Today marked the first of 6 straight days with a 6:15am wake up time. Boooo! On the bright side, it was beautiful to watch us sail into Messina while I ate breakfast on Lido.
We arranged a private tour with 8 of our friends from Cruise Critic, and we all met down in the lobby at 7:45 to walk off the ship together. Our guide, Antonio, was waiting outside the port area with our 8-person van (2 people sat up front with Antonio, and there were two 3-person rows behind that). Antonio gave us small bits of information during the drive, but he was not nearly as informative as our guides had been in Athens and Turkey.
We drove for about an hour down the coast to a scenic view point on the water. I think Antonio said this was where the Greeks first settled when they came to Italy.
Notice the black rocks from the volcanic ash…
Our next stop was a park called Gole Alcantara to see the views and waterfalls.
On the same grounds, they set up a little store which offered free samples of olive oil, spreads, wines, and liquors. It was fun to taste all the different flavors, and of course you could also purchase the products if you wished.
Next, we visited an old abandoned church on the countryside.
Behind the church, Antonio lead us on a short walk out to the river and to see another waterfall.
Out in the distance, we saw a little surprise wagging his tail!
We decided to walk a little further to see the cow up close…
On the walk back, we sampled some of the figs and grapes growing on the trees…
Next, we drove to the quaint old town of Castiglione. It was a Sunday morning, so the town was mostly deserted except for a group of about 10 men sitting together outside (Antonio said their wives were all inside cooking!). We walked around the town for a little while, and then headed up the hill to explore an old castle.
The pacing of the day seemed a bit weird to me because that was all we did by 11:30am, but we still had a lot to do on our itinerary. It almost seemed like Antonio was stretching out our stops so we would arrive at the right time for lunch.
We drove up a steep, curvy mountainside road to our next stop, the Gambino Winery.
The winery was very pretty and offered beautiful views. Apparently, they recently renovated their tasting room and just opened it one week before we arrived!
For 20 Euros each, they had a wine tasting with 1 white wine and 3 red wines, and lunch including breads, cheeses, salami, olives, sundried tomatoes, mushrooms, and sausage. The food was served on large platters and they continuously refilled as we needed more. Everything was incredibly delicious and fresh!
Here was the wine list and shipping prices in case anyone wanted to purchase a bottle:
The food and wine were all very tasty, and we stayed at the winery for an hour and a half. Remember how I mentioned my mom’s food allergies? Well they did something very nice to take care of her… When we first arrived, my mom spoke to them about her allergies and they said that they would prepare a separate platter for her with things that were safe for her to eat. They brought her a few types of cheese, salami, and her own plate of sausage, so she basically ate the same thing as everyone else, but it was plattered separately to avoid cross-contamination from the items that she was allergic to. When she went to pay, they told her they were not charging for her meal because “She didn’t eat anything” That was far from true, as they gave her many options and she definitely ate her share of food, but they refused to let her pay! She ended up leaving her 20 Euros as a tip because they took such good care of her haha
After lunch, we piled back in the van and drove to Taormina. Antonio gave us 1 hour to shop, and suggested 2 good canoli shops (since canolis were invented in Sicily, so of course we all wanted to try one!) When I researched Taormina prior to the cruise, I had read about a Greek amphitheater which was supposed to be beautiful and worth a visit. I never ended up finding it (oh well!), but other on my tour said that it was crowded and cost 8 Euros to enter, so I guess I didn’t miss much. I spent my time enjoying the ambiance of the town, looking at the lava rock and Godfather souvenirs, and eating a delicious canoli.
Godfather stuff everywhere!
Lots of souvenirs made from volcanic rock:
We got back to the pier by 4pm for our 4:30pm all aboard time, and got showered and ready for dinner.
My cold was now hitting me with full force, so it was convenient that the MDR offered chicken soup on tonight’s menu!
I also shared Oysters Rockerfeller with my mom:
Petite Fillet Mignon and Braised Short Ribs
One of the couples at our table were going to celebrate their anniversary on Tuesday. That was the day we were going to Rome, and none of us knew if we’d get back to the ship in time for dinner (the one night when the 6pm dinnertime wouldn’t mix well with our 8pm all aboard time!), so we ordered them a cake for tonight to celebrate. They were very surprised!
They cut up the cake for everyone to have a piece
But I also wanted a dessert from the menu… Diet Apple Pie!
Tonight’s entertainment was Niels Dunger, Comedy Juggler. He was okay, but I’ve seen better on previous cruises. He dropped things a few times, and he wasn’t very funny. After that, I went to bed early again to try and fight off my cold and rest up for tomorrow in Naples!
It was lovely being able to sleep in and wake up naturally without an alarm… unfortunately, I was up at 8:30am anyway because my body was getting used to all those early wake up times. I ate a light breakfast on Lido deck, then went down to the lobby and sat on a couch by the window to write in my trip journal.
We met our friends at the comedy brunch at noon, and redeemed our coupons for a free drink from being a past guest.
Brunch took about an hour and a half, then we walked around the ship for a while. It was very windy outside and the temps were only in the 70s, so it was too cold to sit out on Lido deck. Instead, we sat at the tables near Blue Iguana because they were shaded from the wind. They had the chocolate buffet this day, but I was too full from brunch to enjoy it.
The Game of Love (formerly known as the Marriage Show haha) was scheduled for 3pm, so I was glad to have an excuse to be inside on this chilly day. They asked the same questions as on my last cruise, but it was still funny and entertaining. After that, we played 60’s trivia and “all about nothing” trivia, and we won a ship on a stick!
This ended a little after 5pm, so we quickly got changed and ready for the second formal night. It was fun that they had a different menu for this formal night (the menu with escragots and chateaubriand came later in the week), and there were so many great appetizer options that I ordered 3 of them!
langostino cocktail
Crepes filled with spinach and ricotta
beef carpaccio
lamb chops
Dessert Menu
Diet chocolate cake
After dinner, we went straight to the theater to wait in line for seats because we knew the line would be long. We were first in line downstairs and waited a half hour for them to open the doors. We were trampled by people when the doors finally opened, only to see that they opened the upstairs doors several minutes earlier and no good seats were left! We were rather annoyed to have wasted the half hour waiting in line for no reason, and we took seats on the sides of the theater with partially obstructed views from the columns. The theater was completely full by 8:10pm for the 8:30 show.
Tonight’s show was Studio VIP. It was a fun 70’s music disco-themed show with great dancing and costumes. They brought people up on stage from the audience to dance in several songs, so it was funny to watch and sing along. After that, I went straight to bed at 10pm because I had been coming down with a cold for the last two days and I wanted to rest up for Sicily.
Uh oh! It’s Friday the 13th!! Good thing nothing scary happened today. I woke up to my alarm at 6:15am, got dressed and went up to Lido for my usual breakfast. When I got to the omelet line, it was way too long for my limited patience, so I went in search of an alternative and found the breakfast burrito bar just as it was opening at 7am! I am very happy to have found it because this was the first of many mornings when I ate here.
There was another beautiful sunrise this morning as I ate.
Like yesterday, we booked a private tour with 11 people from our Cruise Critic roll call. We met the group at 7:45 in the lobby and exited the ship together by 8am. As we got off the ship, they handed us a paper from customs which we had to return when we got back to the ship that afternoon. Everyone was unsure of how things would work because Turkey is not part of the European Union like most of our other ports were, but it turned out that we did NOT need our passports to get on or off the ship. However, the form did ask for our passport numbers, so it was a good thing we had them in our purses! We actually opted to always carry our passports hidden in a secure pocket of our bags when we were off the ship, just in case we ever did not get back in time (which luckily never happened and we never needed our passports during the cruise).
Anyway, back to the tour… We met our tour guide Bill in the cruise terminal. Bill spoke English well and was very informative and funny, although he had a tough act to follow as Kali was so great yesterday in Athens. We were unsure if we would even be able to dock in Turkey because of the crisis and the travel alerts for the Eastern side of the country, but I was glad we went because I never felt unsafe in the touristy areas of the West coast.
We drove 1 hour on the highway in our large air conditioned van through the countryside to Ephesus. Bill talked a lot about the history of Turkey and the current political and religious situations. We passed the ruins of Ephesus a little after 9am and noticed hardly anyone was there. I kind of wished we just stopped there because it would have been nice to see it when it wasn’t crowded and hot outside yet, but Bill said our first stop would be the House of the Virgin Mary.
Several big tour buses were already there when we arrived, so there was a 30 minute wait to enter the house. The ladies went to use the restroom while the men waited in line… they had possibly the best restroom sign I’ve ever seen. Notice her facial expression…
We spent some more time waiting in line, and then finally got to walk through the house. It was small and quaint, but no photos were allowed inside so I only got to take photos on the grounds.
