Flat Stanley is going around the world

My friend Bethany in Texas may be wondering what happened to Flat Stanley and where he is. Well, Bethany, Flat Stanley has had some adventures getting to the Sun Princess to start his trip around the world! But he finally got on board and is starting his Great Voyage!

First, he missed the departure from Tucson by a day. Then he missed the departure from Roseville, CA by a day. Then he flew electronically to the Marriott Hotel in Sydney and finally to Quakers Hill, NSW, Australia. Whew!

He got on the ship on May 16 with us and here he is sitting in a chair in our suite. He’s going to have a lot more adventures in the next 99 days, including Darwin, Australia, tomorrow. So stay tuned for updates on what he’s up to! We’ll definitely take him on a tour of the ship during our next group of sea days. He MAY be able to have dinner with us and since he’s wearing a tie, I’m sure he’ll be allowed to join us at the next formal night on board.

Leap Day, so some leaps of ideas…

Sixty-one days until we drive out our driveway on our way to start the cruise—which is exactly 11 weeks from today! Our box of things to take with us is growing fuller and fuller.

Our son and daughter-in-law (Greg & Yolanda) are here from Sydney so we are picking their brains about what we should wait to buy when we get to Oz and what we should bring from here. And Randy and I are arguing about whether or not we should have Greg and Yolanda bring a suitcase back to Oz for us. I maintain that that is just another suitcase that  will have to bring home again in September. We should bring just over what we’ll bring back (plus of course the souvenirs that we’ll pick up!), otherwise we’ll be overloaded on the way home. Randy just doesn’t want to carry it over ourselves if we can get G&Y to carry it over for us! And round and round we go.

I’m starting to look at clothing catalogs for beautiful stuff clothing to bring with us. I think I’ve found a couple of formal-wear shops online with some handsome vests and ties for Randy to wear on formal nights. I can tie a formal bow-tie but all the bow ties are already put together—fake bow-ties. Bummer. And a shirt. His formal shirt is so old it’s starting to turn yellow!

Our friends, I’m sure, are getting heartily tired of hearing about our upcoming cruise! Oh, well, I can’t seem to help myself. Hey friends, it could be worse! At least I have this outlet!

I am learning from the other travel blogs what I enjoy reading about and what I don’t enjoy reading about. I don’t enjoy hearing complaints—unless they are done in a humorous way. I do enjoy hearing about the people the bloggers have met and I love really good descriptions of the scenery and good descriptions of interactions with the local populace. So that’s what I am going to strive to do. Whether or not I succeed—well, that remains to be seen, but I’ll try to be, at the very least, entertaining.

We won’t be in New York until July 20 and 21 but I’m already trying to figure out what we’ll do, other than going to The Book of Mormon. I’d like to find a good tour company but am not having a lot of luck. Many tours are walking tours but at our age, I don’t think I want to spend the better part of six hours walking around NY! On the other hand, knowing the traffic gridlock that can happen in NY, maybe I don’t want to be on a bus either. Perhaps we can just wing it, figuring out what we want to see and just taking the subways to get there. I imagine that if we do that we may have some of the Aussies go with us, which would be really nice. Randy, I’m sure, would love to show off NY and we have two days to do it!

Similarly in Los Angeles. Perhaps sharing a van and driving around to the most famous sights would be fun. Too little time to see Disneyland (we’re only there for 10 hours). In a request to our friends for suggestions of what to see, one of them said, “Why on earth are you only planning 10 hours in LA?” Uh, maybe because we don't have a choice? The cruise ship is only in town for 10 hours?

I told you it was some leaps of ideas.

Yes, we’re still going!

I’ve been pondering the Costa Concordia disaster. No we are NOT giving up our cruise! Like the drive to the airport, the drive to the cruise terminal is probably the most dangerous part of our trip. But my heart goes out to the families of those who died, to the injured passengers and crew, but also to those who were so frightened and now have to deal with having lost everything including what was probably going to be a wonderful vacation cruise. It has become a vacation to remember, that’s for sure!

Right now, Costa is not endearing itself to its passengers, however. From what I’ve been reading, they are refunding the money for the cruise and giving a 30% discount on a future cruise, but doing NOTHING for the passengers in the future—some as soon as this week—who have to alter their air reservations. Nothing, that is, unless they booked their air with Costa.

I’m betting that a lot more people will be paying attention at the muster drills, at least in the near future. I’m also betting that, as time passes, people will STOP paying attention at the muster drills, much as happens in airplanes. Look around you next time you are on an airplane and see how many (none?) put down their papers or their books or stop their conversations to listen to the flight attendant give the safety briefing.

Where ever you are going, please pay attention to the safety briefings. Your attention may save your life or the life of a loved one someday.

This 'n that 'n Elvis...

I haven’t written in this for a while and I need to practice doing so in order to be disciplined enough on the cruise to post at least every few days.

Ray and Paula's blog about cruising has a great list of what to do and how to act. I’d say it was the Ten Commandments of Cruising but there are 30 of them! And  number 30 is especially appropriate.

I have been spending a LOT of time on the cruise critic website, especially on the Sun World Cruise Roll Call which seems to be getting more active. I’m also involved on Facebook where there are now a confusing TWO World Cruise Facebook Groups (World Cruise and Princess Cruise 2012). I find I can’t keep the two groups separate so I am just going to choose one, World Cruise, and ignore the other, Princess Cruise 2012. They seem to, by and large, have the same members and do the same thing.

It has been great fun to “meet” all the people going on “our” cruise! Should make it so much fun to start the cruise already having some friends.

Some of our cruise excursions are getting firmed up. A CC member named Narelle has been organizing some and so have I so we’re kind of set for Mumbai, Aqaba, and Petra and thinking about Salalah and Dubai. Gets exciting when we’re already planning the excursions!

The only traveling we have done lately is to go to Phoenix to visit Colorado friends and then on to Las Vegas for my daughter and son-in-law’s wedding by Elvis. Ken (son-in-law) has always, always wanted to be married by Elvis so when they planned a trip to the National Finals Rodeo they also planned, along with their friends Sharon & Bill, to be married by Elvis. Well, what a kick that was! They did the whole nine yards: limo, video, photographer, and Elvis singing “Love Me Tender”—among other songs—to them! And we got to share in the fun without having to pay for it! Icing on the cake! (My daughter is really, really tired of hearing that we didn’t have to pay for it. But I’m not!)

Kathy, Ken, 'n Elvis

Sharon, Bill, Kathy, Ken, 'n Elvis

Elvis is saying, Do you promise to always be as smokin' hot as you are today?

They always wanted their names in lights!

Do we have a beautiful daughter, or what!

I think Ken just got the bill.