Another 100 Days Gone

Well it is time for that 3 to turn into 2 on our Princess countdown widget. The only problem was that in the last 100 days for some reason the widget clock as re aligned itself with something which makes the days click over at 2 am in the morning.... so you can understand for me to get this screenshot means that I had to set the alarm for 1.45am ......... well that would of made for a good story until Garry suggested that I just go in and change the internal clock of the PC and the widget will adjust itself again.... ok ok so I cheated and I did this before I went to bed...

So this last 100 days have quite eventful as we have been vicariously living our world cruise through the blogs of this year’s world cruisers. We are carefully reading these blogs which help in determining what we should do when we visit the same places next year... I am pleased to say that this years bloggers have taken us under their wings and are constantly feeding us tips along the way...

Each morning after I have made the lunches kissed and waved everyone goodbye I get my cup of coffee, sit in front of the computer and look up each blog in the hope that someone has posted an entry since I checked last.... ( that would be just before going to bed ....... oh and did I mention every time I walk pass the computer throughout the day ). As I said in my last entry when we know that the Dawn Princess is about to dock at a port there is frenzy of messages on our Cruise Critic thread with everyone trying to get the best webcam shot to post on the list.... actually it is a really nice gathering of like minded people . ( a nice way of saying “Tragics”).

I would like to thank this year’s bloggers as they are doing a wonderful job ... not only do they keep us inform but they are so prompt with their entries.... as for someone hanging on their every word this is a real bonus.... and each have their own style and their own little trade mark like Phillip and his quotes..... Garry thinks that we should do this and go prepared with spare quotes incase we don’t hear any LOL.....

The idea will be keep it simple and don’t turn it into a chore otherwise all the entries will go by the wayside... which is my biggest fear as I would not want to let my followers down....

Speaking of Followers if you are following this blog please sign up as a follower, with a big list of people that will certainly keep the incentive going!!!

Whilst I am in charge of the port research and blogging, Garry is in charge of the Video...... who needs to spend $350 on the Ships DVD when you have my husband onboard ...... He has been collecting some great footage of the places we will visit so he can blend it in with our own footage to create our own major production ( Steven Spielberg eat your heart out)..... Whilst Garry is Producer, Director, cameraman and editor, my input will be Musical Director and No 1 Critic LOL... My job is collect music along the way to match up with each of our ports... Any Ideas ?

 

Princess to appoint New World Cruise Port Lecturer!!

Well with all the research that I have been doing that statement could be true.

With the current World Cruise 2010 well and truly underway there is a large contingent of my Cruise Critic family following their every nautical mile. We spend hours copying bridge cams, searching for port cams, hanging on to every word they write in their blogs.

We can no longer walk past an ABC Shop without calling in to see if there is another DVD on somewhere we are visiting...

It is funny the different reactions you get from people when you tell them that you are going on a world cruise.... Obviously when you mention it to a fellow CCer they turn green with envy, but when you mention it to others they sceptically look at you and say ...” Gee that is a long time on a boat “ . When you talk about all the cities that you visit they say “how many days do you spend there?” when you say just one.... they once again give you that look....

That is the cue for my spiel on all exotic and amazing places that we will visit ... some that you would never have imagined visiting if planning your own trip... the fact that we can pack as much as we like, unpack once and repack only when we arrive home.... oooh I go goosy just thinking about it.... a la carte food and entertainment each night for no extra cost!!! Gosh I want to go in 2012 too .......

Anyway we still 334 days out from our cruise... and we have already started that “hmm I should buy that, it would be good for the cruise!! “ Well guys, if you are down at Wharf 5 on Wednesday 25th May 2011..... those 2 people with the big grins on their faces and 20 bags ... WILL BE US!!

Travel Trivia Challenge Update

The Game was played by myself, Garry and Carly (our 18 year old who is midway through her travel and tourism course!! )

All I can say is that the game board looks easier than the actual game... LOL...

As I mentioned in my earlier post there are 6 continents. The first being Asia.... I should have realised when I had already used up my first 20 days before moving to the next continent I was in trouble, though we were all neck to neck...

Next was Africa..... that is where I died in the pants... Garry had a much better idea and Carly was currently studying it... 50 days gone for me and I am only a third of the way around.

Ahh Oceania.... yippee flew through this one but so did everyone else...

Oh ooh South America!! This continent saw me kicked out of the game not so much cause I couldn’t answer all the questions but I kept getting the penalty cards ( baggage handlers strike add 3 days or plane delay add 2 .... I knew we sailed for a reason LOL ). Carly was ok as she just finished studying the area and Garry just answered every question with Bolivia or the Andes and he got the questions right!!

The battle continued into North America but the winner only won by default as the other player reached the 80 days first!!

Shows you what tragic I am ... if princess Australia doesn’t sail there, then I don’t know the answers LOL .... unless asked a true or false... we found 95% of the answers were true...

We decided next time we will play back to front as we think that Europe and North America would be easier to start with....

Joanne .... Off to do some studying...

We are Such Dags!

Just had to share our little purchase from yesterday....

Whilst wandering around Borders yesterday looking at Kobo’s , as you do! We spotto’d a game called “Travel Trivia Challenge”. The object of the game is to travel around the world covering the 6 continents within 80 days.

