Preliminaries

We took a midnight flyer out of LAX to Bangkok on Cathay Pacific (we used AA miles for business class). It was 15 hours of air time to Hong Kong but it was "heaven" because of the flat bed seats and the superior Cathay Pacific service—the best I have ever experienced in 50 years of flying. After a short layover it was three hours to Bangkok where we negotiated with a Limo service at the airport for transfer to Laem Chabang. For 2300 Bhat ($71) we took the 1½ hour ride to the port in comfort. We carry our own medium size roller bags on the ship and the whole embarkation process took 30 minutes. My wife Vonne and I are seasoned travelers as this was my 27th cruise (Vonne's 24th) and I have now visited 94 countries and Vonne 90 We are 67 and 59 and are still very independent travelers.

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