Celebrity Cruises are evil, sending emails with good deals, such as the one I received on the 1st July 2010. So I had a look at the 7 night Western Mediterranean cruise on the gorgeous Celebrity Constellation from the 9th-16th October. They had an inside, including flights and transfers for just ickle me for just £960.50, which is unheard of! A few days later, a similar offer came for Voyager of the Seas but it cost more. Well you know how it is. Impulse is nature's way of saying it's something you MUST to, so I booked 7055. Also being several months later, it would be an ideal break to recharge the batteries. My mum would still have her cancer and I should have had an operation to free me of constant pain I had been in for months so I would be more mobile to help her. Connie had been my second cruise (another impulse before taking my first!) and I just fell in love with her, wanting to go again but price was always the downside. Only three ships make me want to go again and again, feeling like I'm going home each time I set foot onboard - QE2, Aurora and Vision of the Seas. I had last been on Connie back in April 2007 so would I get the same feeling or would she be a huge disappointment? Celebrity now require a deposit of £150 per person and I paid it off a couple of weeks later, booking just three excursions on the 20th July. I booked my taxi to and from Heathrow and as soon as I gave my address he said, " Miss Dempsey. Are you going on another cruise?" Knows me too well! I always use them to the airport, the only time I hadn't been able to was when I went on Norwegian Epic. On the 9th September I had an email letting me know my e-docs were ready. Thank goodness you can request luggage labels. I had changed e-docs to mail but someone at RCCL changed it back! The e-docs are War & Peace! There is so much paper wastage. How on earth does printing off twenty-one pages make it green? If they did it (and they should since we pay these fares) it would have been at least half the size and easier to manage. It's just laziness and cheapness on the part of cruise lines. The luggage labels arrived on the 15th September - eight of them, clearly in case I lost seven!
The day neared and I came very close to not going. My mum had been admitted to hospital on the 18th September and was still in there right up to the 9th, a rollercoaster of emotions thanks to the medical profession doing zilch. Also the weekend before, my left jaw had swollen due to a tooth abcess. I'd gone to a new dentist, since mine let it happen by only scaling and polishing over the past two years, even when I last went a couple of weeks previously in absolute agony. He'd given me antibiotics and said I need a root canal. Ouch! That's just the price! Well things went okay and we were working on getting my mum home so off I headed to Heathrow at Stupid o'clock (as the driver called it when I booked), which was 5am. I arrived seventy minutes later, Terminal 3, which I was surprised about since I thought all BA was T5. I was able to check in but not my luggage for another hour. When I did that, I was chatting to a lady from San Francisco who was going on Voyager of the Seas with her friends in Spain the next day for her first cruise. There were quite a lot going on Connie, including Earlene Bentley, an lovely American lady living in London. The flight was fifty minutes late, due to it arriving late from Madrid and then various other things, and boy were we all glad to get to Barcelona at 1.10pm! It seems most of the passengers were heading to Connie, including the couple next to me. As we waited for the luggage, I was chatting to the Voyager passenger and she was looking forward to it. My case came and, after packing my cardigan, headed out to the rep. After handing our cases over, we were marched off towards two buses. I sat with Earlene as we drove to the port and caught a glimpse of our ship plus Sovereign, former Sovereign of the Seas. I was getting excited now!
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