With only one week until departing New Zealand and an upcoming cruise beginning next Saturday, the 16th, we decided to wrap up a few bookings for the distant future while we had a good Internet connection.
When we reviewed our itinerary ending on our five-year travel anniversary on October 31, 2017, a mere 18 months away, we knew it was time to pin down what was next on the horizon.
In the past few days, we were able to extend our vacation rental in Costa Rica to November 22, 2017 (19 months from now) making all of this planning work well. Costa Rica has a 90-day visa maximum for US citizens. Halfway through our stay we’ll leave the country for a day and re-enter providing us with a new visa end date.
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Although pre-planning to the extent we do may not appeal to some, without a home to return to, we find tremendous peace of mind in planning well into the future. In any case, it’s always delightful anticipating future plans and adventures.
In reality, most of us take great comfort in knowing where we hope (and plan, if possible) to be in the next few years. It can be a little unsettling not knowing what the immediate future holds.
No doubt, everything can change in a moment or in a day. But, that reality seldom prevents us, humans, from planning for the future and comfortably settling into the present.
For our way of life, however quiet or adventuresome it may seem at times, we find packing our itinerary with future plans a huge source of excitement and anticipation while we’re fully embracing our lives at the moment.
Now, with leaving this glorious location one week from today, we decided to wrap up a few bookings to place us well into the future, after we’ve left the US for the family visit and after over three months in Costa Rica living in the fabulous villa owned by our friends Bev and Sam whom we met in Kauai.
After accepting their generous offer of an excellent “friend” rate for the Costa Rica property we realized that keeping our costs down during this period enables us to plan a few pricier plans for the future when after Costa Rica, we planned to head to South America.
In today and tomorrow’s post, we’ll share these few cruises that will be instrumental in taking us to the perfect locations in South America as a segue into our possible two-year tour of the continent where again, we hope to fulfill more of our dreams.
In another post upcoming this week, we’ll be including our itinerary for the next 666 days that contains only a few gaps we’ll fill in months to come. If life proves to be quiet while in Bali and the wifi is adequate, we’ll be able to spend time searching for bookings to fill the gaps.
Then, of course, we’ll be posting our total final expenses for New Zealand on the morning we leave to drive to Auckland, one week from today, to take the flight to Sydney, Australia, where we’ll once again spend one night before the cruise the following day.
Sure, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed quiet farm life here in New Zealand. But now, as we continue on, we look forward to “shaking it up” a bit while seeing more of the world as you’ll observe in the upcoming post with the itinerary.
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These two cruises we’re posting today are “back to back” which we hadn’t posted at an earlier time. To explain “back-to-back” for our less experienced cruisers, it’s when passengers stay on the ship for its next cruise continuing on later in the day.
In most cases, we’re required to get off the ship for a short period, leaving all of our belongings in the same cabin while the ship is prepared for the next barrage of passengers embarking a few hours later.
In most cases, we won’t need to stand in long lines when we re-board and will be pushed along to easily gain access without any commotion since “back to back” passengers are given priority re-boarding.
On two other occasions, we’ve booked back-to-back cruises, once in Belize in April 2013 and another in Barcelona in May 2013. In both cases, it worked well when we were able to keep the same cabins except mid-cruise when we asked to be moved to a different cabin as a result of the pounding noise in the middle of the night from the disco below. (That was the last time we selected Carnival Cruises, not quite our type of cruise).
We’ll be back tomorrow sharing a “dream come true” while in the interim we’re totally wrapped up in the excitement in our backyard after Trish and Neil moved the alpacas to our backyard enabling us to enjoy them up close and personal during this final week. We’ll be sitting on the veranda most of the day watching them. It’s wonderful!
May your day be wonderful as well.
Photo from one year ago today, April 8, 2015:
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| Could this albatross chick be any cuter? A year ago while living in Kauai we spent hours observing the lives of the Laysan Albatross and their growing chicks. This experience added so much joy to our four months on the exquisite island, along with all the friends we made. What great memories! \Click here for more photos. |