Yeehaw we're going on a cruise to Norway

You read that correctly…we (as in the shore captain and me) are going to be on the Grand Princess cruising in the Norwegian fiords in less than a month from now. I have been accepted as a specialist interest speaker on a 12-day cruise out of Southampton up the coast of Norway to inside the Arctic Circle. Here’s the link to check the ship out:

http://www.princess.com/learn/ships/ap/index.html

The opportunity was posted on Friday as I’m guessing a speaker’s circumstances changed and I jumped on it and submitted my topics that p.m. while in the city. I heard back first thing this a.m. that the booking agency was sending a proposal to Princess Cruises and I was accepted after lunch.

Needless to say I had vacation coverage for myself and the offer extended to the life partner within five minutes – he certainly didn’t pause when accepting, as it has been his dream to return to Norway for almost 15 yrs since he traveled there with a government mission. Although he told me that he “doesn’t get excited” when I asked I noticed he was keen to watch the DVD from Princess Cruises but had to settle for the brochure as the cat has chewed through two DVD cords in the past few months. That Gary! When someone at work asked if I was going to go or had coverage I told them the date was well within the two weeks notice I have to give.

The only slight glitch is that I submitted five topics (they requested 4 or 5) and they choose 2 or 3 but…I’ve only got two PowerPoints ready to roll at present. Since the agency will be putting my topics in a different order tomorrow I’ll perhaps have 3 presentations to pull together in a few weeks. Reminds me of university term paper outlines then having to produce the goods.

I’ve been checking on flights and can likely do better myself with a cheap charter or perhaps one of the local agents can top the quote the crew travel came up with. It’ll sure be a cost effective vacation for the two of us when you figure that at maximum it will be 10% of sale cost for the cruise.

I told the baby daughter as we were celebrating her 19th birthday supper that she must have been the charm as a few good things happened today. None of them directly related to work mind you. Her father, myself and the birthday girl celebrated with a bottle of champagne as promised due to my landing the speaking gig and her being of legal age. Where did the time go as she’s a second year university student now.

The oldest daughter had called from Calgary yesterday on Father’s Day to say she’d managed to pick up tickets to Cheryl Crowe concert being held there on October 1st, which also happens to be her 24th birthday. We’ve made plans to head out for our two birthdays, which are two days apart so I think her father was as pleased with that news as the cruise. He won’t have to worry if he fits into his suit for that event at least.

On a less pleasant topic I learned over the weekend that a good friend’s mother had died as was expected so the planning is that the funeral will be on Wednesday afternoon. It seems that all of us are dealing with elderly parents now due to the demographics. Always wish there was more I could do, a batch of chocolate chip cookies just doesn’t cut it.

We’ve been worried about our summer neighbours from Iowa as there’s major flooding and several of the community have asked about their whereabouts. Apparently the evacuation order was lifted in the forest fire outside of Dartmouth so our friends there are getting a bit of a break. So much going on.