sixties were the time of space exploration.  It was also a time of Cold War tensions around the world.  Even though I lived in South America, I paid attention to European news.  And Berlin was always in the news.  This city had played a central role in two world wars and now, in the communist era, it was still in the headlines because of the wall that had bisected the city since 1961. Read More

Leaving the late-winter doldrums of my Boston suburb behind, I traveled to the Amazon River basin two years ago in search of something different, a new life experience. I’ve traveled extensively in my life and obviously taken many cruises. I’ve been all over the Caribbean, sailed around the Horn of South America and traveled throughout Europe. But these journeys centered on visiting cities. I wanted to immerse myself in nature’s grand designs.

The idea of traveling to the Amazon had been on my mind for years. I had seen more than my share of Amazon documentaries and I knew one day I had to go.

When the opportunity finally came to sail the Amazon, my sister and brother-in-law, both avid naturalists, decided to join me. We met in Miami, where we took a chartered flight to Manaus, the Amazon basin city, and spent a day there touring around. Manaus was the perfect place to transition from the busy life I longed to escape to the almost spiritual experiences to come.

Manaus was established by the European rubber barons more than a century ago. They had ventured to the Amazon to capture as much of the prevalent natural latex as they could to capitalize on the emerging automobile industry.

Missing their European cities, the rubber barons tried to make Manaus look more like home. They built an opulent opera house there along with other totally-out-of-place structures. It was surreal to see these ornate buildings just minutes away from the open river and dense jungle. Read More

The irony of my life is that I really don’t do that much leisure traveling. As Commodore for Princess Cruises, I can see how some people would think I must be joking, because of course, I travel all the time.

I’m at sea for months at a time with Princess where my duties keep my mind attuned to the safe and pleasurable passage of our passengers as we sail around the world. When my time off coincides with school vacations, my wife, Sabina, our two children and I also travel. We go to see our relatives — my family in Sorrento, Italy, and Sabina’s in Cleveland, San Francisco and Germany.

One of my favorite things to do is go camping with my boys. Give me a tent in the forest, a fishing pole and river and I’m very happy. As much as we love our vacations to see family, it was becoming clear that Sabina and I were overdue for a 100-percent carefree, zero responsibility trip together. With all of this in mind and our 20^th wedding anniversary approaching, I knew I had to do something special for her. I had to create the perfect gift to symbolize my love for her and celebrate our life together.

It had been a long time coming. Sabina has talked about going to Paris since the day I met her, on a Sitmar cruise (now part of Princess Cruises) where I was, naturally, working. She was on board with her aunt, a Sitmar employee and acquaintance of mine, who had given her a cruise as a graduation gift. Read More

Traveling with a family group can always be a challenge on vacation, and I usually travel not only with my own family but with several other family groups.  It offers a great opportunity for my kids to have friends along as companions, but it also means finding activities to please not one young traveler, but several.  I have always loved the study of history, so one of my travel goals is to share with my children places that have been important to the world’s social and political development – sometimes to their dismay.  I’m convinced they’ll thank me someday.

A few years ago I joined with three other families to sail on a Scandinavia & Russia voyage.  Among our entourage were two 12-year-old girls, including my daughter, Andie, and four (yes, four!) 14-year-old boys, including my son, Matt, and nephew, Brandon.  As you may have guessed, the boys were our toughest crowd, as it can sometimes be an exercise in ingenuity to keep a group of video-game-playing teens focused on the culture of Europe.  That is, until we arrived in St. Petersburg.

Here in this flash point of the Russian Revolution we found the answer: death and destruction. Read More