Everything worked fine this afternoon. Jay arrived on time (thanks so much for the lift to the airport Jay), check-in went well and we headed to the gate for a bite of lunch. It seems today is the "King's Day" in Holland so everyone got a tulip as we boarded the plane. We are traveling on a Boeing 330-300, at a cruising speed of 880 km/hr, and we have a completely booked flight of 292 paying passengers and crew. I’ve adjusted my watch reflect time in Rome...

Well, it's finally arrived. We head off to the airport tomorrow afternoon. Tom & I booked this 35-day trip through 18 countries back in September of 2013, some eight months ago. We've planned, booked excursions, booked apartments in Rome, Amsterdam and Paris, exchanged money into Euro's and USD, planned and planned wondering whether April 26th would ever arrive. Our flight tomorrow will be close to ten (10) hours into Amsterdam with a four (4) hour layover ...

I finally have been able to add my photos to the various destinations so for those who are interested have a quick look - Mexico can be very beautiful. We arrived on-time into Long Beach (Pier 92) on schedule and our departure time was set for 10:20 a.m. so we had some time for breakfast before heading to our departure point, The Explorer's Lounge. With a pretty long lineup and an announcement that they were running behind by some 45 minutes, we decided that ...

We arrived into Ensenada around noon today. I didn't expect to even get off the ship from what I had heard about from different sources but Deborah can be quite convincing. We decided that we'd take the shuttle ($2.00) into town and do a little shopping. Our guide on the bus, Roberto was so convincing in his sales pitch that we decided to take the 4-hour tour out to La Bufadore. This is the largest marine geyser in the world and it's located on the Punta Banda ...

Well dinner at the Steakhouse last night was pretty amazing for a $20.00 surcharge. In fact it was truly amazing - the rib-eye was exceptional. We went back to our table in the dining room after we finished dinner and they had subbed in two "new" people to our table which apparently upset one of our table mates from Phoenix - it was nice to have had them stick up for us despite the fact that we had abandoned them in the search for better quality food. Today is ...