Opals and Romeos

We're really coming down to the wire with just 20 days to go before we set sail. Amazon has been making daily deliveries ... not for the holidays ... but delivering 'must have' items that we've ordered for our trip. Many of our excursions are booked but there are still a decent number that need to be researched and reserved. We're taking some tours offered by Crystal and some that we've booked privately. Although we usually prefer private tours, for this trip there are a number of places - particularly in Africa - where we're opting to go with a Crystal offering. One or two are for safety's sake. A couple of others are day safaris which are a distance from the port so by taking a Crystal excursion there won't be a problem if we return late. We've both made the rounds of doctor appointments over the past couple of months - dermatologists, dentists, eye doctors & general physicians as well as a couple of other specialists. Hopefully since...

I love the internet ... especially when it comes to planning a cruise. With just a few keystrokes there's an abundance of information at your fingertips (literally). ;-) One of my favorite sites is  Cruise Critic which contains a wealth of information from other cruisers. I use it to find recommendations for private tour guides when we don't want to take the ship's excursions and when I go to the 'Roll Call' section of the site, I can meet and chat with others (virtually) who will be sailing with us on our cruise. From the Roll Call I learned that someone who lives nearby (Sandy) will be on our 2019 cruise and another person who also lives close by was on the Crystal world cruise a couple of years ago (Ricki). Sandy and I met for coffee a few weeks ago. I was looking forward to meeting her not only because she was on our cruise but also because through the 'Roll Call' I'd joined a private excursion she put together in Walvis Bay, Namibia and she j...

Our 3-month 'world' cruise departs in just over a month. We're sailing on a Crystal ship called Serenity. We've been on the Serenity a couple of times before but it's recently been in dry dock for a major refurbishment and we're looking forward to seeing all that's new. The Crystal website has a 'check-in and planning' section where we can book services such as massages, hair and nail appointments, dining reservations and excursions. Although I'm not counting the days until we leave, each time I check into the site it tells me how many days are left. As of today there are 36 days until we set sail. Our new passports arrived. They're the 'large' size, having 52 pages versus the 'standard' size which have 28 pages. There are 43 blank pages for visas and entry/exit stamps. Some countries that we'll be going to require more than the usual 2 stamps (in and out) and some are picky and require blank pages that face each other...