Travel Rewards

In Late 2007 we had received an offer in the mail to stay at the Marriott’s Ko Olina Beach Club on Oahu.  I had lived on Oahu twice; but there were a couple of places that I had never seen.  So we took the offer for 6 days and 5 nights for about $500.  We did not have to make our actual reservation immediately and decided to look around for a cruise we could take in combination with our stay on Oahu.   We wanted to go there the following September; that would be September of 2008. We ended up finding a 7 day cruise on NCL ( Norwegian Cruise Lines ) Pride of Aloha in late December of 2007 and made our reservation.  We also found a great rate on Hawaiian Airlines for our flight and booked our flight.  The plan was that we would spend 5 nights at the Marriott, take our cruise through the islands and then immediately fly home. We did not think much more about it until we returned from another cruise in February of 2008.  There was a message from...

Friday and Saturday were spent at sea. Thy were sunny days and fun days. I neglected to mention that our group was too big to seat at a single table.  Five couples sat at the Captains table on the lower dining room floor. The remainder sat in the upper dining room overlooking our table. The Elevators on the Carnival Spirit are quite impressive. The Entertainment was very good and we enjoyed it every night in the Pharaoh's Palace.  The Spirit has 3 sister ships in the Spirit Class. Each has a slightly different theme for their main theme lounge.  The Carnival Pride is Taj Mahal. The Carnival Legend is Follies.  The Carnival Miracle is Phantom.

This last February we took out 8th cruise. It was an 8 Day Mexican Riviera Cruise sailing out of San Diego.   This cruise was a first for us in several ways. We had always cruised alone in the past, on this cruise there were 15 of us.  We had started out with a couple of couples from our Elks Lodge 326 and then expanded from there. This was our first cruise with an inside cabin. We had previously had either an ocean view or a balcony. This was our first cruise on Carnival Cruise Line. Previous we had cruised on Royal Carribbean, Princess, Holand American and Norwegian Cruise Line. It was also our first 8 day cruise; most of the others were 7 day cruises, the one exception being a 3 day coastal. Just a note, a three day cruise is too short. About the time you remember which drawer you stores your underwear in, it is time to pack up and leave. The ship was the Carnival Spirit. The Carnival Spirit was built in 2001 and is 88,500 Gross Tons.  It carries 2124 passengers a...

One final word on the Airline Frequent Flyer Credit Cards.  There some airline cards will charge you a fee the first year, but most airline cards will waive the first year fee.   So what do you do if you do not like the idea of paying a fee?  Make a diary entry or mark your calendar about 10 months out, to call and cancel the card.  When the time comes, call them and ask to cancel the card.  They will probably ask you why.  Tell them that you are trying to eliminate cards that charge a fee.  They might offer to waive the fee for another year.  They have don it for me before .. though admittedly not recently. If you do cancel your current card, then take a look around . there are many Airline cards available to you. With our next post we will be changing the flavor a bit.  We love to cruise.In February we took our 8th cruise, it can really get addicting.