Wonderful day in Fort Lauderdale yesterday. Temp 26c approx. We were met by Fiona (see photo) she is a friend of Patti Barclay and lives in FL. She took us to see her friend June (also see photo). Then we went out to lunch and sat outside on the Intracoastal Waterway, watching the boats and the Pelicans.

We sailed last evening are and are now off the North Coast of Cuba. 2 sea days on the way to Curaçao.

Our beautiful ship and our cabin.

We are now headed for Fort Lauderdale in Florida where we will arrive at 07.00 tomorrow (Thursday)

We left New York at 6.00 pm last night, sailing past lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty at around 7.00 pm.

Right now, 10.30 am Tuesday we are around 300 miles south of New York, bound for our first stop Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

Horrible day today you can hardly see across the river. Picture taken in the lobby of Constitution Court before went to check in for the cruise. The other picture is of the Queen Elizabeth coming up the channel at 11.00 am. You can probably hardly make it out through the rain,

Just posted our boarding cards – London to New York. We arrived on Thursday and were met by Uncle Matthew and Toby. Very cold. Toby had pneumonia (the p is silent as in swimming). He is much better now (Sunday).

On Friday Embee and I went exploring in Manhattan including a visit to the 9/11 memorial — very impressive.

Yesterday Matthew took us to a sculpture park, played Monster mini golf.

This is part of one of the sculptures — gross !

In the evening we went to a theatre to see a new musical by Sting called The Last Ship and Sting was in it. Very good.

Today our ship — the Queen Elizabeth has arrived and we will be boarding this afternoon.

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This is our test posting for our new trip. It is primarily designed for our grandchildren: Sam, Anastasia, Toby, Nicholas, Olivier and Katherine but we hope that others may find it interesting, whilst appreciating that the “target audience” age group is 7-13

We are leaving home on 14th January (tomorrow) and expect to return on March 10th.

We will visit New York, Panama, San Francisco, Hawaii, New Zealand, Sydney Australia and Singapore (amongst others).

The first leg is by Air on 15th January to New York.

Then by ship from New York (boarding on 18th Jan) to Sydney Australia.

Keeping watching the blog to see where we are.

After 3 brilliant days in HK, flew home (for ‘plane geeks it turned out to be a 777 which was a bit of a disappointment. )

Arrived at LHR at 04.45 — on time and were home by 08.10.

Mountain of mail !

Can’t stand the thought of unpacking.

Arrived in Hong Kong yesterday. The previous day – enroute from Manila was the only rough day of the whole trip. Coming into Hong Kong by ship for the first time was an amazing experience. We have visited 14 ports in 9 countries and travelled 8,000 miles by sea. A wonderful trip but now quite glad to be on dry land and visit some old haunts. Last night we went by MTR bus and taxi to the New Territories to visit Tom and Pickle for a drink and supper. I enjoyed navigating the HK public transport system after a break of  15 years. This morning it’s a bit gloomy but we will do the usual touristy things and do the Star Ferry, the Peak etc. Flying back to London tomorrow night with another first – BA’s new A380. We will be home on Friday morning.

Today in Manila.  I will try and get some envelopes!

Photo is of the typical Manila taxi called a Jeepney.