After we walked through the house, we had 15 minutes to shop at the little stores on the grounds.
We met up with Bill at 10am and got back in the van to head back to Ephesus.
By the time we got back to Ancient Ephesus, it was much more crowded. Bill did a good job of finding a tree where we could stand in the shade while he explained the history, but most of the time we were just out in the 90+ degree direct sunlight.
We spent about an hour and a half walking around, taking photos, and avoiding the heat in the sun.
Nike, the Greek Goddess of Victory… notice the ‘swoosh’?
As the morning went on, it got more and more crowded and hot (notice the people carrying umbrellas for shade?)
The Terrace Houses were inside a tent/building to keep the moisture out, so it was shaded in there but still quite warm. Luckily, even though the forecast said the high temperature would be 95 degrees, it was not humid so it felt more comfortable than Athens yesterday (which was 95 degrees with high humidity!) The Terrace Houses charged an admission fee above that of the entrance to Ancient Ephesus, but it was included in the cost of our tour so it was nice to see Bill paying for all of these tickets and we didn’t have to take out our wallets. Here are photos from the Terrace Houses…
When we exited the Terrace Houses, we spent some more time walking through Ephesus to see the Celsius Library, the marble streets, and the large amphitheater.
Looking back towards the amphitheater:
Sarcophagus:
After we exited Ephesus, Bill gave us 15 minutes to shop. He told us the stores outside the exit gate were cheaper than those immediately inside the gate, so I took his advice and went out to the stores. I loved the lamps but was afraid of how to transport them back home, so I decided not to buy one.
I saw signs for “genuine fake watches” in several stores in Turkey and I thought it was pretty funny… but no, I did not go into those stores!
I ended up buying a purse and a trivet, and I was able to bargain them down to 8 Euros for the two so I was happy with that (I think it was originally 6 Euros for each item).
Next, we went for lunch. In planning this trip, I read many reviews complaining of terrible experiences at pushy carpet stores who forced you to buy rugs after you ate their lunch. I did not want that to happen to us and ruin our day, so I was hesitant about making a lunch stop. Luckily, we had a fantastic experience! Bill took us to a school where students learn to make rugs. It was in the countryside with pretty views, and they were waiting for us to arrive.
They set up tables outside under the shade of a canopy, and served very good food for lunch. Appetizers included an eggplant dish, 2 types of salads, a yogurt mint dip (which reminded me of Greek tzatiki sauce), and bread. That was served family style, then they brought out individual plates with our entree of grilled marinated chicken breasts, rice, french fries, fried cheese, and tomato. We could buy a can of soda for 2 Euros, or wine and beer for 4 Euros, but the food was included in our tour price.
After we ate, we spent half an hour learning how they make the rugs, starting with getting silk from the cocoons:
Next, they showed us how they dye the yarn to the correct colors:
Finally, they showed us how they use a loom and a pattern grid sheet to tie a double knot and create the rug.
Next, they took us into a room and laid many different finished rugs on the floor for us to see the different patterns and levels of quality, ranging from 100 to 1200 knots per square inch! They encouraged us to touch the rugs and to walk on them. They said we could buy them if we wanted to, but I never felt pressure to buy anything, and we were free to exit whenever we wished.
Here are a few more photos from the grounds of the carpet school…
Next, we made a quick stop at the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and with views of a fort built by the Crusaders.
After that, we made the hour-long drive back to Izmir to get back on the ship. We hit a little bit of traffic on the way back, but arrived at the pier at 3:30, with a 4pm all aboard time. I did a little shopping at the pier and bought a small hand-painted bowel and a magnet for 6 Euros (of note, it was cheaper here than at the shops outside of Ephesus!)
When we were standing in line to get back on the ship, there was a crew member on line behind us and we overheard on her walkie talkie that 361 guests had not yet returned from their Carnival shore excursions at 3:45pm, but the ship waited for them because we ended up leaving port late, a little after 5pm.
I knew I wanted to ride the water slide at least once on this cruise, so I decided to do it now since I still had 2 hours before dinner, and I was hot and sweaty from touring in 95 degree heat and I wanted to cool off. I climbed all the way up to the top of the water slides and was shocked that not 1 other passenger was there! I rode down the “Twister” yellow slide. It was fun, but I didn’t think it went fast enough. After that, I got showered and ready for dinner.
Pear and Buffalo Mozzarella Salad
Steamed Muscles
Prime Rib
Dessert Menu
Variations of strawberries
which went very well alongside the Variations of Chocolate!
After dinner, we went to the show Epic Rock. It is similar to Rock of Ages, with an 80’s rock theme, and I LOVED it! They incorporated very cool visual effects with the video screens behind the actors, and I love 80’s music so it was a lot of fun to watch.
After that, we went to the adult comedy show. We arrived 15 minutes before it was scheduled to start and the lounge was packed!! We ended up sitting on the windowsill because all the other seats were taken. It wasn’t very comfortable, but it was better than standing the whole time. The comedian was okay, but not great. He had a few funny jokes, but I missed a few of them because he mumbled with a British accent, so I just didn’t understand what he was saying.
After that, we went to the piano bar. At first, there were no seats, but people left eventually and we took their seats. Seth was very funny as the piano bar singer, but I wished he would play more upbeat songs and fewer ballads.
When we got back to the cabin, we saw a flyer telling us to change our clocks back 1 hour to get back to the Italy time zone.
Today was the first of many early port days, so I woke up to my alarm at 6:15am, got dressed, and ate breakfast up on Lido with a beautiful sunrise as my backdrop.
We were originally supposed to be able to get off the ship starting at 7am, but it was delayed until 7:45am. Luckily, that didn’t impact us much because we were already planning to meet our tour group at 7:45 in the lobby anyway. Once all 12 of us were together, we went down to deck 0 and met our tour guide Kaliope (Kali for short) in the cruise terminal. There’s always something reassuring when you first see that sign with your group’s name and knowing that the guide you booked privately actually showed up haha Kali spoke perfect English and was an excellent guide. She went with us into every attraction, while our driver Nicos stayed with the van so he could drop of off and pick us up at the front entrance to each site.
We loaded up into the van and drove directly to the Acropolis in an attempt to beat the crowds, as there were 7 ships in port today! We arrived at the Acropolis by 8:45am and there were very few people ahead of us in the line to buy tickets.
The tickets cost 12 Euros per person, and included entrance to the Acropolis, Ancient Agora, and the Temple of Zeus. Kali escorted us all over the Acropolis, stopping many times to explain what we were looking at and to give us time to take photos.
You can see in this photo that the crowds were starting to build as we spent our time exploring the Acropolis…
By the time we were ready to leave at 10:45am, there were thousands of people walking up the hill and narrow stairs to enter, so we were really glad we arrived early!
Luckily, Kali had a skill for weaving through the crowds (sometimes against traffic!) and we eventually escaped out to the entrance. The problem was that Nicos couldn’t drive the van up to meet us because of all the big tour buses and heavy traffic, so we had to walk a short distance down the hill to meet him.
After a short drive, we arrived at our next stop, the Temple of Zeus. We re-used our same ticket from the Acropolis and there was no line to enter. Kali escorted us to the only small area of shade as she explained the history of the site, and then we had some time to take photos. By the time we left, there was a huge line to enter because a tour bus had arrived, so we had some pretty good timing thus far!
Our next stop was the Ancient Panathenaic Stadium.
We got back on the bus and drove through Athens to the Prime Minister’s and President’s house just in time to watch the changing of the guards. It was very impressive how well Kali and Nicos timed all of our stops so we arrived just at the right time everywhere we went!
Up next, we drove through the city center and the Plaka to see the market area. We got off the van and walked through the market to eat lunch slightly off the main strip at Hermion Restaurant (per Kali’s recommendation).
We were bummed that we didn’t have time to shop at all the stores we walked passed, but the lunch was very good. I ordered pork souvlaki with a side of tzatziki sauce (my favorite!) The restaurant had a pretty outdoor seating area in the shade, and they were willing to do separate checks (although they had some trouble processing our credit cards!)
After lunch, we continued walking through the city center until we reached the Ancient Agora. We used our combo tickets once more to enter this site, and Kali walked us through to explain everything we saw.
Remember that temple I showed earlier from the view at the Acropolis? Well that is the best-preserved temple in Athens, and it is located down in the Agora, so we got to get up close to it.
Our next stop was a half hour drive up to the top of a hill which offered incredible panoramic views of the entire city.
