I took a cruise during the pandemic! Part 2

 Part 2 - Research and planning the cruise and flights

A few years ago, I was helping some clients plan their honeymoon.  Once they'd decided on a Mediterranean Cruise to Italy and Greece, the fun began.  I was looking at the various ports and sending information on tours both through the ship and third party vendors.  While helping them plan, I became interested in seeing Santorini!  I suppose it was the blue roofs on the bright, white churches that caught this amateur photographer's eye.

The more they planned and I looked at options, the more my interest grew in getting to Greece "someday".  It was added to the bucket list along with many other places that I want to see.  I didn't give much thought to WHEN I'D get there, but I knew I would.  Little did I know, "someday" would be here in 2021.

Flash forward to the restart of cruising.  Sure, getting from the USA to ANY foreign country would probably be a challenge but what the heck. YOLO, right?  One afternoon, I randomly looked at pricing for Celebrity Apex sailing from Athens.  I knew that other parts of the world had success with controlling Covid, and I reviewed the current protocols for Greece, and for the cruise.  (At the time I'd sail, there would be no requirement for a Covid test to enter Greece, as long as I was vaccinated, which I am.)  I also learned that the cruise line was requiring guests to be vaccinated, along with testing everyone at the pier before boarding the ship.  Ok, that works.

I researched the pricing, as well as airfares, and found a fabulous rate for both, so I booked.  The airfare though Celebrity was considerably less than if I'd chosen to book with the airlines directly.  Sure there are pluses and minuses to booking cruise air but the savings was significant.  To get the best deal, I'd fly out of JFK and back to EWR.  (Crazy, yes.  Doable, sure with planning.  Pain in the rear factor?  I'd say 5 out of 10.  It was not as bad as I expected.)  I'd be flying in economy (oh, the humanity) but at least I'd selected nice bulkhead seats.

Photo by Element5 Digital from Pexels

The cruise and air were booked before the day was out and I did a happy dance that I'd be cruising again in about 8 weeks.  (Booked in June for an August 7th departure. Generally I book a lot farther in advance.)

Once that was set up, the research about hotels, transfers, tours and the like ensued.  Oh, and the teeny tiny issue of getting TO JFK and back home from EWR.  THAT actually wound up being less of a stumbling block than anticipated.

Living in Central New Jersey, I'm essentially an hour from both PHL and EWR, with JFK taking a bit longer, mainly due to traffic.  Parking at JFK or an offsite lot was ridiculously expensive.  Hotel park & fly rates were sky high, and public transit, while quick and cheap, was out of the question for this compulsive over packer.  (Yes, I used to manage a luggage store, yes I dispensed free packing advice and wrote articles about the subject.  NO, I do NOT take 100% of my own packing advice.  I've gotten better, but still...)

Car service from home to JFK would eat up all the savings.  So, I looked at car service prices from Manhattan. BOOM!  VERY reasonable, actually about the same as a taxi. (In the $50-60 range give or take).  I also found a nice hotel and could use points rather than high NYC prices.  Sign me up!  Kimpton Hotel Muse and Carmel Limo, here I come.  (I'll review those in subsequent posts!)  Got a FABULOUS fare on Amtrak from Trenton to NY Penn Station, in business class even, so I snagged that too.  

The particulars of getting from the USA to Greece and back having been set, next up was to figure out where to stay in Athens, how to get to and from the pier and airport and what to do!