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My Internet Friends

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 joined a private excursion I put together in Pago Pago, American Samoa. Sandy is an experienced traveler who spent 180+ days last year on the Oceania world cruise and has also cruised on Crystal.

Another perk of being on a world cruise with Crystal is that upon embarkation you receive several pieces of "commemorative world cruise apparel." For our cruise we'll get a padded vest to keep us cozy in cooler climates, plus the men get a polo shirt and the women get a soft knit cardigan. When we met, Sandy wore the cardigan she got on a previous Crystal world cruise. It was a great weight fabric with a very small logo so I'm sure it'll get a lot of use!

A couple of weeks ago I met Ricki for breakfast. Ricki has also traveled extensively and is so knowledgeable!! In her second career she specializes in luxury cruise travel. Ricki and her husband were on the 2016 Crystal world cruise and have many Crystal cruises under their belt both before and since their world cruise. Ricki had so much helpful information that I had to take notes to be sure I remembered it all! We had such a great time that we became Facebook friends and are planning to get together with our husbands. Even as I write this entry, Ricki and her husband are on a Crystal cruise. She's posting lots of pictures on Facebook which are fun to see.

The other day our travel agent, Marv, came over for coffee. He had our cruise tickets and luggage tags ....yay! Now the trip is becoming very real!! He also had lots of other useful information that Crystal had sent him to give to us. Now to find the time to read it all! LOL!



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