It all started with a dream...Pre-TR 2/11/12

[Rebecky]

No not the ship. Any ship, all I wanted to do was take a cruise.
This was in 2008 and my first requirement was to find someone to go with me. I asked my friend Jennie (we had done 2 other vacations together (DC and Florida)) and was told no, no way, no how. She is afraid of sinking and this has only been confirmed by watching the movie Titanic. I tried explaining to her that a Caribbean cruise would never hit an iceberg it just won’t happen! She then threw me for a loop and told me if she ever did a cruise it would be to Alaska. What!!! There are icebergs there!!! This made no sense to me.

I even tried enticing her with a Halloween cruise. I think it would be a blast and imagine a costume party and all the fun.

What about a singles cruise??? How great would that be? She didn’t go for it.

I even had a budget all prepared and she said too much money.

Okay, next plan. If she wouldn’t do a cruise with me then we were going to go to Hawaii, so Maui here we come! March 2009 saw us spend more in Hawaii than we would’ve on a cruise, but oh well she didn’t sink! Though we did go out into the ocean on a much small ship really just a boat for a snorkel tour and man was she scared!

Next up, Still dreaming of a cruise…

 

[Rebecky]

So, Jennie my faithful travel friend has turned me down every time I even start to say cruise. My back-up travel friend would have to be Misty whom I have traveled to Hawaii and Florida with. The only problem here is that she is a single mom of a little boy (born 7/5/07) and would not be willing to be away from him for the duration of a cruise.

Then it hit me…. DUH!!! I LOVE Disney and she has a kid. We could do a Disney Cruise and take him with us.

So, in 2009 I start in on trying to get her to plan a cruise. She says sounds great so I’m in heaven. I pick out 2 possible cruises (Halloween 2010 and January 2011). She explains that she would love to go on a Halloween cruise (she likes to dress up too!), that is right when she has to do inventory (monthly event) at work and would need to go in the middle of the month to make things work, plus right before the holidays won’t work for her either. January it is then. I start working on a budget and present it to her and wait for it… She says NO!!! It wasn’t the money, she wanted to wait until her son was old enough to remember the trip if she was going to spend this much on it.
Now I understand, if the cruise is geared for him, but I was thinking this would be for us!!! Oh well, she just wanted us to postpone it not cancel. So, I start thinking. I know it’s dangerous. When would be the best time to go… I presented her with January, February or March of 2012 reasoning that he will be 4 ½ at that time. He has now been in pre-school and doing very well with the other kids, is potty trained for a long time, and she wouldn’t want us to wait for the following year because he would be in Kindergarten and she wouldn’t take him out of school for a vacation. So with all my logic behind it she said YES!!!
We are now officially booked and paid in full for a February 2012 cruise!!!

Next up, Planning Planning Planning