12/31/14 - Night before departure

Tonight's our last night at home before we head out for our January adventure -- from Florida to the South Pacific!  We're very excited especially after planning this trip, which is a celebration of our 40th anniversary and of my retirement, for months. 

Today was spent actually packing up all the piles of things we had around the house to take -- from evening clothes to paperwork to passports and $$s and on to snorkeling equipment.  Are we big time snorkelers?  Not at all, however we cannot spend time in the beautiful South Pacific without taking some time to swim with sting rays, sharks, and gorgeous colored fish weaving through the coral reefs.  We decided to try on our gear before packing it and thought our readers would like to see what the fish will see when we snorkel...

Hopefully we won't scare all the fish away with our crazy appearance!

We're both all packed now except for those last minute items that will go into our  suitcases tomorrow morning.  We'll head up to Tampa after lunch and check into our hotel for the night.  Then we'll leave our car there until we return -- that's a terrific service the hotel provides, plus we get to use their free shuttle to get to and from the airport.

Happy New Year to everyone!

12/30/14 - Pre-trip Post #1

The Christmas holiday has passed, most of our wonderful family company has departed, and we're beginning to gear up for our long-awaited trip to Tahiti.  There's always so much to get done before we leave from stopping the mail and newspapers now to closing the hurricane shutters right before we head out the door.  One of our biggest challenges will be eating up the holiday leftovers, but we'll power through them!

Our trip schedule this week includes an overnight stay in Tampa at a Park and Fly hotel on the January 1st followed by a three-flight trip to Papeete, Tahiti starting on the 2nd. We'll be flying from Tampa to Atlanta (90 minutes), Atlanta to L.A. (5 hours), then L.A. to Papeete (8.5 hours) for a total flight time of 15 hours.  We leave at 11:45 am on the 2nd and arrive at 6:10 am on the 3rd following a 5 hour time change!  And, of course, there are the layovers -- just under 2 hours in Atlanta plus 6.5 hours in L.A.  We'll certainly have plenty of time to snag some airport food during our 23.5 hours of travel!

Once we arrive in Papeete early Saturday morning we'll head directly to our hotel for an early check-in, then we'll either crash for a few hours or set out to explore the market -- which is only open until noon.  We're going to try and stay awake to get to the market then potentially crash after lunch.  

On Sunday the 4th we board our Oceana ship at noon, have lunch, then disembark for a 4-hour island tour before dinner.  Then we'll go back to the ship to unpack, explore, have dinner and most likely get to bed early -- we'll see how things work out!

Below is a photo of Moorea, one of our ports of call which we'll excited to visit!  There are some gorgeous photos of the islands online -- you might enjoy visiting this page online --   just click on this link once: Tahiti photos, then click on the web address that will appear below it.