The Truth About Our Transatlantic Cruise

well where are we today tin we are cruising the North Atlantic Ocean and we have just passed the halfway point between Florida which we got on at uh Fort Lord Dale uh we're halfway to the aor islands yes so we pretty much are in the middle of nowhere yes we are the nice thing about it is I suppose everybody thinks we're still in in Portugal and surprise surprise we're not so we're here we had got home for 3 weeks and um kind got itchu feed we just didn't want to stay there for another couple of months because we've got trailer season coming up shortly so Tiner had been keeping an eye on this particular Cruise so why don't you tell us a little bit about it te well we had been looking at this cruise before we actually went to Portugal so we were aware of what the prices were so when Norm was saying let's look for somewhere to go we were pulling the prices up and man did we see the prices had plummeted one of the things that team is very good at doing is writing down vacation trips and the prices they're currently advertised at and then we revisit them over time if we feel as though we we do want to do that trip and that's what happened with this yes so we are on the princess Regal a cruise ship that we have been on before and we have done a transatlantic Crossing from Copenhagen to New York so this one is going the opposite way yes so we are going from Fort Lauderdale and we will finish up in Southampton United Kingdom so everybody now knows why we were in Fort laale for one night yeah um and we didn't see much of it because we flew in got a hotel and uh went to sleep and got on a shuttle in the next morning to be at the cruise port for around 10:00 yes so we have gold status with Princess which means absolutely nothing no although we did get a welcome party last night norm and a free drink which was nice welcome back to princess yes so this this is our state room and part of the reason that we bought the cruise was that as Tina said the prices are just fallen through the floor and so we were able to get a mini scoop instead of a balcony or a window view or an inside very competitively but before we do that um I know we got some really good comments about uh lavish spending on a Transit flying to Flying to Portugal faraoh and spending all that money Tina I know I hear you nor I was looking at them so we have saved money this time yes and we are flying economy with Canada we we did didn't we so the nice thing about Princess Cruisers is that they do air flights that you can buy from from Princess crues it's called Princess air yes so we searched their website and managed to find direct flight Air Canada Toronto to Fort Lauderdale which was fantastic hotel we stayed in with holiday and express just by Cruise terminal number two they had a free shuttle yeah was great who likes free eh it was great it really did and then we bought water to transfer from the hotel to the cruise port if we were doing it again we would have just got an Uber I think yeah would have been far cheaper far quicker as well new travel eim yes product that just came out we were notified about it just as we left for this cruise and it's from a firm called s sa i l y which is owned by nordvpn and it's specific specifically an eim product that you can buy so simply and it works in 150 different countries so we bought Portugal we did yes and there's multiple packages so we just bought a 7-Day package cuz we're going to be hitting ponad del Garda in the aors which is Portuguese territory we'll flick this eim on there and then it will last for 7 days and we are also going to Lisbon on this crws yeah and the the beautiful thing about it is I can knock off the phone plan because the eim becomes a second choice just select that you're not looking to buy a SIM card you're not going to get ripped off by SIM card sellers and S is very competitive in price we've never done this before but it was easy yes so we just download the app to the smartphone y we bought the SIM card online because there isn't a SIM card it's electronic um they downloaded it to my phone and we're good to go yeah it's fantastic isn't it and we literally did that the the day we were actually boarding didn't we and we we would like to say thanks to s for sponsoring our video today very much indeed so we got on the ship pretty quickly tin it was was very smooth very slick wasn't it and uh they have this new thing called medallions so you don't have the old-fashioned keys so we both got gold medallions which opens the door and basically anything you want to do on the ship you do with your medallion so they have an app uh for your smartphone and you're really encouraged to check in before you leave home yeah so we did all that we answered all the questions so we were preed to board we didn't have to answer any questions at the desk no we just went to this blue line because being Canadians being last minute people booking the trip um they wouldn't send the medallions to us whereas if you're in the US they would yeah so we went up to the counter there was hardly anybody there lady took our pictures for security and gave us the medallions and we were on board it was great wasn't it we came straight up to our cabin then we went and got some lunch we were very impressed with the cabin weren't we we are yes so we have been on the