I mentioned last year (what do you mean you don't remember?) that we've been thrown a bit of a curve ball this winter. We're doing three 10-night cruises on the Emerald Princess, from November 7th to December 7th, and then we are being "thrown" off the ship for 10 nights as the ship goes to Freeport in the Bahamas for a 10 day dry dock (picture us standing sadly on the pier, surrounded by suitcases, waving goodbye as the empty Emerald Princess sails out to Freeport in the Bahamas to get spruced up. Are you feeling sorry for us yet?).
Ok, I'll admit it does makes perfect sense for Princess to do this. They maintain their ships so well that dry docks like these are a regularly scheduled thing (like, every two to three years or so). That time of December before the holidays is one of the slowest travel periods of the year, and a great time to schedule it. But how rude to have our utopian winter interrupted by such a banal activity as scraping barnacles from the ship's nether regions!
We'll endure, of course, although we did receive a concerned call from Princess last month wanting to make sure we knew about the Emerald's out-of-service plans. Really. It seems we're not the only ones who worry about our ability to survive in the "real world".
We had several options:
1.) stay home until after the holidays and start cruising in January (G quickly and soundly dismissed that idea);
2.) do three cruises, fly home December 7th for the holidays and return to the Emerald in January (that got my vote);
3.) get off the Emerald on December 7th and spend 10 nights bumming around South Florida and the Florida Keys before re-joining the ship on December 17th (my hand was also waving in the air for that one); or
4.) find another cruise to fill those 10 days (guess who thought this was really our only serious consideration?).
That we'll be doing the latter should tell you all you need to know about the balance of power in OUR house.
In the end it was fairly providential. Holland America's ship, the Noordam, is doing a 10-night cruise out of Fort Lauderdale that exactly matched the dates of the Emerald's dry dock, and that's what we'll be doing. So, in reality, we WILL be standing pier side surrounded by suitcases, but only for as long as it takes the next taxi in line to pick us up and drive us a few short minutes away to yet another cruise ship. (And I bet I just lost any sympathy I might have had from you....if I had any to begin with). Actually, it's quite exciting- winter on the Emerald is a lifestyle, but the Noordam cruise will be our vacation.
So, for all its resemblance to last year, this winter seems quite a bit different to us. Packing and unpacking, then packing and unpacking, then packing a third time before we finally unpack and stay put for two or three months is a bit of a PITA but, in the end, I bet we won't even remember that part. We did something similar during the the 2010-2011 winter season (with two additional hotel stays and a flight home and back), and didn't realize until we were talking about it months later that it really had been quite a lot of work. We were far too busy having fun to notice!
But I still think that Princess should have phoned us BEFORE scheduling the dry dock instead of after, to see how we felt about it.
;-)
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| Princess Cruises' Emerald Princess 113,000 tons 3,080 passengers |
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| Holland America's Noordam 83,000 tons 1,918 passengers |