Time for a new adventure

June 2018 we started talking about where we want to travel next.  A search of potential destinations brought us to a 19 day cruise from Southampton  to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.  It is one of those bucket list trips where we would get to see some of the middle east like Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and get to see the Pyramids at Giza.   We placed a deposit and started to explore a bit more.  After an indepth look at what we could anticipate, the less comfortable we felt with our decision - it appears that there is no guarantee that we will visit the key ports we wanted to see, and as the trip was 9 months away, who knows what could be happening in the middle east.  Wisdom said to follow our heads, not our hearts and cancel this cruise.   But you know that saying, whenever a door closes a window opens somewhere.  

Our window opened with the same cruise company.  This time it was a 19 day cruise from Rotterdam visiting Southampton, UK; Valencia, Spain; Taormina, Sicily: Venice, Italy; Sibenik and Dubrovnik in Croatia; Cagliari, Sardinia; Gibraltar, UK ending in Southampton UK.  Bonus, we could transfer our deposit to this new cruise, it was half the price of the first cruise, we visit more ports (8 in total) and it is in August and not January.  Gotta love short notice sales and having the ability to respond quickly.

Next to arrange flights.  Again the timing was right for good prices.  We have arranged to fly into Amsterdam, spend 3 nights exploring Amsterdam, then move on to Rotterdam where we will spend 2 nights.  At the end of our cruise, in order to get good return flights, we have to spend 4 days post cruise in the UK and fly out of Gatwick Airport.  We have chosen to spend our time in Brighton, instead of staying in London.  It is a bit more affordable, we can get there directly by train from Southampton, and we can get to Gatwick Airport directly by train.  If we want to travel in to London it is only about an hour away, again by train.  There is lots to explore in the area.  Our last night we will move to a Gatwick Airport hotel so that we do not have to factor travel into arriving on time the day of our flight out.    

We have discovered that the premium economy seats that are more desirable when travelling long distances have now increased in price so that they are about 3 times the cost of an economy seat, too much for this budget conscious booker.   But, not to be thwarted, I took a page from Air New Zealand - they have something called "Skycouch" seating, which is essentially 3 seats for 2 people.  So when booking I asked the question "can I do that on your airline?".  Why yes you can and it is reasonable to do.  You just pay the airfare portion for that 3rd seat, not the taxes, airport, and security charges.  So for our roundtrip, adding this extra seat came to $415 total as opposed to the $1077 we are each paying for our seats.   


By June 25 all is booked and we are set to leave in 8 weeks.