Regal before as we said and um it's a nice size ship it's not one of the mega ships um we think princess is doing a pretty good job in the cruise industry we've been with Holland America before many many times we did like the demographics of Holland America we likeed the smaller ship sort of 2600 and less passengers but they become expensive yeah I don't know if they're cloring back all their Co losses but princess are really cutting the prices on some of their trips yeah I mean we got a fantastic deal didn't we Norm here now the one thing that they do heavily push or the drinks packages and they've they've bundled those now like most cruise c companies where they're bundling the alcohol package with the crew tips with internet and then just some other fluff like a free piece of cake or something like that but we're not eating cakes are we not one or two special dining uh occasions and we did the numbers yeah because there's two packages one at 69 plus tax and one at 80 something plus ta tax and I don't think my liver kidneys could take the amount of alcohol we would have to drink to break even on what we would be paying so we decided not to go with the package didn't we because Tina worked out that it was going to be like $33,000 for the 16 days that were on this boat just insane wasn't it it was so we've decided if we want to drink we'll just pay as we go along pay as we go yeah the other inside tip um which is really relevant now it's not for us but we're Carnival Cruise land shareholders so they own princess they own Holland America plus Carnival cruise lines you can buy a 100 shares at market value whatever they are and at the moment they're pretty reasonable around $17 as we record this great deal aren't they you apply for a shareholder benefit there's a form that you can get off the internet from their website and on this 16 day trip they gave us how much T $250 as an onboard credit that's US dollar so that's real money so that will buyers quite a few drinks won't it Norm so we did buy Carnival Cruise shares about 5 years ago probably at their Peak at $65 us and they have gone down ever since but still we're getting the onboard credits now so if I was new to it again I would just go out and buy 100 shares at around anywhere between $15 to $18 yeah and then you're going to get these unbo credits and they vary from about $50 up to 2 depending on how many days the cruise is and the category of cabin that you have that's true we got this cuz it's a mini Suite wasn't it so we're traveling with carry on team yes we are and the great thing about princesses that they have laund DRS so as you know and I know somebody who can operate a laundr so we have one on our floor so I will be doing laundry that is the perfect thing carry carry-on luggage you need access to laundry and we have it on the ship which is that's another great advantage of Princess is that they are still having washing machines laundrettes uh on their ships it's great okay so we are not doing the formal dining because we did the carry-on there's no room for Posh clothes no we couldn't get Norm's Dicky bow and jacket and all my fancy dresses in so and we're not Posh clothes people we're more t-shirt people like ACDC in my green shirt so we are going to be just doing the casual dining aren't we yeah and the and and the other advantage of princess that we're finding is that their Buffet is is pretty darn good especially in the evening whereas Holland America and MC were they no and another big highlight to Norm that we should tell everybody about is that we are having breakfast room service and it is wonderful and it's free so we get a huge caraffe of coffee and juice and eggs and whatever you want to we take the menu and ignore all the pre tick things and we write our all the things we want and it's wonderful and so we have breakfast in our cabin in fact the first day we were on board we had breakfast actually out on the balcony it was so warm it was beautiful and that is a big perk of Princess we really enjoying that aren't we we are indeed so yeah they they're not charging you like other cruise lines for that no it's great service has been great and and the cabin has so what type of cabin have we got Jan so we have a mini Suite which means that we have a wonderful bedroom area and we have an additional sitting area with a complete three sofa three seater sofa and an additional armchair and we also have a desk um with a chair and two TVs yes yes so we can watch it either on the sofa or from the bedroom which is a big plus so this is why we chose the mini Suite because had we gone to a balcony there's no sitting area on princess Cruzes on the on the basic balconies so there's nowhere to sit other than the the the one chair the one chair that's at the desk and we didn't really like that did we we've always liked having room service for breakfast so we can relax in the morning we're on vacation we don't want to be rushing anywhere getting in the shower no God knows what time in the morning and talking about showers Norm that's another big plus of the mini Suite is that we actually have a bath with a shower over the bath which means we have the big shower as opposed to people in the balcony who only have the small shower and we hear it's a pretty tight fit to get in the small shower a friend of ours who he quite a big guy um