How Does 2022 Compare with ‘21 and ‘20?
I guess you can say we made up for lost time. We spent a week with my in-laws in Trinidad during our kids’ Spring Break. In late May, we spent a week in London and Madrid. A couple of weeks later, we spent a week in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. And we just got back from our fourth vacation of the year. During the kids’ Fall Break, we took a Carnival cruise from Tampa to Cayman Islands and Cozumel. And we may even take a fifth trip. We may go to Panama City, FL to spend some time over Christmas with Suazette’s sister and her family and my in-laws. Indeed, we’ve definitely made up for those lost trips from 2020 and 2021.
This was our first cruise since 2017 when the girls were on their second cruise. I wanted to make sure I and my family were fully comfortable before jumping on another cruise. To this end, I’ve been following the cruise industry since the pandemic started. And I must say, that I am thoroughly impressed with the way the industry has handled the pandemic. From having zero income for 6-8 months to sending crew home and then having to recall and retrain them to dealing with the PR nightmare of cruise ships being thought of as floating petri dishes to addressing the different protocols across the various ports that they visit to addressing the various protocols across its own fleet (depending on the size of the ship and the number of confirmed positive cases onboard), the cruise industry has done a great job to overcome all of the hurdles that the CDC placed in its way just to stay afloat (no pun intended).
For the most part, we felt very comfortable and safe aboard the Carnival Paradise. This ship is 10 years old; it isn’t one of the megaships that are being built and serviced nowadays. I felt comfortable walking around maskless outside pretty much everywhere. Inside, I probably wore a maak 40% of the time, with the exception of the elevators where I wore a mask 95% of the time. It is nearly impossible to maintain 6 feet of separation in an elevator that’s 6 square feet. Add to that, the mask optional stance of Carnival right now and the maximum capacity of 18 on the elevators, and you can see why I masked up on those things.
We actually started this trip the day before the ship was set to sail. Specifically, we flew from Atlanta to Tampa on Southwest on Sunday. We wanted to make sure that we would be in town in time to board the ship timely. I flew my parents from Baltimore to Tampa on Southwest so they could meet up with us there. Our planes landed 30 minutes apart and three gates away from each other. I booked a private van service to take us to the JW Marriott, our hotel for the night. In the morning, my family took the tram to the port. My parents grabbed an Uber.
Embarkation was seamless, most likely because I had already filled out all of the embarkation paperwork before getting to the port. I had also loaded the paperwork onto the VeriFly system. So, all of the data was already verified by the time I showed up. My embarkation time was 12 noon and my parents was 12:30. But, as elderly passengers with mobility issues, they were allowed to board as soon as they got to the port. They beat us onboard. After getting lunch on the Lido deck, we did our muster drill (it took about 5 minutes) and headed to our cabins. We had two cabins on the Riviera deck in the aft on the port side of the ship. My parents got a cabin in the midship on the port side, same deck.
We boarded on Monday. The next day was a fun day at sea.
On Wednesday, we docked at Grand Cayman Island.
On Thursday, we docked at Cozumel. That morning, the crew created a bunch of towel animals on the pool deck. (They even gave RJ a red and white one.). After breakfast, we got off and went into port. I rented a jeep and rode around the island.
Friday was another Fun Day at sea! I didn’t get too many pictures this day. We didn’t do too much anyway. I guess I finally realized that the cruise was about to end. We ended the cruise on Saturday when we returned to Tampa. After clearing Customs, my family picked up another private van and headed back to the airport. We caught a direct Delta flight back to Atlanta. My parents caught a Southwest flight a couple of hours later to Baltimore, connecting through Nashville.
This was a fun and relaxing little getaway. I especially liked the way that Carnival has addressed the pandemic. Because of this, I’m looking forward to our next cruise, most likely in 2024. I think that’ll be a Mediterranean cruise. I think I may take a Royal Caribbean cruise next time. It would be interesting to compare the protocols across both ship lines. It’s not etched in stone. I may even take an NCL cruise instead. I have never been on one. And I’d like to give it a =hot one day. In the meantime, click over to my portfolio and check out some of my favorite pics from the cruise.
Bon Voyage!
