April 8 – 2:00pm EDST
Port Everglades Cruise Terminal

26°5′52″ N 80°7′12″ W

I boarded the Crown Princess (shown above) in Fort Lauderdale about 12 noon today – along with about 3,000 of my new best friends 🙂

Here’s a view of the waterway where the ship is now docked – taken from my balcony cabin (L201) on the Lido Deck. It’s a long way down!

We set sail for England at about 7:00pm tonight. As soon as I got aboard I noted that there were already long lineups at the buffet restaurants. I hope we have enough food on board to make the crossing.

The crossing will take 14 days with a few stops along the way.

Sadly, Catherine is not on the trip with me. She has no interest in crossing the ocean on the water, but it’s been a “bucket list” wish of mine for several years, so away I go & there will be a reunion at the end of my journey. Thanks for the support honey!

Catherine & I are going to meet up at Heathrow Airport on April 22 & spend about 12 days self-guided touring around Bath, Oxford & London. Should be a lot of fun & I will have to do some extra walking to try & shed the extra weight I am probably going to pick up on the way over!

I hope to post some short blog entries while I am crossing. Each time I post I will include the ship’s longitude & latitude. If you copy & paste that information into Google Maps you will be able to see the ship’s position at that particular time.

Better go for now. It’s only a couple of hours before the ship sails & I see that the lineup at the buffet is much shorter now.

Cheers everyone!

Wally