Welcome back to #TravelThursday. A couple of days ago I observed exactly 2 months in my beautiful new dream home in my dream neighborhood in my dream part of Florida. I closed on it (officially became the owner) on March 16TH, and I actually purchased it on February 16TH, so that marks 3 months since I first walked-in to my new home and almost immediately decided that it would be mine.
But this week’s edition is not about that. It’s about a cruise that I took with my parents exactly 19 years ago this week. It was a 5-nighter out of #JAXPORT (Jacksonville Florida). (My parents lived in the area at the time.)
Over the course of 32 years (1991-2023) it was my only cruise out of Jacksonville. It was on an old Carnival cruise ship – the Jubilee – that was in-service from 1986 to 2004. In fact she was sold to an Australian cruise company just 3 months after our sailing.
I don’t remember much of anything from that cruise, and I have no photos of it – mostly because I didn’t take photos back then before the smart phone era. I don’t even remember the ports-of-call. Maybe Nassau ?
It was 1 of just 3 cruises that I went on with my parents. It was the middle cruise. (The first one was 13 years earlier when we all went on our very first cruise ever. I instantly fell in love with the idea of cruising, and I continued on with 23 more cruises after that first one in 1991.)
I’ve been telling friends recently that I probably won’t be booking any further cruises at this time. This past January I was on the newest, biggest, and best that Carnival has to offer – their brand-new Carnival Celebration – and I documented it for 6 weeks in a row here on #TravelThursday. It was perhaps a perfect ending to my cruising experience. Now that I have 2 homes and a 30-year mortgage on my new home – I’m on a budget now. I’ve declared a spending freeze of sorts. I need to figure out how to live my life with less than half the money I make today once I retire at the end of the year.
As for travel opportunities I really want to explore more of Central and North Florida – and into Georgia and Alabama – and the Carolinas – on a series of road-trips. I’ve conquered the sea, and now I wish to explore the land. I want to visit with some good friends along the way.
Next #TravelThursday I’m not driving – I’m walking. Let’s keep traveling together.
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