25 Days Until Sail Away

We are down to only 25 days remaining until sail away from Fort Lauderdale.  Thought it would be fun to Post a video of last year's Pacific Princess departing Fort Lauderdale on the World Cruise.  Here is the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYsFw43Zs7c

Tomorrow is Christmas Day and we have family getting together to celebrate.  Several events are planned for all. 

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year (2011).

Back On Land

We just returned from 2 weeks onboard the Sapphire Princess sailing along the Mexican Riveria.  It was good to get back out to sea and test our sea legs for the upcoming trip.   Also, it was good to see if we could keep from eating too much and exercising enough to not gain any weight.  Just 36 days until sail away from Florida.

To our surprise, the Maitre'd on the Pacific Princess will be Francisco Patricio.  We have sailed with Francisco many times and have always been impressed with how well he manages the food operations.  Here is the notice that we received from Princess Cruises regarding Francisco being on the World Cruise.

60 Days And Counting

Today we hit 60 days on the countdown to sail away for the World Cruise.  Time is beginning to click away quickly.  Before you know it we will be heading out of the harbor at Port Everglades toward destinations all over the world.  But before then, we will do a back-to-back cruise (14 days) on the Sapphire Princess to the Mexican Riviera.  This should help us get our sea legs back in good shape.  On November 27th we will board the Sapphire.  We are looking forward to seeing many of our friends that are part of the Sapphire crew.

Trivia

VISA

We have been chipping away at all the little trivial items in preparation for this cruise.  Went online to the Australian government’s website and obtained our Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) for this trip.  It is valid for 12 months and is good for multiple entries.  The ship will be obtaining VISAs for all passengers for Cambodia, Togo, Ghana, Indonesia, and Mozambique.  We previously obtained our VISA for India.  All the other countries don’t require advance travel authorization or a VISA.

Internet

Started thinking about Internet access for the trip.  Since we are Princess Elite Captain’s Circle members, we each will get 1000 minutes of Internet time broken down by segment.  Realizing that we will be posting on this blog often, we began to look for additional time through Princess.  To our surprise, Princess Cruises offers substantially discounted Internet minutes for World Cruise passengers to purchase.  So, we purchased one of their 1100 minute packages to argument our normal complimentary time. 

Shipping versus Excess Baggage

There are lots of personal items we want to take with us on the cruise.  As we keep adding things, of course the weight continues to increase.  We estimate that it would be nice to carry about 50 pounds of additional items on the flight from home to our port of embarkation (Fort Lauderdale).  The cost for these items by the airline is $100.  But, we can ship 50 pounds by UPS for $63.  So, we will most likely ship our items by UPS on or about January 3, 2011, to the timeshare in Florida where we will spend a few days prior to sailing.  It would be nice if Princess provided baggage shipping similar to what Holland America provides their world cruise passengers.

Shopping for Shoes

Walking about in 38 ports of call on this cruise will put a strain on the old feet.  For many months we have looked at what is really the best shoe for all this walking we plan to do.  After much research and trial we settled on the MBT Sport 2 which is specifically designed to absorb the impact of walking.  Cindy also has added a pair of Helle Comfort dress shoes of evening wear.

Finalized Shore Excursions

After much thought, we finalized our list of excursions and reserved them online. There are plenty of places along this route that we have visited several times previously. And, many we may never visit again, so we decided to book as much as possible--at least what we could afford!!. Below is a list of things we have reserved. Two of the shore excursions are 3-day events off the ship. Those are the Taj Mahal and the Safari in Kruger National Park and Shishangeni Lodge.

Motu Islet Beach - Moorea, French Polynesia Date: Feb 10

City Drive/Cleland Wildlife Park - Adelaide, Australia Date: Feb 25

Elephant Kraal - Bangkok (Laem Chabang), Date: Mar 10

City Drive/Chinatown/Orchid Garden - Singapore, Singapore Date: Mar 13

Cellular Jail/Aberdeen Bazaar Tuk - Andaman Islands, India/Andaman Date: Mar 16

Delhi / Agra / Taj Mahal - (3-day India land excursion)
Cochin, India Date: Mar 20

Grand Mosque & Bait Al Zubair - Muscat (Mina Qaboos), Oman Date: Mar 25

At The Top: Burj Khalifa - Dubai, United Arab Emirates Date: Mar 26

Kruger: Shishangeni Lodge Camp -(3-day Safari) - Maputo, Mozambique Date: Apr 06

Table Mountain - Cape Town, South Africa Date: Apr 11

Cape Of Good Hope - Cape Town, South Africa Date: Apr 12

Slavery,Voodoo & Zangebeto Dances - Lome, Togo Date: Apr 20

Pink Lake Of Retba - Dakar, Senegal Date: Apr 25

Rabat (city tour) - Casablanca, Morocco Date: Apr 30

Monaco/Monte Carlo (city tour) - Monte Carlo, Monaco Date: May 05

Email From Captain

Today, we both received an email from the ship's Captain.  So it looks like things are progressing along for this voyage.  Here is that email.

Captain Andrea Poggi was born in Rigorosco, Arquata Scrivia, Italy.
He graduated from the Nautical Institute in Genoa, 1971, the largest port of the Mediterranean Sea. After spending two years with the Italian Navy on a submarine, he started his service on passenger ships in May 1983 with Sitmar Cruises. He was promoted to Staff Captain in August 1991 onboard the Crown Princess and Captain on Regal Princess in 1999. In past years, he has commanded the Crown Princess, Regal Princess, Ocean Princess, Dawn Princess, Island Princess, Sea Princess and most recently, the Grand Princess.