Each continent has 6 spaces and to move forward you have to answer a question right about that continent. Each time you are asked a question it is counted as 1 day ... so on and so on.... we couldn’t resist ..... so we bought it!!

The only disappointing thing for me was that the little Tors are aeroplanes.... I think they should be boats !!

Joanne

Bon Voyage World cruise 2010

I know I know I said I would not blog again till another 100 days had passed but I thought this was a milestone that needed mentioning.

On Friday 21st May our Dawn Princess set sail for World Cruise II, by the time it gets to World Cruise III they should have it down perfect.

Being the tragic that I am I couldn’t let the opportunity pass of going down and seeing our girl in port. Princess tried to put a little atmosphere into the event by decorating the wharf with balloons and a banner. They had balloons on the big Wharf 8 sign as you drove in, a banner celebrating the World Cruise 2010 and balloons on each of poles heading down to the baggage drop off area...

Inside the Terminal they had balloons up all along the check in counters... but you know what was missing .... Music... wouldn’t it have been great if there was something to get everyone in the party mood.... well especially us who wouldn’t get to be up on deck for sailaway...

Just as to be expected the demographics seemed to be of the older generation, this was especially noticeable with the queue of wheels chairs waiting for their embarkation photos to be taken. But I would have to say there was also a fair share of the baby boomers spending their kids inheritance....

Walking around with my little puppy dog face didn’t work and no one offered to take me along. I just loved watching and listening to the excitement of the passengers in awe of the ship and pointing out where they thought their cabin would be... Those with smiles from ear to ear and those a little snappy from the stress of getting on board... a stress that disappears once you hear that first ding as you step on the boat....

Whilst I was waiting for Garry to turn up I decided to walk around to other side of Darling Harbour to get some shots from there.... You can imagine my excitement when I got to around to the Maritime Museum and saw Ella’s Pink Lady bobbing up and down... I took a photo with the two ladies that have circumnavigated the world... I know which one I prefer!!

The weather wasn’t the best, though Sydney gave them everything from sunshine to thunder storm and back to sunshine again.

Oh well... my clock says 368 days ...some days will pass quickly others will drag I am sure... but I am sure that our excitement will be enough to get me through!!

I have counted 100 days and I will count 400 more

Well we have reached our first milestone... the five has changed to a four.... We know it doesn’t sound like much, but it is all we have got.....LOL

We have our trusty Princess countdown clock ticking away on our desktop and every minute, every hour and every day we watch her go down by one.

We have not wasted this time that is very slowly passing, much to Garry’s amusement I have been filling up a very large folder with information on all the ports we will be visiting.... Filling up our flash drive with more and more files, which Garry takes to work and prints off for me. We have so much information that I am sure I will have go through this process again closer to time so it will be up to date.

Our greatest reference point has been Cruise Critic just reading other peoples reviews and recommendations for each port makes me more and more confident that we can do a lot of our sightseeing privately.

Our Cruise Critic Roll call is starting to grow with people doing the whole trip, those who are only doing sectors and to my excitement those who are doing it for the second time... how cool is that!!!

We have started collecting money... well foreign money that is... we are trying to collect some small denominations from people that are travelling to different regions. We have India covered and I am in the process of getting some small American notes...

So now we will sit back and watch another 100 days tick by slowly but surely!!

NB ... My daughter Carly (18) just rolled her eyes when she saw me diligently watching for the last minute to click by so I could get the screen shot above LOL

I Will Count 500 days.......

Never in our wildest dreams did we ever think that we would be embarking on a World Cruise. Every time we read through the list of countries we will visit, we pinch ourselves to make sure this isn’t some fantastic dream.

Ooh, there is always the apprehension that we will only visit these cities for only one day, but there are 42 of them! Casablanca, Lisbon, Bergen, my god we had to look up where some of these places were as we never knew they existed, and guess what? we are going there.

Once we made our decision that 2011 was going to be our year,  there was the painstaking wait for the itinerary to be released. 

Whilst on our Sun Princess 2009 Xmas Cruise, we thought we would try our luck and cajole the Future Cruise Sales officer in giving us a sneak peek on what was to come...

Blake was quite insistent that there was no information available as yet. I turned and smiled at him and said “there must be something on there, it is going to be released soon! I know! I read it on CRUISE CRITIC!”

“Humour me.... just take a look” ... Keys were struck, screens changed, and then his little eyes lit up ... I knew we had it.. unable to print out a list we sat scrawling all the ports on a small piece of paper.

We thought we were so clever and had a real coup... well that was until the next day when Princess sent out a global email announcing the Official Release of the 2011 World Cruise. Oh well clever for a day...

After spending the last 10 days in the very front cabin on the Sun Princess we decided that if we are to be in an inside cabin for 104 days it was going to be midship!! So we booked and marked our spot, which will be known as our Broom Closet away from home....

Never had we booked a holiday so far in advance, so when we logged on our Cruise personalizer for the first time this is what we were faced with! 500 DAYS TO GO, we didn’t think that countdown clocks could go that high!!

Oh well, all we can do is sit back and count each day,

 ONE DAY AT A TIME !!