JimmyVWine

Thank you for the kind words. While a good deal of my professional life involves writing and editing the writing of others, it is out of necessity more of the dry nature. It is outlets such as this that allow me to spread my wings and do more creative writing. I am glad that you are enjoying this.

Day 2 (Part Three) in Santorini, or “Is this the line to see the Queen?” Our driver, Christoforos, met us at the appointed time and offered to drive us to Oia via the more scenic route, and that given heavy (relatively speaking) traffic due to the ships in port, this route would take about the same amount of time as the more “major” road. Basically, using your right hand “C” as the guide, we would be driving along the knuckles, or back side of the island. And as promised, it was quite spectacular. We climbed quite high and were surely within reach of the Ancient Gods. The drive time was around 45 minutes, and we were dropped off about as close to the heart of Oia (pronounced EEE-Yuh) as vehicular traffic is allowed. From there we would explore the photogenic village by foot. As noted earlier, the plan here was to stroll, have a great lunch with a view, take photos, and secure our “must-have-at-every-new-place-we-go” Christmas ornament. We would not leave without an ornament that had blue domes on it. I promise that the next time I visit Santorini it will be at a time when there are not three large cruise ships in port. While I cherished every minute that we were there, the narrow, cobbled streets were certainly not built for Leviathan Class Cruise Ships with 4,000 passengers each. Still, we were able to see what we came to see and do what we wanted to do. We strolled leisurely along the length of the main strip headed toward Pelekanos, our choice of restaurant for lunch. After much research I concluded that this establishment offered the perfect combination of location, view, quality food and on-line reservations system. I borrowed this photo from an online map website, so credit it properly afforded to Simon Lagadec who posted it. Our table was the one seen in the photo where the man is taking a photo with his camera. https://goo.gl/maps/tzipWgUKuYC4URoK6 The menu was classically regional which was a must. We did not come to Santorini to eat at an Italian or Thai restaurant. Reservations are secured via payment of a per person fee that is credited against your final bill. The meal was terrific, paced properly with good service and the amazing view. The prices are high for a lunch, but this is Santorini after all. This proved to be the most expensive meal of our trip but we felt that it was worth it. Especially given that half the bill was covered in advance through pre-payment so that lessened the blow. After lunch we had several hours to dart in and out of alleys, explore and take lots of photos, hoping that at least a couple would capture the look and feel of this Cycladic Island. Some of the best vistas can be easily found by simply queueing up in lines of people who are all there for the same reason. If you are looking for that ever-so-perfect angle of the blue dome, rest assured that a hundred other people are as well. The toughest part of the photo adventure was trying to get pictures without people in them, unless you want to capture the wonderful scene of a Greek yiayia (grandmother) walking out of a church, or you are trying to include a family member (your own) into your photo. Here is a sample of what we captured. But of course the day would never be complete without photos of the blue domes and bells. Satisfied that we had the shots we came for, we strolled back toward where we had started, stopping in a number of shops that caught the eye of either SV, KV or both. The last tender was set to leave at 6:30 and given that we had opted to take the bus back to Fira, and remembering what I had read on the internet (so it must be true) about the buses, we decided to start our trek back to the ship at 4:00. Walking to the bus station was a piece of cake, (using Google Maps). The bus routes in Santorini could not be simpler. If you board a bus in Oia, it is going to take you to Fira. If you board a bus in Akrotiri, it is going to take you to Fira. If you board a bus in Fira, you just have to make sure that it is the one headed in your intended direction, thumb or index finger. So once at the station, we got in what seemed like a very long line, (well, it didn’t seem like a very long line...it was a very long line) and I began to get nervous. If the buses ran on what I believed to be the proper schedule, there would be one about every half hour, and there appeared to be four busloads of people in line ahead of us. Doing that math, we would not board a bus until 5:30 at the earliest. Ruh-roh. But two things broke in our favor. First, the transportation director (the guy who boards people onto the bus) squeezed way more people on the bus than I had accounted for. Turns out that we would be on the third bus to depart. Second, there didn’t seem to be any sort of “schedule” that I could discern. I chalk this up to the fact that there were three ships in port. But whatever the reason, the buses came one right after the other just like boarding a bus at the airport that will take you to the Rental Car Center. All in, I think we waited about 30 minutes to board our bus for the 20 minute ride back to Fira. So we arrived back at the vicinity of the cable car station, a couple of uphill blocks away, before 5:00. But a word of caution. I do not know if what we experienced