how do you get the time off??

For those of you who cruise constantly...how do you get out of work that much??

For those of you who cruise constantly...how do you get out of work that much??

I'm semi-retired and work three days a week. My boss let's me take off anytime I want. Nice situation! My wife is a High School English teacher, so we can cruise at winter break, spring break and ten weeks during the summer.

Work is highly over-rated.

Kel:)

As long as I give my boss lots of notice, this cruise we have booked now for Dec. I told her in Jan. about it, she said okay.

Chris

I do not cruise constantly, but still do... I cruise during "breaks" in my schedule (I am a school teacher).

I am willing to bet that others can cruise constantly because they are retired. Friends of our family love cruising and can strictly because they have retired. This is my guess that many others will give.

I'm semi-retired and work three days a week. My boss let's me take off anytime I want. Nice situation! My wife is a High School English teacher, so we can cruise at winter break, spring break and ten weeks during the summer.

 

Work is highly over-rated.

Kel:)

Work really is over-rated.

DH and I have both put in our 40 years......

Both retired now!

It's a bonus to be able to book a cruise within 6 days of sailing...

I agree.... work is totally overrated!!:)

Get 5 weeks of vacation ( been there 31 Years:eek:) dh gets 3 weeks but gets week after Christmas through Jan.2 without counting as vacation. Last year and this coming Holiday season , we took advantage of the week of and after Christmas and did an 18 day Last year and an 11 day after Christmas this year. That splits up the days so all of them are not in the same year. This only takes 5 days out of the new year! That's how we managed to get another one in this month. It's 10 days but the 2 weekend that are in the cruise do not count as time against vacation. It's in the planning!!!!

We are both 50 so ...no we are not even close to retirement.

And if I could get rid of my two most expensive habits I would just quit work all together. Eating and living indoors.:eek:

Work is a bummer!!!:)

Most frequent cruisers are either retired, or own a business (and have employees to do the actual "work") or work for the government and get 6-8 weeks of vacation time (paid by our taxes!) per year!

ah, I see :)

just a bit jealous I guess? haha :)

become a freelancer :D

We get 3 weeks of vacation per year, plus 12 mandatory unpaid furlough days. Plus if we work overtime we have to take compensory time for it, no pay.

We get 3 weeks of vacation per year, plus 12 mandatory unpaid furlough days. Plus if we work overtime we have to take compensory time for it, no pay.

Yuck!

We work in manufacturing. We do a lot overtime and yes we get paid for it but the time away from work is so much nicer. Guess it's a give and take.

Hello - "going to see the world" from a fellow Pennsylvanian. We are in our 40's. We have a daughter just out of college and a 6 year old DD. We both have great work flexibility. We don't drive fancy cars and I have yet to receive a flawless diamond. We purposefully save for travel-almost as if it a necessity. We have been blessed to have 28 cruises under our belt so far-some more luxurious than others. It seems to be the only time we are all focused on making memories - not work, household chores, texting, boyfriends(not me, DD of course), etc. If we only had 5 days vacation per year - there is no doubt we'd spend them cruising. The memories are priceless!

ok, on this note...questions for the teachers or those in the school district field.

BIL and SIL want us to take a trip with them next *summer"...June, July, Aug. We "typically" vacation in October for our anniversary and the costs are down

That being said...are we going to typically be up against higher priced cruises during "summer break" because that is when school is out an we are "competing' (sorry, I don't mean that literally) with those in the teaching profession for cabins? Are teachers (or again, those in the educational field) not permitted to take vacation during the other nine months? Just trying to wrap my head around that.

Thanks in advance!

Cheers

Karen

We just discovered cruising ....(going on our first tomorrow!).... and I get 22 weeks a year off! :D:D:D

And when I am at work, I better make a lot of money, 'cause this is going to get expensive I can tell!!! :p

I am a per diem nurse so my work schedule is very flexible- I basically work only when I want, but that also means that I don't get any paid vacations or sick pay. There's a trade off. I've cruised half the time with my girlfriend who is also a nurse. My hubby gets about 4 weeks off a year, and as long as there aren't too many people at his work off at the same time he can go whenever, also.

Now that our son is in school we're limiting our cruises for only break time. He's at an age where he can appreciate cruising and visitng places. At least that's what I tell myself.:D Fortunetly his school starts late (started today), he gets 3 weeks off for Christmas and 2.5 weeks off for Easter. I wished he's have a harvest break (around mid Oct. some schools around here do that) because then I could sqeeze in a cruise!:D

When I worked full time I got 5 weeks vacation, always planned vacations well in advance, often took off for a month if we travelled overseas. Since I planned ahead, scheduled time off in the spring or fall, least popular time and always worked Christmas when most folks wanted time off, it was easy. I also worked extra time both before and after a trip to keep the work flow on track. The truth was there was no good time to take off, so one had to plan for it which I did. I also had someone cover for me and I covered for them when they took off - handling emergencies that could not wait.

