We’re at a good place, Joni and I. We are old enough to have a little bit of
wisdom earned through inevitable life experiences. We are still young enough to have not yet
been sidelined by “health issues” that can so frequently be a reality after
your hair starts turning gray. That is
not to say that we are as strong and healthy as we were when we took our first Cruise
in 1985 aboard the Carnival ship, the Carnivale,
but… We came to the conclusion of few years ago that we could and should take
advantage of our “moment” in life, before it was too late.
We made the decision to reorder our schedules
and our finances in such a way as to allow for a Cruise each year, for as long
as possible.
For the two of us, that is
a good place to be.
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Our First Cruise in 1985 - The Carnivale
31,000 GT - built in 1956! |
During the summer of ’13 we finished our research and made the decision for our 2014 Cruise.
We were choosing between two: the Norwegian
Breakaway
http://tinyurl.com/l3jgep2
and Royal Caribbean Jewel of the Seas
http://tinyurl.com/qdgz27z.
I would have preferred the Breakaway for
reasons which I will explain in a moment, but in the end the Jewel of Seas was
our choice.
We have cruised before with both Carnival and Disney. Both of these are great Cruise Lines and we
have no significant complaints that would have prevented us from booking another
Cruise on either one. We have always
heard great reviews about Royal Caribbean, but we also understood it to be typically a bit more pricey than Carnival. My father-in-law always said, “You get what
you pay for…”, and he was a big fan of Royal Caribbean. So… even though price is always a major
consideration for us, we did not let this assumption about cost prevent us from
investigating Royal Caribbean while we planned our 2014 Cruise. During our online searching, we were pleasantly surprised when we discovered a sailing on Royal Caribbean that seemed to
compete financially with Carnival. Not
only was the price right, but it was a sailing to the Southern
Caribbean which even more insured my escape from Winter’s grip.
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"Dream" Atrium Dance Floor
Where We Caught the Ballroom Bug |
On a Cruise onboard the Carnival Dream
http://tinyurl.com/7l5l2k6 in January of 2012, Joni and I enjoyed very
much watching couples dancing in the Atrium.
This would turn out to be something that would have a significant impact
upon us.
You can read about this at one
of my other blogs, “The Adventures of a Middle Aged Ballroom Dancer”.
http://tinyurl.com/7l5l2k6
.
This is why we were (and still are)
very interested in the Norwegian Breakaway; the entertainment!
The opportunity to see “Burn the Floor” as
well as the chance to take dance lessons from these incredible dance pros is a
“HUGE” motivation for us to take a Cruise on this amazing ship… perhaps next
year.
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| Burn the Floor |
The problem for us, as it relates to a Cruise on the
Breakaway, is that one of the reasons we love cruising so much is to escape the
winter weather. Joni and I both really
dislike cold weather. Dislike may not be
the right word to really convey just how much we loath snow, and cold, and long
dark nights… The Breakaway sails out of New York City, which in
the end of our decision making was its fatal flaw. It is hard to escape the cold winters of Michigan when you are sailing out of the cold winters of New York. Cruising for us is about getting to the
tropics. I want to see palm trees and warm sandy beaches,
not the potentially snow covered shoreline of the mid-Atlantic Seaboard.
That brings us back to the Jewel of the Seas and this particular Cruise. On this upcoming Cruise, we will be sailing
without family and / or friends. We will
be a “party of two”, celebrating 40 years of marriage. Since our first Cruise in ’85, which was to celebrate 10 years of marriage, we have always
traveled with a group. This, of course,
can be a great way to vacation (the more the merrier), but I must say that we really are
looking forward to being alone this time.
Ports of Call are not a big priority for us.
On our first Cruises this of course was not the case. However, now, after many Cruises, we are basically of the mindset that “you’ve
seen one, you’ve seen them all”.
This is not true, there can be significant differences, but after a while, those differences seem not to matter as much. They tend to sort of blend together
into a nebulous similarity.
Memories of Ports of Call seem to fall neatly into two categories. The good memories seem to be "personal" moments... the result of who you share them with. For example: I will never forget walking hand-in-hand with my Mother-in-law at the edge of the gentle surf on Magen's Beach on St. Thomas, USVI. It's not the place but the person that makes this memory so special. The bad memories are "place" moments... stuff like the very aggressive “in
your face / won’t take “no” for an answer” crap you get in places like
Jamaica. It is for this reason that when researching Cruises I filter out the ones that stop in Jamaica. I should note that I personally love Jamaica... I have worked there more than once. I know how wonderful Jamaica... its people, culture, and food can be. But until Jamaica fixes it treatment of tourists, I regrettably have no desire to spend my vacation time on this beautiful island.
This Cruise on the Jewel sails from and returns to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and features a total 5
Ports of Call, only one of which we have been to previously; Philipsburg, St. Maarten, to which we have been on two other occasions.
Since Ports are not a high priority for us, we didn’t choose this Cruise for its several Ports. That is not to say, however, that we will not take advantage of some brief time off the ship. I'm sure that we will check out some of the beaches. I'm likewise sure that Joni will want to check out some of the jewelry stores. But even more so, I am confident that after a few hours in Port we will be ready to get back to the ship and continue the best part of all... being at sea.
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| A "Jewel" of an Itinerary |
We have been to San Juan once before. I was not impressed. It was a late afternoon / evening stop on the Carnival Triumph in 2007. The ship was only docked for few hours. We were off the ship for perhaps only an hour in Old San Juan, and I truly did not enjoy it. It seemed to be dark and dreary. In fact, I can honestly say that I didn't feel at all safe as we strolled the shadowy narrow streets. Hopefully this time we will have an opportunity to form a better opinion of the capital city of this U.S. Territory island - the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
We are now about 16 weeks away from our journey out of Detroit to San Juan, from where we will begin our first Cruise
with Royal Caribbean. Winter has not
fully hit Southeast Michigan, so the “need”
for escape has not yet reached its zenith… but it's getting there.
Joni has just about finished her “cruise clothes”
purchases. I am hoping to pick up a good
camera during the Christmas sales to replace my very old Panasonic DMC-LS75
point and shoot digital. I think Joni will
most likely need another pair of dance shoes before we go, and I am looking for
a new shirt to compliment one of her new dance skirts. I may also try to find a reasonably priced
off-white Dinner Jacket for one of the two formal nights.
As you can tell, we have begun the last phase of
preparations… Stay tuned.
