Friday, March 15, 2013

Contingency plans

We have several friends who are cruising for Spring Break this year.  It has been fun to watch and listen to them preparing for their vacations, some for the first time on a ship. The last few days have been filled with panicked Facebook statuses about whether they will get everything packed, and once packed, will they be able to Tetris it into their cars or be under baggage weight restrictions imposed by the airlines? There has been a steady stream of photos of beds full of clothes and foyers full of luggage. But the one thing they all have is the excitement of spending a week at sea. 

Unfortunately, some of our friends have had their Spring Break plans cancelled because of issues with the ship they were to be aboard. What a disappointment for them, after weeks (and even months) of planning, and that leads me to think about what if that happened to us?  It's part of why we buy travel insurance whenever we plan a trip that costs more than we can afford to lose or involves more time off than we typically are allowed from work.  We understand that this could happen, and while we hope that our trip will go off without a hitch, we do think about contingency plans.

In this case, contingency plans will include arranging to still visit Venice and then spending some time in Florence and Paris, places we have wanted to go.  We view cruises as a sampler, giving us a chance to visit cities for a brief time and then decide if we want to go back some day for a longer, land-based visit. While we haven't been to any of these three cities before (minus DH who was in Paris as a teenager), our research for this cruise lead me to believe that several days in each city would be a suitable consolation prize. 

But here's hoping we won't have to do anything different than enjoy the itinerary we already have in place.  Where would you go if your plans changed? Leave us a message in the comments. 

No comments:

Post a Comment