Today's the day!

Well, well, well... 3½ hours until we leave for LAX.

I had to sacrifice the telephoto to the fickle gods of Qantas. Their regulations limit you to 15 lbs in a carry-on and a 3 lb lens eats 20% of that pretty quickly. It's all about wide angles and scenery anyway, right? Compromises are so much easier to accept when they go my way!

I'm not sure if we'll need all of the 200 lbs of stuff we packed, but I'm vowing that next time we cruise, we're buying cheap clothes in every port and throwing them away at the next one. Yeah, right....

We booked this trip back in the late summer of 2006 and it's finally here! My fear is that we will blink and it will be over.

Couldn't wait for it to get here...now I wish I had a little more time!

'Til next time!

T minus one....

One day 'til launch! New Zealand is calling!

Full day of work ahead overlayed by visions of palm trees and azure lagoons. The voices in my head have started speaking in Polynesian dialects. Very disconcerting!

Still debating taking the laptop. To blog or not to blog...it is, indeed, a question. I guess we'll weigh the suitcases and see.

Is that waffles I smell....??

New Zealand is getting closer!

Did some calculations using Google Earth last night and it looks like our total travel distance including the flight to Auckland, the cruise to Hawaii and the flight home will be around 14, 500 miles. We'll be averaging about 40 mph for the whole trip. Yikes!

If you have a mental image of people water skiing behing a really fast cruise ship, understand that the legs of the trip travelled by air bump up the average considerably. Knowing what goes into an average can sure change your view of it. Probably a good thing to keep in mind when reading a newspaper, eh?

Not much to do but wait.

And look at the clock.

And wait.

Check the clock again.

*sigh*

New Zealand to Hawaii, 2008 - Countdown

Tick, tock....

Counting down the hours until our 15 day journey on the Celebrity Mercury. We'll be sailing from New Zealand to Hawaii on the 2nd of March with stops at Tauranga, Rarotonga, Papeete, Bora Bora, Hilo and ending up in Honolulu for the flight home. We're travelling with our long-time cruise buddies Ron & Peri and have had this booked since mid-2006.

Three days left until zero hour. Kim has the clothes sorted and mostly packed and I have my cameras ready to go. Passports, tickets, luggage tags...all ready to launch.

We leave from LAX at 8:30 on Friday and arrive in Auckland at 6:30 AM on Sunday. A bit of a jaunt!

I'll try to keep this up as we travel, mostly depending on internet availability and rates. I'm not carrying a laptop, so photos may not be available until we return.

Must.....try....to...think...of...work....