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Published: January 14th 2015
CRUISE SPECIALISTS' GIFTS
Travel bags and wind breakers for the 2015 world cruiseOn one of the warmest days in months we boarded the Silver Whisper in Los Angeles to begin our world cruise. It was somewhat of a mad dash to get ready for this cruise with taking care of our house and boat and all the other details that crop up when leaving home for half a year. Our cruise is four months and we plan to stay in Florida for an additional two months before returning home to California in July.
This 2015 cruise began with seven days at sea which is a great way to settle into life on board the ship. Leaving Los Angeles on a balmy night with a full moon rising was a pretty spectacular send-off. And the next night we saw a stunning green flash at sunset. Nature is always full of surprises.
Our first landfall will be in the Marquesas Islands in Polynesia. From there we will visit Tahiti and then island hop through the South Pacific to Australia. We will spend two weeks rounding the land Down Under before turning north to Bali, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Then it’s onward to Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore. Heading south, we’ll make several stops in
FULL MOON OVER LOS ANGELES
A perfect full moon to light our way across the Pacific Ocean Sri Lanka, crossing the Indian Ocean to the Maldives and Seychelles en route to Kenya. The exotic islands of Zanzibar, Comoro and Madagascar are next on our passage and then a week in South Africa. Namibia will be our last stop in Africa before crossing the Atlantic via the remote former prisoner colonies of St Helena and Ascension and Devil’s Island. We’ll spend our last week cruising around the Caribbean before arriving in Ft Lauderdale on May Day.
This is pretty much a warm weather voyage…which is our favorite way of cruising. We’ll cross the equator four times and travel through twenty-one time zones. One night we’ll lose a day (Jan 22) and slowly gain it back hour by hour as we travel westward. Of the 115 day trip, half of the days will be at sea interspersed with exciting ports of call. Several months ago Silversea changed the routing of this world cruise due to the Ebola outbreak. Thus all of our stops in West Africa have been cancelled. This is fortunate, as we really didn’t want to be quarantined upon arrival back in the United States.
There are approximately 250 passengers on this ship of which
BON VOYAGE
"Here's looking at you, Kid." 145 are on for the whole trip. This is not the first world cruise for the vast majority of these “rounders.” There are lots of familiar faces, both passengers and staff alike. We have cruised previously with many of our Cruise Specialists guests and they are all good sailors.
We had our first Cruise Specialists party and presented our guests with tote bags, windbreakers and small ornamental globes as a memento of the world they will be circling in the next four months. Just as our party was ending, as if on cue, hundreds of dolphins appeared off the bow of the ship showing us the way to the South Pacific.
As usual, the sea days will be filled with lectures; art, language, cooking and photography classes; port briefings; exercise and fitness sessions,; table tennis and swimming; parties and fine dining. Our favorite way to end each day is sitting on our balcony listening to the ocean slide past, watching the flying fish skim the waves and enjoying the star filled skies knowing that we are out to sea again!
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Jim & Diana
non-member comment
Mind if we join you?
We look foward to your travel logs -- that way we feel like we've joined you on your trip!