Where should we go next?

by Jim Bellomo | Dec 28, 2018 | Uncategorized

So if you read my last post about all the places we have been, we want to know—where we should go now. Here is our dilemma. One of the smartest ways to purchase a cruise is to buy it onboard your latest cruise. The cruise lines often offer some really great deals to get you to purchase your next cruise while you are enjoying your current one.

While we were on our last cruise in November, we bought a Celebrity cruise credit. We have bought one of these before because it allows you to take advantage of some great perks and lower prices on your next cruise as well as on the cruise you are on currently. It’s not an actual cruise. When we purchased it in October, we didn’t have to pick a time or a destination until later. The deposit is low and refundable but here is where we need your help. The current Celebrity cruise credit rules require that we choose a destination by December 31 of the year we buy it. So we have until this coming Monday to choose where we want to go.

When we purchased the cruise credit on Summit in October, the 2020 autumn deployment schedules were not out yet. We hoped that there were would be a cruise in that new group of Celebrity cruises announced between when we bought the credit and today that would appeal to us. We were specifically looking for a Pacific Coastal cruise for the fall of 2020 that would take us from here in Seattle to California. We have done these repositioning cruises before (some of our favorites) that often take place when the cruise lines move their ships from summer in Alaska to winter in the Caribbean. But so many of the cruise lines no longer send their ships on that route and Celebrity has stopped all together. While she has three ships in Alaska in the summer of 2020, two will go to Asia, one to Hawaii and then on Down Under. We have done these cruises before and are not interested in going back. Plus we really want a short, fairly inexpensive cruise. One that we can drive to and not have to fly. All of our options from Seattle or Vancouver are more than 10 days which is too long for us.

So nothing like that is available for the fall of 2020. We already are fully booked between now and then. We have our June 2019 Ireland/Iceland cruise, our July/August 2019 Alaska cruise with our grandkids and finally we are going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras in February 2020.

So, let’s open it up and say we are pretty much willing to go anywhere, anytime in the next two years. Based on all the places we have been, (see the previous post) where would you go? We have until Monday to decide. If you have an idea, please post it in the comments. I will let you know on New Year’s Day where we decided to go.

PS: Only qualifiers are that our destination must me someplace a cruise ship can go anytime after June 2020 and before April of 2021.