Happy New Year!

We have 3 days left to get ready. I actually think I have my additional items packed. Mel hasn't started. I think I've discovered that I can send an email to post on my blog. That sure would save computer time! Just have to see if it will work for pictures. Here's a picture of Koda, our cat, snuggled in our Christmas packages, just to use something for practice. Darn, the email worked, the picture did not. Had to add it manually. Back to the drawing board. Now if I knew what I was doing.........

Happy New Year!

Countdown Time

One week from tonight, we will be in a hotel in Ft Lauderdale, ready to board the ship the next day. Yikes, only 6 more days to do everything that needs getting done. I focused on shore excursions today. We decided to cancel a few that we were signed up for, and will just catch a cab at the port or a tourist shuttle bus. I did discover a company that does private tours in Mumbai. After reading her site (Mumbai Magic - Personalised Mumbai tours from people who know the city well, and love taking visitors around!) and communicating with her, I am now excited about that port. India was not high on my list before this, especially after the awful terrorist attacks in November. I am sure we will learn new things at every port.

I have been tracking our luggage across country, thanks to Fed Ex's tracking system. And thanks to their weight amount on each package, I was able to add it all up. We shipped 310 pounds to the ship! I sure hope we can find room for it all in our cabin. The warehouse in Ft Lauderdale must have been closed on Friday. All our bags are at the Fed Ex facility there. Hopefully they'll all be delivered tomorrow.

The Official Itinerary

128-DAY GRAND WORLD VOYAGE
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Ship: ms Rotterdam

Departure Port: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Date: Jan 05, 2009

Itinerary Details
Ship Details
Shore Excursions
Ports
Hotels/Tours
Depart
Fort Lauderdale, Florida VC
05:00 PM
1 At Sea
2 At Sea
3 Cartagena, Colombia
07:00 AM
01:00 PM
4 Enter Panama Canal Cristobal CO
05:00 AM
4 Exit Panama Canal Balboa CO
07:00 PM
5 At Sea
6 Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica
07:00 AM
08:00 PM
7 At Sea
8 Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala
06:00 AM
04:00 PM
9 Huatulco, Mexico
11:00 AM
06:00 PM
10 Acapulco, Mexico
08:00 AM
05:00 PM
11 At Sea
12 Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
07:00 AM
02:00 PM
13 At Sea
14 Los Angeles, California VC
07:00 AM
05:00 PM
15 At Sea
16 At Sea
17 At Sea
18 At Sea
19 Hilo, Hawaii
08:00 AM
08:00 PM
20 Honolulu, Oahu, United States
08:00 AM
08:00 PM
21 At Sea
22 At Sea
23 At Sea
24 At Sea
25 At Sea
26 Golden Line Crossing CO
27 At Sea
28 Luganville, Vanuatu
08:00 AM
06:00 PM
29 Port Vila (Vanuatu)
07:00 AM
06:00 PM
30 At Sea
31 Noumea, New Caledonia
07:00 AM
11:59 PM
32 Ile De Pins, New Caledonia TR
07:00 AM
05:00 PM
33 At Sea
34 At Sea
35 Sydney, Australia ON VX
07:00 AM
36 Sydney, Australia VX
07:00 PM
37 At Sea
38 Melbourne, Australia VX
07:00 AM
06:00 PM
39 At Sea
40 Adelaide, Australia VX
08:00 AM
11:00 PM
41 At Sea
42 At Sea
43 At Sea
44 Perth (Fremantle), Australia ON VX
08:00 AM
45 Perth (Fremantle), Australia VX
05:00 AM
46 At Sea
47 At Sea
48 At Sea
49 Lembar, Lombok, Indonesia TR VX
07:00 AM
04:00 PM
50 Komodo Island, Indonesia TR VX
08:00 AM
05:00 PM
51 At Sea
52 Semarang, Indonesia VX
08:00 AM
08:00 PM
53 Crossing the Equator CO
54 At Sea
55 At Sea
56 At Sea
57 Hong Kong, China ON
08:00 AM
58 Hong Kong, China
06:00 PM
59 At Sea
60 At Sea
61 Shanghai, China ON VX
08:00 AM
62 Shanghai, China VX
04:00 PM
63 At Sea
64 At Sea
65 At Sea
66 Nha Trang, Vietnam VX
08:00 AM
05:00 PM
67 At Sea
68 Kemaman, Malaysia
08:00 AM
05:00 PM
69 Singapore
08:00 AM
11:00 PM
70 At Sea
71 Phuket, Thailand
07:00 AM
11:00 PM
72 At Sea
73 At Sea
74 At Sea
75 Cochin, India
08:00 AM
05:00 PM
76 At Sea
77 Mumbai (Bombay), India ON VX
08:00 AM
78 Mumbai (Bombay), India VX
11:00 PM
79 At Sea
80 At Sea
81 Dubai, U.A.E. ON
Noon
82 Dubai, U.A.E.
11:59 PM
83 At Sea
84 Muscat, Oman
07:00 AM
06:00 PM
85 At Sea
86 At Sea
87 At Sea
88 Crossing the Equator CO
89 The Seychelles ON
07:00 AM
90 The Seychelles
06:00 PM
91 At Sea
92 At Sea
93 Mombasa, Kenya ON VX
08:00 AM
94 Mombasa, Kenya VX
04:00 PM
95 At Sea
96 Nosy Be, Madagascar TR
08:00 AM
05:00 PM
97 Mamoudzou, Mayotte TR
08:00 AM
03:00 PM
98 At Sea
99 At Sea
100 Maputo, Mozambique
08:00 AM
06:00 PM
101 Richard's Bay, South Africa
10:00 AM
06:00 PM
102 Durban, South Africa
05:00 AM
06:00 PM
103 At Sea
104 Cape Town, South Africa ON
01:00 PM
105 Cape Town, South Africa ON
106 Cape Town, South Africa
05:00 PM
107 At Sea
108 Luderitz, Namibia
07:00 AM
04:00 PM
109 Walvis Bay, Namibia
07:00 AM
04:00 PM
110 At Sea
111 At Sea
112 St Helena, United Kingdom TR
08:00 AM
05:00 PM
113 At Sea
114 Georgetown, Ascension Island TR
08:00 AM
02:00 PM
115 At Sea
116 At Sea
117 At Sea
118 At Sea
119 Devil's Island, French Guiana TR
Noon
06:00 PM
120 At Sea
121 Port of Spain, Trinidad
08:00 AM
06:00 PM
122 Bridgetown, Barbados
07:00 AM
11:00 PM
123 At Sea
124 Gustavia, St. Barts TR
08:00 AM
05:00 PM
125 At Sea
126 At Sea
127 Fort Lauderdale, Florida
07:00 AM