he's taller than me but you know he his greatest fear about being in his cabin which was an inside with a tiny shower was dropping the soap yes there's no room to bend over and you're just banging your elbows whereas in ours it's a full siiz tub yeah yeah it's great isn't it and we get um more fancy soaps and um all the different hand lotions and towels and everything we get everything for princess Tina all all the good designer stuff but you know what Norm people are really thinking that we're probably spending an absolute fortune on this mini Suite so team let's get down and dirty with the numbers so what do we pay for this room so we actually ended up paying oh we we must ask you to keep this a secret don't tell anybody else just between us two well we ended up paying I'm pretty sure it was $350 Canadian dollar each for a mini suite for a mini Suite we were looking at the balcony and that was I'm going to say $200 or $300 less so so so the mini site we got and we do all the time yeah is a guarantee room so we don't know where we're going on the boat so we expected to get the worst possible but what the heck you know we300 bucks what you expect and the price was made out basically the actual price was I think $11.49 plus taxes and I think the taxes was like 170 so that's why I'm saying it's just about 1,350 each and we feel it was an absolute deal for the room that we got so that same friend of mine who's in the uh yeah big in the small showers he he often says when he gets a a really good deal he refers to that Ikea Radford start the engine cuz you got to steal and we we're thrilled aren't we we are it's great we are very excited and at these prices you can overlook a heck of a lot of things if they go wrong yeah so far nothing has gone wrong no we've had it's just all been plain sailing oh it's all been plain sailing so far it's usually me making the jokes I know hey as we're looking here I'm looking at the ocean like going like this nor we actually have our camera stuck on the patio doors facing us on assumtion cup and we're looking the oan now it's beautiful it is really nice yeah and we've been busy enjoying things on the ship we go walking on the Walking deck on Deck 18 up at the top we go to all the different places to eat oh we've been to some fabulous lectures haven't we yeah about wonderful about luxury travel with uh rail uh cruise ships from the past and uh even the uh Zeppelins and what have you we're actually a great presenter he was very good isn't he yeah guy called Rich and we're actually enjoying not having Wi-Fi funny as it seems because you have to do totally different things you read books you do cross we've been reading books yeah yeah you do crosswords you do we spend a lot of time on the internet with our photo business and with YouTube YouTube doing comments and everything we love doing it yeah yeah but we figured for S days we we would have nothing at all until we get to Ponto delard one of the things that princess has done and it's pretty smart to be honest with you is between Florida and Ponto delard in theor there are four four time changes I know and so basically what they've decided to do is to implement a new policy which is changing the time at mid day instead of midnight because they've done a bit of research and they've found that there's less effect of jet lag or tiredness um for people where the time changes at midday so that's what we're doing yeah and actually today we've just had our second time change so at 12: the hour jumped to 1 and we seem to be handling it so far really good don't we we do indeed yeah so we're glad that you came along um we'll just wrap up quickly our travel insurance is valid for 31 days with our credit card yeah we bought that as a standalone policy from our credit card from the Bank of Montreal MasterCard it's not the insurance that comes with the credit card we bought an additional policy they offer above that which is called total travel um total travel and medical prot protection something like that right yeah so that gives us 31 days so there's no cost for our n um medical uh or travel insurance beyond the 325 that we pay annually for that um our flights were $1,500 from princess that included flying Air Canada non-stop Toronto to Fort Lauderdale and and then we will take the return back from London Heathrow to Toronto direct yeah both were direct flights and we're very pleased with that and both Air Canada yes so that was 1500 in flights we're offline economy yeah because you all bullied us about the a transer well we're flying economy because the other one was about 18,000 each so that was a no-brainer we're going economy on this one so thanks for joining us we hope everybody is staying safe and keeping well and until the next time bye-bye bye-bye

Channel: This Is Our Retirement

Views: 30,442

Keywords: retire, retirement, retirement travel, retirees, retirement lifestyle, retirement planning, this is our retirement, retirement fear, norm and tina, norm and tina retirement, transatlantic cruise, princess cruise lines, regal princess cruise ship, regal princess, repositioning cruise, repositioning cruises 2024, carnival shareholder benefit, life on a cruise ship, saily, are we crazy, cruise from usa to europe, cruise from usa to uk

Id: q5dDFp-CXdo

Length: 20min 32sec (1232 seconds)

Published: Sat May 04 2024