Santorini, Greece

After a few more bumps in the night where we lost some items to the floor (TV controller, dang mini bottles from the mini bar that still hadn't been traded out), the waters calmed early in the morning. Whew.

The ship was a bit delayed arriving in Santorini, but by 10:30 the arrival announcement was made. Santorini is actually formed from a volcano. The ship stays out in the caldera and passengers are tendered back and forth to shore. Typically you would find a ship anchoring when offshore, but the water is so deep an anchor would be of no use so the ship drifts and uses the thrusters to somewhat stay put. (At least that's what our guide told us.)

If you were doing your own thing in Santorini, you went to a different dock than those on ship excursions. On-your-own people were dropped off at the bottom of the city of Fira. There are three ways to get out of the port area: walking, donkey, or cable car. Take a look at this switchback walkway - you have to make your way up all those stairs to make it from the sea to the city up above. Oh, my.

Can you imagine walking up (and then down) all that way?

For those on ship excursions, we wound up at another dock, the only one accessible by bus. Still, we found ourselves with a not-so-direct route out of the port.

Lots of switchbacks to get out of the port

My tour was an island drive. Boy, did we drive. Unfortunately, it was a soon-to-be stormy day with rain and thunder and lightning. We made several stops for photo opportunities, but some of those had such hard downpours it wasn't worth stepping outside. You'll find some of my photos are taken from inside a bus with raindrop-filled windows.

You can tell a storm is brewing.

Looks like snow, doesn't it? Nope, those are houses.

No pretty blue waters today

Windmills can be found around the island.

Someone is selling land, I think. I don't know as it's Greek to me!

It was a bit of a bust of a day. From what I hear, the colors are just spectacular on a sunny day. I'm glad I went, but not sure I'd do it again. With our bumpy last couple days on the ship, a bumpy tender ride over the island, a drive with a couple hours of switchbacks and curves, and another really bumpy tender ride back, my head is spinning. While I haven't been sick to my stomach so far this entire trip, my head is not happy right now. And although the ship is somewhat stationary at the moment, trying to concentrate on the words on the screen is a bit tough so I'll be cutting it short tonight. 

Tomorrow we have Rhodes, Greece. With a clearer head, I hope.

Sapphire Princess Surprise Sea Day

I was excited to see our new Patter for the day. We were supposed to be in Sicily, but we couldn’t dock because of weather. Presto-chango, sea day! We had two different destination presentations, one on Aqaba and one on the Suez Canal. There were other new things we haven’t seen before on a Princess ship, like a sign language class and a lip sync contest. That gave me four things to find my way to today. But with our morning starting at 3 AM, I got to absolutely none of them. It still wound up being a full day.

This morning E and I both decided we couldn’t take it anymore. The cabin has been so doggone noisy since day one. Not noisy as in passengers nearby or creaks and groans, but noisy as in airplane engine noisy. It didn’t matter if we were docked or at sea, day or night, there was this rumbling roar all throughout the cabin. A rumbling roar that had not once let up since we stepped aboard. Makes it almost impossible to sleep, hard to have a conversation, and required us to turn the TV volume way, way up to hear it over the noise. So at 3 AM we were sleep-deprived enough for E to head down to the Piazza for some quiet relief and me to head to the Passenger Services Desk.

Thankfully, the night manager was on duty and accompanied me back to the cabin. She could tell right away the noise was a problem and went off to find where it was coming from. I headed down to the Piazza with E in the meantime. She came down later to let us know she couldn’t find where the problem was, but had a temporary solution. While there wasn’t another cabin in our category to move us to, there was an obstructed oceanview she could temporarily move us to for the rest of the night. I was about to pass, but E was so ready for some sleep we took it. We were issued one blue cabin key to share. (It has been a while since we’ve had a blue cruise card in our hands.) Off we went back to our old room to pick up a few things we needed (pjs, medicine, bottles of water) and headed to our new cabin. Oh my, what a difference. By 4:15 AM we had tucked ourselves into the twin beds in the new cabin and thus began a peaceful sleep.

Until the phone rang in the morning, letting us know they were able to work some magic and if we wanted we could have the cabin for the rest of the voyage. Yes, please! We just needed to let them know when we were ready to move cabins and they’d send someone up. They also let us know we could keep sleeping, if we’d like. Yes, please!

