Dunnottar Castle, near Stonehaven, Scotland.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Near Aberdeen, Scotland.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Stockton-on-Tees, England on June 27th!

Saturday, May 24, 2025

Well, the time has come

But let's face it, it had to happen eventually.

We've been wondering what to do for the six weeks or so between July 7th when our month long car rental ends in Scotland, and August 19th when we fly back to Canada. We had pretty much decided that we were going to go to the Baltic countries... Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

But we hadn't booked it yet because I was waiting for the airfare price to drop. So we hadn't made any commitments and we could still look at other options.

We ended up booking a cruise!

We will be on the Emerald Princess.

"Huh?" you might say. "You don't seem like cruise type of people..."

And you might be right. We've never done a cruise because it just didn't seem like our type of thing. We normally like to spend time getting to know a country, rather than skipping from port to port for a quick look for a couple of hours. I've always thought it might be fun to do a "repositioning" cruise where you actually get to a destination by boat instead of flying, but nothing has ever come up that's been convenient to where we want to go.

So anyhow, I noticed two cruise deals the other day that piqued my interest. One was a Mediterranean cruise that really only came up because it ended up in Barcelona a day or two before our flight leaves from Barcelona to Halifax. And it departed from Rome, and we've never been to Rome before.

The other was called a "Northern Europe" cruise, but its stops were in Ireland, Iceland, and Greenland.

Greenland was the big attraction here. We've been to Ireland and Iceland, but Greenland isn't an easy or cheap place to get to. 


The only thing making us hesitate was the price. We had pretty much decided that we would do the Greenland one over the Mediterranean one, but we still weren't sure about the price. It was a decent price, but not what you would call a screaming deal.

Our friends Glen and Steve have done a LOT of cruises, and she checked prices on sites that she uses. It turns out that booking through a UK site is generally cheaper than booking through an American site.

I was watching the price on the Vacations to Go website, and they were showing $1,450 USD. But there were a couple of UK sites that were about £950 which is only $1,286 USD... a significant savings.

We decided to sleep on it. 

The next morning when we woke up, the price on Vacations to Go was showing at $1,088 USD... a great deal! But you can only book by calling their office... and the office is located in Texas so it wasn't open yet. Still the middle of the night there! Sure enough, a couple of hours later, the price had increased... now at $1,514 USD. 

Our friend Glen sent me the email address of someone who works at Vacations to Go. (Thank you Glen!). I sent the woman a note saying that I had seen the price of $1,088 USD overnight, and that I was prepared to book it, but that it had now increased and I asked if there was anything she could do.

To our surprise, I received an email a couple of hours later saying that they would honor the $1,088 USD price! Fantastic! The downside to this is that the $CAD is in the dumpster, so it still comes to about $1,500 CAD per person, but that's still pretty darn good for a 16 day cruise to Greenland.

So, we're booked. We depart Southampton, England on July 31st.

Oh, I almost forgot... even at that price, it includes a promotional $210 USD cabin credit that can be used for just about anything on board the ship... including WiFi access or drinks!

It will be interesting to see what our opinion of cruising will be when we are finished.

So now... what to do between July 7th and July 31st...?

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And in Canada...

8 comments:

  1. We have cruised on Emerald Princess and very much enjoyed the ship. I hope you enjoy the voyage!

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    1. That is good to hear, I hope that we will enjoy the experience as well.

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  2. Greenland would be super interesting. I am afraid I'd hate a cruise, though. At least the ones I've seen photos of, people do dress up. That could be a problem for you two with your very limited wardrobes (b/c of carry-on luggage only). Perhaps this cruise is more laid back. I would hate the dressing up and too much socializing for me, but I would enjoy the destinations.

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    1. We will only have two stops in Greenland but we will also have one day cruising around one particular area of the island with glaciers and maybe even an iceberg or two so that should be interesting too. We are definitely looking forward to seeing Greenland, even if it is only a small part of it.

      I don't believe this is a real dress up kind of cruise, the other cruise we were looking at certainly was and that is the main reason why we didn't pick it. We can pick up a few nicer looking items when we are in Scotland/England at some of the charity shops though, so that we can have at least one or two things that will look a like nicer for the cruise and then just leave them behind either on the cruise when we disembark or at another charity shop when we leave the ship.

      We can do as much socializing as we want, or as little as we want but I am sure that we will mix it up. At least this cruise will give us an idea whether we will want to do another one or not.

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  3. In my experience (7 cruises now) it's not the cruise itself that cost the most it's the extras (gratuities, drink packages, specialty restaurants, excursions). If you are frugal you could get away with not using any of these (and some cruise lines allow you to remove the gratuities at the time of booking) but personally I like the whole experience with all of it :)

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    1. We will not be going with the extras, there will be no drink packages, specialty restaurants and no tour packages for us. As for the gratuities, we will make arrangements to adjust the amount or to ask for envelopes that we will put money in to give to those that we feel are deserving of it.

      This will once again be a new experience for us and we are going into it with an open mind. I am sure that we will enjoy ourselves but whether we enjoy ourselves enough to do another cruise will be the question.

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  4. Kevin and Ruth, you’ve spent decades working and saving, I hope you feel good about finally spending.

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    1. Thank you! We are having a hard time trying to spend though. We always want to get good value out of our money and although it is a bit pricey for us it also seems like good value. Our friend who cruises a lot said that we got a great deal. We just hope that we will enjoy ourselves and I am sure we will but whether we enjoy ourselves enough to do another cruise is another story.

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