Welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita.

I'm your host, jim Santos, along with my wife, rita, and welcome to the second season of our podcast.

In the first season, we set in motion our crazy plan to outfox the real estate market in the US and actually increase our retirement nest egg by selling our home and car and spending the next three years or so living abroad and exploring the world.

While we did manage to increase our net worth while we traveled, a bout of pancreatitis in Latvia caused us to return to the States for surgery and recovery and to rethink our plans in light of our ages and other factors.

Enter Plan B.

We now have a home base set up in eastern Tennessee and are ready to hit the road once again.

Our plans are now to spend anywhere from six to nine months a year abroad, returning to the US to visit friends, family and to recharge.

Join us now as the adventure continues on Travels with Jim and Rita.

Hello everybody and welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita.

We've talked about a lot of types of travel on the show, but one subject we haven't touched on much is cruising, mostly from lack of experience, other than a one-day booze cruise we took to a deserted island on a visit to the Bahamas.

I've never been on a cruise, rita.

You've been on a few, but it's been quite a while right.

Right, it was in the 80s and they were much smaller ships than what's cruising out there today.

Well, fortunately, a good friend of ours happens to love going on cruises and in fact she's just returned from two Caribbean cruises and she's on the line now to tell us all about what we've been missing.

We first met Babs Dearmond when we were all living on the coast of Ecuador.

We spent a lot of time together, and when first Babs and then Rita and I relocated back to the US, we ended up settling in neighboring states.

So we've managed to stay in touch, visit each other and even travel together a bit.

So, babs, it gives us great pleasure to welcome you to Travels with Jim and Rita.

Well, thank you so much for welcoming me.

It's a great pleasure to be a part of the podcast as a participant rather than just listening.

I've really enjoyed hearing everyone's stories from their experiences all around the world, and it's about time we started to talk about getting there by a cruise ship, right.

How did you get started in cruising?

What was your first cruise like?

My first cruise was with my daughter in the Caribbean and it was a few years after my late husband had passed and wanted to get away from those cold Ohio winters and didn't want to just hang out in Florida like he and I had done, wanted to do something different.

My grandmother had always talked about a Caribbean cruise.

I had no idea what that meant, but it was something romantic and dreamy.

But she never got to do that.

So somehow that came to my mind and I said to my daughter take off a week from work and let's just try it.

So we did and we were hooked from the moment we stepped on board.

It was just amazing.

The ships are incredible and they're huge and they're floating resorts and love every minute.

So, right from the very start, you felt like this was for you.

Indeed, indeed, the wonderful thing about this was pre-COVID.

Things have changed a lot.

I've been all over traveling since COVID, but pre-COVID pre-satellite internet.

I was still working and we went on that cruise and the first morning after the ship had left Florida, I was up on the very top deck walking along the jogging track and I looked out around me and there was nothing but beautiful blue water.

There was no phone, there was nothing.

Nobody from work could bother me, nobody could email me, nobody could call me, nobody could knock on my office door and say do this, what about that?

I was totally free.

It was just a wonderful feeling of escape and freedom and true relaxation and that's one of the things cruise ships can offer is total getting away from the world.

You've been on quite a few cruises since that first one.

Yeah, I've been very, very lucky to do about averaging about one a year since 2007.

And not just the Caribbean.

No, no, we started out in the Caribbean because that's safe, it's close to home, it's not scary, you're going from island to island, from beach to beach.

It's instead of being on a resort on an island like St Thomas, you're on a floating resort, so you get to visit lots of beaches, different beaches, and my primary interest in those early years was snorkeling.

Oh yeah, yeah.

So cruise ships were just a great way to get a chance to snorkel in different places, with different kinds of snorkeling outfits and whether it's a catamaran or something from a small fishing boat, but it was a great way to get in all that snorkeling.

A lot of Caribbean cruisers are snorkelers or divers, so it's just a wonderful way to experience a lot of that beauty.

But since cruise ships are basically floating hotels, if you want to see the world, there's really no better economical and easy way to go from place to place.

The first major cruise I've done the Mediterranean.

I've done a river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam.

We've done the Pacific, from Hong Kong to Singapore, to Bali, and we've also done part of the Panama Canal.

So I've cruised a number of places, but there's still a lot of the world left.

Does it entice you to pick one of those places that you might have been in port and say, hey, I'd like to go back there?

Well, that's the advantage.

