Day 0 - An unusual trip idea

Just how to spend a birthday? I love traveling but am a bit burned out by doing "regular" traveling. You know, go to work Friday, hop on a red-eye flight somewhere, hotel, food, sight seeing, fly back home, back to work Monday (I know, first world problems). This year I need something different. As chance would have it one day I got lost in the interwebs and stumbled upon an 18 day cruise on Royal Caribbean's Legend of the Seas.

I've been asked a few times why I keep doing cruises instead of just flying to a city and staying there for a week. The answer to that is kind of easy - I get bored in one spot. Add to the fact that there are so many places to see on this earth, I don't want to see the sunrise over the same place I saw it rise over 24 hours earlier. Cruises chauffeur me to a new place, offer decent food while aboard, free room service, amazing ocean-front views from my balcony, then let me off to explore a new city nearly every day. To me that's perfect. Yes there are a few places I want to go back and visit for a couple of days but they will have to wait until I've see other places on this planet.

Concern number one in my mind when considering this voyage - the demographics of those aboard the ship. Having done a 15 day Panama Canal voyage (read it here) I still clearly remember the number of people under 60 y.o. on that ship. Hopefully this won't be a wheelchairs or walkers cruise. But I'm optimistic that being so close to New Zealand and Australia there will be quite a number of active people aboard. Boat leaves soon!

This trip will take me to the follow itinerary:

• Hong Kong, Hong Kong 
• Manila, Philippines
• Puerto Princesa, Philippines 
• Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia 
• Benoa, Bali, Indonesia 
• Darwin, Australia 
• Cairns, Queensland 
• Airlie Beach, Australia 
• Brisbane, Australia