was typical or atypical in terms of the buses running every 10 to 15 minutes or so. No printed schedule suggested this result. But I am glad it worked out that way. So now we are walking up the hill a couple of blocks to make our way to the cable car station. Once at the top of the hill, still several blocks from the cable car station we encounter what appeared to be the end of a line. We asked, and it was confirmed that this was the end of the line which we needed to join to take the cable car back down the cliff. Buy my estimation we were a long, long way from the boarding area. Many other people had headed straight to the boarding area, not realizing in which direction the line formed, and they had to trace the line backwards to get to the end, thus having to do the walk twice. One gent commented as he seemingly walked forever, “Is this the line to pay your respects to the Queen?” It did seem that way, though SV had in fact participated in that line in Edinburgh to pay her respects while the Queen lay in state there, and she said that that line was way, way, way longer. It took us about 55 minutes to make our way to the actual boarding area, buy our tickets and get on board. So doing the math, it was now almost 6:00 when we got in line for the tender, with the last tender leaving at 6:30, and we had begun our journey back from Oia at 4:00. So do be cautious about timing. And if you are thinking that we could have just taken a taxi back to Fira, be advised that unless you prearranged for one, there were no taxis to be found. It was the bus or hitchhike. While we were in the line for the cable car, SV and I plotted out an ingenious business venture for anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit and some start-up seed money. Build a permanent mooring dock out of cement in the middle of the bay, not too far from where the ships drop anchor. Then build a zip-line structure from the top of the cliff in Fira down to the mooring. People would pay 20E to strap up and zipline from the top of the cliff down to the mooring, from where a tender would take them to their cruise ship. Total travel time…about 30 seconds. 30 lung evacuating seconds. And I even have the perfect name for the venture. It would be called: Fira Heights. Well, our story ended happily, as did, I assume, that of everyone else who worried about timing and the last call for the tender. I don’t know exactly what time the last tender actually departed, but I am guessing it was a bit after 6:30. But we were back on board and made a beeline for the Good Spirits bar to quench our thirst before heading back to the cabin for showers, Rose on the balcony, and a spectacular pre-dinner sunset. So we say goodbye to Santorini and the sun which seems to call this place home.

Day 2 (Part Two) in Santorini, or “I think you need a PhD” The drive to Akrotiri takes about 20 minutes with wonderful scenery everywhere you look. Upon arrival it will seem as if you are in the middle of nowhere, and you sort of are. The archaeological site is built downward into the ground so you don’t see much at the entrance. But just follow the path to the ticket booth, pay your 12 E and head inside and wonders await. To put this into perspective, we often marvel at the genius of the Romans with their plumbing and engineering, and then we learn that they “borrowed” much of that from the Greeks. And then we marvel at the Greeks and how ingenious they were with their engineering and plumbing, and then we come to find out that they borrowed much of their skills from the Minoans. Unfortunately, the Minoan society largely disappeared, in part, no doubt, to the unprecedented eruption around 1650 BCE. And to put that into further perspective, when we visit Pompeii, we are gobsmacked by the advanced society that existed 2000 years before our own. Now stop to consider that the distance in time between the people of Pompeii and us today is equal to the distance in time between the Minoans and the people of Pompeii. (SV told me that one, and I have to admit that it stopped me in my tracks.) The city of Akrotiri is old. We are talking Old Testament, Abraham, Joshua and all of the unpronounceable kings who begat other kings who begat still more kings old. Time, earthquakes and the ubiquitous volcano have done a number on the city, but there is still enough here to look at to cause a sense of wonder. It is difficult to get a sense of the scope of the place in photos, but it is larger than it seems. And many of the buildings were three or four stories tall, which isn’t something we necessarily think would be true from a place built 5000 years ago. Much of what you see is stone infrastructure. When the buildings were in their lived-in form, this stone would have been covered in plaster, and the plaster often painted in colors or with murals. Notice the almost intact staircase in this first home, and the less fortunate staircase in the second. These show the scope and scale of the multi-level buildings This next photo shows something that SV explained that I never would have figured out. If you look toward the bottom of the photo you will see a wooden ladder. (That is modern, not ancient). It leads up to what appears to be an exterior door on the second floor. Why would one build an exterior door on the second floor? Well, when you have a building in a dusty, volcanic environment for a thousand years, and no vacuum cleaner to tidy up, dust and dirt collects, accumulates, and quite simply, piles up. After a certain amount of time passes, you