I know people who do intensive land travel, poo-poo cruises, because they say, oh well, you've only been to Rome for six hours.

And that's true.

Hey, it's whatever you like to do.

But that's true.

But in six hours you can decide I've had enough of Rome, thanks, I've seen the college, and that's all I needed to cross off my bucket list.

Or you can say holy shamoli, I love this place and I'm coming back next year, right, so that's what cruising does it gives you a chance to sample a lot of different places and decide where you want to go and be intense.

For example, when we did the river cruise, we went early and spent a few days in Budapest, but then we got to go to Cologne and Vienna and Nuremberg and Amsterdam and various wonderful little Bavarian villages in between.

And just if you had tried to do that by train or plane or bus or car, it would have been a nightmare, I think.

Well, you couldn't do it as quickly, no?

So when you have a short time to take a vacation, it is a great way to see a lot.

It is, it is affordable and, as you say, for seven days you can see a lot without a lot of hassle, right?

Is there a particular type of cruise that you like best?

Well, these days, the longer the better.

Yeah, the more sunshine, the better.

Well, it's not all sunshine, but it depends on what we're looking for.

But yeah, if you're going to cruise, we're in Georgia, so we're landlocked.

You have to go to a port and once you get to that port, there's a cost involved, Whether that port is Fort Lauderdale or Amsterdam.

You're talking about airfares.

You're talking about a hotel at least one, maybe two nights before the cruise embarks and then perhaps a night on the way back.

So it's expensive.

There's a cost involved, sometimes more than the cost of the cruise itself, to get to the cruise port.

So you don't want to do that for a four day cruise.

You want to make your money work.

Well, that's what we find in our travel as well.

It's getting to Europe and back.

That's the expensive part.

Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly.

It's the exact same thing.

Have you ever been talking about sunshine?

Have you ever encountered bad weather on a cruise?

Well, if you cruise in the Caribbean during hurricane season, probably not a good idea.

Yeah, chances are.

That's an option, but these days, with satellite navigation and these huge ships with stabilizers, the captains steer around any major storms, so you're not going to get tossed about like the perfect storm with George Clooney.

Thank God right.

You see a lot of video on YouTube of people on cruise ships that are in big storms.

I was just wondering how often that actually happens.

I don't know, I think people like to.

Well, anyway, we have not encountered any bad storms.

Yes, some wind, some rain.

Maybe it keeps you inside, but inside us is quite lovely, right Four-star hotel.

So, unless you were counting on lots of hours by the pool, whether it really doesn't enter into it most people make the most of it Wouldn't disappoint, just like if you were on land, if you were planning on a wonderful trip to to Athens and seeing the Parthenon and there was a terrible thunderstorm.

How about the rooms themselves, the accommodations?

Are they roomy enough for you?

Oh, yes, especially these days.

Of course, they're going to be smaller than a hotel, right, but you don't spend a lot of time in your cabin, yeah, you're using that, basically, just like you probably don't spend a lot of time in your hotel room, right, you're using that as a base.

You can.

We've, we've stayed in everything from the smallest interior cabin to a suite with with a private butler and a private balcony, a private bedroom and two TVs and hot and cold, whatever.

A private bedroom and two TVs and hot and cold, whatever.

So it all depends what you're looking for, but the cabins are well equipped.

They have some have bathtubs, they all have nice showers.

It's not like the first cruise I ever took.

I think it was on Carnival and yeah, it was an older ship and the bathroom was kind of the size of what you'd see on a camper.

Yes, that's what I had in the 80s Babs.

It was like a three-by-three space where the toilet and the shower you know, the shower was above the toilet.

You know what I mean.

Yeah, so no, not anymore.

They're beautiful, yeah, they have everything you need and there's plenty of space in the bathroom for two people.

It sounds like you've been to a pretty big variety of locations and types of cruises.

Do you have a favorite trip, something that really stands out to you?

Well, my most memorable trip was probably with my daughter.

I think it was a 10-day Mediterranean cruise and that was a perfect example of seeing the world, from unpacking once and sleeping in the same bed, having your food ready for you in the evening.

But seeing we left from Rome, we did Naples.

We spent a day in Pompeii.

We could have gone to the Isle of Capri, but we chose, chose not to.

Could have gone to the Isle of Capri, but we chose not to.

We went to a couple of places in Greece, including, you know, walking around Santorini.

The perfect postcard, you know, picture of Greece had wonderful food there.

