Yo Ho, Yo Ho, It's a Christmas Cruise for Me

I am definitely a restless and obsessive travel planner. I always need to be engaged with planning the next vacation. We've been stateside for just over a week and I have already put a deposit down for our next travel adventure, a seven-day Holland America Caribbean holiday cruise.

I knew before we even departed for our European trip that I wanted to do something special for Christmas. We had been considering Ireland, a return to Paris, Quebec, the West Coast, and possibly a Caribbean cruise. After our 21 hour long return day, including 2 hours stuck on the tarmac 20 yards from the gate, all I could think about was relaxation. As my wife will happily attest, I'm not usually one to go somewhere to relax when I can do that at home for cheap. When I travel, I like to get in as many sites as possible (within reason of course). However, a seven-day cruise seemed like the perfect combination of the two, relaxation and site seeing.

First, a seven-day cruise includes two at sea days, which essentially demand relax or at least go find something to do on the ship, but absolutely no site seeing (besides the water extending to the horizon). Cruise ships usually contain a spa, hot tubs, adults only pool areas, and comfortable deck lounge seating. Couple this with a balconcy stateroom and we will have all the components necessary to fulfill all our relaxation desires.

Secondly, in the cruises we looked at, two of the port days would be to cruiseline controlled resort islands. These islands offer enhanced relaxation emmenities in conjuction with some more in-depth activities/excursions like snorkeling, horseback riding, and zip lines. The remaining two ports are historically significant locations containing very interesting sites, which should satiate my desire to be a tourist and sitesee.

Thirdly, the food options are vast. One of our favorite things about traveling is trying new cuisines, foods, and regional favorite items. Typicaly cruise lines offer widespread culinary options, often including gourmet dining options for an additional fee. Couple the varied options onboard with the options available while in port and the possibilities become endless. Holland America also features culinary features/demonstrations, which will be very interesting to my wife and I.

While researching all the cruising options, we stumbled across a video for Cruise Comptete, a website that provides a framework for travel agents and agencies to bid for your business. After performing some consumer report research, I found this website was definitely reputable with many positive recommendations from fellow cruisers. One thing to be aware of though, before making any deposits or payments, ensure you have done your own consumer review search on the winning bidder. I like to use Cruise Critic, Fodors (forum and reviews), and Cruise Addicts for my research.

After reviewing five different holiday cruise options, including cruises with Carnival, Norwegian, and MSC, we eventually found Holland America. Now to be honest, I thought these guys would be way to expensive and initially they were. The first cruise I found for them started at $2400 per person for a Balcony cabin, which was much more than we wanted to spend. However, upon further review I found they had a Dec 24th sailing that was closer to $1600 per person for a balcony. This number we could live with so I started researching reviews. My findings were that Holland America, hands down rated much higher than the other options we had been looking at. While their core customer base tends to be older, they have begun to expand into our demographic (30+, secondary-educated, beer and wine crowd versus hard liquor).

Once we had all our options identified, we requested bids through Cruise Comptete. We eventually received an offer for the Holland America cruise that was for $1383 per person plus an onboard credit of $50. That was almost $500 cheaper than booking direct with the cruise line. We did opt for a guaranteed balcony as opposed to selecting a specific room because there are only four of the specific class rooms we selected onboard, and will thereby have a very good chance of getting a free upgrade. Check in later, when I will discuss researching our excursion/port activities.