Now that I am simi retired, do the same thing, plan well in advance, so no problem. Now I only work part time, generally when others want to take off, so I cover for others on vacation.

We only travel or cruise about twice a year, as much as we can afford on a retirement income. Not bad, will have cruised 40 times soon.

We started cruising in the early l980s. I retired in l999 and have done 2 and sometimes 3 cruises a year since retiring, if we found a deal we could afford. We have 5 cruises booked between now and spring 2012.

What I make working part time helps pay for for travel expenses.

ok, on this note...questions for the teachers or those in the school district field.

 

BIL and SIL want us to take a trip with them next *summer"...June, July, Aug. We "typically" vacation in October for our anniversary and the costs are down

 

That being said...are we going to typically be up against higher priced cruises during "summer break" because that is when school is out an we are "competing' (sorry, I don't mean that literally) with those in the teaching profession for cabins? Are teachers (or again, those in the educational field) not permitted to take vacation during the other nine months? Just trying to wrap my head around that.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Cheers

Karen

Hi Karen,

Most teachers have a 184 day contract. They may have one or two "personal" days, but zero paid vacation days. Teachers are unemployed during the summer, but most districts withhold their salary and spread their money out over 12 months.

Summer cruises will have more families, so teachers really make up a very small portion of people cruising during that time. We cruised July 4th this past summer and the rates were really pretty low. Xmas and New Years are the expensive times to cruise.

When school is out, you will have many more kids on ships (we had 503 kids under age 18 on our Solstice summer cruise). Off season, like October, early December, late April, May -- the average age on many cruise ships jumps to over 60.

Enjoy!

Kel:)

I tell the boss I'm going out to make a few sales calls. Answer a few e-mails from my I-phone every day, and no one has to be the wiser. He's sooooo clueless!

;)

What really happens is that I bust my butt most of the year, work weekends, and try to create some room so I can take a few days off. I know that I'm going to have a pile of work that is overdue when I get back thanks to being short-staffed (we're working smarter, not harder! :rolleyes:) but since that's no different than the situation pre-cruise I don't let it bother me too much.

We are retired -- so we can cruise as often as we like.

But when we worked -- we were lucky if we could cruise once a year -- our vacation times usually weren't at the same time even though we both had senority in our jobs -- different companies.

Most frequent cruisers are either retired, or own a business (and have employees to do the actual "work") or work for the government and get 6-8 weeks of vacation time (paid by our taxes!) per year!

I don't know where you get your information, but you aren't accurate.

The max vacation for a Fed is 26 days, earned after working 15 years. That's not 6-8 weeks where I live, but maybe the Virginia school system teaches a different week definition than we use in the rest of the US. :D

I'll also have to ask my friends who own their own businesses and are working 60-80 hours a week why they don't have employees do the actual work so they can cruise all year long. Particularly those right now struggling in this economy.

The answer as to why so many people here cruise so much is more likely to be "because people who post on CC quite often are addicted to cruising and do it every chance they get".

They cruise more because they like it best.

If you do look at the demographics of CC, you would see that many frequent posters are retired, or semi-retired, or have lots of free time. Look at the birthday lists at the bottom of the pages and you'll see lots of 50+ folks on here.

These older posters generally do have more accumulated vacation time, personal time and many of the posters live near ports. I could take RCI, X or Carnival right now out of B'more. A quick 5 day trip to Bermuda if I wanted. Doesn't take much leave to do lots of short trips. Don't have to fly either. Look at all the FL and west coast posters who can hop on ships to Alaska or the Caribbean.

We actually cruised more when I was still working. We mix long rental vacations with cruises and land tours now, since we tired of the crowds in the Caribbean and Alaska. We've moved into longer more exotic cruises and do them less often. Currently saving to do Antarctica in December 2011. That will set us back more than what 10 Caribbean cruises could cost us. ;)

Yuck!

We work in manufacturing. We do a lot overtime and yes we get paid for it but the time away from work is so much nicer. Guess it's a give and take.

I like the time off. :D

Not only do we take 2+ cruises per year, but we also take land vacations, and camping trips.

For those of you who cruise constantly...how do you get out of work that much??

Many are retired or else almost retired and have lots of vacation time. don't worry-if you are still young, your time will come. Unfortunately age and all that comes with age (bad health, lack of energy) also comes.

I get about 15 days of vacation a year (next year I go up to 20 days! :D)

Until very recent, we could roll over your time.

This was very helpful in 2002 when I took a whole month off from my full time job and three and half weeks (unpaid) from my then part time job.

Since I don't take off but a day or two here and there during the year, this free up my vacation time, holiday time and floating day. On my job, we can also swap with others to work for us.

It also helps that on my current full time job (use to be my part time) that I'm number four in senority among all the full timers :D:D:D!

The result? Very long vacation time for longer cruises!!!!

For example, on my upcoming cruise, when I'm taking about 24 days off to cruise, relax and recharge. My next block of time off again won't be until September 2011.