It is time for another cruise! And this one is going to be a little different for me because I am not going solo. Although I will still have my own cabin I will be cruising with two friends and their husbands.
This is how it all came about.
Cruising is one of my favorite topics of discussion. One day my friend Carolyn and I were discussing cruising and where we would like to go. I mentioned that a New England/Canada cruise was on my list and she said she would also like to do this. Awhile later she brought up that she had been talking to Barbara (a mutual friend) who was also interested in the same cruise.
Two days before I left for my Westerdam cruise, Carolyn, Barbara, their husbands (Gary and Tommy) and I met to decide which cruise we would take. There were not a lot of choices (we had a list of what everyone wanted to do) and we finally decided on a Royal Caribbean cruise.
We will be on Liberty of the Seas out of Cape Liberty on an October sailing (hopefully, we will see some beautiful fall foliage). We had originally wanted to sail out of Baltimore but it was $1000 more per person for the same length of cruise with the same ports. Not sure why it was so much more on a slightly smaller and much older ship. The only possible explanation I could think of was because the Baltimore cruise has to travel much further (through the Chesapeake Bay) in the same amount of time (using much more fuel).
We discussed driving but for five adults with luggage we would have to rent a van. It would also be a five to six hour ride each way and have the hassle of one way rentals. Flying would be simpler.
Royal Caribbean was having a sale where the second person in the cabin only had to pay half and there were half price deposits. So the next day we were all on the phone with my travel agent, Patty, getting our reservations because the sale was scheduled to end before I returned from my repositioning cruise.
Everything was squared away shortly before the travel agency closed for the day and I flew out the next day.
Since then we have met a couple of times to figure out which flight we would take, where we would stay the night before the cruise, and what we wanted to do at each of our ports.
We decided to pay a little more to get direct flights between Richmond and Newark. We made up for some of this extra by staying at the cheapest hotel in Newark that had fairly decent ratings.
Of our five ports, we are doing ship excursions at three. In Boston, we purchased tickets for the hop-on, hop-off trolley which has a stop near the cruise port on days there is a ship in port. It was a few dollars cheaper than the same excursion offered by the ship because we got a discount for booking online and for being seniors. We decided to just walk around Bar Harbor on our own.
It will be interesting traveling with friends after 151 days at sea solo. I will have my own cabin. I had to get an oceanview because RCI charges 200% for solo cruisers in all categories but my friends will have balconies.
Smooth sailing until next time!
