Bermuda Cruise Vacation

We enjoyed our NCL Getaway cruise vacation so much last year, that I immediately booked another vacation on her sister ship, the Breakaway for the next summer.  We would have more than twelve months to wait!  The cruise was booked for Aug 28th, our last week of summer, and this would be our first time to cruise in late August/early September, which is prime hurricane season.  After much consideration, I felt it was safest to book another cruise to Bermuda, since it rarely sees hurricane activity.  It's just a tiny speck of an island all alone in the middle of the North Atlantic.  And of course, with only five days before sail away, Hurricane Gaston began slowly making it's way to Bermuda!  We closely followed its track, knowing there was a possibility that our cruise could be delayed or rerouted.  Lucky for us, with two days to spare, Gatson took a sharp turn east and carried away from the island.  We thought we'd averted the crisis and were off to enjoy a hurricane free vacation.  The only other potential for hurricane activity was just an invest east of the Caribbean that had the potential of getting into the Gulf of Mexico and strengthening.  We knew it may cause some adjustments to the Caribbean itineraries but it would have no impact on our trip......or so we thought!  More on that later.

We kicked off our vacation with a Mom and Me Day!  Brenna and I usually have our annual Mom and Me Day just before her birthday.  This year, because of travel and summer camps, we had to postpone and decided to save it for a trip to the nail salon just before our vacation.  The day before we left for vacation we both got manicures and pedicures followed by a pancake breakfast at McDonald's.  Then it was back home to pack-up for an early morning departure.

Bermuda Vacation

This year there were several failed attempts to schedule a summer vacation.  This was mostly due to the renegotiation of the Union contract and the pending strike associated with it where Jacob works.  I had all but given up hope that we would have a nice relaxing vacation that we all were in dire need of.  Finally the stars aligned, the Union compromised, and the strike was avoided.  So, in a mad dash I managed to book a Bermuda Vacation with only 3 weeks to spare.  For most people, it's a very common occurrence to book a vacation 3 weeks out.  For me, however, this goes against my true nature.  I like to plan!  Especially vacations!  I plan vacations months in advance and comb through all the details so I know I'm getting exactly the vacation I want.  I do all the work up-front, so on vacation day all we have to do is show-up and everything is taken care of for the week.  So in 3 weeks, I managed to find a fantastic suite on a new cruiseline, book airfare, airport parking, hotel stay, transportation, shore excursions, make all on-board reservations, and schedule a cat-sitter!  All the while I still had to manage my Room Mom and volunteer duties at school with Teacher Appreciation Week, Frost Field Day, Book Fair, Kindergarten Graduation, and End-of-Year Parties.  For me those final three weeks were total chaos and insanity!  This vacation became the light at the end of the tunnel!  Brenna finished up school on a Thursday afternoon.  We packed up Friday (which is usually a week-long event in itself), and left for vacation on Saturday!

We flew to New York to board the Celebrity Summit for a 7-day cruise to Bermuda.  Besides this being to the first time to book on such short notice there were lots of other firsts involved in this vacation; my first time in New York, our first cruise with Celebrity, and our first time to Bermuda.  Going into this vacation, we had lots to look forward to!

Packed up and ready to go!