Steve & Kerrie's Trip of a lifetime

Well here we are home at last. Our trip back to Perth from LA was not boring as we had an unscheduled stop in Fiji to refuel. We were told that the entire East Coast of Australia was "fogged" in and that we would need to refuel in Fiji in case we were asked to circle for any length of time in Sydney. We were not able to leave the plane, they are not allowed to serve drinks or food and they turned off the water to the bathrooms whilst they added more water to the plane ( not sure why we needed more water?). This one and a half hours gave us time to chat with our fellow passengers.
Interesting fact: Every country Kerrie and I have visited we have been there together at one time or another, except for Fiji, Kerrie went there before she met me and I went there with a conference. Now we can say we have been there together.
We were lucky enough to score Premium Economy seats for the long haul from LA to Sydney and we were impressed, the seats were roomy and the food & service (only 32 PE seats on the 747) were excellent.
Anyway we are now home and planning our next trip so stay tunned.

Well here we are in LA with a 12 hour wait for our flight. We have taken a room near the Airport and have just been down to Santa Monica for lunch.
The Cruise was good althought the ports of call were a little disappointing. Astoria was a big country town and with only 5 hours on shore there was not enough time to see any of the out lying countryside. Victoria (in Canada) was picturesque and had a great harbour and we did have the most fun there. Vancouver would be great to visit on its own as it is a big city, however a few hours from a cruise does not do it justice. We are now "over" all of the food and ready to come home, although we are sorry the holiday is over. We are looking forward to seeing you all and telling (boring) you with all of the details of the holiday.

Kerrie and Steve on board at the "Piano Bar"

Darth Vador Playing The Violin in Victoria Canada "what the" !

Is this Moose being tooo friendly ?

Kerrie and Smokey The Bear

Here we are entering Canada for the first time.

We are now two days into our cruise. We are on the Carnival Splendor which is the newest ship in the Carnival fleet; the Splendor was commissioned in November 2008.
Before we could depart all crew and passengers had to take part in the life board drill which is fun in itself listening to some of the people complain!. We left Long Beach CA on Sunday at around 5:30 pm.
We had a police boat and Coast Guard escort to the open sea. All small craft that came any where near us during our departure was approached by the Coast Guard, machine gun and all. Once we were safely on our way Kerrie was into the spirit of the holiday and ordered a cocktail to get into the “cruising mood”. Our cabin is great and very close to the lifts which make getting around easy. We have changed dining tables twice and are now seated with some people from Austin Texas.

We have just come back on board from a very short stay in Astoria Oregon. The town has a population of 10,000 and with 3000 passengers and 2000 crew we increased the population substantially. It was very cold and not the tropical climate of “Mexico” we had originally counted on but “hey” Astoria is now of the “Bucket” list !! Internet on the ship is 75 US cents per minute so I will update again after we have been to Vancouver at the end of the week.

"Here are the Cocktails you ordered Madam"

We are ready for the Life Boat drill.

The Coast Guard boat, complete with machine gun.

A view of Astoria Oregon from the ship.

There is a great free bus called "The Passport" that takes you all around Long Beach (a bit like the CAT bus in Perth). We did a full circuit to get to see where everything was and then hopped off at the Queen Mary to have a tour. They took us on a "Ghost" tour of the ship that was good, the guys running it looked like that were of the set of the Adams family. The ship and it's history were great however the hotel section didn't look much and we weren't impressed.
Again no one to take our picture (getting good at this self portrait stuff) Note to self: "Trim nose hairs"

"Im the Queen of the world"

We are now in Long Beach CA for two days before our cruise to Canada.
We are staying at the Renaissance Hotel and this is the view from our room on the 10th floor, the Queen Mary hotel is in the background

On our first night (Friday) we went to a local seafood restaurant called Kings Fish House where we had lobster and soft shell crab, soft shell grab is only available for a short time each year as the crab must be caught during the time after the grab sheds it's shell and before the new shell has time to harden, you eat the crab shell and all.
This is a picture of my glamorous wife eating her dinner (the blur on the picture near her hands is because they are moving so fast removing the lobster meat)