Sometimes, the best things in life are not planned. All my life, I've said I was going on a Mediterranean cruise. I didn't know when or how--I just knew it was going to happen. I, February, we were out of state, on a short trip, when my husband received a late night phone call from one of his sons, asking if we'd be interested in cruising on the new Celebrity ship with them. My husband is retired, and though not stingy, he does watch his money. We already knew we were going to Costa Rica the second week of July with another one of our eight children, so we just said we couldn't make it happen. Our son called us back and asked if they took care of the airfare to Rome, if we would go. We looked at the link they had sent us and saw $1847 and my husband said we could probably do it. Mind you, we've only cruised Princess, Royal Caribbean, Holland America and Carnival before, and the only time we had a balcony was on the Alaskan trip with Princess and an ocean view with HA, so the most we've probably ever paid was for the Alaskan trip (around $1200.00). We called around 10:30 PM to book it, and after he hung up, my husband told me they had charged him double the down payment. My sister and I looked at him and told him that was for two people, not one. He thought the $1847 was for both of us. He slept on it and we decided the next morning that we would call and cancel before April 25.

My birthday was April 1 and his was April 15, so we decided we'd treat ourselves and keep our reservations. Then, we noticed a drastic price drop, so we called and took the four perks option, rather than upgrade our room. We knew after booking, we would be in Cabin 7101 and it was at the very front of the ship. We liked the layout and really thought we'd have access to the front of the ship (we did not) to stand out and enjoy the water. I usually only drink coffee, tea and lemonade, and purchase 1-2 drinks a day, so I did enjoy having the premium drink package. Probably a little too much!

We arrived home form Costa Rica on July 16 and thought we would have nine days to enjoy being at home and resting up for our next journey, but my sister-in-law passed away on the Friday before we were heading to Rome on the next Thursday, so we packed our suitcases early and headed to Illinois from east Texas on Monday and left after the funeral on Wednesday to head back home. We arrived home at 1:30 am on the 27th, I did payroll for a company I work for, along with 2 loads of clothes, and we headed to DFW for our flight to Rome at 8:00 am. We got to Rome at 7:00 am on the 26th, dropped our suitcases off and headed to the Vatican and Sistine chapel for our pre-booked tour, then on to the Coliseum for that tour, before eating at a little café outside our hotel and crashing until the next morning. Operating on about 3 hours of sleep up until this point ( I had the darn middle seat, so my husband could have the aisle seat) I just knew I could relax on the cruise for the next week. Read more