Turkey was a delightful surprise and that was one of those places we weren't sure about what in the world.

Turkey.

We never heard of Turkey and it was a place we both said, wow, this was great, we'd like to go back there.

We've heard a lot of people say that the beaches and the resort towns on the coast are absolutely fabulous in Turkey, yeah we didn't do any, some people.

One of the excursions was to Ephesus.

We chose to go to an organic farm, local village thing, yeah, and that was just delightful.

The people were wonderful, the food was good, the scenery was fun.

And then Egypt was a place we both had longed for and we were there for three days and I won't say hated every minute, but close, but close, but close.

We got to see the pyramids, which is but yeah, it turned out, and we did a little trip on the Nile and saw this and that, but, yes, we found out that three days in Egypt was more than enough.

But Israel was amazing.

We got to go to Haifa and the Dead Sea and Masada and the River Jordan and Jerusalem the main event and the Mount of Olives, and yeah, so Israel was really amazing and we were fortunate to have gone on this trip when there was peace in the area.

Right so yeah.

That wouldn't even be doable now.

No, it wouldn't.

So in about 10 days, we got to see an amazing number of wonderful spots in the world, and I'll never forget walking the streets of Pompeii.

That was one of the most moving experiences.

So, as far as utilizing a cruise ship to see the world from comfort, that was a classic example.

That was perfect.

Yeah, it was, that was perfect, that was a perfect trip.

You know we get offers in the mail and online all the time from our credit cards about cruises, costco even telling us about discount cruises.

How do you tell what's a good deal and you know what's?

Just kind of a tourist trap, floating tourist trap.

Personally, I think all cruise deals are good deals, but we book directly with the cruise lines and what we do when we start thinking about, ok, our next cruise, we'll look at a few different possibilities and break down the cost per day and the cost per day per person or per cabin, and you say, okay, if we were going, let's say, to Rome, okay, you have the hotel each night and you have your meals and you have your transportation, you have your.

So we figure out what it's going to cost the cabin per night.

And then, if you compare this line and that line and this ship and that ship, you can say, okay, this is going to cost $1,000 a night, or this is going to cost $300 a night or whatever.

Okay, that's a good way.

So you could compare apples and apples, because it's very difficult, even within the same cruise line, to compare because the different ships have different amenities and they're different sizes and they're different price ranges.

Are there like loyalty rewards or discounts if you cruise with the same company all the time?

There are indeed, just like hotel chains or car rental agencies.

They want you to keep coming back and they'll lure you with different things.

There are some advantages.

Once you get.

It's like being a gold medallion SkyMiles person.

Once you get to an extreme status, well gee, you might get even a free cruise.

But for most people wow, I've earned 17,000 points, I get a free bottle of water for 20% off a bag of laundry.

But there are people, just like with airlines or hotels, that are very, very loyal.

And then there are many of us just say, ok, what's the best deal?

And there are certain lines you might want to avoid, depending on what your interests are.

If you have a family of five and want to go on a one-week wonderful vacation, you're going to look at Royal Caribbean or Disney.

If you're 80 years old and want a week of peace and quiet and nice music around the pool, you're going to avoid a ship that has a rock climbing wall and a water slide.

Yeah, that's probably my category yes, to avoid that.

And cruise lines they have reputations of.

This is more for families, this is more for older folks, this is more for Virgin Atlantic.

I love Virgin flights, but we wouldn't go on one of their cruises because they're all for young single people.

Now you mentioned booking directly with the lines.

There aren't any aggregate sites like Expedia.

There are and we've done some comparison.

In fact, just yesterday we're just toying around with our potential next cruise and there was one I was looking at and I went to the website of the cruise line and then I went to Vacations to Go and the Vacations to Go their big deal was about $300 more than booking directly with the cruise line.

Interesting.

Yeah, we've been finding that, even if you use an aggregate, booking your flight directly with the airline.

Or the hotels.

Or the hotel usually works out better.

I would never ever book my airfare with the cruise line.

No, because if something happens, you want the airline to be responsible for delaying you or changing your flight or whatever.

But I don't know.

A lot of people swear by a travel agent.

I've heard some people say good things about Costco.

I just don't have the experience.

We've always booked directly and been very satisfied.

Now, when we've looked at cruises and tried to compare prices, like you're talking about, it seems like there's a base price and then there's some add-on options to the base price.

So there's a lot of add-ons you can.