abandon what was the first floor, and build upwards, turning what used to be the first floor into a basement, or filling it in altogether. As you build up, and as the city around you rises with the collection of dirt, you need a new door in order to access the now-risen street. So what you see is a new door built probably several hundred years after the building was first constructed. The occupants would have had a floor level with that new door. But the archaeological dig has revealed not just that “newer” floor and door, but also uncovered the original floor and abode as well. Sorry. I can tell that I am geeking out about this stuff. Which brings me to a funny story. While there were some tour groups at the site, they visited in much the way I expected, doing sort of a 45 minute “hit and run” so that they could get back on their buses to make it to their next point of interest. We wanted to spend far more time there. But I must say that they guides we heard did offer some great insight and helped the people understand what they were looking at. That said, we did encounter a charming gentleman from San Francisco who was visiting the site on his own as were we. (There is a scheduled bus that runs from Fira to the entrance of the site. We would have taken this, but the scheduled return buses didn't seem to mesh with our schedule.) While standing beside him at an overlook point he mused, (and I swear that I am not making this up as I am not nearly that clever), “You need a PhD to understand what you are looking at here.” KV laughed and said: “No. Just a Masters”. He gave a puzzled look and KV explained that SV had a Masters in Classical Archaeology and was able to teach us a lot about what we were seeing. So we invited him to join our small group and he, as well as KV and I, got a “Master’s Class” in Akrotiri history and engineering. For example, on the right side of this photo you can clearly see a rain gutter and below it would have been a freshwater collection tank. Looks no different that what we use today and yet this is almost 4000 years old. And I will close this section with some obligatory photos of urns and amphora and flagstone floors (though I don’t know what the proper words for those are in Minoan. Few do. Their language is largely unknown to us today.) After about two and a half hours it was time to leave. We contacted our driver by text and he suggested that we take the short walk down to the Red Sand Beach and that he would pick us up at the parking lot there. We took his advice, though the walk was a bit longer than advertised. We were back in the van and ready for our drive to Oia.

Day 2 (Part One) in Santorini, or “The Plan of Attack” There is plenty more to discuss about the use of the Plus Package, wine service and the dining scene, but I thought it best to intersperse those topics in other posts to keep things moving here. This post will address the first half of our visit to Santorini and the next post will discuss the second half. We opted to do Santorini on our own. We generally prefer to see the places we go at our own place with our own researched agenda, and so it was to be here. I didn’t want an umbrella-toting tour guide telling me where I needed to be and when. My bucket list agenda for Santorini was to have as nice a lunch as possible overlooking the gorgeous cliffs and domes in Oia, and to walk the cobbled streets of that town in search of that “oh so perfect” photo like you see in magazines and travel brochures. Not an overly ambitious agenda, but an immutable one as far as I was concerned. SV had been to Santorini for a couple of days as part of an island-hopping Spring Break trip while living in Athens, so I counted on using her as our guide. I arranged a Facetime call with her to discuss what she wanted to achieve while on the island so that I could get our transportation needs lined up. I posed one question thusly: “On a scale of one to ten, with one being “You couldn’t force me to do that at gunpoint” and ten being “If I don’t get to do that I will hurl myself off the cliffs of the island to my crashing doom below”, how badly do you want to go to Akrotiri? She shot back in an instant: 12!!. OK then. We are going to Akrotiri. For those who are unaware, (and don’t worry if you are, because before planning this trip, I was too), Akrotiri is (was?) a Minoan city at the southern tip of Santorini that was an important trade and commercial center in the Mediterranean that thrived between the years 4000 to 1600 BCE before being destroyed by the volcano and earthquake eruptions that made Santorini what it is today. (The shell of a formerly much larger island). Think of it in terms of “The Minoan Pompeii”. Today the site is an active archaeological site covered by an ingenious roofing system such that your visit there is essentially indoors, though everything you are looking at was of course, exposed to the elements for millennia. I suspected that my Classical Archaeology expert daughter would want to visit here, and I knew that she had missed that opportunity a few years earlier while on her Spring Break trip. The girlfriends she traveled with were much more interested in chasing tans and dudes and none wanted to go out to the tip of the island to see a pile of old rocks. I get it. I was young once too. So with Akrotiri added to our agenda, I plotted out our strategy. My research suggested that when multiple cruise ships are in port, cross-island transportation can be dicey. (I guess there is something about the concept of “cross-island” causing havoc, because traversing the Cross Island Parkway on Long Island is also dicey.) Take your right hand and form a “C”. Your thumb is where Akrotiri is, and the tip of your index finger is where Oia is. Fira (pronounced Fear-uh and also often spelled Thira or Thera and pronounced Thear-uh) is right in the middle of your hand and is the spot where your tender will drop you off. So now, I faced the logistical issue of getting from sea level up to the top of Fira, then visiting both the thumb and the index finger in the same day, making sure that we would have lunch at the index finger, and then making sure that we got back to Fira in time to catch the last tender. Whew! Seems daunting. From the research that I did which I will share with you, I learned the following, (some of which is definitely true, some of which might be true, and some of which could very well be a load of bunk. You know what the say about reading something on the internet.) · When many ships pay a visit, getting a taxi can be difficult/impossible · The bus line is reliable, but crowded and doesn’t run as often as my might like, so if you miss one bus, you might wait almost an hour for the next one · The rental car agencies are small, local operations and an international driver’s license is required, and you never know until the day you arrive if the agency you rented from will actually enforce that rule. Some will. Some won’t. But it is difficult to get a straight answer in advance · Even if you do rent a car, driving around the island is a bit, shall we say, rustic. What I did know to be true with absolute certainty is that your tender will drop you off at sea level and you will have to make your way up the cliff to Fira to begin your day. You have three choices. Walk. About 600 steps, each one requiring two or three strides as the walkway is more of a path than a staircase. And the steps are slippery stone, and often wet with donkey discharges. Should take around 45 minutes or so to complete. Seemed more like an Amazing Race challenge than a vacation activity. Pass. Option two, climb aboard one of the aforementioned donkeys who are doing the discharging. Slow. Uncomfortable, malodorous. Again, Pass. Option three is the cable car. Depending on where your ship slips in to the queue of ships arriving that day, and where you slip in to the order of getting off the ship, there can be a hefty line to board. But once on board the trip up the cliff takes about 2 minutes. That is what we would aim for. My research suggested that Regal would be the first ship in port that day, so we made a point of getting to bed somewhat early the night before and getting an early tender ticket to avoid the worst of the line. With that decided, we now needed to make our way around the rest of the island. But before we go there, let me slip in some photos to break up the narrative. Here is a picture of the cable car. There are two of these contraptions, and each of the cars you see holds 6 people. The operators are pretty good about getting 5 or 6 people in each car, so this series of cars will carry 30-36 people at a time. Here is the view of the ship once you complete your ascent. And here is a photo of KV and SV overlooking the port area. I am told that the choice of colors for the day’s attire was coordinated and purposeful. So now we are at the top. Now what? It is often said that “Money cannot buy happiness” and I know this to be true. But I also know something else to be true. While money cannot buy happiness, it can very often buy off misery. So with that in mind, I opted for the most expensive travel option for the morning as the one that presented the least risk. (Truth be told, taking a ship’s excursion to Akrotiri would have been even more expensive, but all of those visit Akrotiri as a relatively quick stop and include other things like wine tastings and scenic overlook drives that we weren’t interested in.) That option was to arrange for a private driver to take us out to Akrotiri, and then arranged for him to pick us up a few hours later to drive us to Oia. The company we used is called “Welcome Pickups” and they serve many islands and areas, have a smoothly operating website and app, and proved to be both timely and professional. Our driver was a graduate student studying computer programming, spoke perfect English and was a great asset. Through the chat feature on the app we were able to coordinate a meeting place in Fira and stayed in touch as necessary. We were to meet at 9:00 and we had no difficulty making that appointment. We got up at zero-dark-thirty, made full use of the offerings at the International Café, and waited for our misspelled tender ticket group name to be called. (I can’t recall if it was “Seahose” instead of “Seahorse” or “Mana Ray” instead of “Manta Ray”. I just remember that we all noticed the error and had a good laugh.) By 8:00 we were on a tender and by 8:20 we were at the top of the cliff. We used the time to take some photos and relax for what would be a busy day. And then we messaged our driver and let him know that we were running early if he was in the area and wanted to meet us. He was, and he did. And for the record, the total cost for the driver service to go from Fira to Akrotiri, and then come back three hours later to drive us to Oia was around 80 E after tip. I decided based on my research that we could safely and reliably take a bus back to Fira from Oia once we were ready to make our way back to the ship. More on that later. First, let’s visit Akrotiri.

