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.

Quirky—OK, OK, weird—travel stuff

Most travel items fall in the category of need or gee, that looks like it’s useful. Boring things like adapters and converters for international travel and alarm clocks and travel purses/wallets. Or packing aids like compression bags and packing cubes. But there is another whole category I am discovering: weird things that sound useful but just a bit whacky.

For instance, I’ve discovered a quirky website, the place to buy a Buff. What is a Buff? It’s a odd scarf/beanie/face covering/whatever-you-want for your head. Check it out here, it’s a hoot. I might even get one.

Then there is Scottevest (pronounced Scott-y-vest), the company whose ad Delta Airlines refused to run. If jacket meets carry-on bag is your thing, this is the company to go to! And there is shirt meets bug spray, the Bugsaway Halo shirt, sold by www.magellans.com or www.amazon.com. Also at Magellan's is the luggage scale meets flashlight. I read on one blog that it was appointment only for cruisers who were worried about overweight luggage to use their scale on the last full day of the cruise. Oh, shopping travel is so much fun!

I’m discovering all these interesting places by reading the Independent Traveler, which has tons—probably literally, were I to print out all the fascinating content!—of travel-related information. Like "35 Travel Tips Revealed: Top Secrets of Travel Writers." One of those tips is to bring a travel scarf that doubles as a purse. Seems like a great idea, but there isn’t a store closer than Albuquerque and there is no online way to buy. Too bad!

Speaking of purses, Epiphanie is a wonderful site for camera bags for women. I am getting very tired of plain old black bags to carry my camera equipment in (Note to my old English teacher: I KNOW I shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition but it just seems so awkward to say "...in which to carry..."). Some of these bags seem so lovely and I am sorely tempted to get lyric or lola or maybe stella. There are other places for beautiful—if not quirky—camera bags. For example: here and here and here.

And, of course, the ever popular Rum Runner, or how to smuggle any liquid on board your cruise ship because the cocktails on board cost more than dinner out back home.

I can’t believe I am now starting to think about our vacation in 2013, a river cruise in Europe. Might even take the kids (don’t listen, Kathy, Ken, Greg, Yolanda; we haven’t really decided yet) if the stock market doesn’t completely tank. I’d like to do a 30 day river cruise (I think such a thing exists) from somewhere in eastern Europe to Amsterdam with options for shorter segments for our kids who are still working. I need to spend more time looking at which companies are best for our purposes and then which boats. Are they boats? Or are they ships? Our old and—sadly—deceased friend, Captain Paul, said a boat could be carried on a ship but not vice-versa. So, by that standard, they are river “boats.”