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:
- On a Disney ship; and
- 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:
- Are we working? Nope. Good start.
- Does DW have to prepare any meals? Nope!
- Do I have to clean the galley? Negative.
- 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.
- 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 