Work Hard, Play Fair, Push Beyond The Average. But Take A Week's Vacation!

     Over the years, I have learned the fun in taking a cruise to somewhere warm, with green water, blue skies and family laughing on a big boat filled with 3000 cruisers (600 kids) that are after the same thing. If you do not have fun on a cruise, something needs adjustment within your head, heart and soul.  Which lines did you have fun with?  There are a slug of cruisers on Active Rain.  I know it.  Once you go one one...you will make it a healthy habit. 

     For me, Carnival is the best value. Everything paid for. The group of folks I linked up with are other cruisers from Michigan, Minnesota and  New England states that want to break up the winter too.  Half the fun of a cruise is knowing in four months you are going on one.  Hard day at the office?  Pull out the island picture with your daughters getting their hair braided and your sons racing down a corkscrew slide on the boat or snorkling with sting rays.  The day to day strain on a hard day at work disappears and does not matter. It is  gone because you have the cruise all booked and are going to three brand new islands no matter how crazy work gets.  You leave when it is zero, blowing snow and crazy at the office.  You land in Miami or Orlando or Ft Lauderdale when it is 90 degrees warmer.  On the boat, with a drink that has an umbrella in it, you are looking out over palm trees, reading a book and talking about youth hockey program in your home town with a dad from Michigan that is on the same path raising his kids who love hockey. 

     The kids go to mixers and have snowball dances where Jimmy dances with Suzy who he has never met before. He has to tell her where he is from, what his hobbies are and she vice versa before the whistle goes off indicating both need to head out in the audience, grab another unknown teenager and go thru the same ice breaking ritural again.  By the end of the song, the kids have made twelve new friends and they are set for the week.  If there are happy, you are happy on this family vacation.  Everything is paid for unless you are an alcoholic and a failure from gamanon rehab for gamblers.  You get to go to usually three islands, explore, buy some knick knacks and a tshirts for loved ones at home.  Zillion pictures aboard the boat during formal nights.  Broadway or Vegas calibre shows, comedians, magicians and musicals with dance routines you just sit back and enjoy after a day of tramping or island hopping.  The days at sea are just as much fun.  Hardest thing you do...is get up.  The boat's crew  is from all over the world and part of the experience too. They  entertain, wait on and meet your every need.  Like you do as Joe Broker, Joesphine Banker, Stella Stager during your regular day. 

      Dont' wait unil you retire to travel...do it now while you have kids to enjoy it with you, before you get green tubes coming out your nose and live on a ventilator with bad kidneys to boot.  You will have the money, the time but not the health to enjoy tramping and exploring carribean islands with loved ones in your golden years.  Book that cruise early, watch your cabin on the ship go higher toward the fun deck if you leave your category "To Be Annouced" or TBA.  They oversell the bottom of the boat and you wil go up two or more categories.  Takes lots of gum if you are a chewer...there is NONE on the boat...they don't want to clean it off the deck.  As for deck chairs, there is no saving them.  Someone will get up at 5am to save thirteen of them, put a book, sandals and towels on them to give appearance they will be right back and then end up spending the day in the casino, bar , gym, health spa or at an art auction and never use them.  Gently put the books and towel on the deck, and slide into place with your book, suntan lotion and get ready to enjoy the island music and the brightly colored attendants that make sure you are happy. 

     Eating?  Oh yes..you will be feasting on the finest food every twenty minutes...you will gain a few pounds but you are on vacation.  Relax, think about your life, how the rest of the world lives and have some fun with your family.  Love to share what I have learned if you need some guidance.  You will never regret the fun of a cruise whether to the Carribean, Bahamas, Bermude, Panama Canal, South America, Hawaii, Alaska or Europe.  It is an economical way to travel.