Our Cruise Director

Got an email today from Princess saying that Brett Siborne is going to be our Cruise Director.  CLICK ON THE PHOTO BELOW TO ENLARGE IT.



Belated Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone. 

Time is really getting short for the cruise.  Just 16 more days and we are on the way to warmer weather.

Most of the pre-packing is done and we have loaded our box of goodies that we will send to Florida via FEDEX.  Should send that box on its way on January 6th.  Just a few loose ends left to complete prior to flying out to Florida. 

Here are a couple of  tidebits of information for anyone planning a long trip.  It's a good idea to check with you auto insurance company.  You can do what is called "Garaging" your auto and receive a substantial reduction in the premium while you are on travel.  Also, we use a device called a Battery Tender that will keep our car's battery topped off but not overcharge it.  Works really great.
http://batterytender.com/automotive.html

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