Next Cruise Planning
June 22, 2009
Well, as mentioned here before, we currently don’t have a cruise booked yet for 2009. We have been planning on waiting until around the September time frame to see if prices were any better due to being inside 90 days for the cruise. That all sounded good and well, until this weekend when we decided to start researching now.
A couple of things have driven us to ‘consider’ booking a cruise now. One, the economy seems to have quit bottoming out and the cruise prices may have hit rock bottom already. Cruise occupancy rates seem to be inching back up. And two, but more importantly, I am planning on using frequent flier miles for any required air fare to and from the cruise. I have been periodically checking availability of free air fare just to make sure that is doable. Over the past month or so, the amount of available frequent flier tickets has been dwindling – especially if the cruise starts or ends overseas. So, this weekend we began researching and found some combinations of potential cruises and frequent flyer tickets already not available.
Thus, we figured we better do a full research effort and consider booking the cruise now based on those two items. So where are we thinking about cruising this year? Good question! We know we want to cruise in the last quarter of this year, which narrowed it down considerably. We also want a cruise duration of 10 days or more. We didn’t have any pre-conceived notions about where to cruise. We were happy to consider repeating a cruise if it fit in right – remember our favorite cruise days are days at sea! We also decided that we wanted a balcony cabin. We also wanted to cruise our favorite cruise line Celebrity.
Throwing all that data into the mix and considering the options, we were pretty quickly able to weed the list down to about half a dozen cruises:
- 15 Day Panama Canal Cruise
- 14 Day Transatlantic Cruise from Barcelona (very similar to what we did last year)
- 12 Day Eastern Caribbean Cruise
- 10 Day Mediterranean Cruise
- 14 Day Transatlantic Cruise from Rome
- 11 Day Western Caribbean Cruise
After some more detailed research, we have narrowed it down to two or three. They would be the Transatlantic from Rome, the Eastern Caribbean and the Panama Canal cruises. We have been wanting to do the Panama Canal cruise for some time, but it is quite expensive compared to the others. In the end, I think that will eliminate it. The Caribbean cruise is on the Mercury and there is always a limited number of cabins with balconies on the Mercury that can sleep 4, so we may run into issues there. Both of those cruises start and end in the States, so the free air fare is no problem. The Rome transatlantic is very intriguing. I have been to Rome half a dozen or so times and would love to show the kids around Old Rome. Free air tickets are already scarce though. We already have to fly in 3 or 4 days before the cruise to get free tickets. That actually works in our favor if we want to tour Rome beforehand, but is a good indicating that the limited free air tickets will disappear soon. The cruise itinerary is also quite different from last years TA with numerous different ports plus it has 8 straight sea days! Along the same lines, if we did the Eastern Caribbean cruise, since its out of Baltimore, we would likely tack on a few days beforehand and take the kid around Washington DC.
We also want to check on a Nordic Circle cruise in the Spring that had caught our eye before. This is probably the last year for a while that we will cruise during the school year as Sean will be entering High School and we aren’t as likely to pull him out of school for a cruise. Which means shorter cruises over holidays or cruising in the Summer. The kids are heavily voting for the ROME TA as their favorite which surprised us since they do want to see DC. I believe Suzanne is leaning towards the Panama Canal cruise as her favorite but also sees it quite expensive. Me, I am probably leaning towards the Rome TA as I haven’t been to Rome in over 5 years and would like to see the city again. Of course, more sea days is good too. However, food and lodging in Rome will add to the expense so we have more research to do.
Anyways, no cruise selected yet, but we have begun the process. Its still possible we won’t do anything currently and delay a bit or perhaps go for the Spring cruise. Stay tuned as we go through our decision process!
Barcelona and Transatlantic Cruise 2008 – Day 5 – Leaving Barcelona
November 30, 2008
Today we boarded the Celebrity Summit to begin our 15 day transatlantic cruise. The cruise will take us to Spain, Portugal, the Canary Islands, across the Atlantic, St Martaan before concluding in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
We boarded the ship around noon with a slight rainfall occurring. Getting to the ship was a minor adventure. We cleaned up the apartment a bit in the morning, packed our bags and called for a minivan taxi since we had half the clothes we owned with us. We had to wait for about 30 minutes for the taxi to find us to get us to the airport. Its always a bit interesting standing on a foreign street corner with 8 bags of luggage in the rain waiting for a taxi.
