Finally! A positive change for our cruise vacation!

[3monkeys4me]

Let me start this by saying in general we try to be a very go with the flow kind of family. We take 2-3 largish vacations a year, mostly international and always find a way to have a fantastic time. I have been on 5 cruises, 2 on Carnival as a teen, one on Royal Caribbean (for our honeymoon) and 1 on Disney a few years back. I had a good time on all of those previous trips, but in general it isn't our favorite way to travel. Currently, we live on an island in the Pacific so almost all of our travel has been in Asia for the past 26 months. Which is wonderful, we LOVE traveling in Asia and have had a blast. So far we have been to Hong Kong, the Philippines, South Korea (for the Olympics which was AMAZING) and Bangkok. Plus we are heading to Japan in a couple of months. So really, I should have nothing to complain about. We are blessed and I know this.

 

BUT I have been in a funk about our future cruise. It all started last year. We had a B2B cruise booked leaving from Singapore and stopping in several places that we have wanted to visit. It was a 10 day vacation and looked amazing. Plus we had wanted to go to Singapore anyway so it was really a win-win. Well, then we started thinking about the winter Olympics and we found a great hotel and were able to get tickets to events we wanted. BUT the trip was the same time as our planned cruise! So we decided to cancel the cruise and go with the Olympics. We were all a little bummed but we quickly got over it. The kids still wanted to do a cruise though. So I started looking at other options. And I found what seemed to be the perfect solution. A 10 night cruise from Sydney to Auckland on Radiance. It seemed perfect for us! The kids would have to miss some school but they had 2 long weekends so they would only miss 6 days total, including a couple of days in Sydney pre cruise and 1 day in Auckland post cruise. Our kids' school is very flexible on time off as long as the students are preforming well and they keep up with the work missed. So we invited my MIL to join and and booked the cruise. We were really excited to do something that was different from our previous vacations too, Asia is wonderful but we are ready to change things up a bit.

 

All was well for about 10 months. Then my oldest daughter was accepted in a highly competitive program through the high school which meant she would be unable to travel during the cruise timeframe. She really can not pass up this opportunity. So I started looking at other options yet again, hoping for something spring break 2019 as we are going to be moving early summer 2019. There was really nothing that excited me too much, but I did find a roundtrip cruise out of Sydney that worked with our dates and the kids would only miss one day of school. Plus, the cruise is on Ovation which I think will be a great ship for the kids to sail on. The downsides are the ports aren't as exciting to us and it was significantly more expensive. With our other vacation that we have planned for fall and the move we could only afford an inside cabin with a virtual balconey or an oceanview window on deck 3, which looked like a terrible location. I knew my husband would be against the inside room so I made the switch to the oceanview room and figured we would just deal with it, a cruise in a not great room is still a cruise and I love being on vacation.

 

So, anyway, it has been a few weeks now and I just haven't felt good about the choice. It is hard to pay that much money for a cruise that I am less than excited about, especially for a cabin that I am worried about. So I decided to check the prices on the inside rooms again, figuring if we had a better location and we saved some money that I may feel better about things. And then it happened! I check the cruise and the price went down! And not just a little. It went down quite a bit. I grabbed my phone and called Royal Caribbean right away. I ended up switching both cabins from the oceanview window on deck three to an obstructed balconey on deck 7 and still saved almost $1000 per stateroom. The only downside is we lost $150 in OBC. So now, I am feeling MUCH better about things. The price is much closer to the original Radiance cruise we had booked and I feel our cabins are in a much better location for our family. And while the port stops are still going to be less excited (for the kids at least) Ovation should be a really fun ship for them. So all in all it has been a really great morning for me!

Edited May 18, 2018 by 3monkeys4me

[cb at sea]

Congrats! Lose $150, but save $2000....sounds like a winning plan, to me!

[LadyBeBop]

I don’t call it losing $150 in OBC. I call it saving a net $1,850. Congratulations.

 

Let us know how the Ovation is. We’re cruising on it late next summer.

[PhoenixCruiser]

Wow, so many words to say "we got a discount"

 

Congratulations

 

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[3monkeys4me]

Wow, so many words to say "we got a discount"

 

Congratulations

 

Sent from my SM-T820 using Tapatalk

 

Ah. Yes. All my posts should come with a disclaimer that states my husband is gone and my adult interaction has been limited to the bus stop for several days. ;)

[SRF]

I am still trying to figure out how 2x Carnival, 1x Royal, and 1x Disney equals 5 cruises.

 

:D

[3monkeys4me]

I am still trying to figure out how 2x Carnival, 1x Royal, and 1x Disney equals 5 cruises.

 

:D

 

 

My children are sucking my brain cells. :o It is actually 3 carnival, 1 Royal, 1 Disney. 2 times on carnival as a teen and one party cruise as a young adult that my liver is still recovering from.

[Cel_cruise]

Ah. Yes. All my posts should come with a disclaimer that states my husband is gone and my adult interaction has been limited to the bus stop for several days. ;)

 

 

 

This made me smile! I can totally relate to this!!

 

Congratulations on the price break and most importantly for being able to really look forward to your future cruise vacation!!! I’m so glad you were able to reschedule to something that worked with your daughters new schedule!

 

 

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[VillaHappy]

You will love the Ovation! We were on her sister, the Anthem, and my kids never had so much FUN!!!! :cool: