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Problem Solved
- Bill Pollak continues to journey the world, holding a promise to his late spouse, Karin.
- The Oceania Cruises crew has turn out to be a help system for Pollak after Karin’s passing.
People journey for a lot of totally different causes, from seeing household to fulfilling lifelong goals. Bill Pollak does it to maintain a promise to his late spouse Karin.
Years in the past, Pollak and the lady he calls the love of his life made a vow to one another that whoever handed away first would maintain doing what they loved most in life: touring.
After an over-decade-long battle with pancreatic most cancers, Karin died in 2022. Ever since, Pollak, 85, has saved his promise to her, although it has been removed from straightforward. He credit a particular group of people that have significantly helped him get by it: the crew of Oceania Cruises.
The cruise line holds a particular place in his coronary heart, provided that the couple have been huge vacationers – and cruisers. They’ve simply spent a whole bunch of days at sea, and the Oceania Allura’s maiden voyage this previous July marked Pollak’s 133rd cruise.
One journey after Karin’s dying that at all times makes him tear up is the christening of the Oceania Vista in May 2023 – the primary time he stepped on a ship with out his favourite journey companion, finest pal, and late spouse.
“It was horrible, absolutely horrible,” Pollak advised USA TODAY throughout a sit-down interview on the Viennese-inspired espresso store Baristas on the Oceania Allura, the place crew members and different visitors cease to greet him.
He had been dreading sitting alone at dinner and reveals, however through the first present of the cruise, a hostess shocked him by asking to take a seat subsequent to him. “At the end of the performance, we got up to leave and at the end of the aisle were seven of Oceania’s employees to be there with me,” Pollak mentioned. “We hugged and cried. It was beautiful.”
The similar evening, one other long-time Oceania worker talked him into going to the Horizons lounge for dancing, a favourite pastime of the Pollaks, as a substitute of letting him retire to his room. “It was the first time in six months I felt human,” he mentioned. “It’s a family, I don’t care what anybody says, I know it’s a trite and overused term, but it is.”
It’s been a journey navigating Pollak’s grief, and even to journey once more. Most of his journeys are troublesome; others really feel bittersweet. Travel could by no means be the identical, however his household and mates – the Oceania crew included – have been a lifeline find the little moments of pleasure in journey once more.
A love for journey – and one another
Aptly, Pollak and Karin met by journey – she was his journey agent, coordinating his enterprise journeys when he labored within the aviation business. At the time, each have been in sad marriages to different individuals, however there was an plain connection. “We were basically talking every afternoon at 4:30 p.m., I would just call and talk about the industry, and we would always talk a little bit more about personal life,” he mentioned.
Pollak recollects Karin making the primary transfer – her brazenness being certainly one of his favourite qualities. Just a few years after assembly, the 2 divorced their first spouses and married one another in 1991.
“Love is unexplainable, but I was so lucky to have found her, and she was lucky to have found me,” he mentioned. “I mean, we fit well together.”
During their 32 years of marriage, the couple traveled extensively, from traversing the inside of India to repeat journeys to Bali. “I used to earn lots of airplane miles, and she would use lots of airplane miles, so it all worked,” he joked. “Everything matched.”
After retirement, the couple traveled for as much as six months out of the 12 months, typically on cruises.
‘This is dwelling’
Some of their most cherished recollections contain Oceania, resembling renewing their vows on the Insignia ship throughout a world cruise and being unexpectedly stranded in Barcelona for 10 days post-cruise on account of a volcanic eruption in Iceland that grounded flights.
Another memorable crusing was in 2008 on the 32-day cruise from Rome to Singapore on the Nautica. Off the coast between Somalia and Yemen, the ship was attacked by pirates, and passengers have been advised to attend on Deck 5 because the captain sped up the ship. During all the tense second, Karin was within the spa, Pollak mentioned with amusing.
From the service to the routes, the couple loved Oceania a lot that they swore to by no means sail on one other line. “When we used to come on board, we spent the first two days hugging,” he mentioned. “It wasn’t only the guests, but the crew too.” By now, he is recognized some crew members for practically 20 years.
Still, he thinks of Karin typically, and lots of locations remind him of her. Some, like Paris, he mentioned he cannot return to, whereas others, just like the Oceania ships, provide solace.
Following the adage that house is the place the guts is, Bill Pollak jokes that he has round 9. One is his home in Phoenix, which he designed with Karin years in the past, and is “full of old, wonderful memorabilia” from their travels collectively. As for the opposite eight, these are Oceania Cruises’ ships. As he places it, “This is home, it just is.”
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