It was a nice way to round out the day because we had views of all the places we had just visited up close, but I’m not really sure that it was worth such a long detour. By the time we got back down the hill and arrived at the shopping area, it was 3:30pm. Kali suggested we could have 20 minutes to shop, but our all aboard time was 4:30pm and we still had to drive back out to the port and were afraid there might be traffic considering there were 7 cruise ships docked today. We decided it wasn’t worth 20 frantic minutes of shopping to risk possibly missing the ship, so we opted to just drive straight back to the ship. Had I known how the timing would work out, I probably would have preferred to skip the scenic overlook to have more time shopping. Oh well! On the drive back, we passed a few of the venues built for the 2004 Olympics.
We got back to the port at 4pm and spent a few minutes shopping at the duty free stores in the terminal. Then we got back on the ship and got ready for dinner at 6pm.
Dinner Menu:
Prosciutto Ruffles
Sushi
Penne Mariscos
Dessert Menu
Warm Fig, Date, and Cinnamon Cake (one of my favorite desserts of the cruise… it was soooooo good!!)
Strawberry Cheesecake (it was disappointing)
After dinner, mom played a game of bingo (and sadly, she did not win) and then we watched the magician. He was not very good… he repeated the same jokes over and over to fill his hour on stage, so he was funny the first time he did the trick but not every time there after. We then went back to the cabin to unwind and get ready for our next day in Izmir, Turkey!
It was nice to finally have a chance to sleep in and not set an alarm… unfortunately, my body missed the memo and I woke up at 8am (which was really like 7am since we changed the clocks last night). My effort to sleep in was an epic fail, but I wasn’t going to let that ruin my day! Mom and I had talked about going to brunch at noon, so I decided to head down to deck 5 to check out what the Taste Bar had to offer for breakfast. I was hoping they would have an omelet station so I could go there on future port days to avoid the crowds on Lido… no such luck! They only had pastries, french toast, eggs, bacon, hot and cold cereals, and coffee/juice.
After breakfast, I went up to the Serenity deck and was able to get a lounge chair right near the pool at 8:45am. It was getting crowded but since I was by myself, it was easy to find one lounger alone.
I will take this opportunity to talk about Chogs… I stayed up there for about 2 hours, and as time went on, all the chairs were taken and there were several people walking around looking for places to sit. Unfortunately for them, the Chogs were out to play today. There was a whole line of chairs next to where I was sitting and they had books and towels on them for nearly the entire time I was sitting there, but it wasn’t until the very end that anyone actually showed up to sit down (way longer than the advertised 40 minute limit to reserve chairs). I never saw any staff members walk by to monitor this.
At least there were also a good number of people legitimately using their chairs and enjoying their time out on deck.
I never bothered to look for a lounger in the main Lido section, but I snapped this photo on my way back to the cabin at 10:30 and there were tons of open seats. It probably helped that it was a bit cool and breezy this morning so maybe people just didn’t feel like laying out or going in the pool?
I went back to the cabin to get showered and ready for brunch, and we headed down to the aft MDR at around noon. My last Carnival cruise was on the Victory so we did not have the comedy brunch then and I was excited to try the new menu.
I ordered the fruit plate, french toast with frosted flakes crust, hash browns, and turkey bacon.
I was totally stuffed and I only ate half of what they served me! After reading so many reviews before the cruise, I was so curious about the cereal-encrusted french toast and I’m so glad I tried it because I really liked it! It was very sweet and filling though, just a warning haha I wasn’t really hungry for dessert, but I wanted to try the churros so I ordered them anyway. I thought they were way too sweet, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt that way about anything before haha They were small and crispy- not really what I expected.
Towards the end of brunch, the comedian came on to do his shtick. I had read a lot of negative reviews about this, so my expectations were very low. Surprisingly, the comedian was actually very funny! He talked for about 10 minutes and made several funny jokes. If it’s not your thing, you can easily avoid the comedians because they only come on at the top of each hour, so if you go to brunch at a quarter after the hour, you’ll miss them and probably be done eating before they come back at the next hour haha
We also got some bad news while we were eating brunch… The captain came on the overhead to announce that one of the passengers needed immediate medical attention, and we would be diverting our path to head towards shore where they would tender the passenger to an ambulance which would take him to a hospital. The rumor around the ship was that he had a heart attack, but due to HIPAA, we will never know for sure. Hopefully he is doing okay and got the medical attention he needed. When the captain made the original announcement, he said he would come back later to let us know if and how the detour would affect our arrival in Athens. About 3 hours later, he came back to announce that we had made good timing so far, and we did not have very far to go to reach Athens, so he did not anticipate any delays. Luckily, he was correct and we arrived in Athens as scheduled at 7am the next day! This was our only medical emergency during the 12-day cruise (or at least it was the only one we knew about!)
We had a very active roll call on Cruise Critic before leaving on our vacation, so we set up a few activities for this sea day. We planned a 2-hour open bar (including liquors and beers, with dry snacks also provided) for $20 per person. After that, we also had a regular meet and greet for a third hour in case people wanted to skip the drinking portion. During that hour, we did a gift exchange and we also exchanged money for any privately booked group excursions. I think there were about a third of the group who did the open bar, and then another third of the group came for the last hour when the open bar ended. The last third of the roll call never came to the meet and greet, so I guess they were just too busy having fun elsewhere on the ship! All of this was pre-arranged through Carnival, and they gave us the comedy club lounge for our private use all afternoon. They had 2 servers and one bartender, so there was quite a long wait for drinks, but they didn’t stop us from ordering two (or four!) drinks at a time haha They served the drinks in very small cups and didn’t put much alcohol in them, so I’m sure Carnival still managed to come out ahead on this deal… Here is my Kiss on the Lips:
I had a great time at the meet and greet and was so happy to finally put a face to all the names I had been communicating with for months prior to the cruise. We felt special that they put this sign outside the lounge for us…
After the meet and greet, we went back to the cabin to get changed for formal night.
I was still really full from brunch, but I wasn’t going to miss my one chance to eat lobster for dinner!
Stuffed Mushrooms
Lobster Tail and Shrimp
Dessert Menu
I was so beyond stuffed at this point that I didn’t eat dessert. Oh no! The horror!! I never thought I’d ever come to that point! haha
After dinner, we went to the show lounge at 7:45 and the doors were still closed.
They opened the doors at 8pm and nearly every seat was taken by 8:05pm! It was literally like a stampede of people running for seats… every man for himself! There really are not enough seats in the theater, and that is unfortunate as I know a lot of people look forward to seeing the shows each night but won’t be able to because the theater is too small.
Anyway, tonight’s show was Motor City with a Motown theme. It was great and a lot of fun to watch. Before the show started, they pulled a few people up on stage, but after that, no more photos were allowed.
When the show ended, the dancers took the party out into the lobby and continued with 4 or 5 extra songs.
Today was September 11th. It did feel a bit odd to be having so much fun and singing and dancing on such a somber day, but I really appreciated what the ship did to honor the day. While I was watching the dancers in the lobby, I looked up at the glass elevators and I found this hanging above me…
The flag was HUGE and was hanging from deck 10 so you could see it from several different floors. After the dancers finished in the lobby, we went upstairs to take a few more pictures.
Then we went back to the cabin to get ready for bed as we had an early wake up the next day in Athens.
We were scheduled to arrive in Dubrovnik at 10am, so I woke up at 8am to start getting ready. Mom ordered room service on the door tag the night before and it was delivered right on time at 8am. The Lido buffet was very crowded this morning, and the lines were very long for the two omelet stations in the Havana Bar. I ate my breakfast and went back to the cabin to finish getting ready for the day.
We arranged to meet our friends at 9:30am in the lobby bar area on deck 3 so we could share a taxi into town. We went out onto the deck to take some photos as we approached the port… unfortunately, those clouds didn’t look very promising.
We went down to deck zero to wait for them to clear the ship, but they said we had to go back up to deck 1. We were the first to arrive so we just stood near the stairs and waited until they started letting people get off the ship. Soon after, a crew member put up a rope and a line formed behind us. By 10am, there were hundreds of people lining the halls on deck 1, anxiously waiting to get off the ship.
They finally cleared us to exit at 10:10am and we were the first people off the ship. We got a taxi right outside of the gangway, and he quoted us 15 Euros for the 4 of us to go straight to the cable cars. It took about 15 minutes to drive there, and when we arrived, there was a long line already formed. There were one or two other cruise ships also docked in Dubrovnik today, but they arrived much earlier in the morning so even though we were the first people to arrive from the Carnival ship, we still had to wait inline behind them (boooo!).
We pre-purchased our tickets online, but needed to exchange the vouchers for a real ticket at the ticket window.
