Eastern Caribbean Cruise 2009

Planning the cruise 

After our first caribban cruise on 2007 we were quite impressed with cruise vacations and what they have to offer, and so not so long after the cruise we already started to talk if we should go again. Slowly we started to plan when should we go next time, and finally we came to an agreement that this should happen April 2009. 

One of the first things was, just as before, to decide what ship/class we will sail. And as we liked the Royal Caribbean, we decided to give them another try. This time we wanted to see the Freedom class ship. And since we already Cruised Western Caribbean itinerary, we decided to take the Eastern Caribbean Cruise this time.

Our ports of call include:

• San Juan, Puerto Rico
• Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
• Philipsburg, St. Maarten
• And of course, Miami, Florida :-)

 This is 7 night Cruise, so we will be at sea for 3 days.

We also agreed that we should stay at Miami a bit longer than before, so we will be at Miami for 5 Nights before the cruise giving us few days longer to explore Miami and just relax.

February 2008 - Reserving the Cruise

After we had seleceted the ship and itinerary, it was time to start reserving. Just as before, we started by reserving the cruise first. We contacted Aimotravel once again, and after few emails we ended up with cruising on 19th April 2009 with Freedom of the seas. This time it will cost about $1400 (about 970 €) / person (Oceanview with Balcony ) and we also have connecting rooms so it will probably make our cabins to feel a bit larger.

August - sebtember 2008 - Reserving Flights

It was time to start looking for a flight. They are a bit more expensive than before (No wonder since the price of oil has gone up meanwhile!) but the bigger problem seems to be finding the right flight times to fit our needs.

Finally at late sebtember we manage to get agreement what airline and route we wanted to use. We choosed British Airways via London, because Virgin Atlantic (what we use'd last time) has changed time tables and they did'nt fit to our flight from Helsinki to London. Price were much higher than last time $ 937 (about 738 €) / pers. If we had waited a little bit more the prices would have been at same level than last time, but Samu's nerves did'nt hold, so he forced us to get tickets too soon.

December 2008 - January 2009 - Reserving hotel

After weeks of investigation hotels in internet (TripAdvisor, hotels.com, bookings.com etc.) we decided to get hotel between 5th - 20th street in Miami Beach. Other specs were, near the beach, SoBe, parking and good reviews from another travellers. So we ended up South Seas Hotel at  1751 Collins ave. We reserved 2 superior rooms from local Finnish travel agent in price $860 (about 680 €) / room for 4 nights.

February 2009 

At the beginning of february we  paid our remaining amount from our cruise - Unfortunetaly the USD-EUR course was much worse (from our point of view!) than at the time of the ahead payment, so the cruise did cost a little more than we had planned at the first place. The remaining amount was about 1187 USD / person (apprx. 936 €).

We also reserved our rental car trough ebookers/Avis for the time before cruise, total 5 days for 215 € ( apprx 263 USD) and for 1 day after cruise for 86 € (105 USD).

Since our returning flight leaves on Monday, we have to stay one night after cruise in Miami. For our one day stay we chose We also reserved hotel for the day after cruise, since (Our returning flight leaves on monday, and cruise ends on Sunday). We ended up reserving rooms at Courtyard by Marriott Miami Beach Oceanfront. 2 rooms cost us total 367 € (apprx. 450 USD)