The Adventure Continues

Wow! Yesterday we celebrated New Year's Day 2011 with friends at our house watching the Florida Gators from the University of Florida beat the Nittany Lions from the Pennsylvania State University (my graduate school alma mater). Today we took down the holiday decorations and needed to force ourselves to come to the realization that we have only 17 days before we set sail on our World Cruise--Part 2. How did we get to this point?

I think I was impressed with the itinerary for the 2011 World Cruise on the Pacific Princess when I first saw it in our travel agent's office while we were booking the 2010 World Cruise. I even considered suggesting that we wait until 2011 to take Ken's major trip, but decided that it was better to go forth with a trip in the near future than gamble on one more than a year away. Ken started to get interested when we saw a copy of the detailed itinerary while on the 2010 World Cruise. Learning that more than 100 passengers on that trip had already booked the 2011 World Cruise only made it that more inviting. However, we returned home to revel in our memories of what was our trip of a lifetime.

While I knew that Ken was accessing the Cruise Critic site for the 2011 World Cruise, I had no idea that he was writing that his wife really wanted to take this trip. He was the one who really wanted to take it! (Of course, I would have no objection to be part of another world cruise!) I had returned to teaching at the State College of Florida and was planning on teaching during the spring semester of 2011.

Several things happened at the end of October that changed those plans. First, Ken kept waiting for the rate for a balcony room to drop, which never happened as the balcony rooms sold out. Second, because of a student financial aid problem at SCF, my department could not offer me any online courses so that I could finish my long process for certification in online instruction. (After all the work I have done, I may never be certified in Florida.) Third, a lovely and generous couple whom we traveled with on the last world cruise wrote Ken an email stating that if we did not have the money at that time to pay for the cruise, they would loan us the entire sum.  (Our bank would probably have not offered the money that easily nor would we ever accept a loan to take such a trip, but it was their thought that counted!) On Tuesday morning of that week, I woke up and told Ken that I was going to make him an offer he could not refuse. We either decided to book an ocean view room or agree that we would never think about the 2011 World Cruise again. Within three days, we had split the cost of the cruise among three credit cards, which we paid off in November. Hooray! We are now joining the happy adventurers who will be treated to an incredible smorgasbord of sites on the 2011 Pacific Princess World Cruise! We even booked a Globus tour of Ireland before we return home in May.

While we can't wait to greet old friends from 2010 and meet new friends on the Pacific Princess in 2011, we have to finish deciding what to take and what to leave behind so we don't need to pay airline baggage fees onour return! 17 days and counting!