In two posts below we describe two 2014 vacations. This is a trip planned for 2015.
It’s not often we plan more than a year ahead. But there was an incentive to do so right now. In Trip Planning (Two) we describe our transatlantic cruise from Barcelona to Miami. We are always loathe to use the airline tickets that the cruise line provide. (As a little aside, Oceania advertises “free airfare” as part of the cruise fare. That is a little disingenuous since you can get a serious reduction in the cruise fare if you opt out of their air arrangements.) Anyway, cruise line air connections are often inconvenient and may involve long stopovers. For European connections Oceania normally uses charter flights to or from a US gateway city to Europe with connections to the gateway on schedules flights. Charter flights can be just awful with even less room than on normal scheduled flights. (Yes, it is possible to be even more crowded!) Oceania offers business class upgrades at an exorbitant price. (Sometimes they will offer reasonable business class upgrades on some cruises when they are trying to boost sales for those particular cruises). OK, so we don’t like cruise line air arrangements.
So why not just book our own flights? Well, you need a one-way ticket to Europe since you will be cruising in the other direction. It’s easy to book one-way flights within the US nowadays at half the round trip fare. Not so to Europe. International regulations still make one-way fares prohibitively expensive.
So, we decided on a unique solution. We are beginning our November 2014 cruise vacation by flying to London. So we are buying round-trip tickets on Virgin Atlantic from Las Vegas to London. The first leg will be used in November to get to Europe. The return flight will be used in June 2015 to return from London to Las Vegas after the next cruise we have booked. And that’s why we have booked a cruise for May 2015!
The vacation begins when we fly from Phoenix to Montreal where we will spend two nights at our favorite Montreal hotel, the Marriott Springhill Suites in Old Montreal, just a short walk from the port. The we will board the Marina, the sister ship of the Riviera on which we sailed from Barcelona to Miami in November 2014. Again we will have a Penthouse Suite, this time located on the starboard side so as to be south facing (to get full advantage of the sun).
Here’s the cruise map:
Days 1 & 2: In Montreal at the Marriott Springhill Suites
Day 3: Depart Montreal on Marina at midnight
Day 4: Arrive in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec at 8 am; depart at midnight
Day 5: Arrive in Quebec City at 8 am; depart at 7 pm
Day 6: Arrive in Saguenay, Quebec at 8 am; depart at 7 pm
Day 7: Cruising the St. Lawrence River
Day 8: Arrive Corner Brook, Newfoundland at 9 am; depart 5 pm
Day 9: Arrive Sydney, Nova Scotia at 8 am; depart 6 pm
Day 10: Arrive Saint-Pierre at 8 am; depart 5 pm
Day 11: Arrive St. John’s, Newfoundland at 8 am; depart 2 pm
Days 12, 13 & 14: Cruising the Atlantic Ocean
Day 15: Arrive Belfast, Northern Ireland at 1 pm; depart 11 pm
Day 16: Arrive Dublin, Ireland at 8 am; depart 9 pm
Day 17: Arrive Holyhead, Wales at 8 am; depart 4 pm
Day 18: Arrive St Peter Port, Guernsey at noon; depart 8 pm
Day 19: Arrive Southampton, UK at 8 am; disembark by 10 am
Days 19, 20, 21 & 22: London at the Nadler Kensington Hotel
Day 23: Overnight at Gatwick Airport Courtyard Marriott
Day 24: Fly to Las Vegas; Overnight in Henderson, NV
Day 25: Drive home from Las Vegas
