January 15, 2018 -- Preparations

Welcome to our blog – a diary of our latest grand adventure, as we sail on Crystal Cruise’s 2018 World Cruise 4, “South Pacific Reflections.” We are Jim and Ginny, the couple on the left in the photo shown above. We plan to update this blog, to describe what we’re seeing and doing, whenever Internet connections are possible along the way.

This is an unusual and exciting adventure for us, and for Crystal Cruises, as they have two ships participating in world cruises this year, with four optional itineraries. We chose option 4, which means we will sail onboard both ships during our travels. We begin the adventure in Los Angeles, California on January 23rd onboard Crystal Serenity, and return to Fort Lauderdale, Florida 98 days later (April 30th) onboard Crystal Symphony. If all goes according to plan, we (and all other WC-4 passengers) will be switching ships in Sydney, Australia.

Along the way, we should be visiting 49 ports in 19 different countries. One of the highlights for us will be the 10 port stops in New Zealand over a period of 11 days. We’ll also be in French Polynesia for eight days and may be able, finally, to visit Easter Island. Sea conditions there are often too rough to transfer onto the island. We sat in the waters off Easter Island in the past and never had a chance to go ashore.

Shown below is a map of our intended route. You’ll see annotations such as “Sydney Voyage 8204,” “Auckland Voyage 8205,” etc.. It’s possible for people to book passage on one or more “segments” of the world cruise. What that means for us is that some fellow passengers will be boarding and others leaving at the specific intermediate stops of the full world cruise shown in larger letters on the map.

You may view our port-by-port itinerary for the full 98 day world cruise from the Itinerary tab at the top of the page for this blog, adjacent to the Home tab.

We’ve been planning for this trip for over a year, and are definitely ready. We have all our travel documents; we’ve updated all the necessary immunizations; and we’re signed up for some of the excursions being offered along the way.

We contracted with Luggage Concierge -- a company recommended by Crystal Cruises – to ship the biggest part of our luggage directly from our home to the ship. They set up an appointment for UPS to pick up the bags this past Tuesday (Jan 11^th). Exactly on time, a big brown truck arrived and Tyler, with UPS, loaded the bags and was gone in less than 10 minutes. We’re hoping all four pieces of luggage will be in our stateroom when we board Crystal Serenity on January 23^rd in Los Angeles. They’re shipping the luggage across the country – from Florida to California – by truck in the middle of winter; that’s why the pickup in Florida is nearly two weeks before being needed in L. A. We assume the bags are stored safely somewhere near the port if they arrive early. Crystal will reimburse us for the cost of shipping the luggage (up to $500 per person).

   

We still have essential things that we’ll bring with us when we fly to Los Angeles next Sunday  – tickets, passports, laptop computer, camera, medicines, etc. Unfortunately, all of it is covering our dining room table right now, but we should have it all packed within the next few days.

We’ve been fortunate enough to do a lot of traveling over the years and have a pretty good idea of what we need to bring with us, but it’s still a chore. Highest priority is to make sure we remember all the essential things – we have checklists for them. We can always do a little shopping in L.A., Honolulu, or elsewhere for other things, if necessary.

Our next blog entry will probably be next week, either in L.A. or soon after boarding the ship.

Jim & Ginny