But you don’t listen to country music,’ my friends said.
‘What do you do all day, look at the water?’ someone else quipped.
I’d been invited on Cruisin’ Country 2019, a seven-night voyage on board Royal Caribbean’s Radiance
of the Seas around the Pacific Islands.
For a music and travel fan, this festival at sea sounded right up my street – even if I didn’t know much about country music.
Cases filled to the brim with outfits for every occasion, including the Captain’s formal night and the ship’s brilliant theme nights, my friend Natalie and I headed to Sydney Harbour, where the ship was to depart.
We were dazzled by the 10-storey Centrum, the central hub of the ship, with glass elevators facing the sea.
Then, as we stood on the balcony in our room, gliding away from the city, we were lucky enough to see calf whales playing in the waves.
AT SEA
The first two days were spent at sea. All our good intentions of attending the Fab Ab classes in the gym went overboard, as we devoured the newsletters and highlighted our itinerary (I took pens especially!) for the day ahead.
There were song writing workshops, line dancing lessons and the rock-climbing wall.
Despite my friend’s joke, gazing at the water all day is spectacular too – especially from the rooftop pool, pina colada in hand, live music in our ears.
It was already in our hearts and souls too.
Performances were raw and honest, with artists holding back tears to tell us the inspiration behind their songs, like Gina Jeffreys suffering a heartbreaking miscarriage and Travis Collins losing his beloved father-in-law to suicide.