More choices

While waiting to board our flight back from Baltimore the owner of Xquisite sent me a e-mail with information about their World Rally trip. I think I am one of the first to see the details. Obviously we bought this boat with the intention to circumnavigate with it. Originally we had looked at a number of options and settled on going with the World Arc. But now we are getting some information on a 4 year around the world rally that Xquisite is planning to start next year. They are calling it the Great Xcape. We had talked to the owner about his idea for this trip last summer when we were at the Xquisite Center with our new boat. But it seems they have just now started putting the actual plans down and looking to see who will commit to such an adventure. 

It seems they are modeling it like the Oyster rally where it will hopefully be a big marketing thing for them. But going with them the adventure will be fully supported with Xquisite techs, Captains, and even a doctor traveling with the fleet. If you need crew they will provide it, if you need to leave your boat somewhere and want to join the fleet when you come back they will move it for you. They will even attempt to charter the boat for you while you're gone to help cover the costs along the way. They are planning to handle all the visa's, check in's at each country, transpiration of parts, assist with weather/route planning, and things to do at each destination. The bonus is rather then leaving from Africa and crossing back to Brazil their route plans to take the group though the Suez Canal and into the Med which I would really like to travel by boat.

I really like the idea of joining the Great Xcape. It would be fun to be one of the first doing it with them. The tech support along the way would be helpful. Amy's biggest concern is missing family and friends. I think spreading out the time doing the trip this way will allow for more trips home without feeling like you missed something with the World Arc fleet constantly moving. This trip is planning to stay much longer than a couple weeks at each destination which I'm hoping means we might be able to put the boat on the hard during the off season then come back to continue the trip when the weather permits. The down side would be it will be a smaller group, the adventure will take longer and what happens if something changes at home not allowing us to complete the trip, or just generally missing more life events (weddings, funerals, graduations, etc). I'm also guessing their version of the trip will be much more expensive the way they are currently planing it but we have yet to hear of a price.

We were planning to sign up for the World Arc trip when sign ups opened in September/October. Now we have something else to think about?