Reader TTS

"I want to get out on the open sea! Birmingham is nice, but I'm tired of looking at four walls,” Starr says. “I keep telling my husband that the first thing I'm going to do

when I board a ship is kiss the ground. I won't because that would look really tacky, but I will just be so happy." The couple are counting the days until January, when they’re

booked on a 120-day world cruise with Regent Seven Seas Cruises, sailing out of San Francisco. Still, they’re so antsy to return to sea that they’ve booked a pair of cruises in the interim:

a seven-day cruise in the Bahamas in July with Crystal Cruises and a 27-day Regent cruise in November from Greece to Miami. "I'M FULLY VACCINATED" Nina Yablok and her husband

renewed their vows on a cruise along the California coast in 2015. Courtesy Nina Yablok "I'm not apprehensive about our cruise at all,” says Nina Yablok, 73, of Nemo, Texas.

“I'm vaccinated, and so will everyone else be on the ship. If I do get COVID, it won't be a bad case,” she says. “I choose not to let fear run my life." Yablok and her

husband, who have taken 17 cruises since 2005, will also be aboard a Crystal cruise in the Bahamas this summer, which she booked within minutes of it going on sale at midnight on March 16.

Yablok wouldn’t normally be up at that late hour, but she is chomping at the bit to get back out on the ocean and couldn’t wait to secure a cabin. “I’m so ready for this!” she exclaims. “I’m

really psyched to sail again.” How psyched? She’s already started packing; she’s already craving her favorite Crystal dessert, a sweet soufflé called Salzburger nockerl; and she’s already

planned the stop in Bimini, where she hopes a lot of people get off the ship. She’ll stay on board with her husband and park herself in a lounge chair on the Lido Deck. “I’ll flop down with

my Kindle, which will be loaded with tons of mindless cozy mysteries, and then not a read a word. I’ll people-watch,” she says. SHIPS’ SAFETY PROTOCOLS ARE REASSURING “All the cruise lines

are taking every precaution and are doing their utmost to keep everyone safe,” says Craig Savela, an avid cruiser from San Antonio. He and his wife, Sheryl, both in their early 70s, have

taken 45 cruises since 2010 and have several more booked, including a Rhine River cruise with AmaWaterways in August and a Mexico cruise out of Galveston, Texas, with Royal Caribbean

International, in November. And they’re already booked on a Caribbean cruise for next spring, a transatlantic voyage to Spain, and a Greek Isles cruise that will then sail to Dubai and on to

Cape Town, South Africa. “We realize COVID is a potentially devastating virus,” Savela says, “but we’ve been on so many cruises and have never had a problem. And now, with a tremendous

amount of people getting vaccinated, and the fact we’re pretty healthy, we don’t really see a big problem with this thing.” “We’ve lived good lives and we’re just not going to live in fear,”

Sheryl Savela adds.