My husband won a travel certificate through work. Initially, he wanted to use it to go WHITE-TAIL HUNTING in the northwest. I wanted to use it to go to a NASCAR night race. We compromised...& booked a cruise.

We have never been away from our kids for more than 4 nights so the 11-night cruise would be a test for all of us. The original itinerary had us stopping @ Key West, Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Jamaica, Aruba,& Curacao. We were both very excited about these ports and I did a lot of research about the ship and ports. In Dec., I went online to book excursions, this is when I found out the cruise I booked was no longer available. I contacted the travel agent who's only comment was "I hope you're not too disappointed." Disappointed I was, it took me 4 months to decide which cruise to book, I booked it, did mega research only to find out in 5 months I would be headed into unknown territory! -and with a slightly negative attitude I might add.

The research started again w/ new destinations and while these ports (Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, Antigua,St. Lucia, St. Maarten, & Labadee.) appeared beautiful, they just couldn't get me as excited as the originals. With one month to go, I discovered the current stops to Labadee had been postponed due to safety precautions. Our flights had been changed about 6-7 times...this was what I thought was the beginning of a bad vacation. Read more