CRUISIN'

 Fourteen years ago, my wife and I were trying to decide where we wanted to vacation that year. We were both working for the same small weekly newspaper and living what we believed to be the "good life". House was paid for. Kids were grown with their own families. And we had just finished traveling to the United Kingdom for the last three years.

We decided to start cruising again (first cruise was May 1980) as the costs were (and still are!) reasonable for all the amenities you get as a cruiser. Food is plentiful. Broadway shows every night. Travel to exotic Caribbean ports. It all just worked. And, until 2020 hit and the so-called pandemic shut down the world, we enjoyed hitting most of the ports in the Caribbean and Mexico.

We got one final cruise in right before the shutdown of the cruising industry in February 2020. Since then we have had NINE cruises canceled but just moved the deposits to later cruises and still have nine cruises booked through April 2023.

This photo is from our first cruise back in April 2007 on Carnival Glory. We were up on the Lido deck just enjoying the warmth of the Caribbean sun and the relaxing effect of being at sea. As you can tell, my wife was very relaxed and looking fantastic!

 

Since then we have done a total of 26 more cruises and reached the highest customer loyalty level (Diamond) that Carnival offers. Currently, we are waiting for December to arrive where we have a pair of cruises booked for a total of 15 days.

 I was shooting with my trusty Nikon D2H and the Nikkor 18-200mm zoom. I really enjoyed using that setup for travel and street photography.