Prinsendam Grand Med and Black Sea Voyage March 2009

February 8

We are at 28 days and counting before we board Amtrak to Ft. Lauderdale. We are going down a couple of days early to see a few sights while there prior to boarding on the 11th for our 50 day cruise. This will be our first ever train ride, and we splurged on a roomette for the trip as it takes about 27 hours. Thus we can get a good nights rest on the way down and be ready to play tourist upon arrival! Our plans are to go to Butterfly World and Flamingo World on the 9th, and take an Everglade tour on the 10th.

For those who may not know about this cruise, we will be visiting the following ports during the cruise:

Gustavia St. Barts
Castires, St. Lucia
Tenerife, Canary Islands
Lanzarote, Canary Islands
Gibraltar
Cartagena, Spain
Barcelona
Marseille, France
Monte Carlo
Livorno/Florence, Italy
Rome
Naples
Athens
Istanbul
Varna, Bulgaria
Sevastopol, Ukraine
Ephesus
Santorini
Valletta, Malta
Cadiz, Spain
Lisbon
Ponta Delgada
Hamilton Bermuda
New York City

We are very excited about the cruise and are really looking forward to visiting all of these ports. We have a lot of private tours set up, and will be doing some ports on our own.

My plan is to post here right after leaving each port and provide our impressions of what we saw and an evaluation of the private tours. I have that you will enjoy reading about our cruise and if there is anything specific that you would like to see mentioned, don't hesitate to ask and I will try to accommodate your request.

Until later,

Cheers!