The trip out to the bay took about 4 hours, with the obligatory tourist stop to look at over priced Vietnamese goods. Our group included the amazing Phillipe all the way from Chile and Vanessa and Chris from uk/NZ. The photos sort of tell it all. The boat was amazing, great service and way too much food. It was lovely and cool at Ha long Bay, until we started treking the 100 plus step to the caves. The caves are limestone, just like the ones at Jenolan Caves. Like being in a sauna the whole time we were there. After our trek we headed to a nearby bay for swimming and a very physical soccer game. Huge day and Kasey put herself to bed at 8pm, no squid fishing for her! We were asleep early too, ... read more

HANOI Am back at the laptop, internet access and I'm off. Sitting on the bed eating crappy chips and drinking 50c beer! Does it get any better? This place is crazy, undescribably crazy, like I can't even begin to describe it, when you see it in movies or on TV, it really doesn't capture the heat, humidity and noise. The incredible juxtaposition of old and new - will post photos to show what I mean, women wearing the kitchey Asian hat carrying poles of goods balanced across their shoulders and mopeds powering at you while drivers text. It is really beyond overwhelming, soooooo different to anywhere we've been before. I'd say there's similarities to Rome, slightly. Mainly crossing the road. Ok, have I mentioned the heat and noise? These people know how to use a horn, ... read more

We are all exhausted. The heat and long hectic days are starting to take their toll on us all. This has been the most hectic part of the trip by far, though the week in London was pretty full on. The parks open at 8 which means we can enter at 7, which means we are up at 6, a quick breakfast on the run and head to the water taxi for 7, the earliest we have made it into a park is about 7.10am, it's just insane,!!! However, early entry means less heat and no one around, no queues. staying at the resort means that we get priority access every time for every ride, if you don't stay in the resort you has e to pay for the express pass, their equivaent of disneys fast ... read more

Well, the dream cruise is done. Will cover it in one entry. We went to Haiti, Jamacia and Mexico. We didn't spend a lot of time together as a family on the ship - we all made the most of space and went our seperate ways a lot of the time. I read and layed by the pool as did Greg a lot of the time. The kids went to the kids area and made friends with new travellers. We saw some amazing shows. There was so much to do but we spent a lot of time doing nothing. we didn't even really eat together very much - the kids roamed eating pizza, donuts and ice cream. We tried a lot of different eating options and a lot of different bars! Including the bar - rising ... read more

Day 4 we are still waking up early, so breakfast with playtime then we headed out. We headed to Times Square and I lined up to try and get matinee tickets for the new hit musical Spiderman turn off that dark on broadway. While I did this i ended up on a billboard in Times Square - a niffty vodka ad puts the crowd in the ad. So the queue went quickly so I'd gotten our tickets by 10.05am. The kids and Greg returned later from window shopping with very exciting news, They were standing outside the Disney store in Times Square when they approached Kasey and asked her to open the store for them, she got to use the HUGE Disney key and opened the store - very exciting. They also gave her a replica ... read more