- Anthony McWilliams has been chronicling his travels on the 9-month Ultimate World Cruise on TikTok.
- McWilliams got off the ship in Grenada and won't be able to reboard until the ship docks in Uruguay.
Despite all the TikTok fervor, there have been very few actual moments of drama from the 9-month Ultimate World Cruise excursion that set off earlier this month. Antoine McWilliams is the exception to that rule.
McWilliams signed up for Royal Caribbean's Ultimate World Cruise in 2021 as a solo traveler, taking the trip in memory of his late husband Michael, who died of cancer in 2018.
Before he died, Michael made McWilliams promise to travel.
"He said, 'Travel will be your sanity, travel will be your salvation.' And that's exactly what I've done for the last five years is travel the world," McWilliams told Business Insider.
The 54-year-old retired public health project coordinator wanted to take a side trip to Brazil during the cruise to visit friends and some of the special places he and Michael had traveled to in past years, so he asked ship officials for approval to leave the ship at one stop and then hop back on a few days later.
According to Royal Caribbean's official policy, guests are allowed to hop off at one port and reboard at another. It's called "downlining," and must be requested in advance (because, among other things, cruise ships hold on to passengers' passports while on board).
But each country has different policies when it comes to disembarking and rejoining a trip, and Royal Caribbean told him Brazil would not allow him to disembark at one port and then get back on at another. BI has been unable to independently verify this.
So instead, McWilliams said he disembarked in Grenada, missing the ship's planned port in French Guyana, and plans to reboard the ship when it docks in Montevideo, Uruguay.
The problem? That won't be until January 4, 2024. McWilliams has some time to kill on land, but he doesn't seem to mind.
"Brazil is my favorite place to visit. I love it here. It's so scenic. And then again, my very first time coming to Brazil was in 2007 — my husband Michael brought me here," he told BI. "I walk the streets of Brazil and remember him."
McWilliams chose to disembark in Grenada because flights to Rio de Janeiro were about $1,000 cheaper than from French Guyana. But it turned out the ship had been unable to dock in French Guyana because of bad weather anyway. Had he stayed in French Guyana, he would have never been able to make a flight. McWilliams considers it kismet.
"God worked in mysterious ways because I'm not on the ship," he said.
Despite not being able to board the ship again for about a week McWilliams plans to meet his Ultimate World Cruise friends for an excursion to Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.
"It's really kind of sad in a way that I'm even going to go to the ship and meet them, but I just can't go on the boat. It's such a crazy thing," he said.
McWilliams said he's enjoying his time no matter what, though.
"I would love to believe that I had figured life out, but it's because of my husband that I am able to do this trip," he said. "The older we get, the less mobile we may get, and I want do it now. I want to be able to make these kind of moves and see the world when I'm able to actually really enjoy it in my body and in my spirit."