Getting Ready to Go

 

Welcome aboard and we’re glad you are joining us for our next adventure.  This voyage is called the Grand Far East & Pacific cruise, lasts 78 days from Sept 21st to Dec 8th.  We’ll follow the itinerary you see above.  We’ve been to most of these countries but not all the ports.  There are 17 new stops for us on this voyage.  Noreen is not all that happy about having to fly to Seattle and then back from San Diego.  Hopefully they will have enough Baileys on board to take her mind off the trip.  Our ship is the Holland America Amsterdam.  For those who have been following us you should be familiar with her.  This is the same ship we have done our previous two world cruises and Alaska.  We have about 230 days on board the Amsterdam.

Information on the Amsterdam is at http://www.hollandamerica.com/main/DeckPlansFull.action?ship=am_2&deck=m&WT.ac=pnav_Onboard_AmsterdamDeck   We’re in cabin 6217.  Go to deck 6, our cabin number and click.  You’ll see our room.

FedEx picked up our six suitcases on 9/15 and they are safely in Seattle by 9/17.  They should be in our room when we arrive at the ship.  We’ve have all the necessary visas, shots, and paperwork completed.  Now it is just pack our last suitcase and carryon.  We fly out Friday (9/19) afternoon to Seattle.  Saturday we’ll meet some of my former colleagues from Boeing and some past cruise friends.  Then Sunday we are off.

First stops are in Alaska.  We’ve been in Alaska in late September before and since we’ll be heading north into the Bearing Sea we expect cold weather.  We’ll see what transpires.

As of right now we have only two off ship excursions planned. 

First we’ll be leaving the ship in Qingdao, China and fly to Chongqing, then a four day cruise down the Yangtze River to Yichang, finally flying to rejoin the ship in Shanghai.  You can see our river cruise ship at  http://www.centuryrivercruises.com/fleet-sky-info.html      

Our second off-ship trip is leaving the ship in Phu My, Vietnam, flying to Siem Reap, Cambodia to tour Angkor Wat and then rejoining the ship in Singapore.   Information on Angkor Wat Is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat

 

There is also a cruise in Cambodia to visit the floating village river people in My Chrey, Tonle Sap.  This is our Cambodia cruise ship taking on supplies. It doesn’t have a website.   Noreen is thrilled.

We were already asked about the Komodo Dragons on Komodo Island.  We don’t know much about them yet other then they run free ands bite.  We’re looking forward to seeing them in person.  An interesting factoid about the island is that you can not go ashore unless you are on an organized tour either with the locals or the ship.  They don’t want people wandering about the Island and bumping into a dragon.  Our plan is to join a local tour.

We’re looking forward to your comments and questions.  It makes our trip so much more enjoyable to share it.  Send them to our e-mail, kstein@digital.net as it is often difficult to go to past blog entries and look for comments.  “See” you on board.