Two months to go

I look at the calendar and get a little nervous. We leave in two months. Planning is going well and I think I have everything under control but who really knows. With planning any major trip, there are always the unknowns. People who know me, know I don’t like the unknowns. I want everything planned and things to go as scheduled.

I have made myself a to do list of things left I need to do and had plans to work on it tonight but that did not go so well. By the time I got home and got my chores that I needed to do done, I did not have much time to work on it. When I am working on planning this trip, I like to have hours at a time to do so. Otherwise I feel as soon as I get into it, I have to stop. I could be doing it now but instead I am typing this blog. Plus I really don’t have hours tonight either since I would like some sleep. :)

Brian has looked at all of our ports and highlighted things he would like to do. (I make info sheets on each port of things to do, where they are located, and pricing. I find them really helpful). Now I am going to go through everything and plan each stop out. Then start booking things. I am also going to start making my travel binder. It worked out so well for Europe that I cannot wait to make a new one.

I still need to figure out the rental car in Sydney and insurance issues about rental cars. There are also some ports in New Zealand we may rent a car too. Brian should start practicing driving on the left side of the road. This should be interesting.

Also I need to figure out what we are doing after the cruise in Auckland. We port at 7:00am and do not fly out until 7:00pm so we have the whole day to explore. We may need a rental car there too. Oh my! I have realized that rental cars over there are not that cheap, at least the exchange rate is in our favor this time.

I do not have much other information to report on yet. Once I organize everything I will update the blog. I have a feeling the next two months are going to go by really fast therefore I better get everything planned soon. Plus the Caves start tomorrow so we will be busy with them. GO CAVS!

The Planning Continues

I am continuing to research and plan our Australia and New Zealand trip. Originally I would tell people we are going to just Australia leaving New Zealand out (thinking obviously we are going there too) however with doing my research Australia and New Zealand are two completely different countries and many people only visit one of them. I cannot image going that far and only seeing one but that is my opinion.

So this is where we are at: Airfare is booked to everywhere we need to fly to. Cruise is booked - need final payment this month (but I am continuing to hope prices will fall more with our current economic conditions). Hotels are booked in Australia. We are staying in an apartment in Cairns with a washer and dryer inside it and internet access (I am very excited about that). I will be able to do laundry!

Things we know we want to do: Sydney: New Years Eve at the Harbor. We are planning on spending our entire day there so we have a good spot. Remember in 2006 we did the same thing in Times Square - hopefully this year it will at least be warmer (oh and please no rain). Climbing Sydney Harbor Bridge. Although it is not booked yet because we cannot figure out a time of day we want to do it, we will definitely be doing that. Need to see the Opera House in Sydney - maybe even see a show. I think that would be awesome. Also thinking of going to Blue Mountains for a day to see some beautiful scenery.

Cairns: Nothing is booked but we have many ideas of this to do. This trip may not be a detailed planned out as other trips especially in this city. We may book things once we get there depending on weather and how adventurous we are feeling. Things we would like to do: Snorkel the Great Barrier Reef - the whole reason we are flying to Cairns. Also want to go on Skyrail & Kuranda Scenic Railway. We may be doing that New Years Day since they are open. They have many beaches to relax on too.

I have typed up ideas for most of our cruise ports and Brian needs to look them over to see what he thinks would be fun to do. On Phillip Island we are going to a penguin parade to see the penguins come in for the night. There are many places we can do hiking and sea kayaking. One thing we realized we can do is Zorbing (as seen on the Amazing Race)! It is an hour away from one of our ports. For those of you who do not know what Zorbing is here is a link.

http://www.zorb.com/

Check it out and see how crazy we are. We were really excited to realize we can do it!

That is really all for now. I am going to continue to look at things we can do at the ports of call and Brian should be giving me some feedback soon and I will start to finalize some of our plans and keep everyone updated. We will be leaving in a little over two months!

My stressful day

On Monday, I called Celebrity Cruiseline because on their website staterooms have went down in price. Our deadline to pay off the cruise is not until end of October therefore we can still make changes to our cruise reservations. We wanted to change from inside stateroom to a guaranteed ocean view stateroom. It was over $600 cheaper and we will at least have a window although we will not know where our stateroom is until the start of the cruise. Hopefully it will work out. Stay tuned for that update.

While on the phone with Celebrity, the person on the phone told me that our cruise had been canceled! What! The the Celebrity Millennium was going to the Caribbean and will no longer be in Australia and New Zealand however we could go on the Caribbean cruise. I started to freak out a bit. I don't want to go the Caribbean, I want to go to Australia – the whole reason we booked this trip! I read cruisecritic.com and other cruise websites and I knew that Celebrity are pulling out of the Australian market but not until end 2009 not the beginning but the person on the phone told me our cruise had been relocated. While on hold waiting for the Celebrity representative to figure out what is going on many things start running through my mind. We already have airfare booked. This cannot be happening and why have they not called us about this. Oh I am not happy.

After a good five minute wait, the guy gets on the phone and apologizes and states he was mistaken and our cruise is still sailing as schedule. What a relief but that makes me think about Celebrity. Telling someone there cruise is canceled when it really was not does not make me feel great about Celebrity's employees competency. Please tell me things are going to get better. Reviews I have read on Celebrity, people love them so hopefully we will too.

Plus on DVR was not working on Monday which added to my stressful day (it did not tape General Hospital). Everything worked out. Our cruise is still sailing, my DVR started working again, and planning our trip is going well.

Oh the fun of planning vacations :)