Greetings to all our fellow travelers,
Mike Thompson and Cristin George are joining you on the 32 day cruise. What a bucket list! We were not asked formally to join the group though, we are quite happy that Diana and Roger was open arms to have us join them. Rocky and Peggy Alby joined a group of retired Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Homicide Sergeants for dinner on June 2011, and told us about a 32 day cruise starting in Bangkok and ending in Anchorage in April 2013 that they were going on. Mike and I were excited for Rocky and Peggy and then began to think wouldn't it be wonderful if we could go on the cruise also. We asked if they minded that we joined them and Rocky gave us all the contact information and so here we are joining y'all.
A little history on us: Mike is an Army brat and lived in MA, TX, NV and Germany. He worked as a prison guard in MA, before moving to Las Vegas to become a police officer. After 28 years, he retired as a detective Sergeant in Homicide. Mike loves scuba diving, became an instructor at 17, taught diving and repaired equipment for 25 years and for the last 12 years has owned and operated a scuba repair business here in Las Vegas. I am a retired dietitian, lived mostly in UT & NV, plus a little in CA, CO, TX and have had the travel bug for years; studied in Europe for 6 weeks one summer, took continuing education classes in (what was then) the Soviet Union and China, and have visited Argentina on a FAM trip. We lived less than a mile from each other, but we met in Grand Cayman scuba diving. I was newly certified and this was my first ocean dive. We have dove most of the Caribbean, Channel Islands in California and dove the Philippines in May and October 2011 (had another bucket list adventure there with 2 typhoons). Our cruising experience includes the Caribbean twice, Bahamas, transiting the Panama Canal and multiple non ocean liner trips. We are still debating about bringing our dive gear on this cruise...is it worth sacrificing all that weight??? hmm???
We will not be missed by any children...don't have any, but will be missed by our four legged children...three Maltese and a Miniature Poodle.
The high adventures have already started for us on this trip. We booked our own airline reservations...I'm retired and have all the time in the world, for detecting bargains. Rocky and Peggy were in Europe in October 2012 and he emailed me that there seemed to be an “issue” with our flights to Bangkok. I emailed back that everything looked fine to me. Thank goodness Rocky emailed back “Was I sure?” I examined all the flights forward and backward and a cold sweat started, “holy cow the airline has done something to the flight and we are starting at LAX". Long story short our flight had been canceled by the airline. I called the airlines and thanked them for rescheduling the flight, but we did not live near Los Angeles / LAX, we lived in Las Vegas / LAS. After an hour on the phone with the airline, they arranged for us to get from LAS to LAX. Then spent another hour with the wholesale booking agent getting them to neaten up the itinerary so that a regular person (me) could understand what was going on. Lesson learned from this: a travel agent (Alex) would have detected this sooner and taken care of it before we even knew anything was amiss.
The much less "stressful" fun stuff has also started. I really love to shop for the bargain and not just any bargain as I enjoy the art of recycled bargains (Mike is learning to appreciate it as we have both lost a combined total of >80# since January on Weight Watchers online and our clothes continue to get too big). A cruise, especially one lasting for more than a few days requires extra stuff...like fancy clothes for the evening formals, larger luggage than carry ons or dive bags and just plain stuff. We have some great recycle shops here in Las Vegas and I have found our needed larger luggage, formal wear and stuff for a fraction of the cost at the regular department stores. Hooray and happy dance!
We consider this trip part of our combined bucket lists and do not have an agenda of accomplishments other than the Great Wall, which Mike has not seen. Savoring every moment, meeting new people and having the time of our lives will be the biggest must "have to do".
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