Oct 31st, arrival at Orlando

Hotel Roanoke

City Hall Savannah

Orlando, we have arrived. Linda and I are very saddened to see and hear the description of the destruction along the East Coast from hurricane Sandy. We hope that our friends and their families are safe from the terrible destruction that we've seen in the news. As the storm approached we had three options. First, remain with our planned USair flight on Wednesday, October 31 at 8 AM. Second, look into Amtrak from Philadelphia to Orlando. Or third, rent a one way car rental and drive. We debated all of our options long and hard and on Sunday night we even considered changing our flight to Monday. Thank goodness we elected to drive and not choose the other alternatives. Both the Philadelphia airport in the Amtrak system were shut down Sunday evening.

What's the saying? Get a lemon, make lemonade. So we decided to view our journey to Orlando as a pre-expedition. We took off Monday morning at 9:30 AM heading west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. At Harrisburg turned south and took 81 into Virginia. At times the wind and rain were so hard it was very difficult to see the roadway. It was actually scary at a rest stop along the Pennsylvania Turnpike when we were virtually the only customers there.

Ship at Savannah 

Once on the road we set our first destination as Roanoke Virginia. With the help of Priceline.com we were able to investigate and negotiate a very good rate at the historic Hotel Roanoke. The hotel was built in the late 1800s and is in magnificent condition. The lobby and public areas have wonderful wood work and moldings typical of the Victorian-style.

 Bridge into Savannah

The next morning we left Roanoke heading west on 81 then south on 77 to route 95. We encountered some areas where there had been some snowfall overnight but nothing compared to the 3 foot we heard in portions of West Virginia.

Again with the help of Priceline.com we were able to secure a room at the Hilton in the northern area of the historic district just across from City Hall. After settling in we headed to the riverfront where there are plenty of pubs and restaurants. We were looking for an Italian restaurant but instead chose seafood. After a wonderful meal we strolled along the riverfront and headed back to our room.

In the morning we headed south again on Route 95 and made it to Orlando by 1:30 in the afternoon.  We checked in at the TCS tour desk and back to our rooms to organize our luggage for the next day. Later that evening there was a reception for all the TCS guests and a wonderful dinner.

After dinner there was a short introduction of the TCS staff and an introduction of the lecturers who will be accompanying us on the trip. I was very impressed with the experience of lecturers and look forward to learning about the cultures and civilizations that we will be visiting.

Got a go now, the Porter is knocking at the door to collect our large bags for tomorrow's trip to Guatemala. Hope to be back in a couple of days with pictures and updates from the Mayan sites.

Oct 27th, preparing for Hurricane Sandy

Incredible, absolutely incredible. Here we are excited about leaving on the trip of a lifetime and now we're faced dealing with hurricane Sandy. I hate putting my trust in the weatherman, but for sure there's going to be some significant type of storm that we are going to have to deal with. Our currently scheduled flight is to depart Philadelphia on Wednesday at 8 AM. The question is, will the hurricane disrupt the air traffic along the East Coast to the point of delays and cancellations of scheduled flights. We basically have three options; wait and see if our regularly scheduled flight is available, re-schedule now and fly down several days early or drive down the coast and arrive in Orlando at our regularly scheduled time. It certainly wouldn't be prudent to wait and find out our scheduled flight was canceled. At the moment, Linda and I have decided to look at this as an additional adventure before our trip. I have rented a car and our plans are to start driving sometime Monday. The goal would be to arrive in Charleston Tuesday, do some sightseeing, spend the night and then drive on into Orlando the next morning. Stay tuned to how it plays out.

Oct 6th, Pre Trip Posting

Hello everyone: some of you have followed Linda and myself around the world on various trips we have taken.  I'm writing today to invite you to follow what we expect to be the trip of our lifetime. The trip that we are embarking on is offered by TCS Expeditions and is titled Heaven and Earth around the World by private jet. We depart from Orlando on October 31 and return from London on November 20.

During this trip, we will visit 10 of the most spectacular locations this world has to offer. A trip like this would be impossible if it were not for the fact we were on a private chartered jet. Due to the fact it's a charter, entry into some of these remote countries will be much easier then if we were traveling on commercial airlines. During the trip, we should only be required to go through customs in India and Great Britain all of the other countries should allow us entry with our passports and visas being managed by TCS.

The accommodations are first-class in all respects. Our jet is a specialty Boeing 757 with a maximum capacity of 78 passengers. All seating is first class type. All hotels throughout our journey are four and five star accommodations. All baggage is managed to and from the hotels by TCS expeditions. All of these arrangements will allow us to maximize the amount of time we have at each location to see and experience the different cultures.

As a side note, Linda and I will have visited every continent after completing this trip. As we did for Africa, I expect to post, with pictures, an update after each location. Obviously, a lot has to depend on the availability and speed of Internet access. Occasionally during the trip I will send out two or three email reminders about the blog address, but hopefully not enough to be intrusive.

Here is a quick outline of the locations we will be visiting without going into too much detail at this time.

November 1 & 2:  visit the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal, Guatemala
November 3, 4 and 5:  visit Lima, Cusco and Machu Picchu, Peru
November 6 & 7:  visit Easter Island, Chile. Marvel at the mysterious colossal stone statues called Moai
November 8 & 9:  cross the International Date Line visit Apia, Samoa in the  Philippines
November 10 & 11:  fly deep into the heart of Australia and explore Ayers rock
November 12 & 13:  fly north to the Great Barrier Reef and experience a total solar eclipse
November 14:  experience the Temple of Borobudur,  the largest Buddhist temple in the world at Yogyakarta, Indonesia
November 15 & 16: fly to Jaipur, India where every room in our hotel has a direct view of the Taj Mahal, among other things visit the City Palace
November 17 & 18: Aqaba, Jordon: visit  the ancient city of Petra, hand carved into the rose red cliffs more than 2000 years ago.
November 19 & 20:  London, England: visit London staying at the famous Dorchester Hotel.

Sounds exhausting, but Linda and I spoke to several couples who already had taken TCS excursions. All of the couples had nothing but the highest praise for how all of the details and arrangements were handled. We asked two couples to give us a rating of 1 to 10 for their experience, one couple replied 12 the other couple replied 14.

Even though the trip is completely planned, there were still a lot of details that we needed to take care of. We needed to get new passports, because we didn't have a sufficient number of clear pages, we needed to apply for a visa for India, needed to visit a travel doctor and get all of the inoculations and medications that we will require in various countries and locations. All that now remains is to finish our packing and head to Orlando on October 31

Stay tuned, we will be back to you in early November.