I love credit cards so much! v7.0 - 2025 (see first page for add'l details)

[hsmamato2]

We got hooked on the long transatlantic cruises in 2023. Our youngest DD asked for a family cruise as her college graduation gift. She asked for the same thing for her sweet 16!

I found an amazing deal on a 19 night MSC Divina cruise from Miami to Genoa, Italy for May 2023, right after graduation. After all price drops, it was about $2100 for 2 people in a balcony cabin. A $500 OBC covered 90% of the gratuities ($551). I couldn't help bragging to family and friends about my awesome find! At the end of the day, my parents and DH's Aunt & Uncle joined us on the sailing because it was a deal they couldn't pass up either. We had a group of 8 and did our own private excursions in the ports. We stopped in San Juan, Martinique, Barbados, Funchal, Morroco, Barcelona, ending in Genoa.

We all found the sea days so relaxing and not boring at all. We don't do all the activities, even if offered. We just like to sit around and chat. Lol.

We sold our house in NY this August and fortunately did not need to purchase anything in FL. We were snowbirding in FL already since the pandemic. We invested most of the sales proceeds towards retirement and budgeted some for DD's weddings (both of them), future car fund, and TRAVEL!

2026 was always going to be our BIG travel year for our 30th wedding anniversary. We skipped our 25th and all our milestone birthdays due to the pandemic or just busy work schedules. We went nowhere in 2024 and 2025, getting our house ready for sale, and accumulating cc reward points. So, we are going a bit overboard and over the annual budgeted amount. Travel velocity will slow down afterwards and we will try to fund most of future travel with points and miles.

2026 will be the first year all the following are true: we have no house to take care of, DH will be semi-retired, I work 100% remotely (since 2020), both kids are self sufficient and we are empty nesters, and my parents are still healthy enough to be left alone for long periods of time.

So there are a few tranatlantic cruises east bound and west bound. Typically, they sail east bound to Europe in the Spring (March to June) and west bound from Europe in the Fall (Sept to Nov), but there are exceptions.

I like to research on the search engine on vacations to go. You can narrow it down to repositioning cruises and world cruises. 7 day cruises are too short for us. We like to unpack and not have to move for at least 10 days. Lol.

We also like to look at the world cruise itineraries. We have done the Caribbean too many times. DH wants to do cruises with more unique itineraries. We find that the smaller cruiselines (Azamara, Oceania, etc.) have longer and more interesting itineraries.

HTH!

Thank you!