What is a Cruiseaholic?

With not much more than about 100 days to go before our 2011 cruise, Princess started advertising their 2012 itinerary, this time on the Dawn Princess’ sister ship – the Sun Princess.  We had been hoping for a change to half of the route, with a return via the Suez canal and missing out the USA, which would have suited us.  We were tentatively planning on flying to the UK, staying a while, then cruising back.

With another friend of our age bowled over by health issues, once again, we decided that rather than waiting for the 2013 itinerary, we’d bite the bullet and do part of the cruise again, bolstered by the fantastic feedback from the 2010 bloggers/cruisers and also the warmth and friendship of those of our fellow 2011 cruisers we have already met.

It is not just a case of “the trip” it is the people we expect to meet en route.  Our favourite times in NZ are those we spend with our friends whether away cycling across Otago, luxury house-boating on the Murray River,  weekends away at the Mount or a simple BBQ or Pot Luck dinner – all of them accompanied by lots of laughs.  So, with the wallet already looking a bit thin, but some careful planning and budgeting not to mention weeding out more stuff to be sold on the local auction site plus the pension income, our Travel Agent has booked us on again for Dubai to Dover, 2012…

Whilst in the UK, the last item on Paula's bucket list is a Baltic cruise, so we might even do that from the UK.

I definitely think we are becoming cruise-aholics.

We are hoping that some of our Kiwi friends will make the trip to Europe 2012 - even if it is not via sea - so that we can enjoy some time in the UK together, in which case, we would probably try and rent a place, but it would have to be within easy reach of Nottingham so that young Noah gets a few visits from his distant Grandad!

For our two weeks in the UK, 2011, brother Dave has organised a fabulous villa at the famed Sherwood Forest (yes, it does still exist!)  Center Parcs holiday village.  We have stayed there two or three times before and with its fantastic geodesic dome aquatic centre, complete with rapids, water slides, wave machine, spa pools and an all year round tropical island atmosphere, it is a real favourite.   The picture is from a 1996 postcard, but you get the idea.

As a family weekend with both brothers and Dave's partner, plus grandson and parents, it should be something to look forward to.  An opportunity to also experience all the other facilities from squash, badminton, snooker, golf driving range, 10 pin bowling, tennis, cycling etc, it may be a  much needed opportunity to try and shed any surplus kilos from the cruise! 

Young Noah is currently in Brazil - a good distance at six months of age - visiting Grandma Tete (with Manu of course). Stewart leaves the UK on Feb 26th to enjoy some sunshine and they'll travel back to the UK together.  He has his first two teeth coming through. Noah, not Stewart...