It took about 30 minutes for us to reach the front of the line, and the cable car ride lasted about 10 minutes. They cram about 30 people in each cable car, and there were two cars running at a time, going in opposite directions. The views were beautiful from the first second we left the gate.
Once we got off the cable car, we spent about 30 minutes enjoying the views. It was much cooler up on top of the mountain, and it was very windy and drizzling rain. They have a few different lookout decks, so we took lots of photos while we were up there. They also have clean bathrooms on the downstairs level.
We had a short wait to get on the next cable car going back down the mountain, and when we reached the bottom, we noticed the line wasn’t very long to go up.
Once we exited the cable car station, we turned right, and then immediately after the bus stop, we turned right again to walk down the staircase.
We kept walking down until we reached a fork in the road where the fort was directly in front of us (there was a Mexican restaurant on our right). At the fork, we turned left and continued down the street about 50 feet until we could see the drawbridge. We entered the city here at the Ploce Gate.
Dubrovnik is a beautiful old city and is very well preserved. Everywhere I turned, there was something else that was interesting to see and photograph. I wish we had docked earlier in the day so we could have spent more time enjoying the city, but instead, we had to quickly walk through town and along the Stradum because we wanted to have enough time to enjoy walking the city walls as well. Here’s a few highlights from Dubrovnik…
I had heard about a great candle store on the Stradum called Candle Kingdom, so I knew I wanted to check it out. The candles were beautiful, and they made them in every different color combination!
They were kind of pricey, but I decided to buy a small one to take home. They list the prices in Euros, but apparently they only accepted payment in their local currency of Kunas, and they did not take credit cards. I had not exchanged any money for Kunas, so the sales lady offered to take my Euros to the exchange place and get the Kunas for me. I think I probably came out ahead by doing it this way because I avoided paying any fees to exchange the money, and I didn’t have to do the running around haha It took her a long time, but she finally came back and I left with my new pretty candle:
The Stradum isn’t very long, but there are also lots of stores lining the side streets. Once we reached the end of the Stradum, we found the Pile Gate where we could enter the top of the city walls. While I was buying my candle, mom and our friends bought some gelato, and they were still eating it when they went to pay for their tickets to the city wall. Apparently it is considered very rude to eat while conducting a transaction like buying your tickets because the guards scolded them! They said that we would find it rude if they were eating when we came in to buy our tickets, so why is it ok if we eat in front of them? Point taken! Everyone quickly finished paying for their tickets and finished their gelato.
After we bought our tickets, we hiked up 87 very steep and narrow stairs to the top of the wall. Literally the minute we got up to the top, the skies opened up and it started pouring! There was no where to seek cover, so we took out our umbrellas and tried not to fall on the wet slippery stone of the city walls.
Luckily, the rain only lasted for about 10 minutes. Bands of dark clouds came and went all day, but this was our only period of heavy rain. It took 1 hour to walk slowly from the Pile to Ploce gate with many stops along the way to take photos. The beautiful red roof tiles contrasted with the blue water, and the views over the cliffs were breathtaking!
There was another side of the wall which would have let us go into the forts, but we decided to skip that part.
At 1:30pm, we walked back down from the wall and took some time to explore the side streets off the Stradum. I needed small bills changed from the 50 Euro bills I got at the ATM, but 2 banks and the currency exchange place all refused to help me. It was very frustrating because we needed small bills to exchange the money for our tours the following day, but there wasn’t much I could do. By 2:30pm, I was starving since I didn’t eat anything since breakfast earlier that morning. I read a few reviews on Cruise Critic saying that you could buy fried calamari in a to-go cup at many restaurants in town, but after searching unsuccessfully, I gave in to the hunger and just got a piece of pizza. This was one of the few times I neglected to take a photo of our food (mostly because I inhaled it within 30 seconds of sitting at our table!!), but it was very good and cheesy.
After eating, we continued along the side street to a jewelry store. I wanted to look at the silver ball charms I learned about on Cruise Critic. They are unique to Dubrovnik and are very pretty. Unfortunately, they cost more than I could afford to spend, so my only souvenir is this photo:
At 3:30pm, we left the city walls through the Ploce gate draw bridge where we originally entered. There was a taxi stand right there and we got right in a taxi with no wait. It cost 15 Euros for all 4 of us to get back to the cruise port. Along the way, the taxi driver drove passed the Pile gate and it was extremely crowded with thousands of people boarding busses and looking for taxis, so I was glad we used the less common exit.
When we got back to the port, our taxi driver would not drive through the port gate, even though we saw several other taxi drivers do it, so we had to walk back. Along the way, there was a large tent set up with several vendors along the pier. They all sold the same generic Dubrovnik souvenirs for about the same price plus/minus 1 Euro. Mom bought a few things, and I found a nice vendor who was willing to change my money for smaller bills. We got back to the ship around 5pm to get ready for dinner.
Here is the dinner menu and what I ate that night:
Chilled Langostino Cocktail
Pita crisps and beef kebab with greek farmers salad
Zuppa di pesce
Grilled NY sirloin steak
Dessert menu
Chocolate and hazelnut tart
Tonight’s entertainment was a comedy hypnotist. He brought about 15 people up on stage and had them do all the standard hypnotist things. We really weren’t sure if the show was that funny because the hypnotist was funny, or because the participants were great. There were 3 people up there who REALLY got in to it, and we were hysterically laughing at their antics for the entire show.
After that, we wanted to see the comedy show, but when we arrived at the lounge, there weren’t any seats left. Instead, we went back to the cabin to kill some time before the deck party. We went up to Lido deck at 11pm and the party was over! There were only 10-15 people left dancing and other than that, it was deserted. Considering it was supposed to start at 10:30, that seemed a bit odd, but we found out later that there were never all that many people there like you see on Caribbean cruises. I was a bit surprised considering the following day was the first sea day, but I guess people just don’t think about line dancing when they’re on a Europe cruise?
Anyway, we were hungry and looked around for a snack, but the Lido buffet had very limited options. Aside from the pizza (which I was avoiding considering how many times I ate it in port and that we would be in Italy for the following week), they only had hot dogs, ham and cheese sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, and brownies. Had we arrived a few minutes earlier, we could have gotten something from the deli, but that closed at 11pm. Mom had some ice cream and I ate a brownie.
Tonight they asked us to set our clocks ahead 1 hour due to the time change heading into Greece and Turkey. It was nice that they scheduled our one hour less of sleep to be on the night going into a sea day when it didn’t matter and we didn’t have to wake up early anyway.
Oh, I just found where I had the cabin bathroom photos…
I also wanted to post a photo from the show lounge…
A few things to note in this photo:
1) It was taken at 8:05pm before the hypnotist show which started at 8:30pm. Notice how full it is already? And this was at the very beginning of the cruise- by the end of the cruise, the entire room was filled and every seat was taken by 8:05pm. Before the cruise, my assumption was that the shows wouldn’t be too crowded because it was such a tiring port-intensive itinerary. Clearly I was wrong!!
2)Notice the curtains along the stairs on the left side of the photo? They were very annoying and partially blocked our view, but they were even more annoying for the people who did not get seats and were standing in the back of the room. The curtains make it so people without seats will only have a partial view of the show. I wish Carnival had thought this through a little better and maybe designed it so the curtains retracted all the way to the top of the stairs, out of view.
3)Notice the columns on the right side of the photo? They also blocked peoples line of sight during the shows. I understand that they are necessary as weight bearing support beams, but it unfortunate that they blocked peoples views and are something you should look out for when picking your seat for the show.
4)The seating on the ground level of the theater is no longer benches- it is now individual chairs. These chairs are a bit wide, so that limits how many can fit in each row. I think there is less seating available now as a result of these chairs, but I don’t know for sure. The chairs do move, and the staff arranged them differently depending on what the show was (they left a large dance floor in the middle during the disco show, and had two raised platforms for the dancers in the Epic Rock show), and they made announcements before the shows starting asking people to not move the chairs from where they were placed. I did see a few people try to carry chairs to near the outer round couches to sit with their friends, but the staff asked them to put the chairs back so I guess they were unsuccessful.
5)On a positive note, I liked how the upper seating area was a really steep incline so you could easily see over the people in front of you. We only sat in this seat for the first show… after that, each night we sat in the first or second row up on the left side of the theater and we always had a great view of the shows (but that’s because we arrived early enough to claim our seats!)
Ok, I think that’s all I have to say about the theater 🙂
Doge’s Palace in Venice, then Sailing Away on the Carnival Sunshine!
My alarm went off at 6:15am, and I quickly got dressed and headed up to Lido for breakfast.
