Getting Ready

Final payment is due July 21 for our adventure to the South Pacific. We have our air to San Francisco arranged and have been meeting fellow cruisers on Cruise Critic. We have even arranged to join some of them on private tours at several of our stops. We still need to book pre and post hotels in SF and LA. I'll do that soon. We are waiting for Princess to post the ships shore excursions so we can confirm our activities for each port.

When we got home from South America we knew we wanted to go on another long cruise. I didn't really expect for it to happen this soon. This cruise is 60 days. South America was 49 days. Maybe we can work up to a real World Cruise one day.

We booked in late April but had questions this month as to whether we would be going or not. First was the tumor in Reba's breast. Dr Phillips removed the mammary gland and we were relieved when the lab report came back benign. Then Jack found an enlarged lymph node under his arm. The surgeon who removed it said he was 98% sure it was just an infection. We will have the lab report next week but are encouraged by the statement from the surgeon.

Our cruise sails on Sept. 23 and returns on Nov. 22, 2009. Out of SF we have four sea days before arriving in Hilo, Hawaii on Sept 28. The next day Lahaina, Maui, HI. Then four more sea days to Bora Bora on Oct 4, Tahiti on Oct 5 and Moorea, French Polynesia on the 6. Two days at sea to Apia, Samoa on Oct 9 and Pago Pago, American Samoa on the 10. We cross the International Dateline on Oct 11. Arrive in Fiji on the 13. The next stops are in New Zealand. Auckland, Wellington. Christchurch and Dunedin. Finally on Oct, 24 we arrive in Sydney.

Sydney is the end of the first segment of the cruise. Many passengers will depart and new people will get on. The return trip has the same stops except that in Hawaii we go to Honolulu instead of Hilo. We are planning an independent tour at each port on one stop and a ships tour the other time. I wish we were seeing more of Australia. We considered ending the cruise in Sydney and spending a week or so there but the thoughts of that airplane ride back home made the decision to continue with the cruise ship home. I guess we will have to go back again.