In keeping with the "gathering of mysteries" theme about to be celebrated tomorrow in
Killingworth, CT, we would like to sweep a few special friends away on the waves of our
own little "minor mystery"! A couple of years ago, we first had the idea to invite fellow
letterboxers along on a cruise we were taking to the Bahamas. We posted a message to
the LbNA"big list" in the fall of 2004 (see our clip from message # 47368 on Nov 10, 2004
at the bottom of this post), because we thought it was such a good deal - only $249
(plus taxes) for a 4-night cruise, including port charges for 3 different islands, all food,
accommodations, entertainment, and possibly even a few letterbox plants on board and
along the way! (We did pick up quite a fine bunch of boxes at ports of call in Key West on
our last couple of cruises!)

Well, over the past several years we've seen quite a few even better cruise deals, and would
like to share one we're considering doing as our fourth cruise together ( and sixth for me
overall - not bad for a person prone to motion sickness!) for January of 2007. Granted,
some people may desire fancier quarters, more hobnobbing with the "hoi polloi" and
spending more time "at sea"... but as landlubbers who prefer spending our precious
daylight hours exploring islands, heading out for some local hiking and letterboxing, and
mainly using the ship as a place to royally eat and sleep, this cruise certainly seems to "fit
the bill" for us! It's a "loveboat-style" cruise, 4-nights with full-day stops at a beautiful
island, a lovely city, and a foreign country, with time for a little bit of "mystery letterbox
cruising" both before and after the actual cruise itself!

Anyway, if anyone's is interested in working out these details with us, just search around
for the lowest price offered for this particular cruise (hint: it's well below the price of that
last cruise we mentioned!) This will start your trip off on a good bearing. (I just checked
schedules again, and the price did just go up $5, but that should not appreciably affect
your standing!) On that note, take steps to find out how many letters there are listed in the
cruise line's good name (this, too, hardly matters, since we've traveled on five different
cruise lines so far, and find that we pretty much enjoy them all!) The only question then
remains to find the starting point for this cruise. Most of the time you will find this ship
docked near its home port of "New Beginnings", but for its maiden voyage, we hope to be
announcing its first port of call tomorrow at the "Gathering of Mysteries" in Killingworth,
CT! Bon voyage, and au revoir!

Wanda and Pete of RI
P177 F11369 X1234


"And speaking of cruises, we did actually sign up for another one just
the other day! It was too good of a deal to pass up - 5 days
of "Royal Caribbean" out of Miami for under $300, so we thought we'd
pass that on to anyone else who might be interested in joining us in
the latter part of January! We immediately thought of fun folks like
Don and Gwen, the Doubtful Guests, and many others who could turn
that ship into quite a letterboxing "Party Line", with boxes hidden
on islands along the way and maybe even a few on board the ship, too!
Plus fun things always happen on cruises anyway, like last time I
actually won a pearl necklace just for singing a few lines of a song!
So we really are hoping some old or new letterboxing friends will be
able to come aboard and get the party hopping! Please let us know off-
line if you're interested, and we'll be glad to send you the details!"
(from message 47368 of 10 Nov 2004)