First a little background,,,DH and I booked the Inspiration for the 11/03/08 sailing as a gift to ourselves in lieu of 25th anniversary gifts. Twenty years ago, when I was a travel agent, we had received a free cruise (except for port charges and taxes) on the Dolphin IV with the now defunct Dolphin Cruise Lines,,,,ok, so I'm dating myself, but its the truth. For the past 20 years, we have been promising ourselves another cruise, but with the raising of three children (now 22, 20 and almost 17) it was difficult if not impossible,,,most of our "travel" money went to family vacations geared towards children that my husband considered "economical",,,Camping, Disney, trips to the beach, seasons passes to amusement parks, etc.

OK,,,I'll say it,,,DH is CHEAP. Wonderful man, mind you,,,,,,please don't think otherwise,,,,,but cheap, nonetheless,,,,one major joke in our family is that when the costs start adding up, we say that DH is "chinging",,,you can see it in his eyes,,,they glaze over,,,his mouth works but no sound comes out,,,whether we can AFFORD it or not, is simply not the issue,,we could have 10 times the amount of the expenditure in the bank, it matters not,,as the costs rise, so does DH's blood pressure.

Anyway,,,We live outside of Tampa, so the obvious answer to keep costs down was to sail out of Tampa,,As an ex-travel agent, i knew Carnival was our line,,,we didn't want to buy completely new wardrobes, or be out of our element,,,DH is a hard worker and a good provider, but we are working class people,,,,this gave us the choice of the inspiration or the Legend. I, of course, remembering our absolute RAPTURE with our 3 night cruise on Dolphin, wanted to book the 7 day Legend, in a balcony cabin,,,as a special treat to celebrate our anniversary. DH started chinging as soon as I started pricing,,,, without even LOOKING at the prices,,,eyeroll,,, Read more