Cruise Lines That Is
Our first ever experience with cruising was a one day cruise from San Diego to Ensenada, Mexico in 1991 or 1992.
We joined our friends, Dick and Janet, on this excursion. We were hanging out by the pool and the guys headed off to go get drinks. Janet and I decided to wander a bit and strolled up to the bridge. We were looking in and one of the crew members asked if we wanted to take a turn at driving the ship. Of course we jumped at this extraordinary opportunity. Janet took her turn first, then I had my chance. Drinks in hand, Gary and Dick found us as I was driving the ship. Their shock is still seared in my memory.
Our next real cruise experience was in Tahiti. We flew into Papeete, Tahiti and sailed around the Tahitian islands on Renaissance. It was truly a beautiful and relaxing opportunity. One of our excursions was to a private island where we snorkeled and had a lovely lunch.
When we took our Tahitian cruise, I was working on my Masters in Library and Information Science degree. I was taking Young Adult Literature that summer and needed to read a book a day to keep up with my requirements. So…I took a suitcase of books on our cruise (Gary also needed several books because we’re both avid readers and never want to be without).
Our next cruise was our 2009 Alaskan cruise on Celebrity. After our book challenge on the Tahitian cruise, we purchased our first Kindles so we could preserve our precious suitcase space for clothes and souvenirs on our way home.
We started out in Vancouver, Canada. We spent two days there before the cruise and had a wonderful time sightseeing.
We had a wonderful time, ate great food, and enjoyed all the majestic scenery.
We added on the land tour to our cruise options which included Denali National Park where we had great views of the top of Denali and saw all the amazing wildlife the park has to offer (the mother bear playing with her cubs was a highlight), Talkeetna, and Fairbanks. When I got home I binge watched the TV series Northern Exposure to keep the Alaskan feel alive.
In the summer of 2016, we attended a conference for school in Orlando, Florida. We stayed at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge where we were fortunate to live among the animals.
Since we were already in Orlando, we decided to take an Eastern Caribbean cruise on Carnival (love when things work out) before we flew home.
Our itinerary took us to the Dominican Republic, St Thomas, Puerto Rico, and Grand Turk. We met some teachers from Scotland. Teachers really make great traveling companions.
Then came 2017 which brought retirement. After a combined 75 years of teaching, we decided to give ourselves a special retirement gift, an Oceania cruise around the British Isles that coincided with the start of the 2017-2018 school year in PSUSD (and yes, Gary made sure to text our teacher friends on the first day of school telling them what a great time we were having).
Another dream vacation was our Oceania cruise of the Mediterranean in 2018. We added a pre-cruise package in Barcelona. Much to our surprise, after one night in Barcelona (amazing food), we boarded a van and were told that we were stopping at the castle. We got to the castle around 6 p.m. and it seemed a little late for a tour. Once we stopped, the driver told us he would get our luggage. We discovered that we were actually staying in Cardona Castle! Then it was on to our cruise. We stopped at Majorca (and yes, I got Majorca pearls), then Marseilles, Nice, Monte Carlo, Corsica, Pisa, Florence (and yes, I got an Italian leather coat…Gary only got a pair of gloves…monogrammed of course), and ended with three days in Rome.
2019 brought two cruises. The first was a fall cruise on Oceania up the east coast. We started in New York City. Our itinerary included Newport, Boston, and Bar Harbor then it was on to Canada. We stopped in St. John, Nova Scotia, Charlottetown, Quebec City, and ended in Montreal. On this cruise we took two cooking classes – tons of fun.
Our last cruise before COVID-19 struck and all travel was stopped, was a Celebrity cruise of the Western Caribbean where we stopped at Key West, Costa Maya, Cozumel, the Cayman Islands and Hell. One of the highlights of this cruise was the on-board glass blowing class where Gary made me a beautiful paperweight.
Here’s to more adventures!
Those look like wonderful trips! I will have to check out Oceania for a cruise. Thanks for sharing.