So, I'm going to blabber about my upcoming cruise

seadoug

seadoug

Well-known Member
Location
Texas
We have good friends that we met on an Asia cruise in 2019. We've visited their home in CA a couple of times. We've tried to organize follow-up cruises. We made it on one Alaska cruise a few years ago and it was a blast. They love the "adventure" stuff so we took a small boat out to a major glacier. Things we'd never done before. We tried for a follow-up to the Caribbean but one of them came down with the flu.

So, we booked a cruise on March 28 out of San Diego to Mexico. Not the parts that were affected by the cartels. Cabo San Lucas, Loreto and one other port. A few days at sea. So now hubs is working and doesn't have vacation time so I'm going solo. I've only traveled by myself one other time since I retired in 2020, on a Caribbean cruise when he was working. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Mostly read a lot and enjoyed the food and entertainment. I don't mind dining alone. I just bring my phone and play my word puzzles.

I'm leaving on March 26 for San Diego and will spend the following day there before boarding the ship. It is such a scenic city and the weather is great this time of year. I will then meet them at the ship. We're all disappointed that hubs isn't going, but I can't wait to spend time with them. They are great, down-to-earth guys that sold their businesses in banking and tech and retired in their 50's. They just travel all over the world now. (We were not nearly as lucky. Hubs just went back to work at 60.) Since one spent years in the financial sector, I'm sure we will have some interesting conversations about what is going on right now in the economy and markets. ;)

I haven't really thought about it until today, when I started putting clothes aside. Now I'm excited!
 
asp3 said:
Have fun! We love cruising but rarely want to return to a place we've sailed before. Our first cruise was one to Ensinada and Catalina Island from Los Angeles and infected us with the cruise bug. We're off to a cruise to Alaska in June.
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Thank you! We've traveled all over the world but still find areas we didn't discover before when we return to certain destinations. We never get tired of cities like Barcelona and Dubrovnik, just not during tourist season.
 
Speaking of cruising to Alaska, you won't see this one on a cruise. It's off the beaten path. Leconte Glacier is the southernmost tidewater glacier, I believe in the world. It is several miles toward the mainland from the island on which Petersburg is located. I cruised both there and Glacier Bay on my sailboat, and Leconte was the most spectacular glacier I saw in Alaska. It was calving blocks of ice as big as houses, as it does most of the time, sending huge waves for a half mile that rocked the boat hard.

The seal photo, with other seals in the distance, was as interesting as the glacier itself. There were hundreds of them resting on the ice flows as we cruised up the channel to the glacier. The one in the photo was a close as I could get. He slid into the water a second after I took the photo.

I spent a winter in Hawaii, and then a winter in Alaska. For me, Alaska was the highpoint of the adventure. Hawaii was nice, but Alaska was the kind of country I was born for.
 

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I love cruising and I have been on six of them. My favorite ones were the New England cruise that also took us into Canada and the Alaska cruise. I have read that itā€™s hard to get a single room so that usually you just have to pay for two people instead of one if you go alone. Is that the case for you?
 
I really enjoyed San Diego when I was there in Oct 2024 for a cruise to the South Pacific. I'd never been there before and I must say it's my favorite US city that I've ever visited. Such a vibrant city with tons to do and a population that for the most part seemed to be into a healty lifestyle; not to mention beautiful weather. Stayed in the "Little Italy" area, just up from the cruise pier. Enjoy your cruise Doug!
 
Teacher Terry said:
I love cruising and I have been on six of them. My favorite ones were the New England cruise that also took us into Canada and the Alaska cruise. I have read that itā€™s hard to get a single room so that usually you just have to pay for two people instead of one if you go alone. Is that the case for you?
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Yes. Hubs and I booked the cruise and now he's working. When I called to cancel him from the booking I was told they are refunding a whopping $80 for his port charges. :(

BTW, we love Canada/New England as well. Our last one left out of Montreal and we spent a couple of days there prior. Such a beautiful city! We also couldn't believe how much Halifax had grown since the last time we visited.
 
StarSong said:
Which cruise line?
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Holland America. It's been our "go to" for past few years. Some of the ships are older and more traditional, but they are also smaller than the big behemoths out these days. The service, food and entertainment are fantastic. They now have a Rolling Stone Rock Room where a live bands plays rock, 70's, 80's, disco and soul. Something for everyone.
 
seadoug said:
Holland America. It's been our "go to" for past few years. Some of the ships are older and more traditional, but they are also smaller than the big behemoths out these days. The service, food and entertainment are fantastic. They now have a Rolling Stone Rock Room where a live bands plays rock, 70's, 80's, disco and soul. Something for everyone.
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I've never cruised with them. Just Royal, Carnival (yuk), Norwegian, and in the 1980s, Admiral Cruises. Admiral is now defunct, but used to sail out of Long Beach, CA to Mexico.

We're Diamond level with Royal so it's our go-to cruise line now.
 
StarSong said:
I've never cruised with them. Just Royal, Carnival (yuk), Norwegian, and in the 1980s, Admiral Cruises. Admiral is now defunct, but used to sail out of Long Beach, CA to Mexico.

We're Diamond level with Royal so it's our go-to cruise line now.
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OMG, sorry to hijack my own thread but I started my cruise career with Admiral Cruises in 1985 as a sales rep. It was the Azure Seas, Viking Serenade and the Sun Viking that used to sail those cruises. Admiral was purchased by Royal and I was with them for 15 years in total. Thank you for taking me on a trip down memory lane!
 
That sounds like so much fun, @seadoug; I hope you have a great time!

StarSong said:
I've never cruised with them. Just Royal, Carnival (yuk), Norwegian, and in the 1980s, Admiral Cruises. Admiral is now defunct, but used to sail out of Long Beach, CA to Mexico.
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šŸ˜„ I had to laugh at your "yuk," @StarSong. My father and his wife are avid cruisers and were horrified at the last Carnival cruise they took. They had some interesting stories. They stick with Royal Caribbean. The one cruise I took was with RC.

I know it sounds dumb, but my stomach knots up every time I think of the fact that Carnival owns Cunard.
 
seadoug said:
OMG, sorry to hijack my own thread but I started my cruise career with Admiral Cruises in 1985 as a sales rep. It was the Azure Seas, Viking Serenade and the Sun Viking that used to sail those cruises. Admiral was purchased by Royal and I was with them for 15 years in total. Thank you for taking me on a trip down memory lane!
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I was on the Azure Seas several times. That ship was a wonderful introduction to cruising. ā¤ļø
 
@seadoug you mentioned being in Halifax on a cruise. Did you visit the "Atlantic Marine Museum" when you were there? It's a super interesting place to wander around for a couple of hours and right down there near the large promenade by the dowtown waterfront. Many exhibits of the general history of shipping in the Atlantic Ocean as well as a pretty extensive exhibit of Titanic artifacts. Many of the recovered bodies from the Titanic were brought to Halifax. There are two seperate cemeteries in Halifax dedicated to those victims.
 
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