I had seen this cruise advertised in July 2013 but it was advertised from Miami. I forwarded it to a friend and she told me it started in LA, so I checked again and sure enough it did. The itinerary was a very large portion of my Bucket List – the Panama Canal, St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Stockholm etc at the top of the remaining list. I had already been to a lot of other places on my list but this itinerary I had only been to LA. I called NCL and the next day it was all booked, so I was about to go on a trip of a lifetime – alone. I told my friend who had just returned from Europe and she called me back later that day to say she had the stateroom next to me. Then two more friends – a married couple also booked.
I like to find out as much as possible about places I am going to visit so started off checking the temperatures in each place we would visit and which cities had Hop on Hop off buses. Because we were laving LA at Easter time, this meant that the European cities on the Baltic could still be quite cool, so two completely different sets of clothes would be needed.
At last April 19th came around and we boarded the QANTAS flight at Sydney International Airport for the 13 hour fight to LA. We were staying in the Vagabond Inn, San Pedro and when we arrived – actually a few hours BEFORE we left Sydney, due to the International Date Line, we discovered several other guests were also joining the cruise. There are plenty of restaurants nearby, a drug store in the next block for last minute items, and also a sports stores if you need extra shoes!