Two to Travel Goes ...

We Have a Way to Get Home

Monday, 9 August 2016
Alsancak, İzmİr — Turkey

We should be in the Netherlands now. At least that was the plan. But a family emergency changed that. The story of why we are in Turkey instead is in the Two to Travel blog … you can read about the whys and wherefores there if interested.

The topic of this post is how we are getting back to our home-on-wheels following the RTW. Sure, the ship will return us to Miami, but that won’t get us back to Houston where the Phaeton will be stored.

United Airlines award tickets for 6 July, the date on which the ship arrives in Miami, became available today. After this year’s RTW disembarkation debacle, we were seriously considering staying overnight in Miami and flying to Houston on 7 July. We’ve changed our minds. We will now fly out on the 6th and stay overnight at a hotel near IAH instead.

The reason for the change in plan has a lot to do with it being mid-summer in Texas when we come back. By staying overnight near the Houston airport, we can get out to the storage lot very early on the morning of the 7th — before it gets really sweltering. And, once settled at the campground, we will have more time to run the A/C to cool down the Phaeton before bedtime.

I did my research and then consulted with Mui. We agreed that UA’s 2:45p departure should give us plenty of time to get to the airport even if there are delays with disembarkation. After seeing the very reasonable fares on the website, not only did we decide to buy tickets instead of using miles, but we also booked ourselves into first class. Quite unexpected, but hey we won’t second guess UA’s pricing … they must not realize there will be a bunch of RTWers looking to find a way home on the 6th … heh, heh, heh!

Travel-back-home logistics are now complete … sort of. I still need to reserve a hotel at IAH and make reservations at Advanced RV Resort. But those details are easy. I will deal with them when we return home in October.

Around the World Experience: Exclusive Shore Events

Monday, 11 July 2016
Gulf Waters RV Resort — Port Aransas, Texas

One of the perks included for RTW passengers is what O describes as “exclusive shore events.” The brochure listed five such extravaganzas for our voyage ... in Hilo, Bora Bora, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Seville. We have a description of what each one will be, but no details on the logistics. No matter … I’m working around them by keeping plans for those ports fluid.

Today I received an email from Connie, our cruise agent, changing one of the events. Apparently O ran into problems securing the Singapore Flyer for the dinner event planned there. They are substituting “The World” in Dubai in its stead. Works for us … although we might have to jiggle our Dubai touring plans to make it work. But I have plenty of time to do that, so no worries.

From a purely selfish point of view, it’s a shame that it’s not the Hong Kong dinner event that got canceled. We are planning to skip that one since John and Annie, friends we met on our 2014 North Pole expedition, want to show us their city by night. No matter ... spending time with friends trumps everything else.

Excursion Planning

Thursday, 7 July 2016
Gulf Waters RV Resort — Port Aransas, Texas

The O excursions for the RTW started to make an appearance on the Oceania website today. Quite a few ports are still pending, but it doesn't really matter much to us at this point. DIY is our preference — either as a twosome or as a small group.

I did keep an open mind about booking O excursions for this voyage. But after perusing the available tours, I am comfortable that we're on the right track with making our own plans. That said, there is a benefit to having the O excursion list available beyond the ability to book outings with the cruise line … it makes an excellent research tool. I will peruse the O offerings for excursion ideas that we can plan privately for those ports where I am still unsure of what to do.

We tend to just get off the ship and do our own thing in most ports most of the time. I research sightseeing options, but keep our plans fluid to account for weather and other considerations on the day of our visit. Best of both worlds IMHO as we remain flexible, and yet don't waste time figuring out what might be of interest to us.

We are deviating from our usual modus operandi for the RTW by booking more small group tours this time — either organizing something ourselves or joining fellow-passengers who have made arrangements that appeal to us. We will not only be visiting areas of the world that are completely foreign to us, but the warm, humid weather we expect to encounter has a lot to do with that decision. As our planning continues, I think we will achieve a good balance of “Two to Travel” DIY and small group excursions.

We have multiple overnights on this voyage, but we are currently planning only two overlands ... meaning spending the night off the ship to make the most of the port visit. One of these will be in Vietnam and the other in Egypt. Nope, not sharing the details yet ... I'll let them be a surprise.

Vaccines … ✔

Tuesday, 5 July 2016
Gulf Waters RV Resort — Port Aransas

What do I do to celebrate the birthday of the good old US of A yesterday? I ingest a specific strain of salmonella. Now, don’t worry … I’m not talking about getting food poisoning. Rather, I’m referring to starting the course of typhoid fever oral vaccine prescribed by the travel doctor — one pill every other day … four pills in all. We filled the ℞ for Vivotif Oral after our visit to the travel clinic in March, but delayed taking the pills until now. Why? Because we didn’t want to start the clock-ticking on the five-year coverage the vaccine is good for until we absolutely had to. We still have six months before our RTW sets sail, but we couldn’t delay further. You see, the vaccine requires refrigeration and we will lose that capability when the Phaeton goes into storage in 17 days.

This isn’t the first time we’ve been vaccinated against typhoid fever. The first time was in 2004 … before our photo safari to Botswana. No adverse effects then; nor this time. For either of us.

The TF vaccine completes our medical preparedness for the adventure we will be embarking upon come January.

Yellow Fever … ✔
     Typhoid Fever … ✔
          Antimalarials … ✔
               Antibiotics for “Delhi Belly” … ✔
                    Hep A (in 2004; good for our lifetimes) … ✔

We are good to go!

Insurance … ✔

Monday, 4 July 2016
Gulf Waters RV Resort — Port Aransas, Texas

Happy 240th B’day USA! That today is the 4^th of July has no bearing on the topic at hand. But seeing as how I am writing this on the 4th, it seemed right to start out with the appropriate sentiment regardless.

We debated back and forth quite a bit before deciding that we would insure the cash outlay for the RTW.

Why was there even a question about this? It should be a no brainer to insure such a big chunk of change, right? Yes, a no brainer … but the initial premium quotes were hard to swallow. Plus, some companies refused to even provide quotes … mostly due to the length of our trip.

We were still undecided when the RTW 2016 set off from Miami on 4 January. In less than a week I was reading about a passenger who fell just days after embarking the ship and ended up leaving at the first port of call. Just weeks later came the news of the sudden death of a passenger — someone whose blog I had been following. That did it! We just had to get the voyage insured against cancellation or interruption due to reasons beyond our control.

The assignment to find reasonable insurance fell to Mui. I gave him a link to the CruiseCritic insurance discussion forum and washed my hands of the whole thing. Turns out that was the solution. One of the threads spoke favorably of Steve from the Trip Insurance Store. Mui exchanged a few emails with him and the end result was decently priced coverage that fit our needs without paying for extras we didn’t need.

After reviewing the O cancellation policy, we decided to buy the insurance in incremental amounts based on what our loss would be if we canceled by certain dates … 25%, 50%, 75%, and finally 100%. We’ve never done this before, but we’ve also never spent this amount of money on a trip. Why spend money to over insure ourselves when we don’t need to?

We made the first premium payment today … a heavy mental burden has been lifted off our shoulders.

We Have a Way to Get Home

Monday, 9 August 2016Alsancak, İzmİr — Turkey

Around the World Experience: Exclusive Shore Events

Monday, 11 July 2016Gulf Waters RV Resort — Port Aransas, Texas