Then we had the cabin steward coming in to service the cabin but was kind enough to let us sleep some more. Yay!

Then was the Captain’s noontime announcement (was it really noon already?) where he spent some time honoring Remembrance Day. The ship had a ceremony yesterday, but many passengers (us included) were off the ship. We’ve been on many ships during Remembrance Day before but this is the first time we’ve had the Captain acknowledge it in a lengthy presentation for all to hear. I’m guessing it has to do with the part of the world the ship is in right now.

The rest of the day involved:
*Learning how to walk on a ship while encountering 70 knot winds. Yep, the 50 knot winds we heard we might encounter actually turned into 70 knot winds. This ship is moving. Not only did I need to work on my balance, I had to help E work on his balance, and dodge all the other passengers trying to work on their balance. All the while trying to make my way to deck 5 to deck 8 to deck 10 and back to deck 8 to deck 6 and back to deck 5 to deck 14 and back to deck 8 back to deck 6 and back to deck 14 and back to deck 8. (I think that was my path for the day.) I don’t know how many steps I had, but it was a lot. For every step I should have taken I probably took an extra one or two is just trying to keep my balance. It took the entire day to:
*Pack up the old cabin and move to the new cabin and re-unpack everything.
*Go back to the Passenger Services desk to get new cabin cards. No sharing a blue temporary one anymore.
*Call room service for the umpteenth time to try and get the mini bar switched out. I don’t know what their delay is but we still haven’t gotten the new one. Thank goodness I had pre-ordered water or we’d really be in a world of hurt for in-cabin beverages. There also appears to be a glitch in the room service phone system. You are put on hold for one minute and when the 60 seconds is up, you are disconnected. So unless someone on their end picks up the phone within the minute you have to hang up and call again. And again. And again. And again.
*Read up on excursions for tomorrow. It was supposed to be a sea day, but since we missed today’s port we have a bonus port instead, Santorini. Woo hoo! It’s a tender port and with 25-30 knot winds expected might not be so fun getting to shore but I’m going forth anyway – on my own – for a little tour. The new excursions weren’t loaded into the system online so I had to make a trek down to the shore excursions desk to get my ticket.
*Go back to Passenger Services desk to turn in our passports. We knew they would need to go to the cabin steward this morning, but our new guy didn’t want them because we hadn’t officially changed cabins yet and our old cabin steward hadn’t even been told we were leaving his section.
*Make another trip down in International Café so E could get some soup in his system. There is where I tried to take a picture of the huge waves out the window but all we could see was sea spray hitting the windows hard. There were a couple times I did see waves towering over the windows, a sight I don’t believe I’ve ever seen before. That would have been an impressive picture.
*Trips to the buffet for green apples and bread for E and then a late lunch for me.
*Cancel our reservations for the specialty dining tonight. There is no way I can get E to get out of bed when the ship is rocking and rolling like it is.
*Sleep, sleep, sleep.

It has been a busy, bumpy, and sometimes relaxing day. We’ve got thunderstorms and lightning throughout the sky again tonight so still no bridge cam TV overnight. Another alarm day it’ll have to be.

Crossing my fingers for smoother sailing, calmer winds, and a great day in Santorini tomorrow.

Naples, Italy

Hello from Napoli!

I was hoping to be up early to get good pictures as we arrived in Napoli (Naples). We’re in an inside cabin this time around, so we turned the TV on to the webcam station last night so I could be awaken by daylight instead of an alarm. It worked great up until the time it didn't. We had thunderstorms throughout the night so the TV kept flashing white, making me think someone was turning on the light. Good thing hubby was snoring or I probably would have been blaming him for it. After a couple hours of being startled awake, the TV had to go off. Which should have meant I set an alarm. But I didn't so we slept. And slept. And slept.

We knew we didn't have to be anywhere until later in the day, anyway. With hubby’s stamina being the number one thing on my mind these days, I made sure today’s tour was an afternoon one so he had plenty of time for morning rest. We usually don’t take Princess tours but this cruise we are. 

Boy, we have a lot of sightseeing to do this month.

Being in a big group of cruise ship passengers in a confined space isn’t exactly our idea of fun. But Princess tour options typically pick up and drop off closer to the ship and keep pretty close to scheduled times, both things we need in order to keep him (hubby E) comfortable. I can’t wear the man out – there are still too many places around the world I want to see!

