It Was All Romantic-Like...Well, Until the Death and Tragedy Part

We are planning a trip for our upcoming 15-year anniversary in January. My inlaws have graciously agreed to keep the kiddos the week after Thanksgiving so that's when we are going to take our trip. Because it is in the dead of winter, our choices for a pleasant temperature locale are somewhat limited. Yes, we can do the whole snowbound thing somewhere but we were thinking more warm weather...so a cruise was something we've been researching.

Researching cruises is just about the most hair-pulling-out thing I have ever undertaken. There are the cruise line websites, then every discount cruise website known to man. Cheapcruises, Discountcruises, Romance at Sea, Sail 'n Rail, Luxury or barefoot, blah blah blah blah blah. (Yes, I understand that using "blah" repeatedly in a sentence would make my college english professor's skin crawl but sometimes you just gotta. Anyhoo...where was I?)

So, we found a ship we really like. It's a Holland America ship called the Eurodam-- and yes, I feel like I'm cursing every time I say it. But the rooms. Which kind of room do we want? There are as many types of rooms as there are types of cruises and Keith was outlining them all to me via Instant Messenger. It went something like this: " what do you think about the Superior vs. the Deluxe room. One is....<> and the other is.... knowing full well unless you tell me it's the size of a football field I have no idea what 350 sq. ft looks like. NONE.

As I have looked--and some of you cruise veterans out there may have a strong opinion about this--I just don't see the value in paying the Average Per Capita Income per Family in some U.S. States to have a balcony on a cruise ship. The entire ship IS a balcony...there is so much to do onboard, I doubt we will be spending much time on a balcony when we could stand anywhere on the boat and look out at the water.

I'm just sayin.

So, now to the romance part. When Keith got home from work today he said, "you know you are right about the whole room type thing."

I said, "I am? Why is that?" Of course, I was thinking he would make some reference about why we wouldn't have much TIME to spend out on a balcony (wink, wink) or...that we would be so busy standing on the bow like Leo and Kate that we wouldn't miss it. Oh no. No, no, no.

"Because," he said, "the first class passengers on the Titanic were still just as dead as the third class passengers."

It just doesn't get more romantic than that, folks.