Our World Adventure 2018 - by land and sea

We both have been fighting some kind of upper respiratory infection - not the flu, thank goodness. It's taken awhile with antibiotics but the doctors say we are good to go. We decided this week to take the train to California (from Denver). It's a great train ride, but we haven't usually use them as transportation. Glad to not have to deal with the whole airport experience next week. We needed to adjust a few things in California but have found that arranging a one-way car rental is relatively easy and not very expensive, at least in the San Francisco Bay area. Once this decision was made, it was time to fine tune the details of this somewhat complicated trip, so I spent the day cancelling some extra car rental reservations and extra hotel bookings. We prefer to use AirBnb, but sometimes book a back-up option. At least for the beginning of the trip, it's time to clean up those details. First stop is Honolulu, where we will meet a friend from a previous cruise, who

In recent years we have taken ships several times across the oceans, in part to avoid long distance air travel. We love it. As we approach 70 (though not there for a couple of years), it seemed like now was the time to attempt a more complex travel experience - while we still can. Maybe next time we'll just get on a ship and stay there :-). We will fly to SFO, then board Cunard's Queen Elizabeth to sail to Sydney. We've done this once before (see blog from 2015). Our South Pacific ports are different this time - three stops in Tahiti instead of Samoa, Tonga, etc. We will see friends in Honolulu as well as Auckland. We will disembark the QE in Sydney after only 21 days (very short) in order to spend a month in Australia, mostly visiting friends from previous cruises and seeing a bit of Australia from their perspective. We'll also do our own touring of the Blue Mountains and the Great Ocean Road (Uluru will have to wait for another trip). Ultimately we will spend our

 Date Port or Activity Arrive Depart  Mon, Feb 5 San Francisco, CA 5:00pm  Tue, Feb 6 At Sea  Wed, Feb 7 At Sea  Thu, Feb 8 At Sea  Fri, Feb 9 At Sea  Sat, Feb 10 Honolulu, Oahu, HI 7:00am 6:00pm  Sun, Feb 11 At Sea  Mon, Feb 12 At Sea  Tue, Feb 13 At Sea  Wed, Feb 14 At Sea  Thu, Feb 15 Bora Bora, Society Islands 8:00am 6:00pm  Fri, Feb 16 Papeete, Tahiti, Society Islands 8:00am 11:59pm  Sat, Feb 17 Moorea, Society Islands 8:00am 6:00pm  Sun, Feb 18 At Sea  Mon, Feb 19 Cross International Dateline (Cruising)  Wed, Feb 21 At Sea  Thu, Feb 22 At Sea  Fri, Feb 23 Auckland, New Zealand 7:00am 10:00pm  Sat, Feb 24 Bay of Islands, New Zealand 8:00am 6:00pm  Sun, Feb 25 At Sea  Mon, Feb 26 At Sea  Tue, Feb 27 Sydney, Australia 6:30am  Wed, Feb 28 Sydney, Australia Disembark