Carnival Imagination – 7/29/18 Through 8/2/18 – Embarkation Day Part 2

After enjoying a few drinks, we decided to grab a bite to eat. We first walked through the buffet, which was serving Italian inspired dishes. The buffet was predictably crowded. Nothing looked overly appealing and after a swing by the dessert selection, we fixed on burgers at Guy’s. This is a burger joint designed and inspired by celebrity chef, Guy Fieri from Diners, Drive Ins and Dives fame. We did not eat at the buffet once this trip, so I can’t offer too many words on that experience.

There was no line at Guy’s and we walked right up to the counter and placed our orders. Within seconds, we had our burgers and fries and headed to the toppings bar. There was a decent selection of toppings available. I chose bacon, sauteed mushrooms and a smidge of ranch dressing while Shani went with more traditional fixings. The mushrooms were an awesome addition! We found a shady spot and enjoyed the meal.

I also over enjoyed the ketchup for my fries, and was wearing some on my shirt before I was done. Scientists should study me, as I seem to have some magnetic tomato sauce properties that have to be useful to some scientific body of research.

My Burger

Ketchup Magnetism

The burgers were good. Several steps above McDonald’s or Burger King and maybe just shy of Five Guys quality. It was right up my alley though! We never saw a huge line at Guy’s the whole trip. They do a really good job of moving people through. This would be our only stop as we were off the ship the next two days at lunch time.

After eating, we swung by our cabin in hopes that our luggage had been delivered, so I could change shirts. Our luggage was indeed waiting for us in the hallway, at around 1:30. Priority luggage delivery is another perk of FTTF. We unpacked and I retrieved a fresh shirt. We took a few minutes to unwind and refresh ourselves before heading back out to explore.

We took a quick tour of the promenade deck and checked out Cherry on Top, the ship’s candy store. This was new since our trip in 2013. The selection was limited, given the small size of the shop, but it would surely be a hit with the younger crowd. We would pick up a package of gummy funnels for our daughter before we left the boat.

Cherry on Top

We also checked out the Alchemy Bar, which is a re-themeing of the prior Xanadu Lounge bar, at the end of the promenade deck. It is a classy look, almost out of place on the ship. I would have enjoyed hanging out here one of the evenings, but the place was dead the entire cruise.

We proceeded through the Xanadu Lounge, home to Punchliner’s Comedy Club at night. Out the back is one of two ways to access the Serenity Deck, reserved for guests 21 and older. The loungers have padded cushions and there were two additional hot tubs. When we arrived, there were only two other people out there. We decided to make this our home until it was time for the muster drill. It soon became busier and it was not quite serene by the time we left. Also, there is no bar in the Serenity area and servers were few and far between. Definitely bring a beverage with you.

The Queen Mary from the Serenity Deck

Soon it was time for our muster drill. We were muster station A, which meets in the Dynasty Lounge, the ships main theater. We were thankful that muster was inside, with comfortable seats and did not include marching up to our lifeboat station as it did in 2013. It was relatively painless and we were soon off on our merry way.
After the drill, we headed back to our cabin to freshen up prior to dinner. After refreshing, we headed up to Lido to catch the end of the sail away party, which began at 5:15. This is funny, because we wouldn’t sail away until around 6:30. At 6:00, when we stopped by, the party was apparently over. So, we decided to head off to the dining room!

Upon returning to our room to get ready for dinner, we noticed there were only 2 bath towels in the cabin. Shani uses 2 by herself with each shower, so we would need more each time the cabin was serviced. We had yet to meet our room steward, so I left a nice note asking for additional bath towels, along side a $20 bill. We pre-paid gratuities as well, so I was hoping this would go a long way to ensure a happy cruise.

We left for the Pride Dining Room, the forward dining room used for Your Time Dining, Carnival’s version of unassigned dining room times, as well as the sea day brunch. We tend to dine early at home as well, with a school aged child and early bed times, so our arrival a few minutes past 6 PM worked out well for us. There was a very short line to check in. We quickly gave the hostess our room number and asked to be seated with Camilo. I humorously mentioned the he loves us, hoping to elicit a giggle from the hostess. She just shook her head at me, very clear that she:

1. did not find me funny or;

2. thought I was an idiot.

