PLANNING AND STILL MORE PLANNING

The effort that goes into preparing for a long journey can be mind boggling and, as such, requires careful planning.   Just think about the time and effort that goes into preparing for a 12 day trip and then simply multiply this by a factor of ten and you will get a sense for the complexities of preparing for this trip.  You have to ask yourselves a lot of questions.  For example, how many tubes of toothpaste will I use over a several month period and then do the same thing for many other items.

Thankfully, past experience has indeed been a big help to us as we prepared for this adventure.

The key to all of this is careful planning.  As such, we have have prepared lists and spreadsheets to aid us in this effort.

In the end though you have to make this as much fun as possible to keep your sanity.  For us, we take more items then we probably require, but in many ways it's as if we are moving onto the ship so we like to make things feel like home.  This time around we are taking the most luggage we've ever taken for one trip.

Major items include:

Clothing


As we decided what clothing to take with us we took into account not only the overall length of this journey, but also the various climates we will be sailing, and other factors such as the attire on the ship each and every evening.

With 122 days on board the ship, combined with a six night pre-cruise stay in Miami, Florida we will naturally take more clothes with us than we normally would on a much shorter trip.  

The weather for this adventure will vary significantly as we will need clothing for areas where it will be considerably hot and humid, while at the same time clothing is needed for several areas where it will be quite chilly and cold.

Finally, we looked over the evening attire on the ship which will include 22 formal nights (tuxedo or dark suit  for the gents and an evening gown or some other formal type of outfit for the ladies), 29 informal nights (sports jacket and dress pants with optional tie for the gents and cocktail dress, pant suit or some other type of informal outfit for the ladies) and 71 casual nights (khaki pants and polo or buttoned down shirt for the gents and a casual dress or pantsuit for the ladies).

Cosmetics/Toiletries/Medicine/First Aid items


While we recognize that we can purchase some of these items in port, we find it much easier to bring them all with us so that we don't use precious time in port to be shopping for these items.  We not only listed out all of the items that we will need, but also did our best to estimate the associated quantities that we anticipate using.  We have already purchased all of these items, except for a few items that we will pick-up in Miami because we do not want to take them on the plane.

Shore Excursions


We read about each port of call and made decisions ahead of time as to our plans in these ports.  Once on the ship, we will also consult with members of the shore excursion team to get additional feedback and suggestions, particularly for those places we are visiting for the very first time.

In several ports we will take a shore excursion through Crystal Cruises and have booked each of those already. We utilized the Crystal Cruises web site for our research as well as to sign up for the excursions.  We also read through information that was provided by Crystal Cruises on line and in seven individual  books which were provided for each of the voyages.

 There are other ports where we will not take a tour but will visit on or own.  Finally, in five ports of call, we have made arrangements for a private car through the travel consortium of our Travel Specialist, Lynn Segal, (click on Lynn's name to see a photo) and we will visit specific points of interest on our own.

Airline Flight Arrangements, Transfers, and Hotel Arrangements.


Crystal Cruises made the airline flight arrangements for us.  We provided them with desired flights and they booked them for us.  As the cruise got closer, they asked us for input for our private vehicle transfers and they have scheduled these transfers to take us from our home to the airport, from airport to hotel in Miami for our pre-cruise stay, and from the pre-cruise hotel to the ship at the Port Of Miami, and at the end of the voyage from the ship to the Los Angeles airport and finally from our local airport back to our home.

Passports and Visas


We needed to obtain new passports for this voyage and we also needed to obtain visas for some countries.

Packing Lists and Other Items


We not only prepared a list of all items that we are taking but also lists detailing which bag each of these items was packed in.

We also created several "things to do" lists to take care of a wide range of items prior to the start of this adventure.

We knew the cruise was getting closer when our Cruise Documents arrived in November.  

Our documents included electronic airline tickets and cruise tickets, luggage tags, and some other key information for the voyage.

With the vast majority of all of this now behind us, we are looking forward to the start of our adventure in just a few days.

TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY............


"Always Plan Ahead.  It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark."  -  Richard C. Cushing

Keith and Anne Marie