We actually booked this Regal Princess transatlantic cruise back in March (I think). It wasn’t just a matter of going somewhere to use up FCCs; we really wanted to see Normandy and have been doing some preparatory research to get ready for that visit for months. I’m sure G is well over hearing me say, “I want to go someplace NEW!”, and I understand it’s very much a first world problem to even get to say that, but it is true. I am pretty much past the point of cruising just to be on a cruise, not that there’s anything wrong with doing that either. My husband is still there; I am not. But the draw of a visit to Normandy was definitely enough to have me excited about this one.
We originally booked an inside cabin and then watched fares drop and drop and drop again, and when the price of a balcony relative to an inside made that an attractive option, we rebooked in a balcony. And still the price dropped until we were paying far less than our original inside cabin fare.
Our original plan had been to spend two nights pre-cruise in London and I booked the same hotel close to the Victoria Coach Station that we had stayed at in 2018. But I kept checking EZ Air fares, and noticed that if we spent three nights in London, we could get United Polaris seats for less than half the price as on any other day. We actually saved enough that we upgraded our hotel to the historic Clermont Victoria on Buckingham Palace Rd. and reserved a Deluxe room to boot (which gave us enough floor space to walk around our suitcases).
Meanwhile, our lives at home pretty much mirrored our lives at home any other year. 2024 has definitely had its highs and lows. The year started in a big way when Michigan won the Rose Bowl on January 1 and then the National Football Championship a week later (and on my birthday). We waited a long, long time for that, which made it all the sweeter a victory.
Life kind of settled down into familiar patterns the rest of the year. G continued to cruise close to home while I was just not feeling it. Realistically, there were a few things that needed to be done to settle Mom’s estate and we are almost through that process. It would have been tough to be on a ship when things needed to be discussed and signed. But we made it through the year of “firsts” (first Christmas, birthday, Mothers Day, etc) without Mom, and I thought that was going to be that (stay tuned).
G completed his (doing the math here) 37th Vail Hill Climb in July. Every year I ask him if he wants me to book a hotel again for that event and every year he says he does. One year he’s going to tell me that he thinks his running up mountains days are behind him, and that’s going to be very sad day for both of us. He likes to say that he finishes in the top three in his age group…but the number of competitors in his age group gets smaller every year. I am pretty darn proud of this guy (and wish that some of his healthy habits would rub off on me).
The twins (good grief! I haven’t called them that for years and they would die if they knew I did just now) celebrated their 21st birthday a couple of weeks ago. I am so lucky that we are still so close, and stay in touch mostly on the weekends as they are both insanely busy during the week at school. McGuy will be graduating a year early in May (I already have my flight and hotel booked) and then using the fourth year of his scholarship to get his Masters degree. McGee is somehow managing to run 100 miles a week plus take a heavy load of classes and do military training. He is studying things so advanced that I’m not even sure what they are. The days of me helping with math homework are far, far behind us, though I do still get tapped for occasional essay and letter input.
I’m racking my brain trying to remember if there are any other stand out events from this year. If I recall anything, I’ll mention it later. But when I was debating blogging at all, especially when we have so many sea days on this itinerary, a few friends (blame them) said I should just use stories as filler, which I think means that the times when I go off on tangents are more interesting then when I limit the scope of my discussion to travel. As always, it’s my diary, not a travel journal, but I’ll give warnings when I digress so you can skip over the parts that hold little interest.
Also, I’m preparing all these blog posts on my iPhone, using “slide to type”, which is fast and easy but oh so dangerous. Buckle up for some startling autocorrects.