teddy

lmao Thankfully we booked refundable/changeable because going back and forth deciding which day to fly out of Boston, I ended up entering the wrong day when I completed the booking.

Another day added.

Well....Air2Sea doesn't apply to this cruise We just booked refundable flights. It cost more, but there's a piece of mind attached to that extra cost.

Interesting. I just assumed it would be more expensive.

I totally understand this. Flight costs to Europe were/are a big conversation for us. We have two upcoming cruises from Southampton, one in the fall of 2024 and now one in the fall of 2025. The unknown for 2025 flights is a bit unnerving. Luckily, it's just the two of us now. When all three boys were young, vacations were a lot different. Thankfully we discovered Europe after they all grew up and left home. We booked our flights to Italy for last month's cruise 10 months out, and the prices only got more expensive as time went on. We are now 11 months out from the 2024 cruise and hemming and hawing about whether to book now or wait. One thing in our favor is we can fly non-stop to LHR from Boston. Something we decided before booking that European cruise in 2025 is that if the flight prices become ridiculous, we will eat the $100 pp change fee and cruise from somewhere closer. Again, we are lucky that it's just the two of us now, so the (potential) change fees are easy enough to put in the budget since it's almost two years away. I hope you can find easy and reasonable flights for 2024.

Yup...that it is.

Done. Independence round trip from Southampton to Spain and Portugal. Corner “Sunset” Balcony on deck 7. It shows up on the invoice as a “Spa Spacious Balcony”. I don’t recall seeing this description before. When I spoke with the representative to do the actual booking, it was $75 cheaper than the price I saw online.

September 10-19, 2025 Independence of the Seas 9-nights round trip from Southampton to Spain and Portugal

While we can’t see 2025 flights, flights for 2024 are running cheaper than that. We have a cruise out of Southampton in October 2024 and Delta Comfort Plus for the equivalent days in September is $2100. Lufthansa Premium economy is actually bbookable for the dates we need at $3000. Economy is much cheaper. After flying back from Rome in Economy recently, we said “never again”. To be fair, we live on the east coast, so that makes it cheaper than anyone west of us.

I looked as I was getting ready for work, and I think Europe is going to win out over Alaska for us. We’re going to book when I get home from work this afternoon. The 9-night on independence intrigues us. edit: We definitely decided to book the 9-night when the call center opens. We have a Next Cruise open booking to use.

I use my phone when cruising to send pictures to friends and coworkers back home….especially when we’re in the Caribbean during the winter months. I like to let them know how warm and sunny it is where we are compared to where they are.

We took a Lyft from Newark Penn station to the port and then back after the cruise. The price was right around $25 each way before I added tips.

We took the train from Boston to Newark for a cruise out of Cape Liberty. There was a place at the end of the cars for large luggage. We took the Acela, so I can’t say for certain if the Regional trains have the same storage area.

Boston to Cape Cod and back is a traffic nightmare, so plan accordingly. Our middle son and his family live on the Cape, and we’ve never been able to find a time to go visit when the traffic isn’t awful. Definitely go if you want to, just be aware that you may come to a complete stop on I-93. There are a lot of hotels in the Seaport area of Boston. Any of the chain ones will have no surprises. You definitely want to stay in Boston itself, not near the airport…..the airport is across the harbor from the city.

We crossed the triple digit mark. it’s the little things that amuse us I guess

We’re getting off the day you get on. We’re bringing our granddaughters (and their parents) with us. Our daughter in law is a teacher, so that’s the only week they could go….school vacation week….apparently a cash cow week for Royal.

Bump

Still more coming….I’ve been working 14-15 hour days since we got back. This combined with jet lag is exhausting me

2025 Alaska itineraries are out. I took a look before I left for work this morning. $10k for a “sunset balcony” on a Radiance southbound. I think we’re going to wait for Europe to come out in a week or two, then make a decision. Currently, same week for same week in September 2024, we could fly in Premium Economy to Europe for the same as Economy to/from Alaska/Vancouver.

I haven’t forgotten about this, but I just got home from work and have to be back in at 2am so I’m going to try to catch a nap right now.

Feel free to ask direct questions....as my wife reminds me at times...I tend to ramble.

This starts the week that I get up in the middle of the night to book the cabin we want for Alaska 2025.

