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I have never bought cruise insurance.  I’ll admit that up-front and directly.  Each time I had taken a cruise, the offer came from my travel agent, and in turn I would decline.  Granted, when I first cruised the wider cruising world was not yet as religious about advocating insurance.  Personally, I lumped the products that were on the market into the same category as extended warranties on refrigerators and DVD players.  I came very close to buying the insurance on my last two cruises, both with Royal Caribbean of course.  Yet I still didn’t push myself to spend the extra money to guard against the unexpected.

Looking ahead towards future cruises, assuming my entire family were going with me, I figured I would buy the insurance.  But it was this past week which is prompting me to “get religion” on the topic.  As some who read here already knew, my father was set to take a cruise on Mariner of the Seas over the holidays.  As you’ll appreciate, I reframed from talking much of it for the same reason you wouldn’t want to hang a banner in front of your house to announce you weren’t there.  However as matters unfolded an appearently benign enough health matter developed just prior to the date he and those going with him were due to depart.   Thankfully all appears to be well, but suffice to say it is bad enough to have any cruise canceled on such an account.  To then also lose the money for said cruise would be that much more crushing.

Any talk of travel insurance spurs thought of bad sales pitches and people padding commissions.  Yet having seen it happen to my dad, and considering how such a disaster could stall cruising for a year or more with my own family, it is something I am figuring into my budgets.  To which, I’ll have to research a primer on the subject for 2009.  My advice for now?  Talk to somebody about it, it is worth knowing about, and likley it is worth having.

You can always drop by our message boards and ask about it if you like!

Today’s Stock Price.

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Royal Caribbean International (RCL) secured funding for the last of the Solstice class ships due in 2012.  This is notable because despite credit rating downgrades, a sour economy, it affirms that in the end the company and industry will still be around four years hence.  Indeed, if my nearly constant listening to Bloomberg radio and the general economy is telling me anything, it is that we are seemingly close to the hard bottom of this rut.  Much as there were endless talking-heads on TV saying we were not going to have a recession just four months ago, too many are now saying the current one will last for years.  2009 might not be as grim as some folks might expect.

Today’s RCL stock price:

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I’ll be taking the next couple of days off during the holiday, but will see everybody back here Friday the 26th!

Until then, one last stock quote!

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