Benjamin Smith wrote:

Nice, balanced review. Sorry to hear Eileen was under the weather during
the cruise and the weather was so lousy. Seems you are a bit bored with
some of the sameness of the ships of the lines and I think Carnival
should try a new interior designer for at least some of the areas on a
new class of ship.

Actually, Ben, I am very bored with the sameness of ships and lines. And
I have expressed this on rtc on a number of prior occasions. For me,
cruising never was a matter of r&r. Ennui is something that I've lived
with all my life. For a number of years, cruising was a solution; but
if it starts adding to the problem, it's over.

Any particular reason why you are taking at least 6 months off?

At lest two. 1. Got to tech those classes from Sept. to Mid December.
2. Eileen is really having some physical problems that seem to get worse
with each new cruise.

And,
when you resume cruising will it be on the usual lines or something new
for you?

I really don't know. Assuming that Eileen starts feeling better, we are
always looking for something different in the way of cruising; but there
are restraints. In our case, those retraints are based less on
finances than on what we enjoy and are able to do.

Howie