It wound up being a great tour. We saw a lot and I took a ton of pictures that I'll add later. Here's just a taste.

The ship docks in town. Next time we'll wander on our own instead.

Gelato for me and espresso for hubby. In Italy. Oh, yeah!

While we didn't get a chance to have pizza in Naples today, we still have a chance in Sicily tomorrow. will go to Alfredo's tonight instead. The Captain just announced tomorrow's port will be closed because of bad weather and we'll have a sea day instead. He tells us it'll be a bumpy one with the 50 knot winds. Hope it's not too bumpy by evening as it's formal night (just think about that champagne glass tower!) and we have dinner in the steakhouse tomorrow night  - in the back of the ship. It could get interesting.

Sapphire Princess Embarkation Day

This may sound really weird, but the night before a cruise I don't get nearly as excited as I used to. I kind of equate it to going to the movies. Sure, you're happy you are going to see a movie, but you've been to the same movie theater before, had to drive through the same traffic to get there, and probably parked in the same area of the parking lot. Even if you go to a different theater, you know the concession stand will be after the ticket booth but before the actual theater. Once inside you might find a new spot to sit, but most likely you have your favorite go-to seats.

Cruising is like that for us. We use the same taxi company to get to the airport, usually fly the same couple of airlines to some of the same embarkation ports, and get on ships we've been on before. 

Ships with:
a layout like the others we've been on before.

the same kinds of food we've had before.

the same type of entertainment we've had before.

cabins we've had before.

some of the same crew we've cruised with before.

the same ports we've been to before with the same sights as before.

Which is probably why this particular cruise DOES have me more excited than usual. While we've left from Civitavecchia before (last year) and cruised on the Sapphire Princess before (several years ago), the ports are new. Every single one of them. Which makes the tours we're taking new to us, the sites new to us, and the adventure new to us. After having spent two months this year on the Royal Princess going to the same places we had already been dozens of times (Alaska and Mexico) I'm happy to say I think new is going to be a good thing for us. (Now hubby won't agree. He would rather be sitting in his rocking chair with the TV controller in his hand than be on any cruise or on any trip anywhere. But I know what's good for him, and this will be good for him. Trust me.)

As part of our new things, we did get a walk in after breakfast. A hill was involved and one of us worked up a sweat. Oh yeah, and got a peek at our ship. We're on the right and the Sky Princess is on the left. 

But as you would expect, our day didn't end there. We enjoyed just a bit of time on our little patio off our room...

 Before heading to port and boarding this beauty...

and seeing this behemoth ship docked across from us. Now little Miss Sky Princess doesn't look all that large in this picture, but believe me, she is. When we were in the shuttle to the port we could tell the difference between the two ships. Ours looks like a little baby compared to her. I'm hoping once one of us starts pulling away we will pass a bit closer for a better look.

We were able to board the Sapphire immediately, but cabins weren't quite ready. No worries for us. We'll just say hello to our home for the next 27 days. 

Can you tell we like hanging at the back of the ship on embarkation day?

I'm not sure of our plans for the rest of the day. A nap before muster drill perhaps? 

See you tomorrow in Naples!

A Relaxing Day in Italy

No fewer than three times during the middle of the night last night did I sit up in bed and say in a loud voice. Ow, ow, ow! First it was the left calf. Later on it was the right calf. And if those two body parts weren't enough, the left foot got into the action even later in the night. Dang it hurt and I was so tired and discombobulated in the night I couldn't even forms words as to what I had going on. I had to look it up to remember - they were Charley Horses. It has been a good many years since I've had one (and never three in one night) but I'm guessing the 24 hours of traveling had something to do with it. So Dr. Deb prescribed herself lots of glasses of water, a banana for additional potassium, ankle pump exercises to increase circulation, and feet above her heart today.

As today was already a planned relaxation day it was an easy prescription to follow. The hotel we are staying in has a free breakfast so we started our morning by taking our 13 steps to the restaurant. I always find free hotel breakfasts fascinating. Not because they are free, but because the variety of foods we find depends on the part of the world we are in. Today's was heavy on the sweets.

I love seeing the oranges with their stems still attached.

I'm a mostly-protein gal so I had just a couple options.

