Planning A Cruise

It’s official — we’re going on a cruise in October!!!

I had this idea  few months ago, and mentioned it to Jeff to see what he thought about it. And of course he was immediately on board. (haha, accidental boat pun) So I hopped on Royal Caribbean’s website to do some preliminary research, and found a couple good options, but then didn’t get much further than that.

Then last Wednesday night after choir rehearsal, I had a quick chat with a lady in choir who is a travel agent. I was just asking her what the advantage of using a travel agent was, versus just finding & booking ourselves online. She said you would pay the same price (no travel agent fees!?), and find the same options, but they would take care of everything. So Thursday I sent her a quick email stating when we wanted to go, our approximate budget per person, and that we wanted to go out of Tampa or Port Canaveral (don’t want to drive all the way to Miami).

Then on Friday she emailed me back saying she found a cruise sailing during our anniversary, that was exactly on budget! So yesterday morning I called her and we placed our deposit to hold our cabin! We set up monthly payments, and it will be all paid off in July, then we set sail October 1st. (If you need a travel agent, call Ruth @ Adventures in Travel, she made it soooo easy!)

So we are officially going on a 5-night cruise to Grand Cayman & Cozumel for our 5-year anniversary!

I have been on two cruises in my life: 1) On the Big Red Boat circa 1998-ish with my family, and 2) with Royal Caribbean for my high school graduation present in 2006 with just my Mama! But Jeff has never been on a cruise, so I’m excited to get to go together! 

Our usual anniversary tradition is camping in a Florida State Park somewhere close-ish. For our 1st in 2014, we camped at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.

And then we loved it so much, went back to the same park for our 2nd in 2015.

But for our 3rd in 2016 we tried out a new place, Manatee Springs State Park in Chiefland, Florida. (Little did we know I was already pregnant at the time! We wouldn’t find out for about 2 more weeks!)

So we usually keep our anniversary celebrations low-key and celebrate by just spending time together, no fanfare, no cell phones (they don’t work out at the campsites!), nothing big. But this year we decided it was time to “treat yo self!” (treat OURselves), so we’re doing it up big this year! And I’m so pumped!!!

And then for our 4th in 2017, since we had a 3-month-old, who I was not ready to camp with or leave behind, we just went out to dinner at a new-to-us restaurant, and then enjoyed baby snuggles when we got home.