WorldTravelReynolds

God’s beauty never ceases to amaze me!

Around noon on the day before we arrive in Bali, we get a message from the captain that Royal Caribbean along with World Health Organization WHO and Center of Disease Control (CDC) have decided it is not in the best interest of the health of the passengers to visit Bali Indonesia. Indonesia is considered an Asian country and rumor has it they have not been doing much to keep the virus from infecting their people. Bali is a very poor region and people typically do not go to the doctor when sick unless in very dire circumstances. The Balinese government official stated that prayers will keep them virus free and has not put in any type of restrictions or precautions. We think the Captain et al. made a wise decision. We didn’t hear any grumblings or complaints around the ship so the feelings must be mutual all around. We anchored just outside Bali so that Royal Caribbean would at least be in international waters. If the ship didn’t stop and spend a few hours in international waters, they would have to pay a hefty tax for a domestic sailing so we understand why we did what he did! After 4 hours we were on our way back to Australia. Our next stop in a few days is Geraldton. We have an excursion here to visit with some local animals. I cant wait!! 

While we have had a lot of downtime, we have been working on updating our travel spreadsheet with hotel and travel pricing for our second phase of travel in summer 2020-2021. With all the added cruises, our budget has increased significantly. Very excited aout the cruises and where we are going but a little hesitant now that I’ve put the budget together. I’m told by the boss man not to worry about it but once we get through this year, we’ll back off and travel less on cruises and more in some areas that the dollar goes further. These cruises were hard to pass up but the cost was more than we normally spend. With the multiple countries we have been through, apparently our credit card was compromised. However, we found this out by accident.

As much as we love our bank and tell them that so often, we were not notified that our credit card was being canceled on March 4th and a new one was on the way. Chuck was not happy with them. In looking at our budget for the remaining months for this year, I asked Chuck to provide me with the actual amounts on the credit card statement. We have had conversions to U.S. Dollars from Euros, Rupiah’s, British Pounds, Australian Dollars and Dirham’s. Chuck is very good at keeping an eye on our finances, almost daily unless we are on a cruise ship then it is when we are in port. Anyway, he noticed our account number was different on the link to our bank statements but when he clicked on the statement, it brought up the correct credit card statement. I would have thought it was just a typo error on the front page of the statement but I’m thankful my husband is more persistent and made a call to the credit card company. While trying to talk to them while out to sea at midnight Australian time zone, on an internet connection through Skype, it took a few hours to get it all straight. We were issued new credit cards and they are in the mail to us now. But, they were mailed to our Florida address. Since we will be in Australia for another month, we will have our mail-stop FedEx them to the hotel we will be staying when we get off the ship.  A minor irritation but if Chuck wasn’t observant enough to see something different, it would have been a real hassle. We do have other credit cards with us but we only use those for booking airlines where we can get our luggage on for free. Never a dull moment!

Sorry for the lack of picture’s. We’ll soon be in Geraldton, Australia so we’ll get off the ship for awhile. But, today is another beautiful day. May yours be as stress free as ours!

May God bless you always! 

Chuck & Lea Ann