The Grand Princess must have really been hustling across the ocean to make up for our earlier delays, because last night we lost another hour (once again it was a 23 hr day). We are now 5 hours earlier than St Louis. But they think we are back on schedule and we hopefully will arrive on time tomorrow morning – weather permitting. Anyway, I guess all those lost hours finally had caught up with us, as we slept in until past 9:30 this morning. Fortunately there was nothing special we wanted to do (except breakfast) until the presentation on Falmouth England. Like the others, that was also interesting to give us ideas of what is ahead. One convenient feature is that there is a button on the room phone where you can get the current time. ... read more

Good morning. For those who think that Monday is a workday, be advised that this was a sleep-in morning on the ship. Last night was a late night for us and then we lost an hour in time zones, so we slept until about 9:00 (that would be 6:00 AM in St Louis). It was very restful. But then it was time to get a meal and make a plan for today. We attended the presentation on Greenock Scotland, which also included Glasgow, Edinburgh, and much of the Scottish lochs and terrain. We are learning that there will be much that we miss each time we go on an excursion, so maybe someday we will need to visit again but spend more time in each place. The captain announced that we had past the midpoint on ... read more

This was another leisurely day at sea – very relaxing! The sky was slightly overcast when we sailed out of Florida yesterday, but it cleared later in the day when we got away from the mainland. We are heading northeast today and have picked up some overcast again today, but no rain and still short sleeve temperatures. The sea is nice and calm with no problems to report. For some reason, they have not opened the pools yet (didn’t even have water in the pools until yesterday afternoon, but that did not stop some folks from sunning themselves on the upper deck). We slept in late this morning before going up to get a small buffet breakfast. Then it was off to immigration and we have now already gotten cleared to disembark in the UK (passports ... read more

Today got off to a leisurely start. We slept in and then had a nice breakfast in the hotel. The shuttle to the port did not leave until 12:30, so we had plenty of time to repack the suitcases and explore around the hotel area. The temperature here in Florida is in the mid-80s and slightly overcast, but nothing chilly or rainy like it had been back in St Louis. But then we were off to Port Canaveral and ready to start the cruise. The hotel provided a 12:30 shuttle service to Port Everglades and that got us to the ship by 1:00 with a minimum of effort. The luggage was off-loaded from the bus onto a container for the ship and they were eventually delivered to our cabin – no effort on our part. However, ... read more

Welcome to the BLOG for our cruise to Great Britain, with travel to various places in Europe. During the months since our last exciting cruise, we have been eagerly looking forward to this next trip and are thrilled that the time has come at last to begin traveling again. We leave St Louis on May 4th and will keep a record of our daily adventures to post on the BLOG whenever we have a chance. This is not going to be a short story as we have planned a very interesting and somewhat ambitious vacation. Please watch for updates on our adventure and hopefully we will be able to make the reading as interesting for you as the experience is fun for us. (This is also a test to make sure the link to the blog ... read more