Dear Blogging friends

For some time now I have been holding out on you. I’ve been keeping a secret and now I want to share it with you all. My sister and I are going on a cruise next year.

We started planning it in late April but both of us were scared to say anything to anyone in case we jinxed ourselves. There were obstacles to be overcome. My sister  did not know if she’d be able to get leave from work. I didn’t have a valid passport, we had to save up enough money to pay for the holiday and of course there is the uncertainty over my Hubby’s health.

Gradually we are getting there, we’ve both been saving hard and selling a few things on eBay to make a little extra cash. My sister’s leave has been approved and I have applied for and received my brand new passport. Hubby’s health is still a cause of concern. When we began to plan this I had no idea he would be in hospital for so long. I have no idea how well he will be in six months time  but decided to go ahead with the plans anyway. I will worry of course but I’ll make sure that he is taken care of. I feel that I really need a couple of weeks break from stress and worry because we still have a very long way to go .

We will be sailing from Sydney in February of next year on Royal Caribbean’s “Explorer of the Seas” for an 11 day cruise to New Zealand. We’ve both wanted to go on a cruise for ages and have often talked about places we’d like to go but usually our talks would end up as fantasies about sailing across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary rather than cruises we could actually afford to do right now. One day my sister sent me an email about this New Zealand cruise which she’d seen an advertisement for saying that it would be a nice trip to do. I decided to pop in to a travel agent next time I was in Hobart and ask about prices to see if there were any better deals than the one in the ad and my timing was just right. There was a special. Buy one fare and get the second one for half price. The very helpful young man at the travel agent did some calculations for me and I was able to give my sister actual costs and say. “Could you save this amount by the end of the year? She thought she could.

We haven’t been on a holiday together since we went to Sydney in 2012 and we’ve never been overseas together. We decided that the time had come and committed ourselves to the trip. Since then talking about and planning for our holiday has kept us both going through all the trials of this year. We just can’t wait to go although I feel like I won’t really believe it’s happening until we’re in the plane flying to Sydney.

In my next post I’ll show you the “Surprise Present” my sister had been working on since we booked the trip.