All aboard!

We are off on a 12 night Caribbean cruise starting tomorrow so this will likely be the last entry on this blog until our return.

We both love cruises and now that we are retired we have the flexibility, within reason, to go for one as and when we please. This flexibility gives us the opportunity to take advantage of pricing which is usually a lot less during certain times of the year.

People either love cruises or they just don’t like them. We obviously fall in the first group and find cruises to be relaxing, love the ocean around us, enjoy the usually excellent food, the entertainment that is available after dinner, the flexibility to either laze around or to be involved in various activities and the opportunity to go to different places with the minimum of effort. One occasionally meets interesting people – and if one is fortunate enough to have some interesting company at the table one is assigned for dinner then it adds yet another dimension to the cruising experience. What cruises don’t offer is the chance to do some in depth exploration at ports of call since one is typically at each port for just one day.

We thought that we were experienced cruisers having been on ten prior cruises but veteran cruisers have been on dozens of them. In fact, on a cruise that we went on about two years ago we ran into a couple who had been on 97 cruises as of that time! As they put it, where can one have all accommodation, gourmet meals, room service, entertainment and transportation included at the fraction of the price it would entail if one were to try and do the same thing on land!

Our last two cruises have been with my brother, Peter and his wife, Shiny – and the one earlier this year included his children and our son, Amit. So that made for a lot of company and a lot of fun. So this will be a more subdued affair in comparison.