Today I made my final payment. Oh man, the screaming noise my credit card made was unbelievable! Apparently, people who have booked direct with Fred Olsen have had an email after full payment, to say that we also need an Indonesian visa now. There's a lot of uproar on the Facebook page for this cruise, about this. We can't apply until mid December, it seems, so plenty of time for the email or letter to arrive. So it looks like I'll have to upgrade from the f...

We need to organise 4 visas/visa waivers before travel. I was going to wait until November, but so many people on Facebook were saying how difficult the Indian one was. So I decided to start earlier. First I did the US ESTA. The following day I did New Zealand one on their app. My ESTA was approved on the day I applied and got the Australian one. Then the NZ application was approved. That left the big one! People were saying it them 4 hours to complete ...

Went off to Harrogate on Tuesday for a two day visit with Barbara, Rob and Linda at the Crowne Plaza. The main focus for the break, apart from meeting friends, was to try to plan some excursions. We actually managed to get through all of the itinerary. We have some trips that we want to do with onshore companies and some we think we'll try with Fred, when they finally get issued. The rest we'll either just haul off the ship and do our own thing or see what'...

Emboldened by the success of booking the hotel a couple of days ago, I thought I'd try for my hire car. Despite being over 70, I thought it came in at a reasonable price and wasn't that much more than what I paid 10 years ago. Let's hope when I try to buy my travel insurance in October that I get a good rate too,

I thought I'd have a quick look to see if any hotels had posted their prices for next year. Much to my surprise, some had. So I've booked the Leonardo Grand. It's way cheaper than I'm paying for my September visit and includes two breakfasts (one's for Barbara!), so I'm a happy bunny.