President John F Kennedy may have said it best in remarks given almost fifty years ago.
"I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except it's because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea - whether to sail or to watch it- we are going back from whence we came."
While Keith first cruised with his family at the young age of twelve, 2012 marks the twentieth year the two of us will have cruised together. On our very first cruise we took our children who were six and ten years young on the Big Red Boat which was part of Premier Cruise Lines. The ship we sailed on (pictured below) was the SS Oceanic, originally owned by Home Lines, an Italian based cruise line.
There were two interesting stories to this ship. First, this ship was originally part of Home Lines which was the first Cruise Line that Keith sailed on as a youngster. Second, we had been on this particular ship sixteen years earlier when we assisted Anne Marie's mom on embarkation day for a cruise she took when the ship was still part of Home Lines.
Since that first family cruise, we have cruised often, visited one hundred eighty-nine unique ports of call, spanning seventy different countries, and we have sailed all seven continents.
Our voyage begins on December 21 with a 14 day Holiday Cruise. At the conclusion of the Holiday Cruise our second voyage involves a transit of the Panama Canal as we sail west from Miami, Florida and arrive in Los Angeles on January 18. Later that day, our adventure continues with the start of the 2012 World Cruise. We depart Los Angeles and return back to this same port on April 21. This World Cruise emphasizes the Pacific Region and includes stops at many ports in Australia, Asia, Alaska & British Columbia along with a stop in San Francisco before we arrive back to Los Angeles.
Holiday Cruise
Panama Canal Cruise
2012 World Cruise
We are very excited about this adventure as if this was our very first cruise. We hope that you will feel part of this voyage through this Blog and we hope to make each day as special as possible.
"TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY...........
"When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make it's own people comfortable." - Clifton Fadiman
Keith and Anne Marie
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