I'm also a gal who likes to taste a little bit of several things but not too much of one thing (if that makes sense) so I was careful not to overdo it with all the choices available. 

In my choices I found something unbelievable tasty. Something I've never had before; something I've never seen before. It has probably been around the US for a while but since I don't do many carbs I wouldn't know it if it was. This chocolate covered mini Belgium waffle thingy was one of the best things I've eaten in a very long time. It was like an old fashioned doughnut batter made into a mini Belgium waffle shape with a chocolate coating. Oh. My. Gosh.

I also discovered this salami and an oh-so-flavorful roll for breakfast. Another oh my gosh moment.

Hubby and I talked about taking the couple blocks walk down to the water after breakfast, but it was pretty chilly and windy outside so we hiked our 13 steps back to the room until things warmed up some.

Which is where my I don't care day started. I think it was the combination of being carbo-loaded and hubby deciding to watch Italian TV in the room. The Italian TV channels were fun to watch, but then he found a sports channel he stuck with. I decided the sports channel watching was a good time to close my eyes for a tiny bit.

And I soundly went to sleep.

The next thing I knew, there was a knock on the door from housekeeping, coming to clean the room. Hubby grabbed the door, I thought in my mind I don't care about the room being cleaned and without even thinking about it, went right back to sleep.

Later on, a thunder clap woke me up. We had left the patio door open so it was loud. But I thought I don't care. And went right back to sleep.

Then we had the big birthday party we heard in the restaurant. Singing Happy Birthday in Italian. It woke me up, I thought how nice, then I don't care, and went back to sleep.

So there went the day. We both got plenty of rest, skipped lunch (the restaurant here isn't open anyway, but I did have my banana to add potassium into my system), drank plenty of water, and never made it down to the ocean. Even the walk became an I don't care. Heck, we're going to be on a cruise ship for 27 days so we'll see plenty of water.

At precisely 7 pm we headed to the restaurant for dinner. Another I don't care happened there, too. Just like last night, cruise passengers were having a pissing contest talking loudly from across the room about who is more important and how many cruises they've been on and blah, blah, blah. (If you cruise a lot you know the kind of people I'm talking about.) We had more of those loud folks in the restaurant tonight, too. But not long into the meal a large family of locals showed up for dinner. About 20 people in all, speaking Italian and having a grand time. It was fun listening to their conversations and enthusiasm even though I could hardly understand a word they were saying. Much better than having to care about being distracted by the annoyingly loud braggart cruise passengers.

I had no idea what the locals were saying, just like I don't know exactly what this Coke was trying to tell me.

Delicious homemade pizza in Italy? Oh yeah!

It wound up raining most of the day and into the evening. And guess what? I don't care. I'm in Italy having a great, grand, magnificent relaxing and mind, body, and soul boosting day.

Tomorrow we're joining the Sapphire Princess. The big, beautiful brand new Sky Princess will be here in port with us, too. I hope to get a good look at her as well. (From the outside only, of course).

I'll work on keeping Charley and his Horses in the barn tonight and will see you back here tomorrow!

Civitavecchia, Italy it is!

When we stripped down to our underwear and climbed into bed at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon in Italy we fist bumped and high fived each other.

I guess that sounds like it’s about to get a bit naughty. I better back up and start from the beginning.

Yesterday and today were going to be big days for us. And they were. A big 24 hours, really. While I'd like to say everything was absolutely perfect, if you travel a lot you know travel days are not without bumps. The bumps we encountered over the last couple days made us realize The Universe really is working in our favor.

It started with our taxi driver arriving early to pick us up.
Which led to an early arrival at the Boise airport.
That gave me additional time for the I'm going to reach around the inside of your waistband and the spread your legs wider so I can feel the inside of your upper thighs pat down I get every time at the airport.
Which allowed us enough time at the gate to check and recheck to see if any of our Lufthansa flights were cancelled. (They weren't.)

We also had plenty of time in the Denver airport as the Lufthansa systems were down. No printed boarding passes, no new seat assignments, and no passenger manifest. Thank goodness we had our boarding passes printed in Boise! Every passenger had to be checked in manually and physically checked off a list before boarding. Whew, it took a long time.

Since we had a 9+ hour flight ahead of us, we were able to make up time in the air.

Vickie, at one point Cape Breton popped up on the map and I thought of you.

