Cruising to Vacation - Summer 2010

As many of you are probably aware a milestone birthday awaits me this summer. I won't say my age, but let's just say that Nixon was still in office when I entered this world. Come on, you can do the the math! Anyway, to celebrate this most momentous birthday the wife decided that we should celebrate by taking a cruise. Earlier this year we began to look into different cruising options. While we want to take a cruise, we didn't want to break the bank in the process. Let's face it, if taking a vacation is seldom an inexpensive event; then taking a cruise most definitely isn't. Luckily though since we live in Texas, we are only a few short hours away from Galveston. While not a busy sea port, two cruise lines do operate a total of three ships. We found one that we liked, even found a cabin that would offer us most of what we were looking for and BANG, we have  a summer cruise vacation.

So what are the details? We are taking the Carnival Cruise Line's Conquest on a 7 day journey to the Western Caribbean. Our cruise will take us to Montego Bay in Jamaica, Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands and Cozumel Mexico. All of the ports look like they offer a good assortment of activities, either sponsored by the ship or planned totally by us. We both love to explore, so even if we don't do the typical excursions we will definitely find a way to keep ourselves occupied.

Best of all, several days at sea. That's what I'm really looking for in a cruise. For me, that's why you go on a cruise. The ship we are taking, Conquest, isn't a new ship but isn't exactly old and recently had a total makeover. She is only about 10 years old, so by ship standards she isn't old. When she was built she was one of the biggest in the world. Because we booked early, we were even able to get one of the coveted cabins with a wrap around balcony.

As we get closer to the trip, I will write more about what we plan to do. Until then, check out this video from CuriseNow.com. It's all about our ship, the vary same one that we will take us on our summer vacation.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa1mYddWqO8 (iPhone Friendly)