I had left a lot of time for breakfast because I didn’t know how long the lines would be and I wanted to make sure I was finished eating on time. Since there were very few people eating breakfast that early, I was finished in plenty of time so I walked around taking a few photos of the ship…
Looking down from Lido into the atrium:
Lido deck:
Pour Your Own Beer station in the Lido Buffet area:
Serenity waterfall (they removed the net from the pool a few minutes after I took this photo):
Serenity deck:
I love when the outside decks are totally empty this early in the morning:
Waterslides area on deck 10:
I rode the yellow water slide later in the week… it was fun, but not as fast as I expected:
Sports Deck:
Hot dog stand- I never saw it open, but then again, I doubt I would have eaten a hot dog if it were open at 7:30am haha:
Havana Bar seating area during breakfast (very aft of Lido deck):
I read many positive reviews of the Doge’s Palace Secret Itineraries tour, so I knew I wanted to do that during our time in Venice. Unfortunately, the times of the English speaking tours were all in the mornings so we couldn’t go on Saturday (since our flight didn’t land until 11am) or Sunday (because we boarded the ship that morning). That left us with Monday morning as our only option, but we were a bit nervous about making it back to the ship from St. Mark’s Square before the 1:30pm all aboard time for sail away. The tour was only supposed to be one hour and 15 minutes long, so we booked the 9:55am tour, hoping it would end by 11:30am at the latest. Once the tour ended, we planned to go straight back to the vaporetto and hopefully we would have better timing and be able to make it back to the ship in 2 hours.
The Secret Itineraries tour costs 20.50 Euros, which I thought was a great deal considering it costs 16 Euros just to enter the Doge’s Palace, so the tour only cost an extra 5 Euros. If you want to take the tour, I recommend buying your tickets online in advance because the tours only have 25 people on them, and they do sell out.
We left the ship at 8am and took a free coach bus shuttle to the People Mover to save some energy and time. We rode the People Mover to Piazza Roma, and took the vaporetto route #5.1 around the outside of Venice (as opposed to the #2 route which went through the middle of Venice along the Grand Canal). Route #5.1 was a great option as it only took 20 minutes to reach St. Mark’s Square (3 stops), and it offered beautiful views of Venice and St. Mark’s Square (ironically, we saw the same views from a higher view point later that afternoon during sail away haha)
We arrived at Doge’s Palace at 9:20am for our 9:55am tour. I exchanged our online vouchers for real tickets, and we spent some time exploring the courtyard area. Unfortunately, we did not have much time to view the public areas of Doge’s Palace because they assume people will stick around after the tour to see those rooms, but we did not have time for that because we had to rush back to the ship. Oh well- I guess that’s a good excuse to come back to Venice some other time!
Our tour had about 25 people, and Cynthia was our guide. She offered lots of interesting information, but it was a bit hard to understand her with her accent. We started in the basement of the prison and walked up several flights of stairs, stopping to see a few prison cells on the way, until we reached the palace library. She took us to see Casanova’s cell and explained the story of his time in the prison and how he escaped. We were only permitted to take photos at the very beginning of the tour, but once we reached Casanova’s cell, we had to put our cameras away.
a prison cell:
Not a bad view looking out from one of the prison cells!:
The view looking out from the palace library
I really enjoyed the tour and thought it was worth the extra cost. It was great to be in such a small group and away from the crowds, and I learned a lot of interesting tidbits that I wouldn’t have known without the tour. The tour ended at 11:30am and we walked down the Golden Staircase to exit the palace.
We went back to the vaporetto stop for the last time and took route #5.2 back to Piazza Roma. We arrived at 12:10pm, took the People Mover back to the cruise port, and rode the Carnival free shuttle bus back to the ship. It took nearly one hour to board the ship due to the long lines, and they only had one metal detector opened on the ship which everyone had to pass through. That was very poor planning on Carnival’s part, but I guess they just didn’t have the space in the atrium bar area for more than one metal detector like they do when you board the ship on deck zero. We finally got back on the ship at 1:15pm. All aboard was supposed to be at 1:30pm, but there were still thousands of people on line behind us, and Noonan came on the overhead to announce that muster and sail away would be delayed until everyone was on board.
I went up to Lido for a quick lunch before the muster drill. I really wanted to try the wok at JiJi’s, but the line was super long and I didn’t think I would have time, so I opted for the pasta bar instead. It was okay, nothing great (especially compared to the fantastic al dente pasta I had the night before at the restaurant in Venice!). I ordered my lunch by filling out a paper menu, and it took them nearly half an hour to prepare my food. I brought my lunch back to the cabin to eat with mom- she had ordered a sandwich from room service since her food allergies prevent her from eating at both JiJis and the pasta bar. Here is my lunch:
Muster was held one hour late at 2:30pm. It was a necessary evil, but fairly uneventful. Sail away was originally scheduled for 2pm, but it was delayed until 4pm. Unfortunately, no one passed along that important bit of information to the passengers on the ship, so we all stood around outside for an hour anxiously awaiting sail away!
Finally, at 4pm, we felt the ship start to move! We stood port side on deck 10 and had great views (even though we had seen the same view many times from the vaporettos haha) I must have taken over 100 photos as we sailed around Venice, but I’ll just narrow it down to a few photos to share with you…
Notice the Whale Tail shadow on the water?
We passed St. Mark’s Square within an hour of sailing away, so I went back to the cabin to get ready for dinner. As I mentioned earlier, we chose the early fixed dining time at 6pm because we wanted to have the same wait staff every night because of my mom’s food allergies. We also liked the idea of eating dinner with the same people every night and getting to know them over the course of the cruise. I briefly considered eating at the 8:15pm late seating, but decided against it because I knew we had to wake up early every morning for all of our tours in port, so I thought we would be tired and want to go to bed fairly early at night. By eating dinner early at 6pm, that left us a few hours to enjoy the shows and other activities on the ship before going to bed around 10-11pm each night.
We were seated at a table for 9 in the back of the mid-ship MDR. It felt somewhat strange to eat dinner in a single-story MDR, since I was used to larger two-story MDRs on my previous cruises, but this didn’t really impact our experience. We always had a good view when the waiters did their dance numbers, and we could also see the maitre’d Ken as he sang a song each night before dessert.
Here is the every day menu which is offered every night in the dining room:
And here is tonight’s menu and what I ordered for dinner:
Mom ordered the chilled peach cream soup for her appetizer. I love how they pour it into the bowl right in front of you!
Smoked Duck
Fried Shrimp
Seafood Newburg
Dessert Menu
Warm Chocolate Melting Cake (my favorite! of course I had to order it on our first dinner in the MDR!!) and the Bitter and Blanc:
After dinner, we went to the casino for a few minutes, then played 3 games of trivia in the comedy club lounge. The first game was Rock and Roll trivia, then movie quotes trivia, and the last game was the most fun… they used the video screen to show two celebrity faces combined into one picture, and we had to guess which two celebrities it was. Here is one that everyone knew immediately:
A lot of the pictures were hard to decipher, so we only got about half the questions correct. Oh well! After that, we walked around the ship a little more, then headed back to the cabin to get ready for bed.
When we got back, this little guy was waiting to say good night!
After months of planning, embarkation day finally arrived!!! We started the day with a great breakfast at the hotel. They set up a buffet with meats, cheeses, eggs (which were too runny), thick cut bacon, sausage, and lots of breads.
The hotel concierge said that there was a supermarket just up the street which opened at 8:30am, so we walked the two blocks there in search of soda and wine to bring on the ship. Sadly, when we arrived, they were closed! Apparently they sometimes decide to stay closed on Sundays, and this was one of those days.
We continued further up the street to get euros from the ATM, then returned to the hotel to pack up our bags and check out. We pre-booked a car from Venice Transfers to pick us up at 10am. Sun Transfers only provides transfers to and from the airport, so we couldn’t use them to get to the cruise port, but that turned out to be a good thing because I was much more impressed with Venice Transfers. Our driver arrived 15 minutes early and came into the hotel lobby to find us. He dropped us off right in front of the cruise port by 10:15am. We handed our big suitcases to the porters, and proceeded up the escalators into the cruise terminal.
