A quick bit about the upcoming cruise

Last month I looked at my husband and said, "We need to go on vacation."

"I agree," he told me. "Where? Vegas?"

"Maybe? I don't know. I want to do something. I need to get away from my job."

"Think they will let you go?"

"I've taken two days of leave this year and they where both in February. They better let me leave."

He looked skeptical. I couldn't blame him. Last year, when planning our Tokyo trip my boss had told me that two days in the middle of my trip might not be approved because of staffing issues. I said that I couldn't exactly fly from Tokyo back home for two days and fly back.

Conversations like that tire me out. I have co-workers that hand the boss a schedule of leave at the beginning of the year. It seems reasonable to give two or three months notice to take time off but these co-workers leave me feeling as if I do everything at the last minute.

I didn't care. I wanted to go on vacation and I was going to stomp my feet and have a tantrum if that is what it took.

Vacations where never part of my childhood. I had planned to make them part of my adulthood. Life had a habit of inserting itself into that equation and destroying my plans. This year, I wanted to go somewhere and do something new.

Our first thought wasn't new. It was to take a trip to Vegas as my husband had suggested. We really enjoyed Vegas when we went there to get married in 2007. What we were looking for was a stop gap before we went to England. My husband travels extensively for work and I have decide to start tagging along to expand my own horizons. Originally, we were going to go to England in October. Now, we were perhaps not going anywhere until the spring and I needed and wanted a break. This led to a frantic discussion and a random search on Expedia.com.

The thought was that we could do a cheap trip to Vegas for a few days. We had been to Vegas four years before to get married. We had enjoyed it and I wanted to stay atthe Venetian this time.

However, I saw an advert for cruises and I decided to see how much a cruise to Carrabian would be.

79 dollars a night!

What?

I did some more searching and sure enough, a full cruise could be as low as 70 odd dollars a night for the interior state rooms. Rooms and prices went up as the room quality went up. However, the prices were reasonable.

After a few hours of frantic searching we decided to book a cruise on Carnival to the Bahamas on the Sensation for 4 nights. And why the hell not, we went with the Grand Suite and an extended balcony while we where at it.

The frantic searching also included some visits to Cruise Critic for reviews of the cruise line, the boat, the rooms, and everything else.

It feels like a good decision.