Deaf Anthology: Deaf Anthology #54: "Deaf Easycruise"

Joan: "We couldn't afford to go the Freedoms of the Seas cruise last year."
John: "This winter, we'll go on a Caribbean cruise ourselves, I read in USA Today that it's possible to go on a cruise that's affordable, less than $200 for a week for our family."
Joan: "We can see the Regis live taping at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas after the cruise."
John: "I'll make a proposal at the next general meeting of the Bridgeport Deaf Club, Pat supported the idea."
Joan: "We'll take the boys with us."
Jason: "It's the Freedom of the Wallets, world's cheapest Deaf cruise!"
John: "That's a good motto there."
Jeffrey: "I want to swim with the dolphins!"
Joan: "Let's start saving our pennies."
Smokey: "Easycruise haven't post their Caribbean internaries, dates, and prices yet on their website yet, let me give you some guidelines, let's assume that you want to go on a cruise in Greece,first of all you need a passport, no visas required for Greece unless you stay over 30 days, that you can obtain at your local post office, just fill out the application and submit two photos of yourselves, and the required fees, then follow these steps."

1. Go to http://www.easycruise.com/ and select a cruise, I will recommend the 7 days Classical Greece cruise."
2. Select a week.
3. Select a cabin, the cheapest one is $210 for two, so if you go with your friend, you can split the costs to $105 each.
4. There are options, a guide tour is $236.25, which includes Athens, Delphia, Olympia, and the Greek Islands, but there is no interpreter so what are you going to do, unless you were planning a group tour, then an interpreter may accompany you, if you are traveling as a family unit, then pick up a free information from these two Greek websites: http://www.greektourism.com/ or http://www.gnto.gr/ .

5. Next you decide if you want daily housekeeping, if you can keep the room clean yourselves, you save $35.

6. Of course, you are not going to starve all week, there are the meal plans options, are three meals with house wine daily is only $131.25. If you going on that tour, then you don't need lunch which is already included, which is $105.

7. You will need a credit card to book this cruise which is available only on the internet, not through your travel agent.

8. You will want to stay the night before and after your tour in Athens, go to http://www.priceline.com/ and see if you can save 50% with a hotel as low as $30, just hope that the hotel have free breakfast and airport transfer.

9. What about airfare, it is possible to get a roundtrip fare for only $1 on http://www.skyauction.com/ but read the fine print, it doesn't include surchages and taxes.

10. Check out http://www.grayline.com/ if you want a city tour of Athens, maybe they'll pick you up and drop you off at your hotel.

11. When the best time to go, whenever you have the time and the money, I will like to point out that the Deaflmpics is in Athens the summer of 2013.

12. You may want to also check out http://www.sath.org/ as it provide information on accessiblity within the travel agent.

13. If you want to rent a car, check out http://www.autoeurope.com/ .

14. Good idea to have an International Driver's Permit (IDP), that you may obtain from your local AAA office, or go to http://www.aaa.org/ for more information, they have maps and tour guides available, too.

15. Check out http://www.wfdeaf.org/ to perhaps schedule your cruise around any major Deaf events happening at that time. I think that's enough tips for now, if you are a seasoned traveler, you shouldn't have any problems, however I would recommend that you contact a Deaf travel agent for advices if you never been abroad before. I guess I covered all the bases.

One last thing, I wouldn't risk my life bungee jumping off the bridge as you saw in the video above, Deaf Anthology not liable if the rope snapped."

Revised (4/16/08)