January 6, 2016
The tyranny of eastward travel begins. 24 painful days of 23 hours included in this journey.  Makes it very hard to get up in the morning.

January 7, 2016
Beautiful weather this morning and sailed in to Aruba right on time at 10.  There were 2 Royal Caribbean ships also in port of approximately 2000 passengers each, so our ship of 600+ looked very small in comparison.

We left the ship before 10:30 and found the local bus kiosk at the end of the sidewalk out of the port area....right where my research said it was supposed to be!  I'm always glad when that happens!!

We took the bus to the Fishermen's huts and also saw people kite sailing so that made for some colorful pictures.

Caught the next bus north, after ascertaining that it was indeed going close to the California Lighthouse located in the northwest tip of the island near Arashi Beach.   Unfortunately, it is now covered in scaffolding as it undergoes maintenance.  

For you snorkelers, the bus driver said that the very best beach for snorkeling is at Arashi Beach, which has off street parking, and said it is where the locals go.  The bus goes there often so you wouldn't even need the parking, plus it is a nice way to see that part of the island and leave the driving to a local!

We window-shopped along the streets by the port and wondered how all of the gold and diamond shops stayed in business!

We returned to the ship, had lunch, showered and later played a very gentle game of trivia in the Oceania Lounge.   No special events or shows tonight since the ship doesn't leave port until 11:00.

On to Curacao tomorrow!       cynthia

January 5

On board and underway.  Oceania made the embarkation process much more difficult than it needed to be, and they embark a shipful of people almost every day.  I would have thought they could do it better.  I originally wrote a long diatribe, but rather we just put it in the background and continue with the cruise.

The Epic was a wonderful hotel in downtown Miami, and we had the opportunity to walk all around the Bayfront area.  Even took the MetroMover, although we didn't experience the live shark that Dave Barry made so famous.  Even after living for more than 20 years in South Florida we had never spent any time in Miami.  It was a pleasant stay in Miami provided by Oceania.
At 11:30 we left our room for the bus trip to the ship, and by 3pm we were in our room aboard.  The hours in between were painful and should have been handled better by Oceania.  They should send the people in charge of this operation to Disney World to see how to manage people.

Once aboard, things were much nicer.  The room is small but Cynthia planned well for storage.  SIx suitcases worth of stuff had to go somewhere.  Everything we have fits in the drawers and closets provided, with extra stuff under the beds.  Only thing to mar the process was the apparent explosion of my smaller suitcase during transit.  It arrived taped shut, although everything was still inside.  During a particularly violent transition the zipper must have ripped open -- both zipper pulls were gone.  So that suitcase became part of the trash pile, and was hauled off by the very nice cabin staff.  I'll worry about getting everything off the ship later.

The Miami bayfront is a riot of color in the evening, significantly different than our last departure from Miami 10 years ago.  The Intercontinental has a light show going on -- I wonder if the people inside are aware of it?

Today is cloudy and rainy -- I did my walking on a treadmill in the fitness center rather than walking on the open deck.  The Captain has invited us (and a hundred others) for a reception for the World Cruisers.   Mimosas for all!

...
Back from the reception and lunch with interesting news...240 people are Around The Worlding.  There's even a special ATW Hostess and ATW Concierge for us.  Not sure just what they do, but the attention is appreciated.  We met Sue, a first time cruiser who is sailing the entire 180 days....what an introduction to cruising!  And what a brave person.

Still another day and a half to the first port, Aruba.   The sun has come out, it's hot and humid.

Dave

Happy New Year to our family and friends  who are reading our blog!

Today was the day that we did all of the little final things.  I cleaned house and washed everything that didn't move.  I cleaned out the fridge and the pantry which required that I eat many cookies! I couldn't throw them away, could I?  

 David dropped off books at the  library and went to the camera store to purchase some back up batteries for our cameras.  Evidently the back up battery failed (how ironic!) so he wanted some more.  Thanks  Delray Camera Shop!

