cruiselvr04

These passport stories scare me! I need to take a picture of our birth certificates. I make it a point of when we pull out of the driveway to verify we have our passports. I never want to get cocky and forget to do it. Check and double check. Your stories give me nightmares.

I’m actually kind of surprised by the numbers. I reminded DH the other day that if we’d gone on the world cruise we would have been Pinnacle before the end. Guess we’ll just keep plodding along. For we lowly D+ the lunch’s are always a treat.

Park Cafe is a favorite place for lunch especially on boarding day. At night Central Park usually has live music. Allow extra time to get anywhere. It’s a big ship and there are times around dinner and shows when you will be waiting quite a while for an elevator. Unless you don’t like meat, try Samba. We really like it and only Radiance and Allure still have it.

We are booked with shore trips for February and really looking forward to it.

Very sweet! We will have all 6 of ours here for about 5 days next week. We love having them but also we realize we aren’t used to the chaos anymore. At the end we will be ready for a Silent Night!

I don’t like it either but I know that’s the way it is sometimes. I do take my passport cards off the ship with me. It wouldn’t help a lot but has identification at least.

That would be so much better than paper. I take a small stapler to close the bag and duct tape.

Lioness your table loved lovely. I’m sure your dinner went well. We do a game night every month with 3 other couples and rotate homes. The host does the main dish and everyone else brings sides. My table is ready for Christmas for 10 minus plates and silverware that I put out just before.

That’s how ours have always been done. No tags. Folded fairly nicely in October. I’m sure it totally depends on who is doing it. I also use a clothesline for some things but apologize to the steward because it’s looks so bad when it hangs across the room. Since there’s no self laundry, it is what it is.

We’ve done the sunset sail. It was lovely to be out on the water when it was cooler, without the hot sun.

Loving the elf pictures. Some people are so creative.

Cozumel - we haven’t docked downtown in years. I would have loved that. I remember the lights being pretty down there at night. It will be a nice sail away.

We will be away 8 weeks February and March and will miss our little dog terribly. She stays with our DD who loves her too. I know she’ll be well cared for. We couldn’t do it if we had to board her. It’d be too hard on her. I wanted to wait until after our retirement travel was done to get another dog but DH won. She’s precious and we love her but it does hamper travel.

I doubt anyone did this cruise with no idea of the future. DH and I discussed doing a world cruise between houses. We may move to another state. So we’d sell our present house, put our things in storage, do a world cruise and then rent or buy upon return in the new city. It’s practical in that you’re not paying for a mortgage, rent, utilities or upkeep while you’re gone. You’re not worried about your pipes freezing or your home getting broken into. We wouldn’t be using the sale of the home to finance the cruise because we’d be investing in a new place upon our return but could use the monthly savings of no residence to offset expenses of excursions etc. I don’t know if we’ll ever do it but we’ve discussed it as one way to make it happen.

The one with the forward cabin with little extra room to use for a closet is genius to keep the cabin uncluttered. The RV folks with everything on the walls including shoes gave me angst. I do use hooks for hats and papers but I don’t cover every inch of wall with them. I’m not trying to be critical, it just wouldn’t work for me. I’m considering getting a hanging jewelry bag for inside the closet. I’m waiting for one more couple to show us their room. They said they had previously cruised in the same cabin, took measurements etc to figure how to get it all in. We actually use a lot of organizational things every time we cruise. We do not pack light.

Geo blue is only good for a max of 70 days. Steve at the trip insurance store was able to come up with coverage for some of the world cruisers but I’m not sure what it was. But apparently it can be done.

I missed reading this earlier. Hugs to you Dani. So sorry you’re going through this.

Holding the mail is an issue since it can only be held for 30 days. Does anyone know how to get around that? If we use mail forward can that have an end date?

We fly to Australia in 7 weeks. Silly us didn’t even think/ know about cyclone season when we booked our adventures. Hoping things will be quiet then. Our itinerary has already changed quite a bit. They added a couple of overnights and dropped several ports of call including the one in Indonesia. No one has control of the weather though.

On Radiance who still prints pictures, speciality restaurants pictures were part of the regular photos. On the newer ships it is not. 30% off a print is new. We bought an extra photo last cruise and we were charged full price.

Some people always want the latest and greatest and that’s fine. We will wait until the the newness wears off and see if the prices come down. If you only do one cruise a year I can maybe see it for a family. Even then for the average family this ship may be a stretch. We’d rather do many weeks at sea than one.

Not all younger people are racking up credit card debt. If they are they will soon max out over the high prices on the newest ships. We also, for the first time, are looking at other lines and doing price comparisons instead of looking strictly at loyalty. If you can cruise for almost the same cost per day on a more inclusive or upscale line you’d be foolish not to look around. This is especially true since cabin service and food quality has declined. I’m hopeful the prices will fall to a more reasonable level but that’s TBD.

I got covid coming off our Alaska cruise in July. DH didn’t get it. It was not the first time and was like a light cold. The only reason I tested was because we were coming home to grands. What I got coming off the Panama cruise in October was MUCH worse, not covid, and ending up needing antibiotics after 3 weeks of coughing my lungs out. It was a weird bug, no fever, didn’t feel bad so it’s wasn’t the flu either. I’m sorry she’s sick as it’s no fun to come home to that.

We report any smoke because it’s against the rules and a safety issue. We see vaping on the ships right in plain view frequently. To clarify they are are holding it covered up in their hands but everyone knows what they are doing. People will get away with anything they can and don’t believe the rules apply to them.

I’m so happy the DH likes to go too. It would be hard to be married to someone who didn’t like to travel as much as I do. I couldn’t talk him into the World Cruise but maybe we’ll do a shorter one someday. There is that pesky thing called money…..