Day 0 - On our Way

Weather
Cloudy with light rain, 53-60 degrees

Location
Los Angeles, CA

What we did
We flew in to Los Angeles two days before embarkation. We did this for peace of mind as there could have been delays due to the weather and peak travel during the holidays. Fortunately our flights were smooth and we encountered no delays. We decided to stay at a hotel close to the airport as friends of ours are flying in to LAX from their big trip to Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti and we had a nice visit in with them before we a about to venture out for four months. Our Viking World Cruise package included "luggage forwarding" so much of our packing took place three weeks ago. We decided to not pack many of our toiletries and so made a big run to CVS after checking into our hotel as we'll need supplies four months. Of course there will be several opportunities to pick up things in ports we visit, but some times with the language barrier, etc., it's nice to have the brands we are used to.

We also scheduled an Uber for 11am tomorrow to bring us to the Los Angeles World Cruise Center in San Pedro.

Cultural Highlights/Local Flavors
The weather was unseasonably cool and quite rainy, so we did not venture out much from the hotel but while in Los Angeles, we decided to dine at Scopa Italian Roots, where celebrity chef Antonia Lofaso is the executive chef and co-owner.

Travel Tips
We both are pretty tech savvy and so the travel tips we'll provide today are about some of the mobile apps we'll be using on this voyage.

FlightAware - you can see the progress of the planes you'll be flying on to help anticipate delays, etc..
CruiseMapper - you can track virtually any cruise ship as well as get details on the actual vessel.
Facebook Discussion Groups - for this cruise, we joined the "Viking World Cruise 2025 - 2026" months ago which provided us with a wonderful way to get tips and questions answered.