Click to Enlarge Map

Please Note: In the end, this itinearary changed a bit. We arrived a day earlier in the Seychelles so we could take an extra day getting to Kenya, going around the pirate area. Madegascar was having riots, so that port was skipped. Mayotte wasn't ready for tourists (huh?), that was what we were told. To make up for these changes, we spent an extra night in Mombassa, Kenya which was excellent. And we spent an extra night in Richard's Bay, South Africa which allowed us to do an additional overnight. We also had the opportunity to see Bali from the distance. We had a medical emergency so we let the patient off there before going to our first port in Indonesia. We lost a couple of ports but felt that HAL did everything possible to make up for it.

The Luggage is GONE!

Fed Ex arrived at our door 5 min before scheduled, at 11:55 a.m. We ended up with 11 suitcases and 2 boxes. HAL shipped pre-addressed labels to us....and had our luggage going to LA! We are leaving out of Ft Lauderdale on Jan 5. Mel brought home blank labels and I filled them out myself w/the correct address. That took a couple of hrs! Then it took another hour to get them on each piece of luggage along w/the HAL tag, our own name tag, and a copy of our address inside each locked bag. Whew, glad it's done and gone. Now I have 24 hrs to concentrate on Christmas! Not much time.

My next pressing thing to do before the cruise is go thru all our shore excursions. I've already signed up for a number of them. I just want to verify that those or the ones we want to go on and add a few if necessary. At a number of ports we are just going to walk around on our own.

Merry Christmas everyone! Guess that won't get to many since I haven't announced my blog yet. Still working....

Ready to go?

We called in our luggage weight to Holland America on the 10th. I have a feeling that we are taking WAY too much! Between the 2 of us we have 14 bags and boxes ready for Fed Ex. They will be picked up on the 23rd. I guess we have time to remove things...or add....before then. Now to do everything else - fill prescriptions for 4 months, stop the newspaper, take Kali to the vet (she's 18, never can tell what might happen to her while we're gone), not to mention wrap Christmas presents, ship eBay items and ship Christmas presents! We did end up getting a tree. It's only 4 feet tall, but it smells good. Guess I'd better get moving.

World Cruise Here We Come!

We are currently booked on Holland America's (HAL) ROTTERDAM ship to circumnavigate the world. We start in Ft Lauderdale on Jan 5, 2009, going thru the Panama Canal. We will end our adventure in Ft Lauderdale on May 13, 2009. That's over 4 months at sea! It sounds wonderful.

In preparation, we need several visas - India, China and Australia. The ship will provide the rest. We'll be visiting over 30 countries, with several different ports in some. We are required to get a yellow fever shot. Fortunately we had one last year for our trip to Antarctica (Brazil required them), so that's taken care of. Now we just have to figure out what to take, how many packages it will fill and approx how much they will weigh...by Dec 10. That's when we let Holland Am know. They will pick it up on Dec 22, just before Christmas. It will be an interesting Christmas season trying to get ready for the cruise. I'm sure we'll figure it out.