There were only a handful of people there this early, and we were given a card for zone 4. Check in started a few minutes later, and our zone was called to check in at 10:45am. Next, we put our bags through the x-ray machines and walked up the ramps onto the ship. They took our photos for the Sign and Sail cards, and we were in the deck 3 lobby by 11am! The whole process was totally painless and moved very quickly. Since we were right there and there was no line, we stopped at Guest Services to request a mini-fridge for the cabin and to ask a few other questions. Then we went up to our cabin, but it was not ready yet. We found our steward Yalena and she said it would be okay if we left our carry on bags in the closets and put a few things in the safe until she was finished cleaning the room. We went up to Lido for lunch and ate our only Guy’s burgers for the entire cruise. One of the few downsides to such a port-intensive itinerary was that we only had 2 chances to eat lunch on the ship, so I knew I wanted to try a Guy’s burger this day. It was very good and really lived up to the hype.
We left the ship around 1pm and walked to the People Mover in 10 minutes. A word of caution- do not try to cut through this parking lot:
There is a fence around the parking lot which blocks you from getting to the People Mover entrance. You can see the raised track and station behind the parking lot in that photo. For those of you who don’t know, there is a water canal separating the cruise port from the main part of Venice, so you need to ride the People Mover to get into Venice (or you can walk a very round about path which takes a really long time… no thanks!!). It costs 1 Euro per ride, and runs very frequently. There are only 3 stops, with Piazza Roma on one end, the cruise port in the middle, and Tronchetto on the other end, and the ride is literally 2 minutes long. Since it was still very early, there weren’t many people on the People Mover with us…
We exited the People Mover at Piazza Roma and walked across the street to the vaporetto stop. Vaporetto routes #1 and #2 both run the length of the Grand Canal… #1 makes all local stops and takes a long time, but #2 makes limited stops at the major touristy areas. We took route #2 to the Rialto Bridge stop. While we were onboard, a lady came around to make sure we validated our tickets, so make sure you remember to do that or they might charge a fine.
It was very crowded near the Rialto Bridge, so we took a few photos and continued on our way.
With all of my research, I kept reading that one of the best things to do in Venice is to get lost in the back streets and canals. I knew we wanted to walk from the Rialto Bridge to St. Mark’s Square, but was not exactly sure how to get there aside from a vague idea of the direction we needed to go. We found a back road with tons of small shops and restaurants, and kept following the signs pointing the way “Per Marco”
We kept walking until we saw this…
We found St. Mark’s Square!!
We walked around the square for a few minutes, and stared in amazement as we watched a man lay face first on the ground in a sea of pigeons! Some things, I will never understand!!
We had an hour and a half until our scheduled time to enter the Basilica, so we decided to have a drink at Harry’s Bar. Harry’s Bar is located on the water, just a block or two off from St. Mark’s Square. To get there, we walked along a street with stores for every high end fancy designer we could think of! We did a little window shopping as we walked down the street, and eventually found this:
It is a tiny bar, but there were a few open tables, so we sat down and ordered prosecco and bellinis.
Once we finished our drinks, we walked back along the water until we reached the Bridge of Sighs. This is the bridge where you stand to have a good view of the Bridge of Sighs:
Before leaving for Venice, we booked a skip the line ticket to St. Mark’s Basilica for an entrance time between 4:05 and 4:15pm. It was a good thing we did this because the line to enter was HUGE! The skip the line tickets cost 1.50 Euro (it is free to enter if you wait in the long line without tickets), but it was definitely worth the small fee to not waste our time standing in line.
Mom was carrying a small backpack, and they forced her to check it at their bag check location around the corner from the Basilica. We were allowed to bring in our purses and cameras (no flash allowed). They also enforced the dress code to keep our shoulders and knees covered. I knew it would be hot for most of our port cities, so I did not want to have to wear capris or pants all day just to meet the dress code at the handful of churches we wanted to visit. To solve this problem, I bought a lightweight tea-length black skirt and folded it up into a small pouch which I kept in my purse for the entire trip. Whenever we got to a church which required my knees to be covered, I slipped the skirt on over my shorts and instantly met the dress code (and I folded the skirt back into its pouch as soon as we left the churches so I wouldn’t get too overheated hehe)
Rick Steves was a huge help in planning this vacation. I bought the Mediterranean Cruise Ports book and cut it apart to make mini booklets to carry in each port city. We also both downloaded his iPhone app because he has a bunch of audio walking tours which I find to be more convenient than reading the information in his tour books. There was an audio guide for St. Mark’s Basilica, so we listened to Rick as we walked through the church. We actually found the guide to provide too much information, so we stopped listening halfway though. It was extremely hot inside the church, and we were both very sweaty, so I think that also contributed to our decreased interest. We opted not to pay the extra fee to see the treasury room, but if I went again, I would probably see that room as we saw photos that our friends took and it looks beautiful in there! Here are a few pictures from St. Mark’s Square/Basilica:
After we left the Basilica, mom picked up her backpack from the baggage storage room, and we walked back to the San Zaccaria vaporetto stop to take the #2 route to San Giorgio island.
The vaporetto stop is right outside the huge church, so we walked right in and headed to the back to buy our tickets to go up in the tower. The tickets cost 6 Euro each and they were well worth it for the amazing panoramic views! I considered going up in the Campanile in St. Mark’s Square, but decided this would be a far better option because there were no crowds, and you can’t see a view of the Square if you are IN the Square haha
Notice the Whale Tail popping up in the far left side of the horizon?…
The church itself was quite beautiful as well, so we spent about an hour exploring the church and enjoying the views from on top of the tower.
I loved the mosaic tiles on the floors all over Europe!
We took the same vaporetto back to St. Mark’s Square and walked around looking for somewhere to eat dinner.
One of the best parts of doing an overnight on the ship in Venice is that it allowed us to eat a local dinner, and to see the city at night! We found a great little restaurant towards the back of the Basilica and they offered a price fixe dinner for 18 Euros.
Spaghetti with mussels, zucchini, and shrimp:
Mixed Fried Fish:
Apple Pie (I don’t like tiramisu, so they let me order something else haha):
By the time we finished dinner, the sun had set and all the lights were lit around St. Mark’s Square.
I also wanted to see the Grand Canal at night, so we took vaporetto #2 back to Piazza Roma and enjoyed the peaceful nighttime views.
Once we reach Piazza Roma, we walked back to the People Mover and rode that back to the cruise port, and then made the 10 minute walk back to the ship. We were back on board by 9:30pm, and spent the rest of the night unpacking and getting settled in the cabin. We finally got to bed at around midnight after a long but exciting day in Venice.
Ok, folks… Sit back, relax, and enjoy the overly detailed and photo-filled review of 17 amazing days in Europe!
The journey began on Friday, September 6. Mom and I finished our packing and went for manicures that afternoon, then my dad drove us to the Delta International Terminal at JFK airport. We used curbside check in to drop off our big suitcases (whew! we were barely under the 50lbs per bag limit!), and made our way through the short line at security. Mom bought passes to the first class lounge, so we spent about an hour and a half in there enjoying some cocktails and snacks.
We got to our gate at the time they told us boarding should be starting, only to find out that our plane had not yet arrived. We were disappointed that we could have spent more time enjoying the first class lounge, but the plane arrived eventually. We couldn’t afford first class seats with the fancy chairs that fold down flat like a bed, so we settled for upgrading to the “economy comfort” seats which gave us a few extra inches of leg room, priority boarding, and power outlets. The individual TVs were great as they allowed you to select whatever movie you wanted to watch. I had a bit of an Anne Hathaway marathon as I watched Les Miserables and the Devil Wears Prada. They gave us pillows and blankets, and they served complimentary wine and beer along with the standard beverage service. They also served 2 meals during the flight- dinner options were pasta, chicken, or a salad, and the breakfast was a veggie egg McMuffin.
Dinner:
Breakfast:
The flight was fairly uneventful. Even though we took off an hour late, we still landed on time. We even had a great view of flying over the Alps!!
Flight Map:
Once we got to Venice, we had the best view of all… If you look very closely at the far end of the Grand Canal in this photo, you can see the Carnival Sunshine as she sailed into port on Saturday morning (as the previous cruise docked in Venice overnight on Saturday prior to us boarding on Sunday). It was amazing timing that our flight landed as our ship came into the port! I realize it is hard to tell from this photo, but as she sailed closer into view, I was so mesmerized and excited that I forgot to keep taking photos!
Once we got off the plane, went through customs, and retrieved our suitcases, it was time to search for our car driver. We pre-booked with Sun Transfers based on their good recommendations on Cruise Critic. Unfortunately, it took us 45 minutes of frantic searching through all the signs to finally find our driver holding up a sign with our name on it! Had we not prepaid with our credit card, we probably would have given up and just taken as taxi haha When we got to his car, he told us that our bags were too big and we should have ordered a bigger car. This was very confusing to us, as we told them in our reservations that we each had one checked bag and one carry on bag (plus a backpack which went in our laps). He managed to fit the two big bags and one carry on into his trunk, and the other carry on bag sat in the front seat for the 15 minute drive into Mestre.
