20241126 Seabourn Sojourn Grand Africa Cruise Day 1/96 - The Villages to Barcelona

Grand Africa Cruise Day 1/96 - we're off to Barcelona!

It's time for a new adventure! Today, we're off to Barcelona to begin our next trip - the 90-day Grand Africa cruise on Seabourn Sojourn.

Before we get into this trip, here is an update. As most of you loyal readers know, we set a travel goal of visiting all 50 states (49 - only Oregon to go), all seven continents (done), and 100 countries. We had been using the list of 193 U.N.-recognized member states.  Unfortunately, this list ignores many actual countries that are territories of other countries. Countries like Curacao, Bonaire, French Polynesia, Gibraltar, etc. This meant our list of visited countries didn't truly represent our travels. I went back to the drawing board and updated our list of countries to the full list of 252 countries. Going back through that list, our count changed from 72 countries visited to 87, meaning this trip will push us over our goal of 100 countries. Woo hoo!

Everything began a few days ago. Arlona started laying stuff out. I held out until Sunday and finally broke down, got out the suitcases, and started packing. The big issue is that Monday afternoon and evening are shot as we had golf and dinner with Arlona's neighborhood Nine & Dine group, so I had to start early (for me).

We wrapped up packing Monday and started the home prep - taking the Christmas cactus to a neighbor, getting our mail key to another neighbor, taping off sink drains, putting trickle chargers on the SUV and golf carts, and so on.

Today, we got up early, put the final items into the suitcases, ate a quick breakfast, washed the dishes, closed up the rest of the sinks, turned off the ice maker, water supply, and water heater, and waited for our ride.

This cruise came with door-to-door transportation, so we aren't using our usual company, Creative Concierge. Seabourn contracts with a company called Blacklane. Our driver, Johan, arrived promptly at 6:50 AM and loaded our bags into a shiny black Suburban. Arlona finished closing up the remaining sinks. I unplugged the TVs and turned off the ice maker, water heater, and inside water. We armed the alarm, locked the door, lowered the garage door, and climbed in for the ride to Orlando International Airport.

Traffic was relatively light given that we were on the road during rush hour. We arrived at the airport by 8:15 for our 11:17 flight to Miami.

We are flying Iberia Airlines to Miami and then to Barcelona. They are operated here by American Airlines, so we checked in at Terminal B. The Business Class line was short. Arlona's and my big bags weighed in at 47 and 47.5 pounds, respectively, and our medium bags were less. No issue there.

We moved on to TSA. All the Pre-Check lines were about 5-6 people deep, including the two ladies in our line who were turned away by the agent because they didn't have Pre-Check status. There are huge signs indicating Pre-Check versus standard, but perhaps they weren't native English speakers. Anyway, the TSA check went quickly and we were off to find the American Admiral's Club.

Termina B, looking festive

This club is small but has two floors. Upstairs has a pop machine and seating. Downstairs has food, a bar, and more seating. There are large windows on both floors, but they overlook vehicle storage, so it isn't terribly picturesque.

Still, it's much better than the crowded gate area. We grabbed a Coke Zero and hung out until boarding time. We were flying out of Gate 50 and the club was essentially right next door so it was incredibly convenient.

Since I have a few moments before our flight to Miami, let's talk about this trip. We will spend three days in Barcelona. We will arrive a little before 9:00 AM on Wednesday morning, Barcelona time - six hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast. We don't have any plans for that day as it will be more of a time zone acclimation day for us.

On Thursday, we have an inside tour of Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's amazing church in Barcelona. Friday, we're touring Montserrat, a Benedictine monastery that houses the Black Madonna, and will attend a welcome gala that evening put on by Seabourn. This is our first Seabourn cruise and it appears this will be a significant upgrade over our previous cruises. For example, the Blacklane transport to and from the airport was provided by Seabourn. Everything, WiFi, drinks, laundry, is also included. Excursions are not, and that is a big difference versus Viking or Regent Seven Seas that we're cruising in April. There will be eleven formal nights throughout this journey. While we like dressing up, it is more of a challenge packing for that when you're also packing for three months.

This trip was initially supposed to travel east from Barcelona, heading through the Suez Canal and Red Sea before heading east to the Seychelles. Then, it was to head southwest, down the coast of Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Town before heading north and east along Africa. Then, we were to head east to the Canary Islands, through the Strait of Gibraltar, and back to Barcelona.

