January 3rd, 2020

All my bags are packed and I’m ready to go….I’m leaving, on a jet plane….well a ship actually. I can not believe tomorrow is the day we are boarding the Amsterdam to begin our trip around the world. We had a relaxing day trying to adjust to the east coast time. We woke up at 11:00 local time, went down to the hotel lobby and got all checked in with the wonderful staff of Cruise Specialists travel company. Some of these people I have been talking to on the phone for months and their expertise helped me to plan this amazing trip for my girls and my mom and I. It was nice to be able to give them a hug and personally thank them for everything they had done for us. Of the 1300 passengers on the ship, Cruise Specialist booked 275 of them and they are all here at his hotel. 90 of us are first timers and the remainder are all returning world cruise travelers. It is amazing to see people embrace one another as old friends to welcome them “home” to another world cruise. I feel blessed to be a part of this family already. There was a cocktail party this evening followed by a dinner all hosted by our travel company to thank us all for using their company to book our trip. The president of Holland America Orlando, his wife Samantha, and son Jackson were also here. We had the opportunity to meet Samantha and Jackson, last year when we were in Seattle, as they are both doing the cruise along with us. It was nice to see them again. Everyone is so excited for the adventure that starts for us tomorrow. The girls were welcomed so warmly as having children on the trip is not common. We had people offer to help with school, play games with them and one woman even told Valerie to tell me that she was going to do school and she will help her get out of it. Little stinker. So much laughter and joy. I feel so blessed to be doing this trip with my mom and my girls. I will probably say that many more times. But it is so true. I know that we are all able to do this because of the love and sacrifice my late husband made to provide for us. He is with us in spirit and we travel with him in our hearts. So now we need to try and get some sleep. It is already 10pm east coast time and we have to be ready to go by 8:30am tomorrow morning. Our shuttle leaves for the ship at 9:45am. We are scheduled to pull away from port at 5:00pm. I will try to post tomorrow…if not we have four sea days before we hit Dominica. Let’s see how this works. I am going to try so hard to have a post typed and ready to go every day. I will do my best to be accountable to you and use that as my motivation. Hugs, love and joy from us in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Debra