If somebody advertises five nights for four hundred dollars a person, so you're talking about eight hundred dollars for for five nights and you can do eight hundred dollars just have to bring your own lunch and that includes.

It includes everything, except one thing you'll notice when you start looking around.

Some ads will say prepaid gratuities.

I was wondering about that, yeah.

Gratuities are something that all the cruise lines add every day.

So you're going to get, let's just say, $20 a person or $40 per cabin per day, and those gratuities cover tips to your cabin steward, to the waitstaff in the dining room, to all the bartenders, to the cleaning staff, to the engineers, to the navigators, to everybody that's on board, all the cooks that make it happen.

Now, this is just like tipping in general.

It's a hotly debated subject and some people say they, they don't get paid enough, they deserve everything.

They're blah, blah, blah, right.

And other people say, uh, hey, you know, we do, we pay, we tip in cash a number of people, not a lot, but uh, just as you would if you were at a hotel or a resort, it will give cash to the various people we encounter in addition to the above and beyond the charge gratuity.

So if, at the end of the cruise, you paid your $800 for this cruise, ok, you can walk off the ship with nothing.

But you're going to get a bill that says, ok, you're $40 per day gratuities.

Now, if you think that you're comfortable with the fact that I paid a few people in cash and I paid enough for this cruise, heck with this business.

You can go to guest relations and say please remove that gratuity charge, and they will.

So you don't have to pay addition.

Right, and the cruise fare covers food, it covers water, it covers coffee, it covers iced tea, lemonade or juice in the morning.

If you want bottled water, if you want wine, if you want soda or if you want a latte or a cappuccino, that's going to be an additional cost.

If you want to use Wi-Fi, that's going to be an additional cost.

It used to be that there was a room on the ship.

You paid $10 a minute to get on the Internet.

Nowadays they have Starlink so you can get Wi-Fi.

You don't have to do that.

If you want to go for five days and not be bothered with anyone and you're very content with drinking water or lemonade, I think you're allowed to bring on a bottle of wine or some soda I'm not sure I don't drink soda and not remove the gratuities.

You can indeed pay that price you saw on your computer screen.

On the other hand, if you're working from the ship, if you want to stream Netflix videos every night and have a Bloody Mary in the morning and a margarita in the afternoon and a couple of glasses of wine with dinner and a latte or cappuccino later on, then you should pay up for the beverage package or the Wi-Fi package, and that can be as much or more than the cost of the cruise itself.

Yeah, I could see that.

But on the other hand, if you're not surprised, right?

I mean, I've been on a cruise with my daughter when you know, oh my God, our bar bill has ended up costing more than the cruise because you don't realize what's happening.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Lo and behold, oh my, gosh, I've done the same thing.

Gosh, I've done the same thing.

Yeah, it's shocking 17 plus 20 gratuity.

So you just don't realize every time you're signing it's 20 bucks here, 20 bucks here so it's up to the individual cruisers, whether whether they add on a lot of stuff or you know, spa treatments and all that kind of stuff, or if they just, uh, stay in the interior cabin and drink water, and that's perfectly fine.

You're eating at the same dining room, you're listening to the same music, you're swimming in the same pool, so it's all what kind of experience you want.

I know a lot of the ads play up the onboard entertainment.

I imagine there's a pretty big variety of quality in that onboard entertainment.

Yeah, there's a huge difference and it depends on what kind of entertainment you're interested in.

We really like entertainment.

Now, by entertainment we're talking about the musicians and the shows and the theater in the evening.

During the day, all the cruise ships are going to have deal or no deal, lots of trivia, bingo, art auctions, scavenger hunks, crosswords, sudoku, blah, blah blah, and that's all free and that's lots of fun.

We don't.

We're not big trivia people, but the trivia games are always crowded.

People absolutely love them.

There's pickleball, basketball and the gym, all those kinds of things.

But for us, the entertainment in the evening is really part of what we're looking for.

We've been on some cruises where the larger ships they have like Broadway caliber shows with Cirque du Soleil performers.

We've seen scene I think Kinky Boots was on one.

The actual Broadway production of Kinky Boots was on some ships.

And then you have your magicians and your singers and your Bad comedians.

Some bad, some good, whatever.

So there's that stuff which we sometimes take in, but the ship itself has a band.

Each ship has at least three or four different groups, different type of musical groups that are performing different venues during the day and evening, so different lounges, and we really really enjoy that a lot.