Shani often responds the same way to my attempts at humor. Anyway, we were seated with Camilo, who enthusiastically greeted us. He had a section of an 8 top, a 4 top and three 2 top tables. He and his team did not seem stretched too thin and were on top of everything service related the entire cruise.

We soon had wine, a large bottle of water, as well as a bottle of Pellegrino. Shani enjoyed the Pellegrino each evening, an unsung perk of having the Cheers package. We were introduced to our Assistant Servers, Margo and Kadek. The whole team was awesome, but Margo immediately connected with us. Along with Camilo, Margo made our dining experience a highlight of the cruise, even when the food itself couldn’t quite shine as bright as the service.

I chose the Navy Bean soup to start while Shani went with the Tomato Soup for our appetizers. Both were pretty good and we both were eager to try the flat iron steaks we ordered. I also ordered the fried shrimp, sans the fried rice the entree came with. Margo was eager to take care of the request and we enjoyed our wine while we waited.

Navy Bean Soup

Creamy Tomato Soup

Our entrees arrived timely and we wasted no time digging in. Now, we are not food snobs by any stretch of the imagination. I would choose chicken fried steak just as often as I would order a prime filet. Well, the flat iron steak was a miss. The flavor was decent but the texture of the steak was rubbery. It wasn’t inedible, but we didn’t order it again. The fried shrimp, on the other hand, was good.

Flat Iron Steak with Fried Shrimp

We ordered the Melting Chocolate Cake and the Caramelized Phyllo with Caramel Cream for dessert. Both were pretty good with the Melting Chocolate Cake edging out as the winner. We ordered it for dessert each night, with exception of the last night. All in all, it was pleasant experience. Camilo brought us each a glass of wine prior to heading out for the evening.

We returned to the the cabin briefly, to drop off the water bottle from dinner. It was nice to always have a bottle of water in the cabin. We then set off to see what was happening on board. We walked the promenade to check things out. Eating dinner early, a lot of ship activities hadn’t kicked off yet. The Alchemy Bar was empty, so we settled in at the karaoke bar to check out the talent prior the the piano bar opening at 9:30.

The karaoke started off slow, being dominated by a handful of guests. There were a few talented folks. I believe they may have intimidated a few would be singers to start off. Well, it only took the first karaoke risk taker to get the party started. By 9:15, when we left, the venue was packed and the queue to sing was growing.

We left to check out the piano bar. The premise is for the crowd to sing along with the piano player, to some all time piano bar classics. It was a lot of fun and the glasses of wine kept coming. E, the piano player, would invite those that could handle some solo singing up to the mic to help him out. Soon the crowd, and E, were exerting some peer pressure and we had a few people get up and sing along solo. By the end of the night, even my introverted wife was up there singing along to Brown Eyed Girl and 9 to 5. My wife is never more beautiful than when she is having unmitigated fun. We managed to last until midnight before heading back to the cabin to retire for the night.

Upon returning to the cabin, we were greeted with a turned down room, a towel animal and extra towels. Our steward, Benny, left his card, but we still had not met him. We never would. We turned on our white noise app on my phone, set out the room service door hangar asking for morning coffee and fell asleep.

Our excursion on Catalina Island the next morning wasn’t starting until 11:45, so we requested the coffee between 8:00 and 8:30, allowing us to enjoy our coffee prior to heading to the dining room for a relaxed breakfast.

Next up…Catalina Island!

Philosophy of Travel – The Tetris Effect

Welcome to the first installment of our Philosophy of Travel series.  This series will dive into what makes travel enjoyable for people and things we can do to approach our adventures with a mindset that will maximize our experiences.  I should note that the thoughts and principles discussed here are largely contributed by me, Rob, unless otherwise noted.  Shani and “S” will certainly weigh in with their own thoughts occasionally, but I will be the main voice.  Our intent is to spark deliberate thought on the subject of travel and maybe…just maybe, start a dialogue on the different topics.

Have you ever visited a forum, blog or otherwise read a published review and asked yourself, “Were they on the same trip as me?” or “They really let THAT ruin their trip?”  I certainly have, all too often.  Why would one person come away from a shared experience thinking about how wonderful a time they had, while another came away so miserable, that they felt their experience was ruined?  While individual personalities certainly play a factor in the ever ranging variety of responses from a shared experience, it cannot explain everything.  There are learned behaviors that contribute to how we perceive events.

