Cruise Recap

We went on our first ever cruise over New Year's. It was a welcome break from the grind, especially for Sharon. The cruise became a rally cry for the long nights and rough days in the hospital for Sharon, something to remind her that there was a break around the corner waiting for her.

Neither of us had ever been on a cruise before, so we had no idea what to expect. Looking back, it's a good thing we went on our cruise before all of the Costa messes (both of them) went down, lest we be scared away from it entirely. We went on the Grand Princess (operated by the Princess cruise line), and we had a lovely time.

I got a great piece of advice from a cruise-veteran coworker before we left: your cruise experience is basically what you make of it. There's actually a lot of leeway to make your own schedule- you can participate in (ahem: pay for) the pre-fabbed "excursions" at each port of call, or you can just be a beach/sun deck bum and relax your vacation away. We ended up doing excursions at each port of call simply because (1) we were entirely unfamiliar with the Caribbean (San Juan, PR; St. Martin/St. Maarten; St. Thomas; and the Bahamas) and (2) we were content to have most of the decisions made for us on our vacation, really. The less thinking and taxing of the brain, the better. They had a schedule of events for each day, and you could pick what things (like daily trivia! Or no things, if you so chose) to attend; this fit our need for uncomplicatedness perfectly

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Initially, it looked like a fantastic deal: for a price per day cheaper than staying at a Caribbean resort (which we seriously considered prior to deciding on a cruise), we could go somewhere where we didn't have to figure out things to do each day (did I mention we were tired of having to make any decisions?) and get meals all-inclusive (mostly all-inclusive). It turns out they "get you" on excursions and on-boat purchases (drinks, for example; and casino time; and souvenirs, etc.); this simply turned it from a knock-out of a deal to a still a pretty great deal. I'm glad we went, and if we were ever to go again, we'll be a little wiser.

On top of the "good deal"-ness of it all, we were surprised with an upgrade from the "Windowed cabin" we had originally picked (and paid for in full) to a "Windowed suite"! It was a pleasant surprise, and one that apparently came with lots of extra perks. If they were trying to buy our love, well, it worked.

We both can highly recommend the Princess line (unpaid endorsement; but, Princess, if you want to reward me, I trust that you still have my information somewhere. You know where to find me.). They were on top of things, safety-wise (no Costa ridiculousness there), and they ran a tight operation.

Picture post to follow.