Since the Dine My Way chews up so much space here (pun intended), and this site is awash with how the Plus Package works for beverages (again, pun intended), they deserve their own post (and I promise that this will be the last one without copious photos of our adventure.) Well in advance of our departure date, I used the Platinum advantage to book our dining reservations as early as possible. We had a standing reservation in Concerto (Deck 6) at 7:20 and had one reservation at Sabatini’s at 7:10 as a “gift” as part of the Best Sale Ever. We had hoped to parlay our standing reservation into a “same table, same time each day” exacta. And for the most part, we did exactly that. On day one we arrived at 7:20, went to the “Reservations” side of the entrance, and joined a line that had two or three groups ahead of us. Our total wait time for a table was around seven minutes. Before arrival we stopped off at Vines, ordered some nice wines, and had the server pour the wines into our own glasses. Let me tell you that if you ever want to be the envy of all on board, go out and spend $4.99 each at a local home goods store and buy some sizable stems and watch as everyone drools with envy over your ability to swirl and sniff your wine while they clumsily drink from glasses that are best suited to a rubber chicken banquet. I know from past experience that someone will ask to see the glasses, so actually took a photo of one in relation to one of the wine bottles we brought on board. The glasses are not “brand name”, and seriously cost $4.99 each at Zara Home in Athens. When it was our turn, we were shown to a table, and my hopes were dashed that this would be our table for the cruise. The location was fine, though a bit too close to the entrance for my taste, and the servers were great. The problem was that this table vibrated like nobody’s business. It was like trying to dine on the surface of a Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge bed in 1967 after someone put a quarter in the magic fingers massage machine. If you are old enough, you will get the reference. Seriously, all of our glasses looked like a scene from a Jurassic Park movie and my daughter even commented at one point: “The T-Rex is coming”. If you are familiar with the movie franchise, you will get the reference. There was simply no way that we could endure this table again, so we opted against asking for it to be “our” table for the rest of the cruise. I will provide more detail on the food, wine and wine service in a different post. On day two, we again arrived at 7:20 and there was no line at all in the Reservations side. But there was a bit of wait for the “No Reservations” side to the point where they were asking people to please go down to the Deck 5 Dining Room. But this time we were immediately shown to a table toward the back of the dining room, and the hostess complimented us on our wine glasses and wished that the ship had better stems. This second table proved to be perfect. Our servers were great. Engaging. Funny. Professional. And the table produced nary a ripple in our water glasses, let alone the full-fledged wake that we had experienced the night before. After this dinner ended, I sought out the hostess and asked her the magic question: “Could we have that table each night from here on out?” She took down our names and cabin number and said that as long as we agreed to come in at 7:30 instead of 7:20, we could walk straight to the table without even checking in at the podium. And so we did. Never again did we wait so much as a second to be seated, and our experience replicated the Traditional Dining experience in every way possible. Our servers came to know us, and we them. They knew which “over $12 wines” we were likely to order each night, and knew that we wished to have the wines poured into our own glasses. Dine My Way, at least for us and on this cruise, proved to be seamless. I’m sorry for others who have not experienced the same thing, but all I can tell you was that at this MDR on these days, the system was perfect. Lots more on “Plus” and food and wine to come. But I wanted to get the DMW discussion out in front. Hopefully more posts will follow tomorrow.