We used credit card points to book a room at the Hotel Plaza in Mestre. We decided that since we were only staying in the hotel for one night before the cruise, it was much more convenient to stay in Mestre so we could take a car from the airport to the hotel, and then another car from the hotel to the cruise port on Sunday morning. The idea of lugging two wheeled suitcases over all the bridges and on and off the boats in Venice was less than ideal! Hotel Plaza had many positive reviews both on Cruise Critic and Trip Advisor, and it lived up to those reviews in every way. The hotel was clean and modern, and conveniently located directly across the street from the train station to get into Venice. The one downside was that our AC did not work very well, but they promptly sent up a maintenance man to fix the problem. Here are a few photos of the hotel room:
After we unpacked and freshened up a bit (and I changed into shorts, as evidenced by my jeans laying on the bed in that photo haha), we set out to explore Murano and Burano. We knew it was important to do some sightseeing that afternoon so we wouldn’t give in to the jetlag and throw off our sleep schedule, but we didn’t want to do something as hectic as walking around St. Mark’s Square. A nice long vaporetto ride across the lagoon and a leisurely stroll through Murano and Burano was just what we needed.
We bought our tickets for the train from the vendor on the platform (1.20 Euros per person, each way). The trains run every 10-15 minutes from 5:15am until 11:45pm, and the ride takes about 10 minutes to get from Mestre to Venice. Before boarding the train, be sure to validate your ticket in one of the yellow stamping machines in the station. Listen for a “thunk” and check to see that your ticket was stamped. Here is a photo from inside the train… notice how we were basically the only people on the train!
We were beyond starving by this point since it was nearly 2pm and we barely ate anything all day, so we bought prosciutto and cheese sandwiches from the store in the train station, and ate as we walked to the vaporetto stop. I pre-purchased 48-hour unlimited ride vaporetto tickets online for 30 Euro each, so I used the vending machine to type in my confirmation number and retrieve the actual tickets. We had to validate the cards each time we used the vaporetto by scanning them at the little machines outside each vaporetto stop. I am pretty sure the pass paid for itself in just our first afternoon as we rode it several times that day, and each ride is 7 Euro if you pay for the rides individually.
The vaporetto stops can be somewhat confusing. There are multiple floating docks at the stop location, and two or three vaporetto routes stop at each dock so you need to look for the numbers on top of the waiting area shelter to see which routes stop there. We intended to take the route that goes directly to Murano express with very few stops, but somehow ended up on the local route instead. No worries though- it got us to Murano eventually! Unfortunately, I never took a good photo of the vaporetto stops, but here is a photo I took while standing on the dock…
We got off the vaporetto at the Museo stop, and wondered along the canals back to the Faro stop. There are lots of cute little shops along the canals, and it was a lot of fun to look in all the window displays at the glass figurines.
One of the souvenirs I most wanted was some glass candy from Murano, so I bought a glass bowl and some glass candy to put in it. I collect postcards from everywhere I go, so I bought a postcard here too. We found our way back to the Faro vaporetto stop and waited for the #12 route to Burano. You can easily find the Faro stop because this tall tower is visible all over Murano:
This is the view looking back towards Murano as we floated away…
It took surprisingly long to get to Burano, maybe 45 minutes or so. Notice how the clock tower in the distance is leaning?
We got off the vaporetto at the Mazzorbo stop. The man operating the vaporetto said we should go towards the left to walk to the bridge to Burano. Along the way, we passed a small park small garden park which had a public bathroom. We continued along the path along the water until we saw the bridge, and we ended up near the Burano vaporetto stop. We crossed the bridge into Burano and walked through the narrow streets behind the houses until we found the water canal leading to the clock tower and the shops in town. Burano was very quaint, and I thought it was worth the trip. All the houses are painted in different bright colors and they reflected beautifully off the water.
We ate dinner at one of the restaurants in the main square near the clock tower. I had my first of many pizzas in Italy- this time with mushrooms, artichokes, and prosciutto on top! Mom had the fried calamari, and both dishes were great.
After dinner, we walked back to the Burano vaporetto stop and barely missed the boat. We had to wait 30 minutes for the next boat to arrive, and it took us 2.5 hours to get from Burano all the way back to our hotel in Mestre. At least we had a beautiful view of the sunset during our ride!
It was a long day and we were exhausted by the time we got back. We went to sleep with excited anticipation for boarding the Carnival Sunshine the following morning!
I just returned home from 17 fabulous days in Europe, and I wanted to take the time to share my experiences with all of you. Every night of the trip, I jotted down a few notes of what we did each day, so I plan to write that up as a journal style review, and I will include tons of photos along the way! But first, a little background info…
I am 31 and have cruised 3 times before (twice on Carnival, once on Celebrity- see my prior blog postings for details on those sailings) I started planning this cruise in December after returning home from my last cruise. I have always wanted to go to Italy, and I love cruising, so I decided to combine the two and take a Mediterranean cruise. I looked at the itineraries on several cruise lines, but found there was no deal as great as this itinerary. It was a 12-night cruise (which I liked because I wanted to make it worth spending over $1000 on airfare), and it started and ended in different ports (which was great because I could have a few extra days to explore those 2 cities). I also liked that it would be on a newly renovated ship, but several months after the inaugural cruise so all the kinks should be worked out. Here is the itinerary for the cruise: Venice, Dubrovnik, Athens, Izmir, Sicily, Naples, Rome, Florence, Marseille, and Barcelona.
The day before I planned to book the cruise, I called my mom to tell her about my plans. She has never been on a cruise before because my dad gets sea sick, so she invited herself to join me. The next day, we called Carnival and booked an inside cabin midship on deck 7. I was happy with that location, knowing the benefits of a centrally-located cabin 2 decks below Lido, 2-3 decks above the nightlife entertainment, and sandwiched between 2 cabin decks, but mom really wanted a window. We agreed to watch the prices and if an oceanview cabin became the same price as our inside cabin, we would switch. We booked early saver, and I checked for price drops nearly every day. That was in the last week of January.
Then the Triumph incident happened! While that was an unfortunate situation, and I felt badly for the passengers involved and all of the people who had to change their vacation plans during the repairs, I was thrilled at what it did for our cruise fare! By the end of March, we got $800 back off the original cruise price! Thank goodness we booked early saver!!
Around the same time, Carnival decided to extend the original 7-week dry dock transformation of the Destiny into the Sunshine in order to make more thorough upgrades to the ship’s mechanics. This meant canceling Sunshine’s first 2 sailings. I had originally joined the roll call for my sailing back in January, and up until this point, it was fairly quiet and had very few participants. We were still over a half a year away from our cruise, and were just starting to plan excursions. When the Sunshine cruises were cancelled, many of them decided to change to our sailing. All of a sudden, we had an extremely active roll call! These “Sunshine Castaways” as they called themselves were at a very different phase of their planning as they had already booked all of their excursions, and were ready to fly to Europe in 3 weeks. When they rebooked onto the September sailing, they needed to find new groups for their tours, so this was when I was able to set up my own tours.
I never take ship tours as I think they cost more money, see fewer sites, and are more crowded then the private tours. Instead, I prefer to research each port and find a private excursion company. I used Cruise Critic to find people to join me on each tour. I will go into the details of each tour when I get to the daily trip journal part of this review, but I will just briefly mention that I organized 3 tours with Rome in Limo for Naples, Rome, and Florence, and we joined tours organized by other roll call members for Athens, Izmir, and Messina. We decided to do Venice, Dubrovnik, Marseilles, and Barcelona on our own without formal tours.
We booked direct flights on Delta from JFK to Venice and home from Barcelona, and we upgraded to the economy comfort seats because we wanted a little more leg room and a power outlet. I guess that’s it for the planning phase. Before I get in to the day-to-day trip journal part of this review, I wanted to mention a few things about the cruise…
Itinerary– We definitely booked this cruise because of all the amazing ports it visits. Yes, it was a hectic, tiring 12 days, but it was an incredible experience to spend a few hours in each of these ports. The cruise started in Venice on a Sunday morning, but we didn’t sail away until Monday afternoon, so that gave us a chance to enjoy a dinner and evening in Venice (plus, we flew in a day early so we ended up with 3 half days to explore this port!) Then, after 12 days in Croatia, Greece, Turkey, Italy, and France, we ended the cruise in Barcelona, where we stayed for 3 nights in a hotel, giving us tons of time to enjoy this fabulous city. I guess the only slight flaw in the itinerary is that our 2 sea days were both within the first week of the cruise, leaving us with 5 very hectic port days in a row at the end of the cruise (followed by 3 days of touring in Barcelona), so I would have appreciated it if one of those two sea days was later in the second half of the cruise, but that’s really just a tiny flaw in an overall amazing itinerary!
