2012 Seven Continent Discovery Preparations

We've been very busy since getting off the Maasdam on August 27th.  Just a few days after arriving home, we took the Rock Island into Chicago where we met with the ABriggs manager John and delivered our passports to him.  His task was to get pages added to the passports as well as obtaining visas for Brazil and India.  After my bad experience with the post office losing my passport in 2007, I was very happy not to have to use the postal service at all this time!  ABriggs told us that they would be hand-delivering the passports to the embassies and would also be picking them up in person.  

The paperwork for the two visas was easier than we'd expected, though we found that we had filled the India application out wrong.  It was a quick fix, and we were able to mail our new applications in just a couple days after meeting with John.   Then it was time to sit back and wait.  

He had told us that everything should be done by early October.  He was right.  Our last visa, India, was completed on October 4th.  Since we were taking the train into Chicago on Columbus Day to pick up some foreign currency, we arranged to pick up the passports at the same time.  We were very pleased that we were able to get 10-year visas for both Brazil and India, so we're set for those two countries for a few years.  

After our Voyage of the Vikings, we got together with our friends Pam & Paul Floyd. Whenever either of us does an overseas trip, we get together and share our pictures and experiences.  Pam had asked us years ago to hold off on our trip to Antarctica until she retired.  Knowing she was retiring in June of this year, we signed up for the world cruise, which includes Antarctica in the itinerary.  Pam has known about it for ages, and tried over and over to find a roommate who would be interested in going with her.  After getting together in September, she tried again, virtually going through her entire address book looking for someone.  The reaction always seemed to be the same:  “50 days?”  So after a little discussion, and since we had booked a large stateroom, we invited her to share our room with us.  After a few days of deliberation, Pam decided that she would join us, giving us the amount that she would have spent on her half of a double room in the stateroom she’d intended to get.  Then it was time for Marcia (our outstanding travel agent) to wave her magic wand and work with HAL to iron out the details of a third person in the stateroom for a partial cruise.  A few days later all was good to go.

We then arranged for the shipment of luggage on December 27^th.  With this particular itinerary comes the issue of needing several kinds of clothing – for Antarctica as well as for the tropics, not to mention for casual, smart casual and formal dress.  And that’s just the clothing!   We’ve been to the travel doctor to make sure we have the proper inoculations and medicines that a trip of this sort entails.  It's a challenge to work out the logistics of packing so many suitcases (between us), and cross-packing so that if one piece of luggage goes astray, we still have what we need.     

Recently we made a trip to Joliet to meet with Marcia and discuss some AAA-related details.  We’d already booked the complimentary shore excursion available to us through Holland America (a perk for booking early), and we discovered that we were also going to receive some complimentary shore excursions from AAA.  We selected two of those to take, one in Nha Trang, Vietnam, and the other in Cadiz, Spain.

Our final document came right before Thanksgiving, with all the information about what to expect on the cruise – various packages that we could purchase at a discount before boarding, names of the ship staff (we were delighted to see that our favorite Cruise Director Bruce and Travel Guide Barbara were still slated to be on board), and themed activities.  Now all we need to do is get through the holidays, go through our "last minute" checklist to make sure that we are ready to be away for a long stretch of time, and we’ll be on our way.    The time will fly, I’m sure.  

In the meantime we've continued to work on setting up the blog to be more user-friendly.

At the top of the page we've added some tabs that will be quick links:

• Home page - takes you to first page of blog
• ms Amsterdam Tracker - links you to the exact location of the ship and the current weather conditions at that location
• Picasa Photo Album - takes you to our Picasa web album (moved from a side gadget)

At the side we've added a few new gadgets:

• Most recently added pictures (Picasa Photostream)
• Slideshow of current trip
• Subscribe by email

In addition we've included shore excursion names in our itinerary so you can see in advance what we plan to do on port days.

We discovered a web cam that shows the ships sailing out of Fort Lauderdale (Port Everglades).  So if you’re interested in seeing us sail away on the 6^th of January at about 5:00 PM EST, check out this link and look for the ms Amsterdam (Holland America Line) on the map. Hover your mouse over the diamonds for ship names - cruise ships will be dark blue.  We’ll give a wave from the ship in case you’re watching!

http://www.portevergladeswebcam.com/ 


We're really looking forward to our trip and hope you enjoy traveling vicariously through us!  If there's anything else you would like to see on this blog, please let us know and we'll see what we can do.

Barb