I miss the world we were in when this picture was taken. I had met both a pen pal AND a Vegas performer on this trip, and had a great time sailing alone. This was a growth experience for me, as I was unable to lean on anyone for emotional support.
- - - - - -
The cruise I'll soon be taking will be fun. But it will not be much "to write home about". I was totally bored in one of these ports, and didn't bother to tender to the island in the other. When a cruise line has to tender its guests to a private island instead of using its own dock, bottlenecks will happen. And on the one time I was at this line's private island, they had a hard time getting on and off the island due to the weather.
If my cruise wasn't visiting Charleston, SC instead of Nassau, Bahamas, I wouldn't have taken it. Nassau was only worth the stop if one wanted to waste time shopping for overpriced goods. Port Canaveral was far from anything interesting or reasonably priced. But Charleston is a more than adequate place to stop, as it has history worth taking in. (Fort Sumter is the place where many consider our Civil War to have started.)
Unlike the cruise I took 3 years ago, the pandemic will always seem to be present in the background. When I get to the cruise terminal, I will be Covid tested before I get on the ship. Cruise staff will both be vaccinated and masked. All passengers will also be vaccinated. Even if masking isn't required of passengers, most will likely be wearing them out of habit. It could be worse. Could you imagine being on a mixed (vaxxed/unvaxxed) cruise and having to mask up at all times, then worry about which areas one can visit and what areas one must avoid?
Yet, the minor headaches of dealing with the pandemic haven't kept me from considering another cruise. Right now, I'm think of booking some sort of Hawaii trip. But I could change that to an Alaskan trip at a moment's notice. Until I am ready to make a commitment, I won't put any money down on a vacation. Instead, I'll be tracking prices and hoping they go down.
Unfortunately, prices don't always go down. Although the price of the cruise I'm taking dropped by $250 shortly after I booked the cruise, it is now the same price as when I booked it - under a slightly different pricing structure. And therein lies the problem. I'm not sure of how I can best perform price arbitraging on either a Hawaii or Alaska cruise. But I want to do so to get the best price available over the next year. And I hope I can do this effectively....
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