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November 21-23, 2009: A Weekend in San Diego |
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October 29 - November 2, 2009: A Few Days in Fort Lauderdale |
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Return to Index for 2009 |
Some months ago, we started talking with Greg about taking a cruise this fall, and after a lot of investigation, we settled on a cruise through the Panama Canal. The cruise was to depart from Fort Lauderdale on November 2nd, and arrive in San Diego on November 21st after three stops in the Caribbean, a transit of the Panama Canal, and eight stops along the Pacific coast of Central America. We made our plans, booked our staterooms and signed up for our shore excursions.
About a month before we were to leave, Greg was talking with our friends Bud Knight and Chet Flake about his being away on a cruise. Bud and Chet told him they'd be gone, too, and it turned out that they had, independently, booked the same cruise we were on! That made things even better. There would be six of us: Fred and I, Greg and his friend Paul, and Bud and Chet. We made our travel plans so that Fred and I would head to Fort Lauderdale on October 29th and Greg and Paul would arrive on Saturday, October 31st. Bud and Chet would get into Fort Lauderdale on Sunday, November 1st. When we got to San Diego, Bud and Chet would be flying back the same day we docked, but Greg and Paul and Fred and I would stay until November 23rd so that we could see some of San Diego.
Although you'll get plenty of information a bit later on about just what ports the ship would visit, for now, here is a high-level map of the travels that Fred, Greg, Paul and I would share:
All in all, Fred and I will be gone from Dallas for 26 days- the longest we've ever been gone on a trip. Because we were going to be gone so long, we arranged with our good friends Steve Friedman, Mario Tarradell and Lynne Richardson to stop by the house every few days and make sure that Bobbie Lee and Lucky were OK and had plenty of food and water. They did yeoman service and a great job.
So, we left Dallas on the afternoon of Thursday, October 29th, flying to Fort Lauderdale. We stayed in the condo there until Monday morning, November 2nd, when we boarded the cruise ship. After 19 days aboard, we docked in San Diego, spent two more days there, and flew home on my birthday, November 23rd.
This was quite a trip, and we took so many pictures and movies that I will do what I've done before and create an album page for each day of our actual cruise.
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For each day, I have listed the major activities for that day, so that if a particular activity interests you, you will know what day to go to for that activity.
These album pages are organized by day, which means basically by destination- beginning with Fort Lauderdale and ending with San Diego. In between, there will be a page for each port we visited on the cruise. There will also be an additional page for the transit of the Panama Canal. Within each album page, I will continue the practice I've used throughout this album, which is to have a heading for each major attraction, event, stop or other category.
As far as our time on board ship was concerned, rather than have a separate album page for each day aboard ship (or each evening, when we were stopping at a different port each day), I have grouped all the shipboard pictures into separate album pages. For example, there will be an album page for pictures of the ship itself, and I will put this page ahead of the first cruise stop so that you will have context for later pictures. Just prior to the page for our docking in San Diego, I'll have an additional page for topics such as on-board entertainment, dining, ship decoration, traveling companions, etc. On each of these "ship" pages, I won't be concerned about the particular day on which a picture was taken. I hope that this organization will make the pictures less overwhelming.
So jump to a specific page if you wish, or, to get the full experience, just go to the first page and begin there. At the top and bottom of each page, of course, you will have the familiar links to subsequent and previous pages, as well as a link that will return you to this index page. You will need to return here in order to continue on through the photo album pages for events and trips prior to or subsequent to this cruise.