Day One: Boarding Process and Other Musings I’ll use this space to provide some thoughts and insights on boarding a Princess cruise in Athens (Piraeus). Getting there is a breeze. A cab ride from central Athens takes about 20 minutes and costs around 25 E. Longer and more expensive from the airport. The cab ride is not the most scenic, but it certainly is efficient. While the Metro will take you to the “Port of Piraeus”, it won’t take you anywhere near Terminal B, “Themistocles” which is the one PCL typically uses. The Metro is really only useful for people taking ferries out of Piraeus, not cruise ships. The check-in and boarding process was a breeze, though a bit frustrating. KV and I had taken one other “Medallion Class” cruise, also on Regal, but out of Port Everglades. Everything there worked as it should, with check-in requiring but a mere tap of your medallion. In Piraeus, the people in the terminal couldn’t tell a medallion from a 2 Euro coin. Green Lane? Never heard of it. Ocean Ready? What’s that? All of the effort spent downloading the app and getting all of the information uploaded was for naught. After presenting all of the proper paperwork, (proof of vaccination, passports and booking confirmation) we were told to get in line to pick up our medallions, even though at the start of this process we showed the agent our medallions and announced that we were ready to “tap in.” She looked completely perplexed that we already had our medallions and had to call over a supervisor to ask what to do next. Ah, technology. This was all straightened out in short order and we were then shown to the Platinum “Lounge”. KV and I are Platinum. SV was on her last cruise as a Ruby, leveling up after the cruise ended. Nevertheless, we got her into the Platinum Lounge with us (and the 5 other people in the area) without any concern. We were up front about her status, but were told that we could all go in together. The “lounge” was just an area adjacent to the regular waiting area, but served its purpose for the half dozen people who were there at 10:30. Very good orange juice and some cookies for those who care. By 11:00 the Suite and Elites started to board, and we were right behind them at 11:15. We received notice that cabins would be ready by 1:00 so we headed straight to the International Café, our home away from home. By 12:00 I decided to sneak a peek to see if our cabin was ready, and it was, so I went back to the IC to collect up the rest of our group to drop our stuff off. While there, we walked out to our mid-ship, extended port side Mini-Suite to take a look around, and on a clear day, the Parthenon can be easily spied in the distance. While we are on the subject of the cabin, I thought that I would highlight a few things for those who keep track of the current state of affairs. As noted, we were mid-ship on Caribe in a Mini-Suite, port side, with an extended balcony. There were two chairs on the balcony, one of which had an ottoman under it, since the ottoman could be accommodated by the added width. The sofa converted to a bed for SV, but it was not a fold-out bed as many ships have. Instead, the length of the sofa becomes the length of the bed without any awkward converting or table moving. Our steward had the sofa made up into a bed already, so for day one we had no use of the sofa. When he introduced himself to us, we asked him if we could have the sofa set up as a sofa during the day and converted during turndown when we went to dinner, and he was happy to oblige. Yes, there was a barrel chair in the room, and yes, it too fits on the balcony when all three of us wanted to sit out there. The dreaded nightlight. Ugh. Yes, this cabin has the “nightlight” that comes on every time someone makes a movement near the closet area and it is ridiculously bright. If we opened our balcony curtains we could have used this light as a semaphore to give signals to Jason in his quest to acquire the Golden Fleece. You read about this light here, but until you experience it on night one, you just don’t appreciate what a horrible idea this was. We put Band-Aids over the sensor. (I think they are called “plasters” elsewhere and trust me, if I had actual plaster, I would have used that instead.) One day two, our steward swapped out my handiwork for masking tape and all was good for the rest of the trip. Water Pressure. On every Princess cruise I have been on, I have gauged the water pressure based on whether it is better than what I have at home. And up until now, that has been the case each and every time. But that string is now broken. The water pressure in our cabin (at least from the shower head) was not great, but sufficient to get the job done. WiFi. Yes, it is slow. But I was on board for vacation and wasn’t going to try to do a “Live From” or upload/download anything of