So I was upstairs reading (time to re-read all the Sue Grafton Kinsey Millhone mysteries) when Michael appeared in the doorway -- "Guess what! We've got our cabin assignment!!!"
Now I suppose some explanation is required to set up this situation. We always book a specific cabin. Decide what we can afford by the time payment is due and that's home for the cruise. You can save a spot of change if you go with a guarantee cabin, that is you pay for a certain category within a class of cabin and the actual cabin is assigned later. On some cruises - such as the two-week long Panama Canal - Disney also sometimes offers a guarantee cabin where you agree to accept any cabin they assign, and Disney has the flexibility to assign you a cabin within a type of stateroom: Inside (IGT), Ocean view (OGT), or Veranda (VGT). The fares are quite attractive in exchange for these conditions. They don't always offer this choice or they may offer only certain ones. On this Panama Canal cruise, only IGTs and OGTs were on offer. They also don't offer this category until the Paid In Full date passes, so folks don't opt for it early on. (You need to pay the entire fare when booked, agree to accept whatever cabin you're assigned, et cetera.) So you need to save up for the cruise before you know whether you're going or not. (We try not to use credit cards.)
So for this cruise - which was a bit pricey due to being two weeks long - we decided that we would do it if Disney offered an OGT fare. There's always the possibility that you could be assigned to a category that is higher than the category you paid for: someone who booked an IGT might be assigned an OGT cabin, et cetera. If it wasn't offered, then we'd decide what category we could afford and book whatever remaining cabin was available - or wait until next year.
As we had always known exactly what cabin in which we would be sailing, this was a new experience - and one that I am not in a hurry to repeat. Up until a few weeks ago I was in a state of hyper-ness. What category are we going to be assigned? Where in the ship will it be located? When will we find out which cabin we will receive? Michael spent a lot of time trying to convince me to calm down.... And as it turned out, we received our cabin assignment a bit earlier than expected!
So now we know which cabin it is: 1058. This is in the lowest category within our OGT group and is on the lowest deck (No. 1) and center. If some of the cruise is through rough weather we will be very happy that we're on Deck One - the lower the location on the ship, the more stable your voyage. It's also quite near the mid-ship elevators, so we should be able to reach anywhere else on the ship easily. Being on Deck One the elevators should be empty when they reach us and everyone else will try to fit in them as we head upwards, but not us. There are times when an elevator door opens and those waiting say 'We'll wait for the next one!'
It seems to be time for us to knock some things off our bucket list. The Panama Canal is one of them. We both especially enjoy long cruises with lots of sea days; port stops are not so important to us anymore. There is a fall Eastern Caribbean cruise that we're taking with a group of friends that has several stops and it's 'Gosh, what are we going to do at this stop?'
The Panama Canal cruise was also spurred on when some friends with whom we've sailed before gave us The Path Between the Seas. It's a well-written (thick) book that begins with the French attempt to build the Canal and goes through the completion by the United States. It covers all the background chicanery as well as the engineering and health rigamarole. It made the Canal a real 'I've got to see this' item on our list.
[In 2015 we'll be sailing across the Atlantic (visiting NYC; St. John's, Newfoundland; Reykjavik, Iceland; and Oslo, Norway on the way) to visit the Northern European capitals and the Norwegian fjords. Another cruise to cross off our list! This began as a two-voyage trip (EBTA and Fjords) with a week in Copenhagen between cruises, but we replaced the week in Copenhagen with the Northern European Capitals cruise (Tallinn, Estonia; St Petersburg, Russia; Helsinki, Finland; and Stockholm, Sweden). Since we'll probably not be back to that part of the world it seemed the best way to spend our time. We'll still have a few days in Copenhagen waiting for our flight back to Mexico.]
So, we're jazzed. The EastBound TransAtlantic portion of the group of 2015 cruises is also in a cabin on Deck One, so we'll find out what it's like and whether we need to find some more funds to move up a notch or two! Since we don't spend a great deal of time in the cabin (it's said), a less attractive location should be okay!
This year we leave home two days early to reach the port in Miami ahead of embarkation, so it's not quite so long before we're on vacation - approximately nine days!
