A map of our trip

One of the persons on the trip has designed a map of our journey showing our various port stops and has also set up some merchandise options using the services of Cafepress. Closer to sail date I might buy one perhaps as a Christmas present to myself.

Just a short note today as I have  been meaning to post this for all to see.

Cheers!

Fort Lauderdale for the first time planning

Since eight months from today I will be getting off an Amtrak train at Fort Lauderdale I thought it would be a good opportunity to review my plans to visit this embarkation city.

While I have set foot in Fort Lauderdale on train stops to and from Miami I have never stayed there so I needed to do some planning and this is where both the internet and Cruise critic members helped immensely to decide where to stay.

First I had to decide how many days and nights I could afford to spend pre-cruise and given the costs of the cruise that would be an issue. Travelling in the middle of winter across the north tier states from Seattle to Chicago and onto to Washington DC before turning south for warmer weather also had to be factored in. In the end I choose to come in two days early which really gives me and evening, one full day and embarkation morning to see some of the sites.

I know the Amtrak station isn't located near many of the better hotels and attractions and I don't want to be hauling around three pieces of heavy luggage all over the place.

So after checking Hotwire - Hotels.com etc. and advice from Cruise Critics members on the Florida board I opted to take the Marriott Renaissance Cruise Port hotel - it gets good reviews - is next door to the port entrance and depending on which terminal we sail out of perhaps walkable from the hotel.





I have an on-line cruising buddy who is from the Vancouver area who has stayed there and recommends it and he has fairly high expectations when it comes to accomodations.

The only problem was that I was outside of the Hotwire booking period and for budget reasons wanted to get that expense out of the way but I happened to hear that there was an online special being offered both by Marriott and the usual travel discounters - the problem with the Marriott was that the special price - about $100.00 cheaper per night was only good the first night as the second night was part of the weekends which are there busier days.

So I started checking on-line sources - most were showing the discounted price for both nights so I opted to got that route but in my price comparsion I noticed for instance that Expedia had a higher service fee than Hotels. com - I ended up taking it through Hotels.com - while higher than I like to pay - having work for the YMCa for over 40 years - staying in there lower price accomodations was never an issue - at about $135.00 a night it is a considerable saving and if I can walk to the port I will save some money there as well.

After  I booked this hotel I posted to our roll call and it appears a number of others are staying there as well - so many in fact there has been a suggestion that perhaps we have a land based meet and greet the night before with one person even offering to contact the hotel and see if a room could be reserved for such a gathering - will keep you updated on that.

Well with the hotel taken care off I realized that I knew little about the city so I search and found there tourist info site. www.sunny.org which I bookmarked - but being a little of the old school also sent away for a hard copy - also visited my local Auto Association office and picked up more info there.

Haven't given a lot of thought of how to spent my time in Fort Lauderdale because after  four + days on the train I don't know how tired I might be.

I like to walk and take in the sights that way - am a photography junkie or addict - generally like to do a HOHO type of touring especially the first time in the city so will likely utilize the Sun Coast Trolley - get a day pass and go from there - as mentioned I am not a big beach fan so will likely just walk over and talk a look but the Intercoastal Waterway has always intrigued me.

Hope you enjoy - feel free to comment.

Next up - Amtraking it across America.

The information highway

After I booked the cruise and before I went much further along the planning path and being a somewhat stickler for details I decided to start a cruise binder - while much of the info could be kept digitally I am enough of the old guard that I like to have a paper trail.

So I found an old large 4" binder and started to put it together - I basically put a divider in for each day of the cruise - yes all 49 days - then put in an info sheet with the day, date, port or sea day and if it is a tender port, time in port etc. I even colored coded them - green for port days and pink for sea days so if I am doing a quick search I know whether it is a sea or port day. I also an writing info I get from other sources and if I booked a private tour that info as well - once I get closer to actual date I will update those sheets and print them out.

I even got more inventive when it came to excursions - printing them out on yellow sheets and putting general info articles on your standard white. It seems to be working so now when I open a particular port it is easy for me to find what I am looking for.

Just a short entry for now.

Next up - finding out about my embarkation port of Fort Lauderdale and booking of the hotel and train.

Future articles - paying for the trip and one on sourcing of info and excursions.

Cheers

Introducing the ship - The Grand Princess

This is the Grand Princess - I copied it from the ships page on the Princess web site and will be my home for the full 49 days - it has been updated in the past year or two - it will also be the largest ship that I have sailed on - the previous biggest one would be the Norwegian Pearl when I took it to Alaska a couple of years ago with some cruising friends that I met on a repo cruise in the Caribbean - her mother had never been to Alaska and promised her a cruise there for her 80th birthday - while I am diverging from this cruise it was interesting to note on that cruise that the daughter - not exactly a party pooper had trouble keeping up with the exploits of her mother.

I have an inside cabin mid - ship on Baja Deck 11 - considering the challenge of booking this cruise and taking the first one available it appears to be in not too bad of a location - it is only two cabins from an elevator and while I generally walk the steps on cruises - helps with the weight control - it is nice to know that if I enjoy one or two or three or whatever number too many of adult beverages either on the ship or in port I won't have far to get to my room. I generally don't spend much time in my cabin so an inside makes sense and I usually leave the bathroom lite on and door slightly ajar to make it seems more human.

Picture of an inside cabin on the Grand.


http://delivery.vrxstudios.com/princess/vrxviewer.asp?id=676 Click on the link to get a virtual view of an inside cabin.

I notice that some people cruising on the Carnival Splendour at about the same time have linked to  this blog - hope you enjoy my posts which will become more frequent as the various items on my bucket list get taken care of.

The next item that I will be doing is contacting my financial advisor who was a long time client at my former place of work and believes strongly if you don't spend it when you are alive you are probably missing a lot of fun things in your life. My saying these days is "if I don't spend it now with the way the markets are going - and here in Canada our overall economy and debt levels aren't a big concern - it is going to be gone anyways.

As I have no siblings left and no off-spring I am basically free to do as I please with my investments.

I also outlined my cruising bucket list for the next 3 - 4 years - interesting to see what he comes up with as a strategy.

I chose anytime dining - as a NCL regular eating when I like and in most cases it is earlier rather than later - the thought of set times doesn't appeal to me.
Having not been on this ship before and having limited exposure to Princess' ships will need to spend times figuring out which speciality restaurants I might try - also need to see if I can get a listing of the machines in the gym so that I can get a personal trainer at the Y to design a routine for me.

On my other cruises I generally do a lot of walking in the ports and cities that we visit but I am a little more leery of that in some of the ports stops we will be making on this journey - Rio worries me the most as it is the height of Carnaval time and things are likely to be chaotic with all the revellers - I will probably stick with tours there.

I cut this short in the original post because a friend called and wanted to know if I wanted to join him while he had dinner - I had eaten but always enjoy going to the White Spot - www.whitespot.ca - being only two blocks from home and located inside the Best Western downtown hotel-  it is like a second home to both of us. I just had a couple of glasses of 7-UP - free refills and because it is a holiday here in Canada - Victoria Day - in honor of the former British Monarch the restaurant closed an hour earlier.

Cheers