Cigary

The last one done was in 2010 so I think the ship is in pretty good condition as we'll be on it .

For those who cruise alot we know when the best times to cruise are...After Labor Day....between that time and through Dec right up until the week of Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years. The best time to cruise is the week before or after Thanksgiving...the week before Christmas is really good as well.

The worst time to cruise...May thru Sept. Labor Day.. the summer months are notorious for charging almost twice as much because this is when most people get their vacation time with their kids. At times during the Fall and Winter if the cruise is not selling quickly enough they will lower pricing and I've gotten cruises by myself on a 4 night RCCL for $149 because they needed more cruisers. Get on the "Last Minute Cruise" websites...if you can drop everything and leave within a few days you can score some amazing cruises.

Before we were retired, our work schedules allowed us to only have a week for the cruise. Now that we are retired, we...

 

...book cruises that are ten or eleven days (becasue we can!)

...extend our stay in Florida with a couple of days before the cruise and a couple of days after the cruise. Once again, because we can and because New Hampsha wintas are unforgiving!;)

Exactly...being retired gives us choices as to what we want to do and how long we can stay or cruise...pre cruise or post cruise is what we do. We stay with one Cruise Line so we can get the points where we are upgraded all the time. We book an Ocean and get upgraded to a balcony or even a mini suite. We get Free Internet...free laundry...free welcoming champagne and other things. When we arrive in ports we get have already set up rentals for a car to see the island ourselves and we can stop where we want and go when we want. Tours just take your money and you are crammed on a bus hoping the Tour Operator is fun or interesting. We've been on tours where we could barely understand the Tour Operator...what a waste. A car rental is about $40 average which is a darn site cheaper than a 3 hour tour for $200 for 2 people.

We even rented a Scooter in Rome when we did a pre cruise for 3 days ( I ride motorcycles so scooters are pretty easy and what a blast...we were able to get into areas of Rome that rental cars or cabs are not permitted...the same with other countries...rental cars are sometimes not allowed to go into certain areas because of parking or because of city congestion. Scooters go anywhere...we rode right up to the Vatican...Coliseum...Trevi Fountain..Seven Steps...there is tons of parking for scooters everywhere.)

You can usually tell newb cruisers from the amount of luggage they bring. My wife and bring one suitcase each and wheel it onboard with us and take it to our cabin. Most of what people bring they only wear 1/2 of what they brought. There are laundromats onboard and we don't bring 'dress up' clothes anymore...PIA so we just stay in a mini suite and order off the regular dinner menu like everyone else does in the MDR...bring it to my cabin and we eat on the balcony. Shorts, sandals and shirts is all you need for clothes unless your a clotheshorse. Ater 20 plus cruises I'm not out to impress anybody with my wardrobe.

My wife and I cruise a lot and have been for the last 15 years. We've done as many as 5 cruises in a years time and you'd think people thought we were loaded or something. Strategic cruises are probably the cheapest and best ways to vacation as we have done land vacations where we spent thousands in a short week. For the same amount of money we could have done 3 cruises so we began to prioritize how we wanted to do future trips and cruising affords the best way dollar for dollar to see parts of the world we'd probably never visit. We cruise the Caribbean at least once or twice a year and if we miss something we know we'll catch it later. We eat great meals, we have our room taken care of and we can be as lazy or energetic as we wish. We sit out on our balcony and bring up from the cafeteria cheeses, sandwiches, deli meats and veg's and have our bottle of wine and watch the ocean waves sail by..where else can you do this?

We are careful to watch trends of when cruises are the cheapest since we're retired we pick and choose....we've learned that cruises are the least expensive during the last two weeks in Sept...the week before,,during and after Thanksgiving and then in Dec. right before Christmas. We are able to get balconys or mini suites for the cost of an ocean view on regular cruises.

We take plenty of books to read...we bring our own movies and IPODs for music and we take our walks and exercise everyday. I seriously don't understand how people think that taking cruises are not the best way to vacation.:confused: