Diamond Princess - 3/13/2010. Bangkok to Beijing

[kennetro]

2 guys from Texas looking forward to this one. Anyone else on this sailing?

[mcruiser]

Hello Guys,

 

We're looking forward to the cruise too. We're from Tucson, formerly from Oklahoma City (moved in '06). All of Mike's family live in the Austin area. We're also doing the Pre-Cruise tour of Angkor Wat and Thailand. This is our eighth cruise together, and first with Princess in some time. Looking forward to meeting you--

 

Ben & Mike

[kennetro]

Finally!! WELCOME!!! We were beginning to think we'd be the only ones on this ship! :-) I was going to wait until we were 30 days out, and try one more time. We're so glad you responded!

 

Just a little background here. We are 56 (Ken) and 62 (Ray) and both retired exactly 1 year ago this month. (Not the typical old retired coots, though. We're very active & fun loving.) This will be our 9th (I think) cruise, and only our 2nd on Princess. Others were all on Cunard & Celebrity. We are only spending a couple of days in Bangkok, and then meeting an ex-coworker of Rays, "Paul" (who is from Philadelphia, gay, hilarious, single, & traveling "solo") before heading on to Laem Chabang for boarding. Paul is very well-traveled and a real character, so I think you'll enjoy meeting him as well.

 

So far, we've always been lucky in meeting some really nice & fun gay friends on our cruises --- many of whom we still keep up with regularly. It's also always nice to have friends to meet in the evening (after a long day of touring) & possibly solve all the problems of the world over "refreshing beverages" <g>).

 

I think if we were only packed, we'd be ready to go tomorrow. All flights, hotels, & tours were "put to bed" months ago. (Heck, I'm already working on our next cruise in Jan '11!)

 

I'm sure you've probably done all the research & are all set as well, but just on the off chance you're wondering about anything, just HOLLA & we'll see if we can help!

 

We're looking forward to it!

 

Ken (& Ray)

 

P.S. I noticed there is another couple of guys who have joined the "regular" Roll Call (as have we) .... but don't know what their story is. Heck, it could be Father/Son, Uncle/Nephew,,,,,who knows?

 

K

[mcruiser]

Ken and Ray,

 

We're so glad that we posted this and caught up with you. We thought you were the only gay people on board too. (!) (massive numbers of crew not included)

 

A little background on us -- Mike is 64 and retired from financial services industry over 3 years ago when we moved to Tucson, and Ben is 46 and writes from his home-office. We have also cruised on Celebrity three times, and Royal Caribbean once. Previous to that we were on 3 Princess cruises.

 

We say every day that we wish we were already on the ship. We're sore from Typhoid shots of two days ago, and our Cambodian Visas will come tomorrow, and we're still reeling from the cost and bother of the China Visas. We're looking at it like an admission ticket.

 

We've also met great gay (and otherwise) friends while cruising -- and have met up with them on other cruises. By the way, we're in D402 if you'd like to contact us for aforementioned "refreshing" beverages. And we decided to go the Traditional Dining (Late) option. We've already got our tours done too.

 

Only a few days away, or so we keep telling ourselves -- just call us up when we're all there. Happy travels from Texas to Thailand.

 

Ben (and Mike)

[kennetro]

Hey, thanks for the response. We're neighbors. Well, almost. Ray & I are just down the hall (further aft from you) in D702. ....So try to hold the noise down, huh? LOL

 

Typhoid shots? Ugh. Our Dr. gave us each 4 "live vaccine" capsules to take the week we leave. (We have to store them in the fridge until then.) Are you doing malaria pills as well?

 

Lastly, here's my email address, just in case you either want a quicker reply, or there is something we'd rather not post so "publicly".

 

trout_kenneth@yahoo(dot)com (that's an underscore in there).

 

Take care & practice those chopsticks!

Ken