Pre-Trip Details
Two years ago Bob and I cruised on the Paradise to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. It was our first cruise and I wasn’t quite sure if I would enjoy cruising or not, but I wanted to do something “special” for the anniversary milestone. Let’s face it…camping in a pup tent just wasn’t going to cut it for that special occasion. Once I read about the smoke-free Paradise I knew that was the ship I wanted to cruise on…I detest cigarette smoke and the thought of being able to spend a whole week free of the nasty stuff would be wonderful!
I planned and researched every aspect of the cruise and the week turned out to be even more wonderful than I had imagined. Bob felt the same way and we talked about taking another cruise “someday”. Unfortunately the reality was that we were paying college tuition for two kids plus tons of car insurance and a cruise just wasn’t fitting into our budget.
Last year it was with sadness that I read that the Paradise would no longer be smoke-free as of September. That meant that when we did cruise again we would probably miss out on things like the casino, clubs, etc. because we would avoid them in order to avoid the smoke.
January came around and we got a call from old friends from Illinois. Kent had been Bob’s college roommate and ended up marrying my college roommate, Laurel. Although we don’t see each other frequently, we have kept in touch over the years. They called saying that this summer would be their 25th wedding anniversary and they were considering a cruise to celebrate. They thought that a cruise would be more fun going with friends and they were really hoping we would go with them!
It’s amazing how all of a sudden we started trying to justify how we could afford a cruise! The oldest son was graduating…that meant only one tuition bill next year! Bob had become an EMT since our last cruise and his pay as a “volunteer” on the ambulance squad is meager but still would help cover the costs! If things got really tight we would just eat beans for every meal. Haha...just kidding...I think. Let’s just say it didn’t take us too long to make up our minds to accompany Kent and Laurel on a cruise.
Since our friends had never cruised, I offered my services as “travel planner & researcher”. Right away I started lobbying for a cruise on the Paradise. Laurel deals with allergy triggered asthma so it was not hard to convince her that a smoke-free ship would be a great choice. Bob is a certified scuba diver and a cruise would offer him the chance to dive at some of the world’s greatest dive locations…at least on the western Caribbean route. Kent revealed that scuba diving was one of his life-long dreams so right away he enrolled in a scuba class at their local community college.
The Paradise alternates weekly between the western and eastern Caribbean so we were limited to about six weeks in the summer that we could cruise the western route. Oh yeah…I forgot to mention that Kent, Laurel and myself are all teachers so we “must” cruise in the summer time. We had cruised the western route two years ago, but since then the Paradise had dropped Ochos Rios from its itinerary and added Belize and Roatan…two new ports for us to visit!
After comparing summer schedules, the week of June 13th was the only week that was really going to work out for both families. Our oldest son was to be married on June 5th and we knew it would be a hectic time but we figured a cruise would be a great way to relax and unwind the following week!
I began spending hours and hours and hours checking cruise prices, researching tour ideas, and just reading about the Paradise in general. Initially we booked the cruise through CruCon, but when I noticed other on-line agencies dropping their prices for our cruise, CruCon wouldn’t agree to lower our price to match. Since we had not made the final payment yet, we cancelled and re-booked with Buycruises.com. Our first cruise had been booked through Buycruises and we were happy with their service...this time was the same. Since money was an issue, I convinced our friends that we should just book inside guarantee cabins.
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