We're going on vacation, but I have a confession to make. It's not a home exchange. Please don't tell anyone. We love swapping homes. Just this week I received three great offers from families with gorgeous homes in great locations.
Right after New Year's my father turns 85. Dad is a mint-on-the-pillow sort of traveler. To celebrate surviving more than 7-twelfths of a century, Dad wants to do the Panama Canal cruise he has always dreamed of.
Our only request was that we use one of the two cruise lines whose child care centers accept two-year olds who are not completely potty trained. That limited our choices to Norwegian Cruiselines or Carnival. Though its "fun" ships have a bad reputation with the more sophisticated cruiser, Carnival recently created two new classes of vessels that are better-appointed than the normal tubs they float.
Though we booked a suite, we will only have about one-tenth the amount of space that we usually enjoy in a swap house. But this vacation will have a distinct advantage over a home exchange, one that makes a big difference to us at this time in our lives: up to 12 hours per day of free child care.
This will be the first time since our son was born in 2004 that the two of us will have hours to ourself during the day with no child care duties. It's an amazing thought. And it's one I'm wondering how to apply to home exchange. I'll share my thoughts on that another time, but no time soon because we won't have internet access on the ship. See you when we return to port!
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