Some Final Thoughts

It's been two years since we took this cruise. I originally had posted a lengthy review with photos on another site, but early this year, the photo host I used (Webshots) closed its doors, and all of the photos became broken links.

TIP: When you travel to a new time zone, remember to correctly set the date and time on your cameras. It makes organizing your photos when you get back home a LOT easier!

I started thinking about reconstructing the original review on a self-hosted site, but then I came across TravellersPoint, and thought this might be the perfect medium to rebuild it, and add fresh content moving forward as we take additional trips.

While we've always been avid cruisers, a lot has happened since we started planning this 2011 trip. In late 2010, the Carnival Splendor was adrift in the Pacific for days after a fire disabled its engines. Then the revolution in Egypt occurred, putting our itinerary in question. Of course we became ill on the cruise, and learned how that shakes out.

One of our biggest frustrations was having to always be aware of the clock, and not being to spend as much time in each port as we would have liked. We always knew that a Mediterranean cruise would be an appetizer plate for us, an opportunity to see things out of our comfort zone with the safety of a familiar, Americanized ship to return to each evening.

Since our return, we've seen the terrible disaster on the Costa Concordia, and the difficult situation caused by the fire on the Carnival Triumph. This week we heard about the Carnival Dream suffering a failure in the Caribbean. It's become apparent to us the feelings of safety we've had on cruise ships have been illusions...when a cruise ship gets in trouble now, I don't feel that things have progressed an awful lot from where we were in 1912. If circumstances had been just slightly different when the Concordia struck the rocks off the coast of Giglio, or if storm had whipped up while the Carnival Triumph was stranded without power in the Gulf of Mexico, the potential for an unimaginable scenario could have played out. We've decided that, despite 6 previous cruises, it's time to move on. Cruising has helped open the world for us, but we're ready to take the training wheels off.

For us, cruising has served its purpose. We contacted Princess to have our future cruise credits refunded to us, and right now, I have a difficult time imagining a circumstance where we might cruise again.

In the spring of 2013, we'll be taking our first land-based vacation in 10 years, as we head to Venice, Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast, and return to Rome. I hope you'll join me when I post fresh material sometime in June.

Until then, keep on moving!

Zuke