With the war going on, and the terrorist threat in the Red Sea, cruises are avoiding that area. Seabourn retooled the itinerary completely. Now, we will depart Barcelona, ultimately heading west through the Strait of Gibraltar, and work our way down and around Africa, and east to the Seychelles. Then, we'll turn around and work our way back. The ports have been split, hitting some on the way out, and others on the way back. We will stop in Cape Town in both directions. 

We opted to take a Seabourn overland excursion on the way back. When we dock in Durbin, South Africa, we will disembark for a week. We will fly to Johanessburg and spend a day. Then, we will fly to Zimbabwe and spend a couple of days at Victoria Falls. From there, we'll fly to Botswana and spend three days at the Chobe Game Lodge in the Chobe National Park. Throughout the trip, we'll have multiple game drives, a river cruise on the Zambezi River, and more. All that begins on January 22, 2025. We'll rejoin the ship in Cape Town and continue up the west coast of Africa back to Barcelona. We will fly home on March 1, 2025.

As we sat in the American Airlines Admiral Club, we watched our aircraft, a Boeing 737 Max 8 arrive from Miami.  

American Airlines starts boarding 30 minutes before the planned departure time. Shortly before that, we left the club and walked around the corner to the gate. A couple of minutes later, they called Group 1 and we boarded. We launched and arrived on time. I discovered a key feature that Boeing apparently does not include on their 737 Max 8 aircraft - heat! Wow, it was cold on that flight! A constant cold (not cool, not chilly, cold!) breeze blew on us the entire flight. I was happy that our flight time was only 40 minutes or so.

Our departure is scheduled from the same terminal where we landed, so that was nice. We found the Admiral's Club and headed in. This one was huge. Tons of seats, tons of electrical outlets, plenty of food, a full bar, Wi-Fi - nice. We grabbed a bite and relaxed.

Some bread, a deconstructed chicken pot pie, and a little charcuterie - there may or may not be Aviation Gin mixed in with that Diet Coke...

They put a tray of salted chocolate chip cookies out right after we finished eating so we had to sample those too.

Arlona, getting some reading in on her Kindle - there may or may not be some Tito's mixed in with the cranberry juice...

I had plenty of time to write up today's adventures while in the club.

We are trying something new this trip. I took advantage of Black Friday sales and bought a four-pack of Samsung SmartTtags. SmartTags are Samsung's answer for Apple AirTags - tracking devices that can help you locate things. We can't use AirTags because we don't use Apple devices. Without an iPhone or iPad, we're out of luck. Samsung SmartTags work the same way. My phone connects to them when they're nearby. When they aren't nearby, They report their whereabouts to any other Samsung device. Given that Samsung and Apple are the leading cellphone providers, there is always someone nearby with a Samsung phone. Once a phone senses the SmartTag, it anonymously sends that information to the cloud. I can then use the Samsung SmartThings app to display the tag's location on a map.

I placed one tag in each of our bags, giving them all meaningful labels (Garry big bag, Garry small bag, Arlona big bag, Arlona small bag) so we could tell them apart.

Here, you can see my phone's location (the blue pin) and our four bag pins all stacked on top of each other so I know all four of our bags are at the airport

It all just works and is pretty slick. In the event of a lost bag, the app will be able to tell me where the bag is, anywhere in the world. It is a cheap bit of insurance and for me, some cool tech. My only complaint is that they use CR2032 coin batteries. There are competitors from Pebblebee and others that are rechargeable. They use Google's Find My Device network and work similarly, but I couldn't get them before we left, and they were considerably more expensive. So for now, SmartTags it is.

As we sat in the Admiral's Club, we chose to sit on the "quiet" side. The side with the food is much busier with loud conversations going on and people milling about. The quiet side has comfy chairs and more subdued lighting. It is where people go to read, relax, work, and so on. Well, that worked for a while. There must be a lot of late flights here as the place kept filling up. As it did, more people were carrying on conversations on their speakerphones (and not in English so I couldn't eavesdrop!), or simply talking in what I equate to an outside voice. Oh well...

I monitored our aircraft's inbound flight from Madrid. It arrived a little late, but still nearly three hours before our flight. It is a Boeing 777 - what we flew when we came back from the river cruise this summer. That means it should be comfy with individual pods in Business Class. Nice.

As I type this, everything shows as on time, and boarding is planned in about 45 minutes. With that, I will wrap up this initial entry for this 96-day journey. We should arrive tomorrow morning in Barcelona, ready for a slow adjustment day.