A 5 day cruise is being planned the day after the Mobile reunion, leaving Mobile, AL to the Western Caribbean on the Carnival cruise ship Holiday. The ship leaves Mobile on Monday, November 03, 2008 and returns Saturday, November 08, 2008.

Latest Cruise information is as follows:

Inside Rooms: $334.00 P/P; Ocean View Rooms: $384.00 P/P.
(Above prices include taxes, fuel surcharge, and port costs).  Payments need to be made as follows:
07/07/2008:  $200.00
09/02/2008:  Final Payment Due
Cancellation policy:  Cancel on or after 09/04/2008 forfeit $200 P/P, 10/06/2008 forfeit 50% total fare; 10/28/2008 forfeit 100% of all money paid.  Any cancellations not within penalty dates will be refunded to the original form of payment.  Cancellation insurance may be purchased from the Travel Agent.  Room bookings can be made at the Springdale Travel Agency, Contact Linda Bennett @ 251 414 4616.  Linda will answer any questions that you may have.

From Our President Chuck Taylor:

All Shipmates:
I would like to say thank you for believing in me as your new President. This is a very big honor for me. I just hope I can fill our past president’s shoes. I hope everybody had a great Holiday season, and everybody is safe from any travel that occurred.

We had a very big turn out for our last reunion in Norfolk, and I would like to say thank you to all that attended. We had a lot of our old shipmates that make it every year, and a lot of new shipmates that came. I hope we have even more at out next reunion in Mobile Al.

 When the registration comes out, please try and get it in early to Jeff and also to the hotel. This will make everything go smoother, and give the hotel a better count if we are going to need more rooms put aside. Al has done a great job in putting this together for us, and I would like to say thank you to him for his time and efforts.

 During our last meeting, we have made an amendment to the constitution, to have a Ladies Auxiliary. This will be called the USS Belknap Ladies Auxiliary. As far as I know, this is a first for any ships. These ladies of the Belknap sailors have done a great job supporting our reunions and us. This is a big plus for us. Any ladies that want to join please email Pat Joseph at webmaster@ussbelknap.com? Subject=Ladies Auxiliary. She will be glad to put you on her list of members.

During our last reunion, we had a lot of shipmates donate items for our raffle.  Anybody  that is interested in continuing this trend, please feel free to do so. The more we have, the more we can raise for the Assoc.

We had a first at our Norfolk reunion. Ken Reeves played taps for our Memorial service. This was an outstanding job by him. I don’t think there was a dry eye after the service. Speaking of the memorial service, I would like to say a great big thank you to Jim Farrow for coming through one more time with this.  It’s a very rough job, and he sure does it with class.

If anybody should have any questions or suggestions, please give any of the officers a call or drop us an email. We will be more than happy to address any questions or suggestions.

Again I would like to say thank you to everybody that came last year, and hope to see many more in Mobile..

Chuck Taylor (66-68)