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.

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.