Holy cow...it's May already...

Good morning out there to anyone still following this blog. It had been awhile since I last wrote a post so I figured I should probably write something. A lot has been going on in our world lately.

First, I got another mini promotion. I am now a tier 3 agent which means more responsibilities but I also got a nice little raise. Which let's face it in these tough economic times is really nice. I am now basically a mini senior. I help with coaching and mentoring along with dealing with a lot more complicated issues. It's been going well so far. One week I was ranked number 7 out of all of the tier three agents. Which is pretty damned good. My next goal will be to make it to the top five but we shall see.

Next up we took the Sunday before Memorial day off so my sister, BIL and two nieces are going to come stay with us from that sat to memorial day. They guys will hit the gun range on Sunday while Jess and I take the kids to the park and the swimming pool. Hopefully it's nice weather. Otherwise we will have to think of something fun to do inside.

Then in June I will be off on our annual girls trip with my mom, two sisters and Nan. It should be fun. We are just going to San Antonio but we are staying on the River Walk and planning on relaxing. Can't wait.

This brings me to my next part....I will be sending an email out as not everyone still reads my blog. We got some unfortunate news. The ship we sailed on last year, Voyager of the Seas will no longer be sailing out of Galveston after this coming winter season. Once it heads back to Europe in April of 2011 we will no longer have this fantastic ship so close to our home port. =(

So if you want to experience such a fantastic ship I strongly encourge to think about going with us in Jan. For those that don't remember the ports it's in the post below this one..It sets sail on Jan 23rd and it's a 7 night cruise to Roatan, Honduras-----Belize ----- and Cozumel.

We won't be booking our cabin until November or December as we will have to wait for our bonus to be able to pay it all at once. Which I know some of you might be hesitant to book until we do for sure. But I can gurantee you that Ian and I will be on that sailing.We are not changing our minds as we want to sail on the magnicifant ship one last time as the crew, the amenities, and our overall experience this year were just so out of this world. We are going back regardless. We will book the following years alaskan trip while on this one as well.


So those of you that need to pay a deposit now, and then pay it off over time...now is the time to get on the list.

I believe cruise411.com is currently having a sell for the next two days. You can get 50% reduced deposit and $100 per cabin for onboard spending.

Ian and I will be signing up for the scuba lessons on this cruise. So that is something else to think about as you will do your main dive at one of the three ports. If we get a choice we will probably do it in Roatan, Honduras. As we really want to check out something new for Cozumel. It's kind of like Discovery Cove but in Mexico. I am going to be checking out how they get their dolphins among other things before I agree to it because if they are linked to any of the harmful ones, no way jose.

Thats about it for now. I will be sending this out in email as well as some of my family no longer read my blog or they just forget to check because I'm a slacker at posting. lol.

~hugs

Update!

I know I just posted about doing the transatlantic and while we would love to do that, after adding in the cost of going airfare plus the price of extra baggage because let's face it, no one could cruise for two weeks with just one bag, it's a little higher in price than what we really want to spend. So, we have decided that we will do the iternary that is very similar to the one we just did. However in the place of Costa Maya, they have put in belize. So it would be two days at sea, Roatan, Belize and then Cozumel. Then we would take a second week off work to just relax at home. This way it's cheaper too because we can just drive to the port. We will probably book the same week as we did on this last one because the weather was wonderful, although we all know that it could be different next year.

While we are on this cruise we will be booking the alaskan one though so that wont change.

Here is the itenerary for the new one.

23-Jan Galveston, Texas 5:00 PM

24-Jan Cruising

25-Jan Cruising

26-Jan Roatan, Honduras 8:00 AM 5:00 PM Docked

27-Jan Belize City, Belize 8:00 AM 5:00 PM Tendered

28-Jan Cozumel, Mexico 8:00 AM 5:00 PM Docked

29-Jan Cruising

30-Jan Galveston, Texas 7:00 AM


The pricing is already out currently for this itenerary too. We will probably be booking next month or April as we will get our profit sharing then so we could just pay it off at once. Hopefully we are going to look into getting certified for scuba diving either before hand or on the ship. That was something I forgot to mention in my review. They offer the scuba certification on the ship and it's around $200 pp.

Future Cruises in the works

This goes out to everyone in the family no matter which side you are. hehe... We don't have the 2011 pricing just yet as they haven't officially released it, however we believe that instead of doing the new england/canada one we are looking at the Galveston - Spain Transatlantic for next year. This would depart at some point in April from Galveston, TX. It is a 14 day cruise and the end departure is Barcelona, Spain. I will post the itnernary for the 2010 one in a second and hopefully it would be similar to this one. We are then depending on the pricing going to stay and do a cruise for the medit. So three weeks in total. While on this cruise we plan on booking a 2012 Alaskan Inside passage cruise to get the great discounts you usually find for booking a cruise while on a cruise. hehe. They said the 2012 prices should be out in the future so those that might want to do the alaskan cruise I will let you know when the pricing comes out for those. We are not necessarily looking for this to be a family reunion sort of thing, we were just wanting people to know that we were going to do these, and if you want to book too great, if not that's ok as well.

An idea of the iternary for the Transatlantic would be probably something similar to this...





