Eighty Pounds!

That's how much luggage I'll be hauling with me.

There are a variety of reasons for this:

1. They charge me if I have one suitcase weighing more than 50 pounds, but not if I have two suitcases which are each under 50 pounds.

2. One suitcase for London; one suitcase for cruise.

3. You can never overpack for a cruise. Seriously. I mean, two outfits per day are minimally mandatory -- shorts and a tank or T-shirt during the day; dress for dinner. (Stupid "casual dress" requirements say no jeans, shorts, or T-shirts at dinner.) And that's assuming you just do one thing during the day -- if you take a swim or kayak or rest in the sun or whatever, that's another change of clothes. When I did a 7-day cruise in the Great Barrier Reef, I ran out of clothes after about 3 days. So, what I'm saying here is: I pretty much filled the suitcase with as many clothes as would fit in there, in the vain hope that I might possibly have taken too much.

(London -- London is different. London is one shirt for each day day, plus one vest, one sweater and one jacket, which all go with each other. But since the weather is colder in London, it still took up a lot of space.)

So... I've got about 40 pounds in each suitcase (including a folded up duffel bag to carry all the stuff I happen to buy), and I'm pretty much ready to roll tomorrow morning. Wheeeee!