That sure was a fun trip!!

For Tom's birthday (April 28) I surprised him and put together a fun vacation for us. We'll be on HAL Noordam in a Deluxe Verandah suite (501 sq. ft) for 14 days from FLL to Rome. We board April 28-disembark on May 14, will spend 1 week in Rome, then fly to NYC for 5 nights. I had everything in place and surprised him as an early birthday gift. He is thrilled!

BTW, I have return flights booked from LAX-Fll; Rome to JFK; JFK to LAX...ALL BUSINESS CLASS using combo of BA and AA flights (partner airlines) and booked it ALL using the BA miles we got when we got the BA Chase credit card promotion (we each got our own card but combined into 1 family account) 85,000 f.f. miles each and we NEVER once set foot on a BA flight. We still have over 250k f.f. miles left for a future trip. This was the BEST cc promotion ever !!

We cruised on HAL once before and enjoyed it very much...not Regent but neither is the price :) and with our suite we do get free laundry & dry cleaning which is nice. The timing and price worked best for us. Good that we also get the $300. SBC through AmEx Platinum too.