After moving up to Garrett County and getting ourselves, Mom and our new business through the COVID pandemic and finishing our first year as full-time residents of Western Maryland there was one thing sorely lacking from our life – Caribbean beaches!
Our last visit was to Aruba in 2018, and if you know us you KNOW that is a LONG time to be away from turquoise water! So we started to look at potential destinations for our next trip to sunny beaches. There was one wrinkle in our plan – my Mom did not want ANY strangers in the house. With no viable options for family to stand in for us, we were back to the drawing board. We desperately needed a break and to get away to recharge, but we were not going to be able to do it at the same time – one of us had to be home with Mom.
We settled on an unconventional solution. We’ll take a Caribbean cruise – we’ll see multiple islands and destinations, there are lots of things to do and no unpacking – we will just have to do it TWO WEEKS APART! This would be never be an option for many couples, but we both had careers and our own homes when we met – we would just make the best of it. So we booked the exact same boat, exact same itinerary, exact same shore excursions and hoped that a resurgence in COVID wouldn’t cancel our plans like it did the previous summer for an Alaskan cruise.
We had been on a Caribbean cruise on Royal Caribbean years before and on an inter-island cruise in Hawaii on Norwegian. We settled on Norwegian both for the itinerary (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, St. Lucia and St. Kitts) and for options for solo travelers. We were able to book studio cabins and bid on an upgrade to a balcony stateroom – and we both got it!
I had the idea to snap a picture at a unique place in every port. Roland went first, and then let me know exactly where to go when it was my turn. After I returned he used his photo editing skills to bring us together! Check out the original pics and results below. There were a lot of activities and music on the boat and he really enjoyed a particular vocal duo. Unbeknownst to me, he arranged for them to learn one of our favorite Shania Twain songs. When I identified myself to them two weeks later on my cruise, they played it for me! Roland dropped in to visit one of my wholesale customers in Bonaire. They were away during his visit but I was able to bring a selection of jewelry with me from her previous orders to deliver in person two weeks later – now THAT is customer service!
All in all, you just have to make the best of your situation and this worked out so well we are headed on another cruise this March – this time I get to go first. So stay tuned for more fun pics from Caribbean destinations – we just have to get through the snow and the ice first.
How fun – such a clever idea and positive ‘tude, enjoy the planning for March!