Glen and Kathy are off on another big cruise adventure

Jan 3, 2024 we sail from San Diego on a 93 day Grand Australia, New Zealand and  South Pacific Islands Cruise. We have been to many of these ports in the past and we want see many of them again.  New to us will be the ports on the South Island of New Zealand, the ports on the north-west quadrant of Australia,  Fiji, Samoa,  New Caledonia, the Cook Islands, Fanning Island,  and several new islands in French Polynesia. Our ship, the Volendam is new for us but be have sailed on two of her similar sister ships in the past.

 

A SUMMARY OF THE 2023 WORLD CRUISE

A few statistics about our 2023 cruise: 

Number of days:                128
Continents visited:             4  

Countries visited:               30 
Ports visited                        57 
-  New to us                        32
- been there before:            25

Nautical miles sailed:       33,798

Statute miles sailed:         38,894        

Ports missed because of weather :  3   ( Tolanaro Madagascar, Brest France, New London South Africa

Post missed or not allowed off ship - Dakar Senegal & Le Harve  -  civil unrest/ strikes .

My  photographs:

- Number taken:                                                   40,9857

- most in one day                                                 1092

- average per day                                                 317

- mornings I was in position to observe/photograph sunrise:  128

Back in Fort Lauderdale

 

We were docked before 6 AM and the fist passengers were disembarking before 8AM. Kathy and I  had chosen the last time slot of 10:15AM. We were off before that and had cleared immigration before 10:30. We took a taxi to our hotel for the night. I picked up a rental SUV from the airport and we will start the  2 day drive to Houston first thing in the morning.

Well, I did it!  I was up and in a position to see and photograph  the sunrise on every morning of the cruise. Sometimes, I was there but the sun did not show up.

We are completing our World Cruise as we are about to return to where we started on Jan 3

The lights of Ft. Lauderdale

Along the channel leading into Port Everglades where the cruise terminals are..

Our cruise terminal

A bit of color for the sunrise.

These are some of the estimated 14,000 pieces of luggage  being unloaded. These one will be shipped directly to the passengers homes vis a process called Luggage Transfer. They either received it as a benefit or paid for the service.  Bags that people took with them had been taken inside and sorted by a color tag first so people could easliy find their bags. It was a very smooth process.

Truick were provisions for the ship's next cruise to Europe which leaves late this afternoon

Luggage coming off and supplies getting staged to be loaded.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had a mobile scanner for the luggage that was shipped directly to the passengers homes.

And a dog that checked the bins of luggage

They were checking this bag.

Discussions between shore staff and ships's officers.

The dog checking the bags

Another bag being searched.

Day 128 - at sea

Our last sea day was spend finishing packing, saying goodbye to new made friends and  we attended the Crew Farewell show in the World Stage.

Our Early morning Coffee and Sunrise group

Another picture of our group

And new friends and acquaintances at the Sea View Bar

Captain Frank says Thank you and Farewell to the passengers

Most of the crew members can on and in front of the stage to say farewell

Captain Frank, Hotel Manager Henk and Cruise and Travel Director Ian with all their crew around themn 

The Main Stage room was standing room only and the show was simulcasted in one of the larger lounges

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As we complete this wonderful 2023 World Cruise, we start looking forward to our  next cruises. January 2024 we are booked on the 94 day Grand Australia and New Zealand cruise sailing Jan 3 2024 out of San Diego. We look forward to revisiting a number of ports we visited on our current cruise and to a number of new ports.

And for 2025, we are planning to do  a 133 day Grand Voyage: Pole-to-Pole:

It won't be a scheduled cruise for a few weeks and there may be minor port changes but I am excited to be able to go to Antarctica,  the Norwegian North Cape , Cruise up the Amazon River, The Falkland Islands and revisit Iceland and Greenland and Newfoundland, Canada.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I will post some crise statistics in a few days once we unpack and I can find some of the documents

Day 127 - At sea

 Wednesday was our 5th day of our Tansatlantic crossing. Today we spent packing our suitcases which have to be put out for pickup by tomorrow evening. One more day at sea tomorrow and it should be warmer.

We were sailing across the Sargasso Sea, It is bounded byfour ocean currents and is the only sea that does not border on land.

Waiting for sunset

At this point I switched to video mode  to record the rest of the sun sinking below the horion.  At this point, I have not figured out how to zoom in on the video to see if there was another green flash but I have been told there was one.