The First Day
January 13, 2009 Tuesday
This is a reprint of the first post in the Queen Victoria World Cruise 2009 — the other 41 posts HERE.
INTRODUCTION:
On Tuesday, January 13, 2009, my wife, Carol Anne, and I flew from our winter home in Celebration, Florida (Orlando / Disney World area) to Fort Lauderdale. That evening we sailed on the Cunard Queen Victoria to Curacao. We joined The Queen Victoria at her second stop on her world tour, a tour that had begun 3 days earlier on January 10 in New York City, and we would be traveling through the Panama Canal, to Hawaii and on to New Zealand, Australia and eventually return through the Mediterranean Ocean to Southampton on April 20.
Originally we had intended to sail on the Queen Victoria for 37 days to Sydney, Australia, then disembark and spend about six weeks crisscrossing Australia visiting friends, riding trains and seeing sights. By the time we reached Los Angeles, however, we had decided to remain on the Queen Victoria and continue west around the world to Southampton, England. Having decided to complete the world tour with the Queen Victoria, we next booked passage back to New York (and home) on the Queen Mary 2.
Having planned to sail halfway around the world, we had decided to completely circumnavigate the world.
The sheer audaciousness of this appealed to us both.
PHOTOGRAPH
Taken in front of our home in Celebration, Florida, by our friend George Moran, morning, January 13, 2009. Scroll up for a picture taken in the same spot with us dressed exactly the same, taken the evening of April 26, 2009, on our arrival back in Florida. Both this picture, and the April 26 picture above (scroll up), were taken by George Moran.
QueenMary2 