The field of positive psychology is rapidly growing.  There is quite a bit of literature now available that provides a synthesis of the recent study associated with this evolving field of study.  I will not bore anyone with a comprehensive literature review related to this intriguing topic.  After all, this isn’t a psychology blog, it’s a travel blog.  I will offer one suggestion of a book that provides a user friendly introduction to many of the principles though.  The Happiness Advantage, by Shawn Achor, is a great place to start if you’re interested in learning more about positive psychology.  If you read Mr. Achor’s work, you will soon become familiar with one subset of positive psychology, which we’ll be discussing today…The Tetris Effect.

Tetris is an addictive video game developed by Russian game designer, Alexey Pajitnov, and released to a worldwide audience in 1988.  The game involves the manipulating of tetrominos (a joining of four square blocks) into a solid line of ten blocks, without any gaps.  Once the ten blocks are aligned, it collapses all blocks found underneath the aligned set of ten.  To be successful, it requires a player to use precise spatial visualization, to read the specific shape of a tetromino, and manipulate it to fall in an exact, beneficial location.  The more you train your mind to analyze each tetromino, in relation to where it should be placed, the easier it is for a player to make that determination quick enough to perform well in the game.

Of course, the Tetris Effect isn’t limited to playing the game of Tetris.  It is believed that any type of repetitive analysis can produce similar effects.  In essence, you train your mind for what you want to see.  If you train your mind to look for patterns in mathematics, it’s going to enable you to become more proficient in activities that require such analyzing.  If you look for the rotation of a baseball, over and over again, you can train your mind to recognize a pitch traveling towards you as either a fastball or a breaking ball in a split second (obligatory baseball reference). It leads us to this… If you train your mind to look for the positive aspects of your travels, you will recognize more of those positive things.  If you focus on the positive, you will see the positive.  By contrast, if you focus on the negative, you’re going to find more things to complain about.

Now that we understand what the Tetris Effect is, how does it apply to the way we perceive our travels?  It would certainly follow the hypothesis that if we start out the experience of planning, preparing and executing an adventure, by focusing on the positive aspects, we are much more likely to recognize the positive elements of that adventure.  If you leave for a trip and look for things that you dislike, well…I’m pretty sure you’ll find plenty of examples.  It sounds so simple, right?

Anyone who studies the human mind can tell you that nothing is that simple.  However, it doesn’t downplay the significance of incorporating a change of thought into how we live our lives.  It takes a lot of repetitive analyzing to make the mind behave the way we want it to behave.  This is the whole premise behind cognitive behavioral therapy.  It’s the whole premise behind developing any habit.  You would probably be disappointed if you only try applying this principle when you travel.  It will likely require that you employ this approach in multiple aspects of your life. It does take deliberate work and time to change the way a human being does anything.  But from my perspective, it is totally worth it.

As with any complex equation, choosing to look for the good in a situation can produce varying results.  For instance, if you were sailing on the Titanic in April of 1912, applying these principles would produce much different results than if you simply had an unpleasant interaction with one staff member on an otherwise successful voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.

Do you want to enjoy your travels more than you have in the past?  I have no doubt that there are negative things that I’ll “see” during the course of a trip that never register in my mind.  I strongly recommend exploring and incorporating this thought process into how you approach your trips.  More importantly, I recommend incorporating this principle into your daily life.  It will only hasten the results you experience.  In fact, I challenge you to put this information to practical use.  Share with us your experiences and how it has impacted your life and your travels!

Carnival Imagination – 7/29/18 Through 8/2/18 – Travel and Embarkation

Day Before Embarkation
Today was put the offspring on a plane by herself day. I have to admit, I was extremely proud of the kiddo. I was waiting for her to get to the gate and chicken out. But, she handled it much better than Mom and Dad did.

She marched right down the jetway, confidently turning for a wave goodbye!

After her plane was in the air, we high tailed it to the garage to make our way to Seal Beach, where we would be staying the night.

For those who have never made the drive from Phoenix to the L.A. area, it is perhaps the ugliest road trip any person could take. You won’t find this stretch of I-10 on any postcards, that’s for sure. But we made the trek with no incident.
As previously mentioned, we chose to stay at the Hampton Inn in Seal Beach. The hotel mainly serves as a temporary home for those visiting either the Naval Weapons Base, or nearby Leisure World. The hotel was safe, clean and quiet. Hampton Inns are part of the Hilton brand, and usually deliver on a quality, budget friendly experience.

