BEFORE WE GO

Segment #1 - 26 Days

Segment #2 - 50 Days

We have been asked many times, "Where are you going?" Above are the maps of our route taken from the Holland America site. We will start in Sydney, Australia and end in Fort Lauderdale 76 days later. We have built in 4 days in Sydney before we board. This will allow for leisurely touring, and a safety valve in case the weather delays our arrival in Sydney.

With just six days until departure our bags are packed, and the checklist of things to do before we walk out the door on Monday has been reviewed and more added to as necessary. You might think we would have perfected this by now, but we have found that there are always a few new things to add. As we think of things we have forgotten to pack, they are laid on top of the suitcases. They will go in at the last minute.

We have completed our necessary medical visits. All that is left are haircuts. The next planned post is from Sydney. Cheers!

2018 WORLD CRUISE PREPARATIONS

January 21, 2018 - Preparing for the World Cruise from Sydney to Fort Lauderdale

As I prepared to set up my blog post for the upcoming World Cruise segments, I discovered that I never completed the posts for our May/June 2017 land tours in Spain, Portugal and Poland. This is a byproduct of discovering that Alice and I are not cut out for organized land tours. There simply is not enough free time to author the posts. Free time at the end of a full day of touring is not conducive to writing.

We will be leaving for Sydney Australia on February 5th, and arrive on February 7th. The in-transit time is just over 24 hours. The flight from San Francisco to Sydney will occupy almost 15 hours of that. We have tried on our wardrobe and set aside the items we will pack. I dragged out the suitcases today. We have taken care of all of our medical appointments. We are ready. We will start packing tomorrow.

We will spend four days touring Sydney before we board Amsterdam on the 11th. We have booked into The Russell Hotel. It is located in The Rocks, and is very convenient to the ferries, buses and trains. We stayed there in 2015, and found it to be a great jumping off point. We will need to take a taxi to White Bay terminal to board Amsterdam. She has been pushed out there by the mega cruisers that dominate the Overseas Passenger Terminal. That is just a block’s walk from the hotel. Such is life.