Embarkation process in Venice– This went very smoothly. We arrived at the cruise terminal by 10:15am, checked in by 10:45am, and were on the ship by 11am! We did have to put our carry on bags through the x-ray machine (they actually made us do that every time we got back on the ship in Venice- Sunday morning during embarkation, Sunday night when we returned from exploring the city all day, and Monday afternoon before sail away), but no one seemed to care what we brought with us. We did not have a chance to stop at a grocery store for wine or liquor, but I doubt it would have been a problem if we did try to carry that on with us 😉
Cabin– We were in cabin 7192, which was midway between the forward and mid-ship elevators. The halls were generally quiet, and the location was very convenient to get to the other areas of the ship. The cabin had more than enough storage space, with 3 small dresser drawers, a cabinet with 2 shelves, and 3 closets to hang clothes. We also took advantage of the 2 shelves on either side of the mirror in the bathroom to store all our toiletries. There were two single plug American outlets (one below the vanity mirror and one behind the TV set) and 1 European outlet (which is where they plugged in our mini-fridge so we didn’t have access to it). Since we were one of the first people to board the ship, we went straight to Guest Services and requested a mini-fridge for my mom’s medicines. It was waiting for us when we got back to the cabin that night, and it was cold enough to safely store a few extra cups of yogurt and some drinks.
When we first arrived in the room, our beds were set up as 2 twin beds (as requested), but they were parallel to each other and took up nearly the entire floor space of the cabin. We asked our stewardess to move them so they were perpendicular to each other, which freed up a ton of floor space in the middle of the room. I highly recommend people to do this if they are sharing an inside cabin and don’t want to sleep in one big bed. It was nice having the space to walk around and not trip over each other for 12 days!! Here are some pics of the cabin (I have two bathroom photos too, but have not uploaded them to my computer yet, so I’ll post those later):
Steward– Our head stewardess was Yelena and she was great. She gave us extra towels and whatever else we asked for, and she even challenged me to a towel folding competition when she found out I went to the class on my previous cruise. She had a team of two or three girls working with her, and they were all fairly thorough. We did come back to the cabin a few times while they were cleaning, but other than that, we rarely saw any of them.
Food– I thought the food was very good on this cruise. I ate breakfast every morning up on Lido deck, and became a quick fan of the breakfast burritos. We ate dinner every night in the MDR, and the food was always hot and served as we ordered it. My mom has some major food allergies, and she was very concerned about eating on the ship. One of the things that impressed us most during the cruise was how Carnival handled this situation. There is a lady named Irena (I think she was an assistant maitre’d or something like that) who went over my mom’s allergies with her on the second night of the cruise. We ate dinner in Venice on the first night of the cruise, and when we arrived in the MDR on the second night, Irena said she has been looking for us last night and couldn’t find us! Then, every night after that, she brought over a copy of the following night’s menu so my mom could pick out what she wanted to eat and the chef could prepare it without any of the unsafe ingredients. We found out that there is actually a separate chef who handles all special needs meals to make sure there is no cross-contamination. There were some nights that she and I ordered the same dish, but they looked totally different because hers was cooked without the things she is allergic to so it was safe for her to eat. Irena really went above and beyond to make sure my mom enjoyed every meal in the dining room (including brunch on the 2 sea days!).
Room Service– My mom doesn’t function in the mornings without coffee, so she ordered room service every day. She put out the menu on the door each night with a 15 minute delivery window request, and the food arrived on time every day except the last morning (one day it even arrived 20 minutes early, so we weren’t awake yet! oops!)
Lido Buffet-.When they renovated the ship, they designed the buffet in stations, so the same 6 or 7 dishes are available at a few different stations around the buffet. This was good and bad- It definitely helped limit the length of the lines, but I also thought that it limited the options available. Maybe it’s just because I was eating breakfast there and there aren’t as many options for breakfast foods, but I thought the selection was somewhat limited. There were bread stations with muffins, danishes, bagels, and things like that, there were hot food stations with powdered eggs, potatoes, sausage, and bacon (no bacon police!), and other stations for cereal and fruit. I never ate lunch of dinner up here, so I have no comment about the food selection or lines during those meals. One big disappointment was that they only have 2 omelette stations on the entire ship! They are both located all the way aft on Lido deck in the Havan Bar/JiJi/Cucina del Capitano section, but they always had long lines when I arrived there. On my last Carnival cruise, they set up many more omelette stations, so the ones in the aft were never crowded, but that was not the case on this cruise. Luckily, I developed an obsession with the breakfast burritos from Blue Iguana, so I ate there most mornings instead (and I also loved that I could get watermelon from their salsa bar!)
Weather– We got fairly lucky with our weather during this cruise. We had a few cloudy days in Venice, and short periods of rain in Dubrovnik and Pompeii, but it was dry and sunny the rest of the cruise. The temperatures ranged from the mid-90’s in Athens and Izmir, to the mid-70’s through all of Italy. Unfortunately, there were very high winds and rough seas the entire second week of the cruise, which left us stumbling around the ship like drunken fools (they even had to cancel the evening show on the last 2 nights because it was not safe for the dancers and prop control people to perform with the rough seas). The rough seas also forced the Captain to slow down the ship when sailing between Livorno and Marseilles, so we arrived in port 2 hours late. Luckily, we were not sea sick at all during the cruise, but I am sure there were others who were not as lucky.
Entertainment staff– The cruise director Noonan was great. He was funny and entertaining when he hosted the love and marriage show and other events. Lexi and Ben were also great as members of the entertainment staff, and they were also in charge of crowd control when we were getting off the ship each morning so we got to chat a lot with them. We went to the shows nearly every night, and generally enjoyed what we were watching (although there was one magician who was not very good, but I’ll get to that later).
Comedians/Comedy lounge– The lounge they use for the comedy shows is fairly small for the number of guests on the ship. We arrived 15 minutes before the show one night, and had to sit on the tiny ledge of the windowsill because there were no other seats available. As a result, we never tried to go to another show because we didn’t feel like dealing with the crowds, but friends told us that one show they went to only had about 5 people in the audience, so I guess it varies! The comedian we saw was just okay- he had a few funny jokes, and a few misses, but I guess that could be said of most comedians because it’s a very subjective form of entertainment.
Stuff to do on the ship– Because this was such a port-intensive itinerary, we did not have many opportunities to explore the ship. The Fun Times offered limited daytime activities on port days (for obvious reasons), but did offer more options on the 2 sea days. We played several games of trivia (and even won a ship on a stick at one of the games!) As I just mentioned, we went to the show nearly every night, so that took up most of our evenings. My mom spent some time donating money to the casino, and I spent about 2 hours laying out on Serenity deck on the first sea day, and I also went to the piano bar one night, but other than that, we didn’t really have a chance to explore much of what the ship offered. We woke up around 6:15am every morning, so we were ready for bed by 10-11pm every night, so I guess that also limited our time to explore the ship at night. I never made it to the disco, and we did not eat in any of the specialty restaurants so I cannot comment on that.
General condition of the ship– There was a lot of talk about problems on the Sunshine after her rapid renovation earlier this year. Our cabin was on deck 7, and we saw a bucket in our hallway to collect water from a dripping sprinkler nearly every day of the cruise (although I will note that the bucket was not always lined up to where the water dripped, so there was a bit of a water stain on the carpet sometimes). We also noticed some drips from the ceiling while waiting on deck 1 near the forward elevators/stairs to get off the ship. This by no means ruined our experience, but it is what it is. We also noticed that some of the exterior railings looked a bit rusty, as if they forgot to re-paint those areas during the drydock. Other than that, the ship looked beautiful! Although we only had an inside cabin, it definitely had new carpet, linens, cabinets, flat screen TV, and a renovated bathroom (with a HUGE shower compared to what I have had on previous cruise ships! haha) The public spaces on the ship all looked shiny and new, and I really enjoyed the more subdued color scheme and vibe of the ship. Even though I only spent a few hours actually laying out on Serenity deck, I loved that I could always see the pretty waterfall feature when walking around outside (like in the mornings during breakfast, or when I took photos of the port area after getting back on the ship in the afternoons). Overall, I really didn’t have much to complain about with the ship, and I think Carnival did a great job with all the renovations.
I think that covers everything I wanted to mention about the ship. Up next, I will review what we did each day (but first, I have to finish sorting through my 3000 photos and upload everything onto my computer!!)
Dana's Destination Diary 