Cruise Control

It's possible to buy a t-shirt with a picture of a cruise ship on it, and the words:

I have no cruise control - it's like the cruises book themselves!

I'm going to buy myself one of those t-shirts.

After last year's big holiday, we decided that we'd pretty much reached the end of our plans for big holidays and that we really would need to slow down the number of cruises we go on if either of us ever want to retire.

We did two cruises in 2010, two in 2011, three in 2012, two in 2013, one in 2014, and one so far this year. However, unless we're going crazy like we did in 2012 with three cruises in one big overseas trip, we have rarely ever had more than one future cruise booked at any one time.

So, the outcome of deciding not to do so much cruising is that we currently have five (!!)  future cruises booked.

The latest two additions are quite short cruises, in fact the shortest you'll get from Australia - two days each. Both are from Sydney to Brisbane; one is for Paul by himself next November and one is for both of us the following March.  It's a nice way to visit the family and actually not a lot more expensive than flying business class (not that I'd ever waste money flying business class for that short a flight):

• Qantas Canberra to Brisbane business class for two of us = $1610
• Bus from Canberra to Sydney plus the cruise to Brisbane in a suite for the two of us = $1988 (and actually, in an inside cabin, the "bus plus cruise" price would be more like $750 all up).

Anyway, the next cruise is the only one I'm really thinking about at the moment...... Just over two weeks now until I'm off to Auckland to cruise back to Sydney.  I'm really looking forward to this; I've got no plans to do anything except possibly laze around in deck chairs and sleep through the New Year celebrations (if the last few years are any indication - I seem to be too old to stay awake past about 10:30 pm).

Although, come to think of it, despite the fact that my cabin (A745) is an inside, it's only a few steps from one of the many pools:


And it's also right underneath a bar area :


I suspect that there'll be a reasonable amount of celebration, so maybe I'll be awake even if I don't join the party  :-)