Mike981

After our wedding my wife and I staid at a hotel that was famous for newlyweds. Years later we found out that they had been recording people in their rooms enjoying their time together. Many of the recordings were then sold on the open market and made in to porn films. We didn't have to worry, we were so tired that we just went to sleep and moved to another hotel the next day. With that said, on our first cruise on Celebrity ten years later, I saw this strange looking box on top of the TV. So knowing that some places record people, I turned it around. Problem solved. The next day we wanted to check the TV for the current temp and the weather, but we couldn't get the TV to work. I told our room stewart (Tony - That was 23 years ago, so I don't mind saying I am impressing myself) about our issue and later that day he found us in the hallway and said, "Mr. Mike, we not watching you in your room, I turned the remote control sensor around again. It is fine." 🙃

Since we fly in and book air months in advance, we could not move our trip to another date. Having to notify our clients/parents (my wife and I run an in-home daycare) there is no way we could expect them to adjust their alternative daycare plans while we move our vacation dates. Reminds me of when we had a cruise booked on Carnival with some friends and a couple of months before are trip the ship caught fire. We got reimbursed with some extra perks, but the air was booked to LA so we moved over to a Princess cruise at the same time.

I believe both can work. But asking your original question on a forum of people looking for, or searching for answers to questions, or willing to help others with questions is going to lean to getting answers from people who like to do some amount of research. On our families first trip to Disney World I went crazy. I had a dozen double sided sheets of paper with explicit directions on how and when to attack different parts of each park. After two days my wife and kids were saying, "PUT THE PAPER AWAY!" I did...mostly. And we survived and had a great time. I grew up watching Disney 'anything' thinking that I would never get there, and when I found out that it was going to happen, I wanted to make sure we had the best trip possible. I plan all of our trips and the bar that I set for myself to be prudent on costs and getting the best experience possible can make me a little OCD. And if I'm honest, when we cruise I miss out on some that extensive research. But I LOOoooove to cruise.

I watched an interview with a guy who does exactly this and talked about how cheap he can travel around the world. Civil unrest, gov issues, weather events, he just waits until he feels comfortable for himself and then books. Most people need more assurance and time to travel to a place like that so all costs are much less.

We are currently doing our third staycation in a row. We are strongly considering doing our first Viking cruise in 2024, but if the travel industry is still the same in a few months, we will pass. I just cant spend $$$ for a sub par product. Then you add in that we have to fly and we all know how that has been going lately.

Thank you both, I spent way to much time trying to figure this out.

Do you know if Minneapolis is usually one of the select gateways? I tried to search the web and here on this forum, but no luck. By the way, I don't know if it is me, but when I do a search on just this forum it only allows one search that way (then after that it searches the whole CC site), so I have to back out to the main page and start over. Thank you~

My wife and I have been talking about looking at other lines since our January 2020 cruise. Now add in that so many cruise lines are not giving the same service/food/experience they are known for, but their prices are still high or much higher, we are doing another staycation in a couple of weeks. It sure would be nice to get away from this tough Minnesota winter, it is only the fifth of January and we already have our yearly snow fall total of 47 inches. For those that continue to sail away, only the best wishes.

Well that most likely would have been my last cruise on Princess. And as we are looking to venture beyond Celebrity one of our wants for our next line will be a staff that does not do this.

My wife and I are not a fan. It's another item that they are now doing that is just irritating.

YES-YES-YES X 100 It will be interesting see how other boards handle the influx of Jim & Lain fans, some of the other boards are much slower with only a few posts a day. As I post this there have been over 90,000 views and 1,000 replies on this thread.

LOL, I use that line often. I just got done with another round of shoveling and I can sure feel it. It is in the low 30º's and that snow was heavy, even with my snowblower.

I so agree, wonderful pictures and escaping winter is so nice. We have gotten close to a foot of snow in the last 24 hours, with more on the way and seeing pictures of places that we did this same itinerary years ago, is great. FWIW, we did the same itinerary on a Princess ship after our Carnival cruise was cancelled two months before our trip after the Splendor caught fire in the engine room. Since we had our air bought to LA we looked for a similar cruise and also got a chance to see a different cruise line.

We had a very nice room room at Sandals St. Lucia and every morning (very early) and all day long employees would push carts around the grounds. The carts had hard plastic wheels and the sidewalks were cobble stone, VERY noisy. I asked around why they don't use inflatable wheels and they all looked at me like I was crazy.

Ugh, I sure understand MIL issues. As I said, sorry you are going through this and I hope you get it all worked out.

Is it possible you can share what your TA did/didn't do to make you move on? Sorry you are in this position and I hope you have a wonderful trip.

I remember reading that article when it came out. I also read about food products having a hard time keeping up with the bottle shortage.

And I thank you for that. Looks like we both use the same app, Radar Scope.

As I mentioned it has been several years, it is nice to hear that they have gotten their poop in a group.

It has been several years since we embarked in PR, but I won't fly to PR if I don't have at least one day before and a day after. I have disembarked on the weekend, it was madness and very little help at the airport. The agricultural check was a joke. Maybe it is better now? You are reminding me of flying to St. Lucia from Minneapolis for a land vacation. Dead tired when we got there and dreading the return flight the whole time on the island. I don't remember how long it was overall, but it was very taxing. What you are describing is one of the many reasons we won't be cruising or doing any vacation for a while. With the prices where they are, I guess I just don't love cruising/traveling enough to put up with what it currently is. Once again (3rd time) we will be doing a staycation and trust me, that is not what we want. I'm afraid it is going to take awhile before we travel again.

We would love to try South Africa, but you are correct on the long flights. That and the $$$.

Just for fun, a weather point of reference here in Minn-a-snowta. The southern third of the state received 8+ inches of snow yesterday (we are an hour north and only got 2"). And as it always goes, the temperature dropped today and is 16º with winds out of the NW at 18-20 mph, so it feels close to 0º.

Very glad your surgery went well. I am not squeamish as I have had two hip replacements and a couple of other surgeries with no worries, but surgery on my eye?...I don't know brother. As I mentioned on another thread, very excited to follow along.

Best part about this post? The boys are going on another cruise, YES!!!!

Your pictures are wonderful, thank you for such a fantastic review.