although we're too excited to sleep And too exhausted not to. We're packed, the suitcases have been weighed (we ended up buying a fourth one so that none are too heavy) and we've said our goodbyes (best done while the game was on and the Broncos were beating the Raiders. A quick wave and a goodbye, and that was as sentimental as it got. I don't think their eyes ever left the TV screen). We've prepared the house, the yard, the cars to handle our absence. The refrigerator is turned off, and the pantry is bare. Tomorrow morning we have several last minute things to do before we leave for the airport around 8am.
We are ready to go.
We've been planning this for 18 months. We started in April 2010 by booking eight 10-night cruises in a row. We've since added cruises on the front end, cancelled a cruise on the back end and booked, de-booked and again booked flights (thank you Southwest!). Every day for the past 8 months I have checked cruise and air fares for price drops. We used points to book a pre-cruise hotel in Fort Lauderdale, then cancelled the reservation when a better hotel became available on Hotwire. And that's just managing the vacation; we've also had to prepare things around the house. It's been a busy time.
People frequently ask why we don't do a World cruise. After all, they're not that much longer (generally just over 100 days). And we'd travel to more places and more exotic places (Vietnam, Thailand, India...) And the reason - the main reason - is simple. World Cruises are a LOT of work. When you're visiting a place for the first and only time in your life, you want to research it thoroughly and tour it intensively. We don't want to work that hard! We just want to escape the cold for a few months and relax.
We've been to all the islands we're visiting many times. We know which beach is our favorite, which snorkel site is best, how to get to the local bus station and which bus to take to get where we want to go. We know whether we like the local beer, whose brother in law has a boat we can hire for the day, and which taxi driver is our favorite. We even know some of the locals, and enjoy visiting them at their homes and taking them a little liquid libation and treats for their kids. It's easy, it's familiar, it's comfortable.
In fact, we've been on the Emerald Princess so many times that we say that boarding the ship on the first day is like coming home after a really long shore excursion.
Maybe we will do a World cruise someday. But, for now, we want warm weather and tropical islands and long stretches of sandy beaches, and a different snorkel site every day, and steel drum music played dockside as the ship pulls into a new port in the morning, and jerk chicken bought from a street vendor, and coconut water from a coconut freshly cut off a tree, and mojitos at sunset and...
No, we're not going to sleep tonight.
:-)
We are ready to go.
We've been planning this for 18 months. We started in April 2010 by booking eight 10-night cruises in a row. We've since added cruises on the front end, cancelled a cruise on the back end and booked, de-booked and again booked flights (thank you Southwest!). Every day for the past 8 months I have checked cruise and air fares for price drops. We used points to book a pre-cruise hotel in Fort Lauderdale, then cancelled the reservation when a better hotel became available on Hotwire. And that's just managing the vacation; we've also had to prepare things around the house. It's been a busy time.
People frequently ask why we don't do a World cruise. After all, they're not that much longer (generally just over 100 days). And we'd travel to more places and more exotic places (Vietnam, Thailand, India...) And the reason - the main reason - is simple. World Cruises are a LOT of work. When you're visiting a place for the first and only time in your life, you want to research it thoroughly and tour it intensively. We don't want to work that hard! We just want to escape the cold for a few months and relax.
We've been to all the islands we're visiting many times. We know which beach is our favorite, which snorkel site is best, how to get to the local bus station and which bus to take to get where we want to go. We know whether we like the local beer, whose brother in law has a boat we can hire for the day, and which taxi driver is our favorite. We even know some of the locals, and enjoy visiting them at their homes and taking them a little liquid libation and treats for their kids. It's easy, it's familiar, it's comfortable.
In fact, we've been on the Emerald Princess so many times that we say that boarding the ship on the first day is like coming home after a really long shore excursion.
Maybe we will do a World cruise someday. But, for now, we want warm weather and tropical islands and long stretches of sandy beaches, and a different snorkel site every day, and steel drum music played dockside as the ship pulls into a new port in the morning, and jerk chicken bought from a street vendor, and coconut water from a coconut freshly cut off a tree, and mojitos at sunset and...
No, we're not going to sleep tonight.
:-)