consequence. Had I needed to, it would have been frustrating. But the wi-fi proved sufficient to allow me to keep my Wordle streak alive while on vacation, and that is all I really cared about. More on the Medallion App later. Lunch was at Alfredo’s right after we dropped off our bags. For the most part, as good as ever, except this was the first of many times when we noticed a cutback (or “change”, though I suspect the former.) Not enough to have us screaming for the hills promising never to sail on PCL again. But a change nonetheless. We always ordered a truffle pizza as part of our order. But on this cruise that pizza was nowhere to be found on the menu. I suppose we could have asked if they had a “secret menu” and tried to order an Alfredo’s pizza “animal style” to see what happened. But instead we just ordered what they offered and the pizza was wonderful as usual. Frankly, way better than a pizza on a cruise ship has any right to be. After lunch we unpacked, watched the safety video, tapped into our muster station and relaxed with our Plus Package at the Outrigger bar staring off the aft of the ship watching the port activity. This proves to be a blood pressure lowering activity for us and it works. Before long it was time to get ready for dinner, and I will save that for the next post. Being Autumn and all, sunset was early, and while we got ready for dinner, we were met by a gorgeous full moon outside our balcony. Pretty cool sight. Next up: Is Dine My Way working for us or against us?

Our Time In Athens, or “Should we go to the airport or the mall?” It is oft-said that “Man plans while God laughs.” God was splitting a gut on our arrival day. Once we had all arrived in Athens, we were going to do lots of things in the time we had. Visit a couple of professors. Go to my daughter’s favorite coffee/pastry shop where she spent so much time writing papers and had become close friends with the shop owner. Go to the National Archaeology Museum. Go to the Acropolis Museum. Have dinner at our favorite Athens restaurant. But all that changed when my daughter arrived at 1:00 a.m. after delays and a severely compressed layover at CDG, only to find that while she was able to run from gate to gate to make her connection, her checked bag had not. Air France promised that she would receive her bag by 4:00 p.m at our Air BnB, and if not, they would make sure that the bag was sent to the port before departure the following day. We were skeptical, (which, for those who care, is Greek in origin and only seems fitting here.) We did our best to cling to the faint hope that her bag would be delivered, and headed out to cross off a few things on our “must do” list. Our Air BnB was located in my daughter’s old neighborhood called the “Pangrati” which is where the Old Olympic Stadium (from the 1800’s, not the one from Ancient times) is located. In fact, our abode’s back wall nestled up against the stadium. Photo taken with one of our phones, in a rush. Not the best shot. We figured that we could accomplish the modest goals of buying some nice wine glasses to take on the ship with us; buy three bottles of decent Rose to take aboard to enjoy on our balcony; visit her friend at the coffee shop, and have a nice lunch, all while we stayed within close range of our apartment waiting for her bag to arrive. We met each goal, except for the part where we would meet the driver who was delivering bag. While the Pangrati is not the neighborhood that one might think of staying when touring Athens, I can tell you that our Air BnB was outstanding and less than $100 (given the current exchange, I am going to use dollars and Euros interchangeably) per night for a two bedroom, two bath, thoroughly modern, air-conditioned unit. And it had the added benefit of being a minute’s walk from a bus stop that gets you anywhere you want to be, a minute from the Old Olympic Stadium, and a minute from Kekko’s, the aforementioned coffee/pastry shop run by Dimitri who is the kindest soul one could ever hope to meet. We arrived there mid-morning and after the flow of tears of joy, SV was treated like royalty, and mom and dad were as well. Shameless plug, but if you ever find yourself in that area, please do call on Kekko’s. You won’t be disappointed. Upon our leave, Dimitri presented us with a box (crate is more like it) of pastries to take with us on our cruise and refused to take a penny for his gesture. When he wasn’t looking, I slipped the server 10 Euro and told her that this was to be our little secret. The rest of the afternoon was spent crossing more things off our list without roaming too far in case the bag arrived. We succeeded in buying three very nice wine glasses at Zara Home and three bottles of Rose at a nearby wine shop. We picked up two bottles of Whispering Angel that I knew could be found on the ship