Day Port *** Arrive Depart Activity

18-Apr Galveston, Texas 5:00 PM

19-Apr Cruising

20-Apr Cruising

21-Apr Nassau, Bahamas 7:00 AM 5:00 PM Docked

22-Apr Cruising

23-Apr Cruising

24-Apr Cruising

25-Apr Cruising

26-Apr Cruising

27-Apr Ponta Delgada, Azores 12:00 PM 7:00 PM Docked

28-Apr Cruising

29-Apr Cruising

30-Apr Malaga, Spain 7:00 AM 8:00 PM Docked

01-May Cartagena, Spain 7:00 AM 2:00 PM Docked

02-May Barcelona, Spain 6:00 AM

Then the first medit cruise would be something like this....

Day Port *** Arrive Depart Activity

02-May Barcelona, Spain 7:00 PM

03-May Cruising

04-May Naples, Capri, Italy 7:00 AM 7:00 PM Docked

05-May Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy 7:00 AM 7:00 PM Docked

06-May Livorno (Florence/Pisa), Italy 7:00 AM 7:00 PM Docked

07-May Villefranche (Nice), France 7:00 AM 7:00 PM Tendered

08-May Provence (Toulon), France 7:00 AM 5:00 PM Docked

09-May Barcelona, Spain 6:00 AM

The pricing right now for the 2010 one for the transatlantic is really good...You can currently get an inside stateroom for only $549 and balconies going for $800

Then for the medit cruise an inside is currently $699 and balconies for about $900

It's just something to think about. However once the 2011 pricing comes out, I believe we will probably be signing up for the transatlantic one. We might not do the one week medit at this time due to money, however if we have the money to do it, we probably will. The further out you book it the better as you can really have your pick of stateroom and be able to pay over time with a monthly payment making it affordable for nearly everyone. =D

Sunday - Disembarkation day

We woke up at 6 which was just in time to see us dock. We got dressed and finished packing up the last few things that we had left out for the morning time, such as toothbrush, etc. We were in express departure group "C" which was set to disembark at 8:30. Around 8:15 we decided to gather up everything and head down to the deck we got off on. We were able to walk down, swiped our sea pass card one last time, and in font of the customs area by 8:30ish. We then made it through that line and headed for the street to find our shuttle for the parking lot. They had one there and we were able to get two spots on it. We made it to their lot by 8:40ish and were on the road by 8:50. One of the best debarkations ever!

We then made it to my parents in Kingwood by 10ish and visited with them for awhile. I got to see my brother whom I hadn't seen since our grandpa's funeral last Feb. So it was nice seeing him. I also got to meet his new girlfriend which was nice. She seems really nice and I can't wait to learn more about her, etc.

That is all for now. More in a minute to come about the future journeys.

~hugs

Saturday - last sea day =(

We woke up around 9ish today. We slept in because we didn't have a lot of plans. I knew I was going to get us packed before we did anything for the most part. That way we could relax for the rest of the day. We made it to the last art auction even though we had said we wouldn't go to another one but there wasn't a lot going on so what the heck. We ended up buying a few more pieces. I think we will be happy with each one we chose. We also had an appt with the future cruise man as well. We prebooked for 2011 so we could qualify for only a $100pp deposit and we will receive a $300 onboard credit for our next cruise as well. We have been debating between two iternaries for next year and the transatlatic in April of 2011 is winning so far. It's about $500 pp less than the New England/Canada one, and it would be from Galveston aboard a ship we are quickly falling in love with. We honestly can not say enough great things about the crew members on this ship. They were friendly and truely seemed to enjoy their jobs. SO MUCH BETTER THAN CARNIVAL!

Back to the cruise....we had dinner in the windjammer tonight as neither of us wanted to get dressed up for dinner in the dining room. We then chilled on the balcony until we were tired and crashed. We knew we would have an early morning. We also had gloomy skies and high winds on the last sea day. They were saying as high as 60 so they had to close off the outside decks for the pool.

Friday - Cozumel day

One of my favorite days of the trip. We got up around 8ish and got ready for our fun relaxing beach day. We had booked Nachi Cocum again as usual and it didn't disappoint. We had 7 ships in port with us at Cozumel and they only allow a max of 100 people in to the beach club so we knew it would not be as crowded as other places. We got to Nach about 9:30 and got one of the best palapas on the beach. We met our waiter for the day and had a yummy fruit drink for myself and Ian had a dos equis. I know I probably just butchered that name. We really spaced our drinks apart as neither of us wanted to get drunk. It was so relaxing. Around 3 we had our waiter call us a taxi and made it back to the pier by 3:15. We took a quick nap and around five woke up. We were in each port from 8am to 6 pm so nice long days in each one.

Thrusday - Costa Maya

We got off the ship to do some shopping. We found all sorts of great deals. The only thing that is bad about this port is the pier is freaking long, and it's usually very windy here. We were having about 50 mph winds on the pier and then when you got into the shopping area at the pier it was about 30ish as we had buildings helping us. It takes foever it feels like to walk against that wind. We had the ice skating show tonight so we went to johnny rockets for dinner for something easy. The ice skating show was fantastic! It was really cool to see them do the tricks and still land them when you feel the ship rocking somewhat due to the choppy seas we had. Not much else to report on here so I will just post some of our pics.