Molly’s Next Big Adventure

 I am writing this on Saturday, February 1, yesterday (our Thursday January 30 we crossed both the equator heading south and the international date day. It is very confusing, because we “lost” Friday, January 31. I took the first photo in the morning while we were still in the northern hemisphere, and the second in the afternoon once we crossed into the southern hemisphere. Not much difference other than the sun position, no? And no, the water didn’t noticeably change direction in the sink or toilet.  So many of our geographical boundaries seem to be pretty insignificant to the untrained eye, and yet we generally agree that someone with the scientific expertise has made an educated determination. On Thursday when the announcement was made that we had crossed the equator, I sure couldn’t feel or see any difference but I am willing to trust the scientists. I’m equally comfortable with the science about time zones also but it is still hard to grasp. On this trip we will advance o...

  Greetings. Today is our 14th sea day. A sea day is one in which we don’t spend any time in a port. The stretch between Los Angeles and Honolulu is 5 days, the longest so far. I have been told by some people that they would go crazy with nothing to do. The thing is there is so much available to do, it is hard to pick out which activities I want to do that day. I need to make time to do nothing after multiple days full of activities.  Here is a list of the official activities for today on the ship, and this doesn’t include the informal activities which for me include a daily sea day gathering to play Mahjong. (sorry for the quality of the photo, darker than it should be)  I have just enough time to get to Mahjong, luckily is in the same large dining room, after I’ve finished my daily beginner’s bridge lesson. Here is a sample of one of our worksheets from bridge. Really I had no idea there was so much math involved in bridge. I have been known to say you’re never too old ...

  Greetings. Yesterday we completed the first leg of our journey. I honestly don’t know how many we have, but I think it’s five or six. It was pretty quiet for us as we have done this section through the Panamá Canal before. Still amazing to realize what a major engineering project this was, and what a huge impact it had on global ocean navigation.  We were traversing the canal, which takes most of a day next to large enclosed cargo ship. We found out from goggling, amazing what you can find out, that ship held 8,500 new automobiles. It was one big honkin ship with just a handful of workers who came out to wave at us.  At one point there was little patch of land enclosed with a high fence with lots of concertina wire and a couple of flat objects that looked like they could be lids. I was wondering if they could just pull a plug and drain the whole thing? One of the pilot boats getting us lined up to enter the canal. Think about getting your car lined up to go through a ca...

Hi. This is the very first issue of our World Cruise 2025 blog. It is part of my learning experience that I wanted to try on this cruise. I have added your email to my contact list because at some point you may indicated at least a mild interest in our trip. If I understand correctly you will receive an email letting you know I have a new posting. Please feel free to totally ignore them, or let me know you aren’t interested.  Greetings from Cabin B343 onboard the Island Princess. Gary Baker and I, molly divine, boarded the Princess at Ft Lauderdale on January 5, 2025 for a 116 night cruise ending on May 2, 2025. Gosh, that is a loooong time.  I admit as being one who tends to way overthink things, and preparing for this trip was a bit more stressful than usual. Gary and I love to travel, and have been fortunate to do many different kinds of trips together, but this felt like travel on a different scale, sharing one small cabin for four months. Not to mention it was the holiday...