25 Days to go

25 days. Sounds like a long time doesn't it? We are starting to get serious about what we are going to pack, and how many suitcases it will take. We will be gone a total of 70 days, and going from fall temperatures to summer, back to fall and then winter, ACK!

So I figured that this time I would go ahead and buy a scale to weigh our baggage before we leave, and take with us for the return. We had bought some new luggage before our last cruise, and thought that it was fairly light. Well, my new luggage scale came in the mail today and I had to check out our luggage.

ACK! Our three large bags weigh 10.5, 10.3, and 10.3 pounds apiece. So it's bad enough that the airlines restrict you to #50 per bag, but in reality based on our bags weight, we get less than #40 pounds of clothes etc.

And because we are flying US Airways back to DC from LA, we cannot have more than 2 checked bags each because I absolutely refuse to pay $100 (ACK!!) for that third bag.

So now the search is on through our closets trying to find the lightest clothes that we have to help keep the weight down.

The good thing is I was able to convince Sharon to purchase the unlimited laundry package for the cruise. We may have to iron some things along the way, but at least we won't have to spend hours of our vacation in the laundry room. With the unlimited laundry, we can send out stuff daily if we want and it will be back within a couple of days at the most. That should help us cut down on the amount of clothes that we take.

We are pretty excited about our pre-cruise time in Northern CA., as I managed to find a highly recommended guide there that only charges $25 per hour. We have set up an all day private tour with her for the first full day that we are there, encompassing the redwood forest area, the beaches, and maybe even a moose sighting.

That's all for now, as the departure day approaches and we actually do some packing I will let everyone know just how we did.

Cheers!

Shore Tour Updates

With about six weeks to go, we have finalized more shore tours. All are either private tours or we will be using hop-on hop-off buses, or local transportation.

Added to our growing list we have tours scheduled for Nuka Hiva, Hobart, Moorea, Christchurch, Pago Pago, Suva Fiji, Nuka'alofa, Tonga, Apia Samoa, Napier, another tour on the second day in Bora-Bora, Papeete, and a Blue Mountain Tour in Sydney.

We are still looking for something in Kona, Honolulu, and Hilo but haven't firmed anything up as yet. Any suggestions from folks would be greatly appreciated!! We feel pretty good about our tours cost wise. We are under $100 per port day average for both of us. I think that's quite reasonable personally.

The wife is starting to talk about breaking out the luggage and "pre-packing" to see what we need to take. We are hoping to keep it down to two checked bags plus a carry-on or less if possible.

Cheers!