For my 25th wedding anniversary I talked my husband into our first cruise. Money was not an object at the time but time was at a premium. (Isn't that always the way it is, plenty of time but no money or plenty of money but no time - self employed people, I'm sure you understand)
Anyway, we went on a cruise from New Orleans to Cozumel. Little did I know that my planning for the trip to coincide with the exact dates of our anniversary, June 16, also coincided with hurricane season in the Gulf.
Needless to say we were sea sick the whole time. I even have pictures of our suite with water leaking under the stateroom door from the balcony.
So when I brought up the idea of a European Cruise for our 30th anniversary to my husband there was a rather negative response. OK, basically he just said "no way".
So I approached my mom. She was in her late 70's at the time but still ready willing and able to travel. But not on a cruise. Her point was that she didn't think she'd be able to walk enough to enjoy the ports of call and cruises aren't really her thing either.
Now I'm not crazy about cruises, myself, but I've always wanted to go to Europe and I figured having your room and food prepaid plus getting to see more than one place in Europe would fill the bill for me, irreguardless of my lean toward motion sickness.
Suggestions were made to me to take a "friend" but I figured this might be a once in a lifetime trip with the condition the world is in since 9/11 and there was no way I was going to gaze upon the beauty of the cities of Europe without a really close loved one next to me to share it with.
So when a friend who has taken several European cruises came to me with information about a pretty good deal I started my campaign to win over Mom or my husband Ed to the idea of traveling with me.
I read them all the info and showed them all the books. I took them to a presentation from the travel agency and went online to find things they would enjoy doing both on and off the ship.
I became so bothersome that my mother told me that if I would just quit bugging her about it that she'd pay for 1/2 the cruise as a 30th anniversary present to my husband and I. "Now go bug your husband."
So, with the trip even more affordable all I had to do was convince my husband, Ed, to go. How'd I do that? How does someone convince a confirmed non cruise to take a cruise? - more tomorrow.