This location was decent for nearby food options, from steakhouses to a Subway right across the parking lot. Target was just down the road a mile or so, just in case we woke up the next morning and realized we had forgotten anything. It had been a long day and we were excited for sail away day in the morning. It was an early to bed night for us.

Embarkation Day

There are a lot of things that can be said of me. None of those things are related to me being a morning person. Well, this morning I couldn’t make it past 6:30 AM. The mattress was a little too firm for my liking. I’ve had five shoulder surgeries and I am definitely more comfortable with a softer mattress. Throw in the fact that I could smell the complementary breakfast in the lobby, and that was all she wrote. I may not be a morning person, but my stomach definitely is.

So we decided to grab a small breakfast and copious amounts of coffee, and leisurely caffeinate ourselves to the point that we were functional human beings. We went back to the room, showered and repacked for the trip to the port. The Hampton Inn met expectations, even if I didn’t sleep that well. It is near enough to Long Beach to be a pre-cruise hotel option, if you plan on parking at the port.

We purchased Carnival’s Faster to the Fun, which allows cruisers priority access to some elements of the cruise. For this short cruise, it was around $50. We had a Noon check in time at the port. We had read prior reviews that mentioned getting on earlier than your scheduled time was doable in Long Beach. We decided to get to the port at around 11.

Getting to the cruise terminal was easy enough. The 710 Freeway ends at the port. There was a lot of construction going on, and that perhaps would slow things down if you were traveling during the work week. We followed the signs for the Queen Mary. There was limited signage for the cruise terminal and nothing that mentions Carnival until you arrive at the parking structure. If you’re unfamiliar with navigating the port, just focus on the Queen Mary signage.

The parking garage was easy to navigate and find an open spot. We parked on level 2, closest to the terminal and walked to the porters on level 1 of the garage. There were plenty of porters available. Luggage drop off was easy, we tipped our porter and started walking to the terminal. There were three queues at the entrance to the terminal ( too early/too late, FTTF/priority and on time). Nobody was standing in the outdoor queues. We went to the FTTF line and were immediately greeted and directed to a friendly staff member who checked our passports and boarding documents. In less than a minute, we were directed to the FTTF waiting area. It is right near the Captain’s Lounge. There were a handful of cruisers already there.

Selfie Time!

Within ten minutes, they boarded about 10 Diamond/Platinum members and we were told we could head down the gangway! We were on board by 11:30. Once on board, we immediately wanted to drop off our carry-on bag in the room. To me, this is one of the top benefits of having FTTF, to have your room available once you board. We were in room E75, right by the Guest Services desk, where you board the ship. We soon noticed that the hallway doors were all closed, preventing guests from heading to their cabins. A quick question to the first smiling face we encountered and we were told we can simply open the doors and access our room.

Cabin E75 is an Oceanview category. As previously mentioned, the Imagination only has balconies for their suites. We didn’t feel a suite upgrade was worth the cost point for this cruise, so Oceanview it was! The cabin was indeed ready, with our room cards affixed to the cabin sign. The room is small of course, but had plenty of storage with three closets and four drawers attached to a small writing desk with mirror. There was even a small hair dryer in one of the drawers and a good 20 or so hangers. The room was clean, if not dated. We had a similar cabin for our 2013 sailing on the Imagination and it was just the same.

Cabin E75

Even though the room decor was basic and dated, the room was in decent condition. The chief complaint was a noticeable sewage smell in the bathroom. However, when the bathroom door was closed, it was not detectable in the rest of the room. The cabin is an adjoining cabin to E77, but this was not an issue as our aft neighbors were quiet. Our other neighbors are another story for a later post!

After dropping off our bags, we proceeded directly to the Lido deck for our first vacation beverages at the Red Frog Rum Bar. Shani ordered a Ting Mojito and I ordered a Blue Hawaiian. The bartender asked if I had ever had a Twilight Zone. I had no clue but after he explained it to me, I was game for trying. It’s basically a pina colada with blue curacao. The Ting Mojito was grapefruit vodka, simple syrup, Ting soda and fresh mint. Shani loved them…I thought it tasted like grapefruit juice with grass clippings. She thought mine was too sweet.