Once we got the ship terminal, boarding was quick and painless like always with Celebrity. We waited for one person ahead of us and quickly completed our paperwork and were soon walking the gangway onto the ship. It was truly wonderful to be back aboard a cruise ship since it had been 18 months since our last cruise last June to Alaska.
Since they asked us to not go to our rooms until 1:00, we grabbed a quick lunch. A couple of slices of pizza tasted really good. Afterwards, we proceeded to our cabin which was presented in perfect condition. We are staying in a family ocean veranda cabin on the back of the boat. It was a bit different as when we opened our cabin door we had about a 20 foot hallway to the real cabin door. The hall way is making a great spot to store our empty luggage.
The cabin is a bit bigger than a standard cabin since it’s on the back of the boat and a “family†cabin. We have plenty of room and plenty of closet space. Actually, we have two rooms with a sliding divider between them. The room is capable of sleeping 5.
Suzanne unpacked the suitcases, as they had arrived within about an hour after reaching our room, while I checked out the Wi-Fi situation. Its pretty good signal and decent speed, but unfortunately not free. Luckily, I can do most of my prep work and email reading offline on the laptop and just jump online to complete things.
Suzanne and the kids took their traditional walk around the ship with camera and video camera though they had to cut it short due to battery issues. They will have to complete it later.
Of course, we had the obligatory life boat drill. It was a bit cold in Spain yesterday so most folks were bundled up a bit, but most managed to smile throughout the “eventâ€. As usual, there were the occasional folks who just grumbled about having to participate. I don’t get that as it’s a mere 30 minutes before the cruise really starts. Yes, it’s kind of pointless, but we use it as an opportunity to meet and greet some folks and have a few laughs about the wonderful look of everyone in their life jackets.
The ship was planned to set sail at 7:00 pm, but during the life boat drill they announced we wouldn’t be leaving until about 8:30 since there were folks who were flying in that were having delayed flights. We are doing late seating dinner on this cruise which means dinner at 8:30 so we would have a nice dinner as we departed Barcelona.
Prior to dinner, the kids made a stop in at the Kids Club for some video gaming time while Suzanne and I attended the Welcome Aboard show in the theater. Being a transatlantic cruise during the school season, we knew that there would not be many kids on this cruise. In fact, it turns out that there are only 6 kids on the cruise and 3 of them are 4 or younger. There is one other 10 year old boy about our kids’ age. Our kids aren’t phased a bit as they know how to amuse themselves quite fine and actually enjoy some of the adult activities. They still plan to utilize the Kids Club facilities and the counselors there.
Dinner was as usual quite stunning and delicious. Some folks on internet sites have complained lately about the general decline in the quality of food aboard cruise ships. In my experience, cruising once a year, I just haven’t seen it. I don’t know if they are expecting more with rising costs and tougher times or just need something to complain about. The food, to me, is still outstanding, at least aboard Celebrity since that is our cruise line of choice.
Both kids chose the Spaghetti Carbonarra as their main entrée. Suzanne enjoyed the Chicken Saltimbocca while I devoured some Veal Piccatta Milanese. However, being a true aficionado of Carbonnara, and having spent many a days searching for the best in Rome, I had to have some of it too. I bypassed the appetizer and salad courses and asked for a small portion of the Carbonarra instead. They don’t really know how to do smaller portions and I received a full portion instead. Not surprisingly, I didn’t leave a scrap of it behind. Being the first night, Sean sampled all courses (appetizer, soup, salad and entrée). The kids and I closed the meal with a crème brule, while Suzanne had here traditional mixed berries desert.
The kids did just fine with late seating and had no issues with the lateness. Suzanne and I have always enjoyed the late seating but for the kids first three cruises we had moved to early seating for their benefit. We decided to try late seating this time and assuming it contains like the first night, will probably do so for future cruises.
After dinner, we went to the Revelations Lounge to sample the ship’s party band. They were quite good with a female lead singer with an astonishing voice. We will surely enjoy them many more times on the cruise. At one point, they played La Bamba and Suzanne was obligated to get out on the floor all by herself and do her Mexico folkloric dance to the music. Shy, she is not.
We returned to the cabin just past midnight to call it a night and get some sleep for our day at sea tomorrow.
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