Captain Poggi likes to spend his spare time motorbike racing and tracking on the north Italian Alps.

Excursions and Final Payment

Shore Excursions were finally released for booking.  We have gone over everything and did decide to book the Taj Mahal 3-day excursion. No other overnight excursions have been offered, ie, Machu Picchu, Angor Wat or Ayers Rock.  A disappointment at this time.  The Taj Mahal excursion is a little expensive, but you never know when you will get back this way.  There are several excursions in Thailand and some of the African countries that looked intriguing and we booked.  Our experience is that if you really want a particular excursion, it's always a good idea to book the excursion online well in advance of sailing.  Once onboard, excursions get filled very quickly. 

Today we made final payment through our travel agent for this grand adventure.  So there is no turning back now.  We have started to look very closely at just what we need for the trip and what really isn't necessary.  Camera equipment is really taking up room in the carry-on luggage, but can't really leave home without all the little things for photography (telephoto lens, manuals, batteries, cleaning material, cables, and DVD discs for backing up all the photos).  Then there is the laptop.  The goal of course is to take everything we will need without being so heavy we are over-weight on the flights to Fort Lauderdale and return from Rome.

Still have to get a couple of vaccinations for some of the more remote locations.

More Preparation

You know it won't be long before it's time to sail away when Final Payment for the World Cruise is less than a month away.  Speaking of "Sail Away", just added some music (MP3) to the top of this page.  Just another way of getting in the mood for this great trip.  Yes, final payment is coming up in just 25 days.  After that there is no turning back.

Just booked one night accommodation and return air from Rome.  We are concerned about the ship possibly having a late arrival or delayed disembarkation at Civitavecchia, Italy and the distance to travel from the port to the airport in Rome with extremely heavy vehicle traffic.  This gives us much more time and also provided us more options for flights back home.  At least we are not competing for flights with the other potential 680 passengers on the ship; many who will be returning home on disembarkation day.

Packing or at least the mental preparation for packing continues.  What clothes to take for the 107 days continues to be the toughest issue for us.  One thing for sure, we won't have to pack for warm and cold climates.  Just warm weather is all that we will experience on this cruise.  But, how many shoes; how many sets of formal attire; how many shorts; how many of everything and do we really need that many clothes.  This is something that we have to answer pretty soon and really get serious about what should be packed.

Princess Cruises continues to add to their DRAFT online Shore Excursions Brochure.  They continue to add excursions and prices, but they have not released any of them for advanced booking.  Much of the first two segments we have already visited, so there isn't any urgency to book anything for these segments.

2011 Pacific Princess World Cruise Segment Voyages
Ft. Lauderdale to Sydney (33 days): January 19, 2011 – February 22, 2011
Sydney to Singapore (19 days): February 22, 2011 – March 13, 2011
Singapore to Cape Town (30 days): March 13, 2011 – April 12, 2011
Cape Town to Rome (25 days): April 12, 2011 – May 7, 2011

So, we are really eager to check on excursions to Angkor Wat and the Taj Mahal. 

Hopefully the cruise line will finalize the shore excursions about the same time that final payment is due.

Passports,VISA, and Other Items

Over the past two weeks we have received our new Passports and Indian VISA.  All the other VISAs for this cruise will be obtained by the ship.   We actually began preparing for this cruise in September 2009.  The process has been ongoing ever since that time.  All the little details such as immunizations, income tax extension, mail hold, etc., etc., have been part of our planning during the past year.  Now things are beginning to come together.  Noticed yesterday that Princess finally posted a preliminary listing of the shore excursions.  However, many don't show any pricing yet and none are open for booking as of this date.  So, it's time to begin getting serious about what we will actually pack for this adventure.  There has been so much information posted on other world cruise blogs concerning clothing.  I guess the biggest challenge will be to not over pack.     

Grand Adventure

Over the years we began to consider whether to do a World Cruise.  There were places on the globe we hadn't yet had the opportunity to visit.  Most notably were India, Cambodia, Indonesia, and the southern part of the African continent.  Early in 2009 we became aware of a new sailing by Princess Cruises that would travel around the African continent stopping at nine ports.  Once we got to review the brochure showing the extent of the full World Cruise itinerary, we made the decision to do this cruise on the Pacific Princess scheduled for January 2011.




Princess Cruises World Cruise Brochure

 

But, how do you begin planning for such a cruise?  What are the little things you need to know before leaving home for nearly 4 months?  Although we have cruised many times to locations all over the world, this adventure would be something very new to us.  Not knowing all the answers but knowing we wanted to visit more of the world, we went ahead and booked this cruise in September 2009.  After the cruise was booked the hard part really began.  We searched for people who had done a world cruise before and searched for Blogs by other world cruisers.  All of this in an attempt to learn what you should and shouldn't do.   

Basically what were the lessons learned by people who had taken a similar cruise?  Over the coming months we tried to learn as much as possible about our itinerary; the ship; weather for the route, packing issues; tax extensions; immunizations; visa requirements; foreign currencies, global cell phone, travel insurance and all the other things that one needs to consider in their overall planning process.  What are ALL the other things!?!