Cruise Day 7, 28 October 2023 Naples, Italy Naples was the most gritty of all the ports we visited. From our perspective, it was total chaos on the streets, but it was fun. Our original plan was to take the train to Herculaneum for the day, but we were both pretty beat, so when my wife suggested the hop on/hop off bus, I was very grateful. We were on our balcony when we came into port and saw a beautiful moon setting to the west and sunrise to the east. As we left, we watched the moon rise and the sun set. It was a great way to end our last port day. On a side note, I was amazed at how developed the area around Mt Vesuvius is. This seems like a disaster waiting to happen. The port is right in the middle of the city and the buses are located behind the big castle across from the port. When we were there, crossing the street was time consuming due to the amount of traffic and long walk light cycles, however it's my understanding that there is now an underground pedestrian walkway that goes from the port to the subway station across the street (Municipio). The port itself is very busy due to MSC home porting there, and when we walked off, we had to zigzag through the terminal, go outside, then go back inside, then we exited. It was kinda crazy. The buses have two different routes. The first goes west along the coast, the second takes you into the city. Both routes were included in our fare...which we didn't document, and neither of us can remember how much it was. It couldn't have been too much, or we wouldn't have purchased the tickets. I took a picture of the routes on the map and hopefully it will look decent below. The coastal route is quite touristy and laid back once you get away from the city itself. The city route is insane, but in a good way. Naples feels like a city that can't be explored in a one day port call. One of the pictures is of a person texting while driving their motorbike. This was a common sight. Sirens and ambulances were everywhere, too. We figured there must be a lot of auto accidents based on our observations of their "rules of the road". Don't get the wrong impression....we loved Naples and will be going back in May of 2025. There is so much we want to see in My internet is suddenly wonky and no pictures will load. I'll try again after rebooting my router and computer Pictures made it.

Cruise Day 6, 27 October, 2023 Messina, Sicily Ok, we were starting to get a bit tired, but we were determined to see the Astronomical Clock do its thing at noon. Until then, we wandered around like usual. The ship docks right in the city, so there's no long walk or shuttle needed. Messina was the first port we were in that really felt like it was working class, unlike the old town areas of the previous ports. There was much more poverty visible. While doing our usual "walk uphill until we find something interesting" thing, we came upon the Sacrario di Cristo Re (Shrine of Christ the King). Inside the shrine, there is a memorial to an Unknown Soldier as well as the gravestones of fallen soldiers from WW I and WW II. No pictures were allowed inside. From there, we meandered around Messina, getting a kick out of what seemed to be a total lack of parking enforcement until shortly before noon, when we went to the Astronomical Clock. The show at noon was neat to see, but it was kinda crowded. We went back to the ship after five or so hours for our standard nap.

Cruise day 5, 26 October 2023 Corfu, Greece Another beautiful day. Four ships in port today. Since I was feeling much better, we chose to walk from the port to the city center. We had no plans other than exploring and seeing what we come across. The only goal we had was to see the city center and avoid the tourist crowds as much as possible. We walked through the port and along the water until we came to the New Venetian Fortress. There was lots to explore here and the entrance fee was 5 € per person. There's also a free toilet at the entrance...first free one we have come across all week. After wandering around the New Venetian Fortress, we continued our walk through the middle of the city center, ending up at the Old Venetian Fortress. History break here....I've been interested in WW II since I was 9 or 10 years old, so I'm always on the lookout for history related to it. The Old Venetian Fortress has some very sad WW II history attached to it....I won't mention specifics...the info is out there. This whole trip, I found it quite moving to be in places where significant history took place. It's one thing to read about something, it's a completely different thing to actually be there. The line to enter the Old Venetian Fortress was extremely long. There were so many people that the authorities had implemented a one out/one in entrance system and the wait was 45 minutes. We decided to not bother waiting and walked north along the side of it until we got to the water, then we followed the shoreline back to the port. On the walk back, we stopped in lots of shops and had the opportunity to meet lots of local people. My wife bought baklava at one place and it took a lot of work with English/Italian/hand gestures/translator app to convince the owner that I couldn't have any for health reasons, not because I thought he wasn't a good baker. Once he understood, he was very friendly and we talked for quite a while. Meeting people like this is why we prefer to walk rather than take a shuttle. Once back on the ship, we took our daily nap on the balcony and went to the Windjammer for dinner. We added Greece to our list of places to go back to (along with Portugal, Italy, and Croatia).