We found a few loungers by the pool and proceeded to people watch while enjoying our drinks. No sooner than our glasses were empty, a waiter stopped by to assist in locating us additional libations. His name was Camilo. Camilo soon became fast friends with us (read Shani…people just talk to her). Before he left with our order, Camilo said he loved us (read Shani…guys just love her) and insisted we ask for him as our waiter in the Pride Dining Room each evening. Much more on Camilo to come!

Nobody in the pool at Noon.

Twilight Zone and Ting Mojito

Camilo

Next up…Embarkation Day, Part 2

Carnival Imagination 7/29/18 through 8/2/18 – Pre-Cruise Activity – En Vino Veritas

Pre Cruise Continued

4 Days Out

We were inching, ever so slowly, towards our sail date. I want to lay out a few other details related to the cruise. As mentioned, Shani is the vacation planner for the family. And, she is damned good at it too! There is a twisted excitement she experiences when she creates a spreadsheet, to map all of the details out for each trip. I would cry if I was required to complete such detailed planning. On the flip side, I have been known to forget to pack various important items. The polarity is one of the things that that makes “us” work.

On Saturday morning, we would be loading the child, two cats (heading to their own feline vacation) and all of our luggage in the car and head out on our trek. After dropping off the four legged family members, we would head to the airport to ship the offspring off to Massachusetts. As soon as she was in the air, we would beeline it to the car, for the drive to Long Beach.

Originally, we had planned on waking up early on Sunday, for the drive to the port. It’s a six hour drive to Long Beach and we would want to board the ship as soon as possible. Well, waking up that early on the first day of vacation didn’t sound fun at all. It was time to find a place near the port to stay Saturday night!

After quite bit of research by Shani, we settled on the Hampton Inn in nearby Seal Beach. We planned on parking at the port anyway and none of the stay and park hotels near the port could beat the deal she found for the Hampton Inn. It was a 30 minute drive to Long Beach at the most, so that would work just fine.

2 Days Out

Today was our last day of preparation! All of the laundry was done and it was time to stuff everything into our luggage. We were checked in online, boarding documents had been printed and passports were ready to go.

Even though we had purchased the Cheers package, we would be carrying on a bottle of wine each. Carnival allows you to bring a 750ml bottle of wine each in your carry-on luggage. This would be in case we found ourselves in the cabin, not wanting to venture out to a bar. If we didn’t open them, we would just bring them back home with us.

The Lozen, pictured above, is a red blend from a local Arizona winery, Arizona Stronghold. Their wines can be found in some stores, mostly regional, but this blend can only be purchased at their winery. So, if you ever find yourself in Cottonwood, AZ and you enjoy wine, pick up a bottle (or case). You won’t be disappointed. The If You See Kay (sound it out) is one of our go to house wines. It’s also a red blend. My wife and I enjoy wine.

Next up…Putting the child on a plane!

Carnival Imagination 7/29/18 through 8/2/18 – Why This Cruise?

Why This Cruise?

“S” would not be joining us on this cruise because she would be leaving the day before departure to spend a week on Cape Cod with her grandmother. Which brings us to the purpose behind choosing this cruise. We had a little over a week of child free time and the ability for both of us to take time off of work. “S” has been eager to take a solo trip to the Cape and this was the year she was ready. So, on the Saturday before the cruise, we would drive her to the airport for her first unaccompanied flight, and immediately head for Long Beach for the cruise. I will admit, it took a long while to become comfortable with putting our only child on a plane by herself for a cross country flight.

When my Shani and I were discussing what to do with our newfound freedom, we kicked around a few different ideas. Being in Phoenix, both Rocky Point, Mexico and San Diego are viable beach drives. We’ve done both in the past. Rocky Point is an extremely affordable and relatively safe alternative to the crowds and high prices associated with San Diego beaches. We quickly ruled out San Diego due to a short booking window available. This left Rocky Point and we started researching and pricing out some options.

During the planning, Shani brought up a great point. Once in Rocky Point, there’s just not much to do, especially in the main resort area of Sandy Beach. Sure, you can find some great food and sit on the beach, but entertainment can be hit or miss. Shani had a spark of an idea…what about a cruise? The preliminary research was promising. For roughly the same price for a 3-4 night stay in Rocky Point, we could catch the 4 night Carnival Imagination sailing for that week. We would scratch the beach in favor of deck chairs (fair trade for me, as sand ranks as one of the most annoying substances on earth, right behind glitter) and gain a lot more entertainment options. Long Beach is only an hour longer of a drive from Phoenix than Rocky Point, so no problem there.

