We were originally suppose depart for Auckland, New Zealand, beginning January 6th to do a 66 day cruise from there to Beijing, China. Very sadly, we had to cancel the cruise due to the illness resulting in Rebecca's brother passing away on January 2nd. Luckily we had trip insurance so as soon as we received the insurance payment, we immediately booked the cruise we are about to embark upon.
This cruise is on the same cruise line, Regent Seven Seas, and the same ship, Voyager. We are just picking it up in Beijing where we were previously planning to get off. This cruise is slightly longer at 78 days. We will miss seeing New Zealand which we have not seen yet and understand it is extremely beautiful so will have to do that in the future. Maybe some of you will come with us then!! This cruise will fill many of our "bucket list" of places we have not seen however. On our 2010 World Cruise (by the way this is the same ship we did our World Cruise on) we visited some of the places this cruise will take us but there are many new parts of the world we will soon be experiencing: Sri Lanka, India, Dubai, Suez Canal, Middle Eastern countries, and Israel just to name a few. We will be flying to Beijing early and spend 3 days there touring. I have hired a private guide and driver from Katherine Lu Tours to show us around. Can't wait to visit the Great Wall of China.
The name of this blog is long so I recommend you add it to your "favorites" list so you won't have to retype it every time you want to visit the blog. If you're not sure how to do that, ask a friend to help you.
I also highly recommend you use the "blog archive" on right side of the blog to retrieve postings if you are not reading them daily. Don't want you to miss anything.
Tomorrow the Southern Methodist University journalism department is coming to interview and tape us packing for a cruise. It will air on SMU tv and in parts of Dallas. Our travel agent said they wanted to speak with "experienced" cruisers (that would be us for sure) about cruise ship safety in light of the recent Carnival mishap. Should be interesting!
So now sit back and relax. I hope you will enjoy following us, and hopefully, learn something along the way. Remember the first posting is our cruise itinerary so you may want to refer back to it so you know what's coming next! I do not anticipate any more postings until right before we leave.
