Uniworld Document Day!

I opened my front door this morning to greet a FedEx driver who delivered a small, but very important package.

Our Uniworld vacation documents!

You're supposed to receive these documents 21-30 days before departure. We're 15 days from leaving the states. Earlier this week I checked in with our travel agent and learned that the documents had been misplaced at some point (I'm not pointing any fingers), but Uniworld re-issued the documents and got them to us right away.

The package (which is a nice, leather case that could function as a travel wallet) includes a printed version of the Cruise Companion (which of course I had downloaded many months earlier, but enjoyed reading again), our printed tickets and contract, two leather luggage tags, and some marketing materials.

We don't really have any more information today than we did yesterday (is it possible for me to find any more information about this cruise? I don't think so.), but departure suddenly seems much more imminent. I might pull out the suitcases tonight, and soon I'll post my packing list for public critique.

Social Media Sabbatical

I made one other decision related to our trip this week—I'm going to take a full two-week social media sabbatical. I'm online almost all day, every day. Social media is my job. I've decided (and received hearty encouragement from friends) to abstain from all social media sites from the moment I leave my house until the moment our plane lands back in the United States. I'm going to uninstall every social media app from my phone and iPad. I'm not even going to take my phone with me when I leave the stateroom/hotel room. I'm also leaving my work phone at home in the United States. I haven't been this unplugged for this long since ... well, since I plugged in in the first place. I will, however, be updating this blog. I just won't be posting links to each post on Twitter and Facebook. I'm curious to see how this goes.

Pre-Trip Reading

I've also picked up a copy of Prague Winter from our local library. It was recommended on a Travel With Rick Steves podcast about Prague as a good overview of recent history of the city. Since we'll be there for a week and we like to visit historic sites, I'm hoping it will give me some good background knowledge. It's over 400 pages, so I have a lot of reading to do if I want to finish it before we leave!

Fingers Crossed for Business Class

I talked my parents into taking advantage of the Smart Upgrade offered by Austrian Air. They let you place a bid on a business class upgrade, and tell you 72 hours before your flight if your bid has been accepted. If they take your bid, you have business class seats, which include a seat that fully reclines into a bed, comfy sleeping linens, a multi-course meal prepared by an on-board chef, fancy coffee drinks, a touch screen in-flight entertainment system, noise-canceling headphones, and more. If they don't take your bid, you keep the seats you originally paid for.

We can't afford the sticker price of business class, but I'm hoping maybe—just maybe—they accept our bid for the Chicago-Vienna segment so we can fly in style.

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