teddy

tl;dr We’re frugal and are reaping the benefits of decades of planning My wife is going on five cruises in 2024. I’m with her on four of them. In addition, we’ve already booked an 11 night in January 2025 on Odyssey. We are waiting for the rest of 2025 to be released to book a few more. This is how we do it: We are firmly middle class, mid-50s. I have 6 weeks pto and my wife technically has unlimited, but I’m reality takes 4-4 1/2 weeks a year. While not “rich” as typically defined, we have no debt…none, zero, nada. We own our home outright. Neither of us drink or smoke, and I can’t remember the last time we ate out other than on a cruise. We do have an off-grid camp and land in northern Maine that we go to as much as possible, but we always seem to end up working when we go there. We worked our asses off for 30 years to get to the point where we are now. Our plan was always to raise the kids (now 23, 30, and 32) then enjoy life as much as we can while still funding our retirement (I’m retiring in 6 years when I turn 60). We typically book interior cabins and usually disembark with a zero balance because we don’t pay for anything extra. ….although we did reserve Chops on our cruise on Explorer next month because my wife is turning 56 that day. We’ve changed cruises from Florida to New Jersey because even after eating the change fee, it’s cheaper than flying to Florida. So that’s how we do it…..well…in addition I’ve been working 70 hours a week since April, and my wife has a second job. That helps.

Honestly, reading about someone doing this doesn’t surprise me at all, it just makes me sad. I work in a supermarket. Selfish, entitled behaviors have been escalating over the past couple years.

Before we started using a travel agent, we found that the word we used mattered when talking to Royal Caribbean phone reps. “Reprice” was different than “Rebook” which was different than “Adjustment”. Using the word “Reprice” was what we found worked. As mentioned above, there may be other factors in play regarding your specific booking.

More power to those who book cruises on Icon. I have no issues with people spending their money as they see fit. I never want to be told how I can spend my money. However, at $4000 (US) for two in a GTY Inside and up to $87k+ for a high end suite (7-night in January’26), we’re going to pass. Our wants as an empty nest, early to mid-50s couple are different.

Well. All checked in with a noon arrival time. We have transportation to the port arranged through our B&B in Ravenna.

Local news channels are already talking about the “potential impact” to New England and Canada from Lee if the cold front coming from the west isn’t strong enough to overcome the high pressure to the east and push it out to sea.

We’re newbies. Our first visit was in September 2021. We stayed the night at the pier. We were on Adventure out of Nassau. Jumping through the hoops necessary to fly to The Bahamas and cruise during the pandemic made us realize we had become “Cruisers”.

Welcome

My kind of September

I was there in January 2017 and stayed five nights at the Marriott Rivercenter on the River Walk. It had direct access to the River Walk, but was at the far end of the walk itself. In January 2018 I stayed at the Best Western Premier Historic Travelers Alamo/River Walk….which was near, but not on the River Walk. It is a block and a half from the Alamo though. I was happy with both hotels. I stayed in basic rooms, so I can’t tell tell you if they offer higher end suites or other amenities. A restaurant I went to that I enjoyed enough to remember after all this time is Saltgrass Steakhouse. It’s right on the River Walk Downtown San Antonio is (or at least was when I went there) was very walkable. People were very nice and I enjoyed my time there. One thing that sticks in my mind about being there is when walking back to the hotel at 11 pm, people were stacked up at the crosswalks waiting for the WALK light to appear, but there was absolutely zero vehicular traffic anywhere. Most of my “big city” experience is in Boston, where WALK/DON’T WALK lights are routinely ignored by pedestrians.

And drop the bad attitude when you do

As a person who works retail and deals with customers daily, I have some thoughts of how your conversation with the Royal Caribbean representative went….. Anyway, fixing a misspelled name does not cost $350.

Thank you for your replies @twangster You are much more articulate (among other things) than I would have been.

The MBTA is always an adventure....and never the adventure you're looking for https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/03/03/video-mbta-rider-nearly-hit-by-collapsed-ceiling-panel-at-red-line-station/

I know you said you’re not really interested in museums, but we walked up to the Cape Breton Highlanders Museum. If anyone in your group has any military background or interests, it’s very interesting.

Good info. Thank you for sharing.

Here's a link that I found on a quick search. https://www.viator.com/tours/St-Kitts/ATV-Tour-of-St-Kitts/d930-6461ATV To be clear, we have not booked this ATV excursion in St Kitts, but we have booked excursions on other Caribbean islands through Viator and been pleased.

TLDR means too long, didn’t read. It’s like the Cliff’s Notes version.

I’ll always have a soft spot for Adventure, but unless we were booking for a specific itinerary that only could be had on Adventure, we’d pick Freedom.

Too fast. Our oldest turned 32 last week. My wife and I can’t possibly understand how we have a 32 year old.

BOOM!!

Sometimes it’s difficult to be good.

Wow. We’ll be following along.

Our Italy cruise next month is on Explorer and with a port every day, we have the same thoughts as you about just coming back to the ship to relax. We booked an aft balcony specifically for this reason. We love Anthem, but I’d feel like I had to be out and about doing something when we got back rather than resting up for the next day.

I say just go to the C&A desk onboard. I've had troubles in the past with multiple numbers due to having an apostrophe in my last name because the apostrophe is considered a special character not a letter. I had a number issued for my name with a space where the apostrophe should be, and one for my name with no space. Our travel agent spent more time than she should have trying to get things resolved, so I just started going to the loyalty ambassador when I boarded if there were any problems. Three cruises ago, the loyalty ambassador had a special character in his name, so I found someone who understood exactly what was happening. He fixed it, and so far, it's been okay.