2 Cruises this year!!

All my holidays are already booked up with the van Reenen’s going on 2 cruises this summer. When we heard that Independence of the Seas was having a refit, we decided to take our daughters on the ship that my wife and I did our very first taster cruise on in 2009.  So we booked an 8-night cruise from Southampton to the Norwegian Fjords. One thing I have learnt since moving to the U.K. is that if you snooze you lose especially during the school holidays.

During the ship’s dry dock in April 2018, Independence of the Seas will receive several adrenaline-pumping features including a trampoline park, water slides, escape room and laser tag. Though no specific details were unveiled, Royal Caribbean has slowly been rolling its Perfect Storm trio of water slides out to its fleet. (Perfect Storm is composed of the Cyclone, Typhoon and Supercell – a champagne bowl swirling slide.) Let’s hope she is getting the same.

To top it all I was entered into an agent rewards draw after selling a certain amount of Celebrity Cruises and won Celebrity vouchers for a cruise. We as a family have never sailed with Celebrity and this was our chance to experience what is supposed to be a slightly upmarket version of Royal Caribbean. Though sister companies — both Celebrity Cruises and Royal Caribbean International are owned by Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited — Celebrity and Royal Caribbean offer very different cruise experiences. Royal Caribbean has lower-priced entry-level cabins, larger ships, more emphasis on family travel and less emphasis on service, while Celebrity has slightly higher priced entry-level rooms and more emphasis on a refined experience and good service. So we booked a 14-night cruise on Celebrity Silhouette to Iceland and Ireland, two countries we have never been to before.

Celebrity Fleet:

• 12 ships (13 by end of 2018), all but one built in 2000 or later
• Oldest in the fleet: Celebrity Xperience (1982), Celebrity Millennium (2000)
• Smallest: Celebrity Xploration (16 passengers), Celebrity Xperience (48 passengers), Celebrity Xpedition (92 passengers), Celebrity Constellation (2,038 passengers)
• Largest: Celebrity Reflection (3,030 passengers)
• All ships, except Celebrity Xpedition, Xperience and Xploration fit into one of two classes: Millennium or Solstice Class

Royal Fleet:

• 24 ships, seven built before 2000
• Oldest in the fleet: Empress of the Seas (1990), Majesty of the Seas (1992)
• Smallest: Empress of the Seas (1,602 passengers), Grandeur of the Seas (1,992), Rhapsody of the Seas (1,998 passengers)
• Largest: Oasis Class (5,400 to 5,488 passengers) – Oasis of the Seas, Allure of the Seas and Harmony of the Seas

It is going to be interesting to see who in our family is going to prefer which cruise line. You will just have to wait until September for the verdict.