blog post

I had been looking for a travel agent opportunity, and thought I was going to get on the Norwegian Spirit for a Bermuda cruise. 

What happened was when I completed my NCL "Freestyle Certification" training, I was asked if I would be interested in a choice of Bermuda, Alaska, or Hawaii.  I've been to Alaska twice and Hawaii 4 times, so I chose Bermuda -- it's usually an expensive cruise, so a chance to go at a substantial discount sounded good!

Well, the invitations are based on points -- how many you have and how fast you got them -- and I'm very close to the top, but not close enough to have been one of the first 40 agents.  Darn!  Oh well, maybe next time.

In the meantime, I got to wondering if I could find a way to get on one of Carnival's new ships.  I've either sailed or taken tours on new ships of the other cruise lines, but have been wanting to get on the Carnival Freedom or Splendor since last year.  With the cruise lines changing Mexico itineraries because of the swine flu, an opporunity opened up to sail aboard the Splendor from Los Angeles to Astoria, Victoria, and Vancouver.

Now, Steve wasn't that crazy about the idea at first, because we've been to all of those cities, but I got a "Cloud 9 Spa" room; so we'll be on a brand-new ship and have a completely different kind of cruise experience.

Besides those points, I'm excited because I don't have any digitalized pictures of Butchart Gardens (Victoria), and it should be a fabulous week for the flowers; plus I always love a chance to see whales!  If the onboard computers are fast enough, then I'll blog from the ship and report on all the features and ports-of-call.