Staples just called. They have finished printing the 500 page briefing book that Cynthia has researched over the last 6 months. We will be prepared, at least as measured by the volume of paper that we take along.
We've also gotten our shots and prescriptions. Yellow fever (only took 4 trips to the clinic to get the proper paperwork), Hepatitis A, Polio, Typhoid, Malaria and seasickness.
We've booked about 60 ship's excursions, along with 5 overnight trips away from the boat. We'll get to schedule our specialty restaurant visits early in November. By my count there are 76 sea days and 104 port days at 91 unique ports. We've chosen ship's tours where we want the security, guarantee of getting back to the boat on time, and they are going where we want to go. We have maps and walking tours for the ones we do on our own in an attempt to see everything we can. Places like Hong Kong and Sydney we'll do entirely on our own, with the help of the local Hop On Hop Off tour bus. We have bus schedules and routes. We have ferry schedules. We have 500 pages of notes.
We have T-Mobile phones that should work in about 2/3 of the places we visit. Maps.me provides maps and routing without a data connection. We have Magellan Triton handheld GPS units and have done maps for every port and excursion. We have about 600 waypoints or points of interest added to GPS. We've even marked MacDonald's in many ports (we'll say that's because Mac's usually has good WiFi, but after months of Insignia's food we may crave a Big Mac.)
Here's the map of our trip. Oceania's Insignia is the vessel. Departs Miami on Jan 4, 2016 and returns there on July 1. Unfortunately we're traveling the wrong way around the globe, so we'll have 24 days of 23 hours, and one day added in crossing the Date Line. I'd rather do it the other way, but then I'm not driving the boat.
More to come as the time nears. Just redid the blog layout to make it more user-friendly. I hope.
We've also gotten our shots and prescriptions. Yellow fever (only took 4 trips to the clinic to get the proper paperwork), Hepatitis A, Polio, Typhoid, Malaria and seasickness.
We've booked about 60 ship's excursions, along with 5 overnight trips away from the boat. We'll get to schedule our specialty restaurant visits early in November. By my count there are 76 sea days and 104 port days at 91 unique ports. We've chosen ship's tours where we want the security, guarantee of getting back to the boat on time, and they are going where we want to go. We have maps and walking tours for the ones we do on our own in an attempt to see everything we can. Places like Hong Kong and Sydney we'll do entirely on our own, with the help of the local Hop On Hop Off tour bus. We have bus schedules and routes. We have ferry schedules. We have 500 pages of notes.
We have T-Mobile phones that should work in about 2/3 of the places we visit. Maps.me provides maps and routing without a data connection. We have Magellan Triton handheld GPS units and have done maps for every port and excursion. We have about 600 waypoints or points of interest added to GPS. We've even marked MacDonald's in many ports (we'll say that's because Mac's usually has good WiFi, but after months of Insignia's food we may crave a Big Mac.)
Here's the map of our trip. Oceania's Insignia is the vessel. Departs Miami on Jan 4, 2016 and returns there on July 1. Unfortunately we're traveling the wrong way around the globe, so we'll have 24 days of 23 hours, and one day added in crossing the Date Line. I'd rather do it the other way, but then I'm not driving the boat.
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| Around the world cruise |
More to come as the time nears. Just redid the blog layout to make it more user-friendly. I hope.
