The Ship

The idea of our trip was sparked by a small mention in the Courier Mail one Saturday about a cruise from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Valparaiso in Chile, and another from Valparaiso to West Coast USA. The price was right, the places sounded as though they'd jumped out of our dreams ... but how did the ship get to Argentina?

Investigation on the web showed us that the trip was really three back-to-back cruises, and that the ship was still being built! We booked for all three, in a balcony 'stateroom' (no 'cabins' here!) on the starboard side, which will be nearest the coast as we go in and out of nineteen ports - and started to dream.

The Carnival Splendor was launched in July 2008. It is 952 feet (that's 290 metres) long and 116 feet (35.4 metres) wide, and holds 3,006 passengers, served by 1,150 staff. It's 2 feet shorter than the new Queen Victoria which came to Australia this year, but 10 feet wider. We've been following its journeys from Trieste and Genoa, Italy, where it was built and fitted out, through its early cruises in the Baltic and the Mediterranean, then to Port Everglades, Florida, where it's now based. It sounds great!