So, we booked the cruise just over 30 days out from the sailing! This would be our fourth cruise together and the fifth overall for each of us. Neither of us had great first cruise experiences. I sailed first in 1995 on the Carnival Jubilee, to the Mexican Riviera…well, that was before Hurricane Flossie decided to visit the same area. I ended up with 6 days at sea and a stop in Ensenada, Mexico. My early 20s self had determined that cruising just wasn’t for me. Shani had a general dislike of what seemed like the cattle herd mentality on a Royal Caribbean cruise during the same time frame.

Fast forward to 2013. We both enjoy the bands Matchbox Twenty and the Goo Goo Dolls and learned that they would both be performing on a chartered cruise out of Miami in December of 2013 on…the Carnival Imagination. We both figured it would be a low risk/high reward trip to catch two of our favorite bands in a rather intimate surrounding. Well, we had a blast. Talk about the entertainment factor! The Imagination was already an older ship, but it was certainly serviceable for the purposes of the trip. We left making new friends, a $500 bar bill and a more open mind on the concept of cruising. It’s amazing what nearly 20 years of maturity and perspective does for a person.

The next few years saw two more cruises. The first, a 2014 family cruise to Alaska with “S” and my Shani’s mother, Paula, on the Disney Wonder. WOW! This was a great experience and we both started to realize that there was more to cruising than we had once thought. It’s really what you want to make of it. If you want to drink a bucket of beer by the pool, you can. If you want a quieter, more family like experience, you can. Just do your research and choose the right cruise for you! In 2016, we sailed without the “S” on Norwegian’s Pride of America in Hawaii, for our 10th wedding anniversary. WOW! Both were absolutely amazing experiences. As vacations were being planned, we threw around the possibility of a British Isles cruise and a Western Caribbean cruise. Each were put aside for other travel opportunities, but cruising remained a viable option that we knew we would return to eventually.

So, it was back to the Carnival Imagination! This time, with the Cheers (unlimited alcohol, bottled water, specialty coffees etc.) package! We knew she received the Carnival Funship 2.0 upgrade since we had sailed in 2013 and we were excited to see her afterwards. We next performed what, to us, is a critical step in planning any trip or vacation…level setting expectations. Specific to this trip, since sailing on the Imagination in 2013 we had sailed:

1. On a Disney ship; and
2. In a suite on the Pride of America, with an extra-large balcony, butler and a slew of suite perks.

We had sailed to Alaska and Hawaii, arguably two of the world’s most beautiful destinations. This 4 day cruise on the Imagination was…well, not that.

We had done our research and knew that this cruise offered a different experience. It was a rare chance to be a couple for a few days, perhaps even feel like a younger couple while we were at it. It was shorter and neither of the ports necessarily elicited much excitement. The Imagination has only 3% of its cabins with balconies, all of them suites. While the service reviews are impressive, there would be no butler or separate dining for suite guests. There aren’t even any specialty dining venues. But that was part of the beauty of this cruise. It’s about as close to all-inclusive as you can find in today’s cruising world. We ran it by our checklist:

1. Are we working? Nope. Good start.
2. Does DW have to prepare any meals? Nope!
3. Do I have to clean the galley? Negative.
4. Will there be a moody pre-teen, imp following us around that we are compelled to take care of? Again…it’s checking the boxes.
5. Do we have to use a year’s worth of our daughter’s college tuition to take the trip? No, this is extremely affordable.

We booked an Oceanview cabin because of the lack of balcony options, but we certainly were not caught by surprise with this tidbit of information. Consider our expectations level set.

One Week Out:
Since booking 30 days or so out, the cruising spark had been ignited to a point that we had not experienced before. While doing our research for the upcoming sailing, we joined roll calls on various cruise related forums, looked at every single picture of the ship, as well as re-familiarizing ourselves with the deck plans of our old friend. One curious nugget of information, Carnival was building the brand new Panorama, set for a 2019 delivery, and she would sail full time out of Long Beach. As one of the only ports within driving distance for us Phoenicians, that was great news. Well, it wasn’t long before the Shani decided she wanted to celebrate her 50th birthday on the Panorama in 2020. But, of course that wasn’t enough. We wanted to be on the inaugural sailing in December 2019. Booked and booked. Major kudos to our PVP Nicholas with Carnival for his patience during the whole process.

