The sun was setting just as our cruise ship pulled out of the Brussels port. It was our first night on board Uniworld’s S.S. Victoria, and to toast the occasion, my mom and I slid into our bathrobes, popped a bottle of Champagne, and stuck our heads out the large sliding window of our stateroom.
It was the cruise-ship equivalent of having the car windows rolled down, our hair whipping in the wind, only there was no road-trip playlist pumping through the speakers — just a briny river breeze, and the sound of seabirds flapping overhead.
“Woooot!” my mom cried out, squeezing my arm. “Can you believe we’re here?!”
I couldn’t. For years, I had dreamed of taking my mother on an epic retirement trip. A sleepy European river cruise wasn’t what I had imagined. But as I turned and watched my 67-year-old mom whoop and holler into the wind, it dawned on me that I was in for plenty more surprises during our week on the water.
Writer Siobhan Reid with her mother.
Courtesy of Siobhan ReidA year prior, at our kitchen table in Calgary, I had asked my mom how she wanted to ring in her retirement. I braced myself (and my wallet) for the kind of intrepid adventure she’d always fantasized about having when I was younger.
But to my astonishment, she didn’t want to climb the Great Wall of China or see the Pyramids of Giza — she wanted to go on a river cruise that she’d seen advertised during the commercial break of one of her favourite BBC TV shows. I couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed, like I’d waited too long to take her on a big bucket-list trip.
“Are you absolutely sure?” I asked before booking her airfare for this weeklong cruise, which would take us from Brussels to Amsterdam.
“I’m counting down the days,” she replied, a childlike grin stretching across her face.
On our first day on board the cruise, we gathered in the lounge for a presentation about the different on-land excursions. Options included a historical walking tour of Antwerp and Maastricht; visiting the UNESCO-listed, 18th-century windmills of ; and strolling through the tulip gardens in the botanical park outside Amsterdam. True to form, my mom wanted to see and do it all, and having recently moved to Europe, I couldn’t wait to show her around some of the places I’d visited with friends.
The writer’s mom visiting the tulip gardens in the Keukenhof botanical park.
Siobhan ReidBut as our trip progressed and we got into the flow of ship life, I discovered that my mom had plenty to show — and tell — me, too. Long afternoons of sailing meant we had nothing but time to sit together, lounging by the indoor pool or on the rooftop deck, chatting about life.
If we’d been on a colossal traditional cruise, I might’ve been distracted by the ship’s amenities. But our vessel had blissfully few diversions (no casino or waterslide here), and the muted, early springtime beauty of the Rhine River created space for quiet contemplation.
During long, leisurely lunches and afternoon teas, my mom opened up about having picked “the wrong career,” of the frustration she felt over not having found a sense of purpose and satisfaction in her professional life, and how she had resolved to find it in retirement. Later in the trip, she admitted to having lost her confidence as a traveller, having been out of practice for so many years.
“It’s like a muscle,” she reflected, regret rippling across her face. “If you don’t use it, you lose it.”
It was the first time in my adult life that I saw my mom not as my parent but as a friend. I realized that this was also the first trip I’d ever gone on where ticking items off an itinerary wasn’t my top priority. Suddenly, I couldn’t have been happier to be on a slow-moving river cruise, surrounded by gray-haired passengers, many of them also living out their retirement dreams.
A view of Amsterdam, the last stop on the writer’s cruise with mom.
Siobhan ReidOn one of our last nights on board, after an action-packed day of cycling around the windmills of Kinderdijk, we gathered in the lounge for a 1970s-themed party, complete with free-flowing red wine and a band playing hits by Carole King and Gloria Gaynor.
“This is the most fun I’ve had in forever,” my mother laughed as we belted out hits from her high school days.
I smiled and squeezed her arm; I couldn’t agree more.
Siobhan Reid travelled as a guest of Uniworld, which did not review or approve this article.
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