Welcome!
Our names are Chuck and Stephanie, and we were married in September, 2008. This Travel Site started as a result of our first major trip together, our Honeymoon. That trip was our first major trip together and also our first Transatlantic Cruise, departing from Venice, Italy, and ending in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. We spent a few nights in Rome before the cruise started. Now, we have documented 23 past and future trips on this site. These trips represent our more significant travels, there were also a few short Caribbean cruises we took very early in ur travels that are not included here.
We have enjoyed many cruises, mainly on Princess Cruise Line early on, but have also included Royal Caribbean and most recently, Viking Ocean Cruises in our cruise repertoire. After living in Florida for many years, where it was very easy and convenient (read: inexpensive) for us to travel on cruises departing or arriving in Ft. Lauderdale, we now live in South Carolina, and have been here for over 12 years.
Moving to South Carolina meant losing the opportunity we had to take advantage of cruising without the additional expense of airfare, or long drives with overnight hotel stays. It is now a ten-hour drive for us to reach the ports in South Florida. However, the extra distance did not initially hamper our cruising, we just needed to adjust to the difference in how we got to Ft. Lauderdale. In fact, we now have taken more cruises since moving to South Carolina than we took while living in Florida, so it obviously did not stop us from cruising!
Our travels together started with a couple of Eastern Caribbean Cruises, and then we progressed to our first transatlantic cruises for our honeymoon in 2008, as noted above. We enjoyed the transatlantic cruises because they provided us with several “sea days” while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. We savored the relaxing time on board the ship during the days at sea. So far, we have been on nine Transatlantic Cruises and one 28-day roundtrip cruise from Los Angeles to Bora Bora, our longest cruise with the most sea days and our longest trip to date.
After mostly writing about cruise travel on this site, we expanded our travels to include land-based trips, mainly to Europe, which allowed us a different perspective from cruising. One main advantage of land trips is our ability to be in destination cities at night to experience visiting them after dark, something you rarely get the chance to do on a cruise when you are normally departing ports before sunset. Land-based trips also eliminated the need to precisely plan shore excursions, you are not “on the clock” to disembark and return to the ship on relatively short port visits.
Of course, with land-based trips, we go through a much more detailed planning process, such as finding hotels for all the nights of the trip, unlike on a cruise where you are returning to the comfort and familiarity of your ship’s cabin. One downside of land-based trips is the constant packing and repacking of the suitcases during short overnight hotel stays. We have adjusted to that by trying to stay longer at various places and/or to rent apartments to have more space, plus washing machine and dryer availability.
In the end, we enjoy both forms of travel and welcome the varied experiences and adventures they both offer. Lately, we are finding that we enjoy land-based trips more than cruising because many of the Transatlantic cruise stops were becoming a little repetitive. Also, when COVID-19 impacted travel, especially cruises during its peak, cruising became a little more risky from a health perspective.
In addition, we no longer were finding the great deals that Transatlantic cruises had been when we first started. Cruising was becoming more popular, and as a result, prices were increasing. Plus, we were spending a lot of vacation days on the open ocean, and while it was relaxing, it was also consuming a lot of vacation time, and we were not expanding our travel horizons. Then came COVID-19, causing us to cancel a Princess Cruise, and shutting down all cruises for almost two years.
We were able to complete one land trip to Switzerland and Austria during COVID-19 times, but it came with challenges as more stringent restrictions were enacted while we were traveling. It made the trip a little more difficult.
After COVID was no longer a major impact on travel, we started traveling once again, and that included one of our favorite trips, a Viking Cruises Expedition cruise to Antarctica in 2023.
We have taken two other Viking Ocean Cruises, a Barcelona to Ft. Lauderdale Transatlantic Cruise, which was our first Viking Ocean Cruise, and then more recently, our latest cruise with Viking, a transit of the Panama Canal from Ft. Lauderdale to Los Angeles. We are not sure if we will ever be able to go back to large cruise ships again after taking several smaller ship cruises with Viking. Ship sizes are expanding, and that leads to more problems on the ships. Everything is just crowded on board the larger ships. We had become disappointed with the service and food quality on Princess, and the larger and more crowded ships were becoming less of a fun experience.
We also liked that Viking is for adults only, and at our age, it is just more peaceful not to worry about having kids on a cruise, and some of its resulting issues.
We have been running this Travel Site for over 16 years, and have seen significant changes in our travel over that period. We have utilized several different WordPress Themes for the site, having to constantly stay ahead of the changes in technology. We have tried to maintain some consistency in the layout of the various individual trip sites, but have occasionally experimented with some very different layouts. About the time we get used to a particular WordPress theme, it is often abandoned by the theme author due to significant changes in the WordPress code, making it very difficult to keep the architecture of the theme updated. It has become quite an effort to maintain this site, and we may not keep it up much longer, but for now, we will forge ahead. It still provides us with a reminder of the places we have been and our many experiences from our travels.
We hope you enjoy our Travel Site!
Awesome Site! will have to check back and see where else in the world you two have been!
Thanks, did not see the comment until now, we don’t check it a lot, no one reads anything!!
Hope you and your mom are well, not doing much here waiting for the warmer weather.