The weekend before the cruise, we ran our errands in preparation. A few new items of cruise wear, a power strip without surge protection (surge protectors are not allowed on cruise ships as they can pose a hazard), a travel sized Downey Wrinkle Release (No irons or other devices with heating elements, fire is bad news on a ship) and a few other necessities. Not much else to note other than on the Sunday before the sailing, our air conditioner went out late at night, heading into one of the hottest weeks of the Phoenix summer to that point. So, we are lucky enough to have a company who will respond within hours (usually, it takes days to have someone repair your air conditioner in the dead of summer). After a long night, we had it repaired at 4:30 in the morning. We used this as validation that there would indeed be NO all-nighters on the upcoming cruise. This cruise couldn’t come at a better time. The upcoming days would be spent wrapping things up at work enough to allow us to leave the country for a week, copious amounts of laundry and making sure that the family was all set for two separate trips on Saturday. Much more to come in the next installment!

Have Wife, Will Travel

Hi, I’m Rob.  I play the role of husband and dad in the saga upon which you are about to embark.  I’m joined by Shani, my wife and mother to our mischievous, imp of a daughter, “S”.  Together, we are the Bell family.  This is a portal, if you will, into the story of our travel adventures.  Part journal, part travel review and all Bell peculiarities, we hope the offerings here will inspire some of you to embrace our world through the medium of travel.

We are by no means globetrotters.  We are a middle class family that resides in Phoenix, Arizona.  What we are though, is a family who has come together to prioritize the tiny sliver of time we will have together on this earth, with shared experiences.  Shortly after becoming parents, Shani and I decided to put an emphasis on the intangible moments we share together.  Yes, we live a comfortable life with all of the material trappings that middle class Americans have come to enjoy, but all of the extra…well, all of the extra goes to the things that no human can ever take away from us…memories.  Whether it’s a membership to our local science center, attending concerts, or as evidenced by this blog…traveling, these shared experiences would be the focus of how we invested our time and money.

Travel is by far, the most enticing of the shared experiences we have found so far.  It also is the hardest of those shared experiences to decide upon, plan, finance and execute.  This would probably be a good time to explain the meaning behind the title Have Wife, Will Travel. While Shani and I agree on all of the important things that couples should agree on, we are still very different individuals.  My wife is a planner.  The unexpected and unplanned can often throw her for a loop.  I am convinced that most aspects of planning a trip bring Shani immense joy and excitement.  Why on earth would I want to rob her of those experiences?

I am, by contrast, not a planner.  While Shani is creating color coded spreadsheets, detailing all of the particulars of any particular journey, my head is busy imagining and mentally visualizing the enjoyment and adventure we will be sharing together.  The spreadsheet is real folks.  For those that regularly peek into our lives here, the trip isn’t officially real until the spreadsheet has been started.  While I respect and show deference to the all powerful spreadsheet, my first reaction to looking at one causes my blood pressure to spike as if I was walking into a Walmart, Chuck E Cheese or other similar highly chaotic environment.  In the end, we balance each other out.  She’ll plan, I’ll imagine and later, write as a cathartic exercise which helps maintain my sanity.  Hence the title, Have Wife, Will Travel.

We genuinely hope you enjoy what is to follow.  We hope what we share resonates and encourages you to live the best lives for yourselves.  While there will be plenty of opinion and subjective offerings, I have tasked myself with providing plenty of perspective and objectivity where I can.  No matter what value you may take away from these words, our sincere desire is that this can somehow contribute to your happiness. So, buckle up and open your mind.  Let’s go some places together and see what we learn!

Travel makes one modest, you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. — Gustave Flaubert

Watch out UK, Here Come the Bells!

Well, today we made it official.  We have been discussing a family trip to the UK for a few months now.  Today, Shani put down the deposit for our trip for next June!  We’re using Go Ahead Tours for this adventure, as an international trip for a couple of working travelers comes with a lot of coordination efforts.  A friend of ours used Go Ahead for a trip to Scotland last Spring and thoroughly enjoyed herself!  There will be much more to come about the planning and preparation, and eventually the adventure itself!  Here’s a link to the itinerary we’ve selected.

https://www.goaheadtours.com/HGB#overview