Our 2 ton rolling duffels are packed and ready to go.  Neighbors in Boca have been hugged, car washed and Sta-bil has been added to the tank since it will sit for 6 months.  Bills and IRS have been taken care of!

 My buddies that I see everyday on my beach walk said they wanted to come with me but I reminded them that the cabin was small and they were large!  Our friends Nick & Joan are going to watch our place here and the wonderful women of NC- Sarah,  the Sues, Holly, Judy, and assorted doggies- are going to take care of Home.  

Tomorrow the town car picks us up at noon and takes us to the Epic Hotel in Miami.  David and I hope to walk around and look at some of the cool places, meet up with the others at 5 at the hotel who are cruising the whole 180 days, eat somewhere, and try to get some sleep!  

Hey, Munchkin... I have Boca the Pelican with me so I'll try to include her in some photos!
David and I hope you all have a wonderful and gentle winter.  I am sad to miss college basketball but extremely happy to miss all of the political primaries and commentaries!!  

Take care of each other......hugs, c

Dec 23

One more milestone achieved!  Today Luggage Free picked up 4 big suitcases which will be shipped to our cabin.  Because we will be sailing on the entire 180 day cruise, Oceania is paying for the luggage to be shipped! 

 We will each have a rolling duffel bag and a backpack that we will be responsible for and those are mostly packed.  We need to get this cruise started so that we quit adding things to the duffel bags!  Notice I didn't say anything about removing things from the duffel....only adding!

Got our 2nd HepA vaccine while we were in NC this past week, had Christmas with our amazing family, said good-bye to our wonderful neighbors, and drove back to SFlorida.  We're ready to sail!!!

December 15, 2015:

I thought  I'd write a brief note about our itinerary and ship.  We are on the beautiful Insignia of Oceania cruise line, built in 1998 and refurbished in 2014.  She is about 590 feet in length, her beam is 83.5 feet and maximum draught is 19.5 feet.  She carries stabilizers and cruises at 18 knots.  Since she is a small ship she can go up rivers and into ports that the larger ships cannot.

(picture by Dave of Insignia in the Italian port of Civitavecchia)

There are 9 full decks and the 10 is a lovely place to get a 360 degree view of the world.  She can carry 684 people with an international staff of 400.  There are five restaurants: some elegant, some  casual, and no formal nights so I don't have to pack my tiara.

There is evening entertainment, a few bars and a casino,which won't get our $ since David the engineer knows the odds!  Room service is offered for all meals which we might take advantage of some evenings after returning from excursions tired and sunscreen grubby.

There is a coffee bar (Yay!) and afternoon tea, a library, pools, gym, spa, beauty shop, clinic with medical staff, and small walking track on the 10 deck with about 13 laps to a mile! 

We have a 200 sq. ft cabin with veranda  on the 7th deck right in the ship's middle to defeat mal de mer! Several people have remarked on being in 200 sq ft with their spouse for 6 months but we vow to remain married AND friends, and have I mentioned.... the pool, the library and the walking track?

   (picture by Cynthia at Portofino)

We head for the Epic Hotel in Miami on Jan 3 and will take the opportunity to walk around, catch the trolley, and ride the metromover since it has been years since we've seen the city of Miami.  The next morning staff takes us to the ship to start our great adventure--and to celebrate David's birthday!

For those asking about our itinerary, here it is!  It is too long to list, but you can keep track of us by clicking away.    We're not promising an entry every day, but we'll post often........cynthia

https://www.oceaniacruises.com/180-day-world-cruises/miami-to-miami-INS160104G/

Another hurdle passed on the road to Round The World:  CIBT returned our brand new 52 page passports with visas for China, India and Brazil.  Oceania also sent us forms for Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Australia that we need to fill out before we board.  And have lots of passport photos to go with them.  And once we get going, there are a bunch of other countries that we'll handle as we get to them.  Good thing we got the fat passports with lots of room for visas.

Thankfully, Oceania included the visa costs in the RTW package.

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.

Around the world cruise

More to come as the time nears.  Just redid the blog layout to make it more user-friendly.  I hope.