We had time for a dinner and breakfast onboard. Hubby loved the BBQ beef, polenta, and green beans for dinner. We only had the fruit and half a roll at breakfast and by the looks of the eggs you can probably see why.

 

Before breakfast we saw a beautiful sunrise over Ireland from the camera on the tail of the plane. We had three different views we could look at from the monitors on the back of the seats. 

Good morning, Ireland!

Looking forward

Looking straight on down

A screen that actually wound up again, like last year's Air Alitalia flight, about six inches from my face. Today (well, really today and yesterday) it was due to the lady in front of me who reclined all the way throughout the entire flight. Even when she was up walking the cabin and standing up and using the restroom multiple times and reading, and well, you get the picture. 

Before we arrived in Munich, announcements were made about multiple cancelled Lufthansa flights. We listened carefully (first in German and then in English) and didn't hear our Munich to Rome flight on the list. We doubled checked again upon landing and we were good! But not so good for all these other people. I took a shot of one of the screens, but there were several screens full of multiple cancelled flights. This photo shows the cancellations for just 35 minutes of the day.

In total Lufthansa cancelled 600 flights today because of a strike, with most of them coming in and out of their hubs in Munich and Frankfurt. All those cancelled flights left us in a very quiet terminal in Munich. I headed down one way to see the gates. Empty.

When we boarded our plane, I looked the other way. Empty there too, but for one lone plane. (And ours, of course.)

If you wanted a seat at a restaurant in the terminal in Munich today would have been your day. Shops had no lines, either. But the biggest bonus came for hubby for two reasons.

1. The mobility assistance services provided at the Munich airport, according to hubby, were the best he's ever experienced. Ever. At anywhere in the world, including the US. (Actually, the services provided disabled people in airports in the US are among the worst we've encountered.)

2. Every person who dealt with us pronounced our last name correctly. It's Pfeifer, pronounced like "Fifer". It's a German name and most people everywhere else butcher the name. But we're in Germany and they know how to pronounce it!

Goodbye, Germany. Wish we could have stayed longer.

Finally a small bit of blue sky

Hello, Italy!

When we arrived at the Rome airport, we already knew our plans would be different from last year's. Last year we grabbed a bus and headed to a hotel in Rome for a couple days of sightseeing. This year we knew we had to preserve hubby's stamina so we are staying in a hotel near the port. They were able to arrange transportation from the airport to the hotel, even. Although again this year, we thought we were on the Autobahn with the speed the driver went. I couldn't see the speedometer from where I was sitting but I'm certain we were doing over 90 MPH. I tried taking pictures out the window and nothing showed up on the camera but blur.

With one exception. 

A rainbow.

It was magnificent - wide and full and brightly colored. And a double rainbow even started to form. The pictures taken through a shuttle window while zipping down the Italian Autobahn certainly don't do it justice.

We arrived at our hotel after 24 hours of travel with absolutely no sleep on any of our three flights (full disclosure - hubby did nod off a couple times in the front seat of the shuttle going 90 MPH) so we were exhausted.

And excited. We made it! We stripped off our clothes down to our underwear and climbed into our hard double sized bed and couldn't have been happier. (Hence, the fist bump and high five.)

You can tell by the sharp corners on the mattress how hard it is. No softness here.

Hanky panky? Nope, nappy nappy.  A few hours of sleep had us ready for dinner at the hotel. I counted the steps from our door to the restaurant doorway. 13 steps. With a day like today, I think 13 might just be a lucky number for us.

Tomorrow we have no plans but to just relax and recharge. 

Ever try and work on a blog in Italian? Good thing I know my way around my blog!

It may be 2:45 in the afternoon at home but it's 10:45 in the evening here in Italy, so buona notte!

Around the World in 31 Days?

So yeah, we're really doing this.

The air portion of our voyage begins tomorrow. 

Wish us luck on that one, though. We are flying into and out of Munich, Germany on Lufthansa Airlines. On the same two days the Lufthansa flight attendants are going on strike. 1,300 flights have already been canceled so I'm crossing my fingers ours doesn't wind up popping up on the list.

Then the sea portion of the voyage begins on Sunday. And boy, it's a long one at 27 days.

By the time we're done we will have circumnavigated the globe by air, sea, and land.

It's going to be a trip of firsts and of lasts, so stay tuned...