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20 Days Until We Set Sail

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 we checked out ok, we'll be good for at least the next 3 months. We've also had 3 months' worth of prescription medication ordered and filled. We aren't on many 'regular' medications but have gotten prescriptions for infection, nausea, migraines, diarrhea and a host of other medical conditions we might run into during our voyage. These are being stored in a large bowl in our bedroom -

Both of us have lists of non-prescription items to bring that will last us 3 months - things like contact lens solution, razor blades, suntan lotion, band-aids. over the counter medications and toiletry items. We're also bringing extra pairs of prescription eyeglasses and contact lenses. These are currently living in our bath tub -
In preparation for this trip I've spent a lot of time reading blog posts written by people who've taken world cruises as well as reading the 'World Cruise' thread on the Cruise Critic website. There are lots of interesting and helpful tips - many of them geared toward making the most use of the space in our cabin/closet/bathroom.

Did you know that cruise ship cabins are made of metal? By bringing heavy duty magnetic hooks, we can give ourselves more places to hang things. Apparently one of the other things we may want to hang are dry erase boards so we can leave messages for each other.

One other tip was to bring thin, metal hangars to replace the bulky wood ones provided by the ship. I love this suggestion as I wasn't sure we'd have enough space to hang all our clothes. There were so many helpful ideas that I now have 3 boxes in a spare bedroom filled with these hopefully useful items!



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