Different lounges, and we really really enjoy, enjoy that a lot.

Now, some other cruises, like river cruises, don't have a theater, don't have that kind of stuff.

They have informative lectures or local musicians or that kind of thing.

So, depending on how important those production shows are to you, you should, you should look for ships that are kind of famous for their good show.

Those would be much smaller ships anyway, the river ships right.

Yeah, yeah, but I mean even some.

If you're looking at like Oceana or some of those higher priced luxury cruise lines, they're not going to have big theaters with big productions.

Now we've had several guests talk about using repositioning cruises.

Have you ever used a repositioning cruise?

We did two last fall.

We went from Fort Lauderdale to Southampton and then back again, and what a wonderful way to get across the ocean without dealing with jet lag or being cramped for 12 hours with your knees up to your chin.

Yeah, that does appeal.

Yeah, I mean, and especially coming back to the States from Europe.

You get home without any jet leg and getting to Europe, you get there, you know you haven't been fighting sleep for nine hours in an uncomfortable plane and arrive at, you know, at four o'clock in the morning when you've been awake for 36 hours.

So yeah, it's a wonderful.

As we get older, it's a wonderful way to get around and you feel like you know, I feel like, oh, I'm not on the Titanic quite, but you know, I'm a fancy schmancy person on this.

I imagine my ancestors, I imagine you know the Roosevelt's or somebody you know ancestors, I imagine you know the Roosevelt's or somebody you know just sticking out and having the wind blow in their air as they.

How do you find the repositioning cruises?

Are they advertised differently by the cruise lines?

No, but they are about half the price.

They're incredibly inexpensive because you're not going a lot of places.

Right, we did.

I think it was 14, I forget how many days it was crossing the Atlantic to Europe and we had like four stops.

We stopped at the Azores, which was great.

Oh, the Azores are beautiful, and unless you're on a cruise ship, you're not going to go to the Azores.

No, you're not, and it was absolutely gorgeous.

Uh, portugal, spain, belgium and uh, and france, actually the.

We did have some bad weather so we didn't get to france, but that's okay.

So you're on, you know, seven to ten days out in the middle of the ocean yeah and if you, a lot of people brought their knitting, I make scarf on the way.

There's a lot of card players on cruise ships and I had purchased a spa pass.

So every day I spend at least an hour or two on a thermal lounge or in the steam room or the sauna or in the philosophy therapy, the loss of therapy pool and just thoroughly, you know, enjoying myself there, and then, uh, lounge about and I didn't do deal or no deal.

I did a couple of origami classes, I did this and that and it was a wonderful way to, to pass the time, and uh, have a wonderful food every night, yeah, and get from one continent to the other.

If you're interested in cruising and have never been on one before, is there an easy starter cruise that you could recommend?

Well, if you're in the US and want to just get your feet wet, of course a Caribbean cruise is.

A lot of people start with a five to seven night Caribbean cruise just to be on a ship, just to get that experience.

But if you're wanting to go to Europe or Asia or New Zealand or Iceland or South America and aren't sure how to get there or travel about there, I would just book a cruise and you can get to visit all those wonderful spots that you want to sample without having to worry about foreign currency, without having to worry about foreign languages, without having to worry about how do I get the bus or the taxi or the train, or where do I sleep tonight, or how do I schlep my luggage and pack and unpack.

Where am I going to eat?

How am I going to eat?

What am I going to do?

It's a magical way to see the world.

So, either way, either just relax and enjoy the cruise ship as an experimental destination instead of hanging out on one beach, or use it as your hotel and your transportation and your restaurant to see the world.

Right.

Well, we've been talking with Babs Dearmond about the pleasures and experiences that can be found on cruise ships.

Well, babs, thanks for taking the time to help us out here, and maybe someday us landlubbers can join you on a Caribbean escape.

Well, I hope so.

I don't think you will regret a minute of it you've been listening to travels with jim and rita.

If you'd like to read more about where we've been, see some photos of the places you've been hearing about, check out our blog at jimsantosbookscom and our youtube channel and instagram for videos.

Meanwhile, you can access my books, audiobooks and short stories at jimsantosnet and there are links to those sites Instagram, youtube and so on in the show notes.

We love to hear from our listeners as well, so if you have a question or a topic you'd like us to cover, or you want to tell your own travel story, email us at jim at jimsantosbookscom.

Until next time, remember, we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us.