Magic

Four weeks. And then we set sail on the Magic.

We had booked this cruise two years ago. And we were to sail last year but a series of personal events changed our plans. The folks at Disney were kind enough to allow us to reschedule the cruise to this year.

We head out to Barcelona on August 23rd. We will be doing a Mediterranean cruise with stops at Villefranche, Florence, Rome and Pompeii.

Quite excited about the trip although a bit concerned on the planning and organization front. Without going into the gory details, it has been a particularly challenging few months.

Fortunately, I am in really good physical shape for the trip. At this time of year, I am in peak cycling form. I should have no issues walking through Europe for hours on end. I think I can also afford to consume a few more calories and I suspect that the cruise ship might offer some assistance in that area.

The main battle for me on this trip will be the battle to overcome jet lag. I always struggle with eastward time zone changes. Barcelona is a six-hour time zone difference. There are estimates that it can take as much as a day per hour to fully adjust to the new time zone and I do not want to spend the first five or six days suffering from extreme fatigue, insomnia and mental confusion. Well, okay, I don’t think I can prevent mental confusion. That one is with me all the time.

I am going to try the Argonne Anti-Jet-Lag Diet. This diet claims to help travelers quickly adjust their bodies’ internal clocks to new time zones by changing their diet before, during, and after their trip. The diet was developed by Dr. Charles F. Ehret of Argonne’s Division of Biological and Medical Research as an application of his studies on the daily biological rhythms of animals. The diet was also popularized in a book titled The Cure for Jet Lag.