for $65. We paid $23 each at the shop. Soon, it was 4:00 and there was no sign of the bag. So we had a decision to make. Do we make a run out to the airport to see if we could track down the bag, or do we make a run out to the mall to buy clothes? SV and I decided to take the Metro out to the airport while KV stayed behind in case the bag showed up. We simply did not want to rely on Air France delivering the bag to the port in the morning. We arrived at the airport at 5:00 and got in the long line established to handle lost baggage issues. I will actually make this long story short and tell you that we figured out where the storage area of lost bags was kept by watching how others were having their issues addressed, and had SV go to that area to beg and plea while I stayed in the line which moved at a snail’s pace. SV was able to get the attention of the man in charge of the storage room and believe me when I tell you that this room looked like the closing scene of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. But SV’s quivering lip succeeded in getting the kind man to look for her bag, and after 10 excruciating minutes, he appeared from behind the door with her bag in tow! Success!! A bit of a wasted day in Athens, if I am being honest, but SV lived there for 9 months and KV and I have been there 4 times prior, so we’ve pretty much seen what we wanted to see. Far more important to reunite with the bag than to see the museum pieces again. SV and I hopped in a cab and headed back to our apartment just in time to get ready for dinner. I had made a reservation at our all-time favorite “high end” restaurant in Athens (as opposed to a Taverna which we enjoy as well). It is right near the Acropolis Museum in an area replete with touristy places that are not recommended. But “Balcony” sits two stories above the fray, and three if you request to sit on the outside deck, and you DO want to request to sit on the outside deck. It was so relaxing to have a nice meal knowing that our morning would not be occupied stressing about whether SV’s bag would make it to Piraeus. So we ate, drank and were merry, finally able to relax and begin our vacation in earnest. Well, we were in Greece, not in earnest. But you know what I mean. Next up: Day One of Our Cruise.

Did the title shock you? Concern you? Look again. It does not say “Totally Ruined Cruise”. Rather, it says “Totally Ruins Cruise”. Big difference. Allow me to explain, and try not to let my warped sense of humor and self-indulgent writing style stand in the way. You may laugh. You may learn. And hopefully you will see some cool photos. So let’s start at the beginning, with the Who, What, When, Where and Why. Who: Me, my wife (KV) of almost 30 years and our daughter (SV), age 24 at the time of sailing. What: Princess calls it “7 Days Eastern Mediterranean”. I call it our “2022 Med Cruise”, or, our first cruise since the pause. My wife and I last cruised in the middle of December 2019, so really, right before the pause. My daughter’s last cruise prior to this was a year earlier than that. When: Cruise was October 8-15, but our complete trip was October 5-17. Where: A couple of land-based days in Athens (Greece, not Georgia); followed by the cruise to Barcelona by way of Santorini, Kotor, Messina Sicily, Naples (Italy, not Florida), followed by 2 land-based days in Barcelona. Why: Oh boy. Here’s where it gets long. I would say “Long story short”, but that would be a lie. In reality it is: “Really, really long story condensed to simply a long story.” But it does help to set the scene for the cruise (and the title), so bear with me. Our daughter had the bad luck of having her senior year of college interrupted and superseded by the Covid-19 pandemic. Like so many others, she was sent home during Spring Break of her Senior Year, and she never returned. So no graduation ceremony. No Pomp and Circumstance. No promised graduation family trip to celebrate. Instead she graduated with a double major in Classic Studies and Anthropology with a focus on Classic Archaeology, and all she had to show for it was an impromptu photo shoot taken in our town with some High School friends who shared the same fate. Soon thereafter, it was off to graduate school to get her Masters in Classical Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. Why Edinburgh you ask? Well, her area of focus was to be “The Roman Empire in the UK” and she wanted to study at a university where they spoke English. But instead she chose to go to Scotland! A full year passed and she completed her studies, all throughout a time when Scotland was more or less in lockdown, and my wife and I never got to visit her. She was all set to graduate in December 2021 and my wife and I booked a trip so that we could attend the graduation and stay through Christmas. And let me tell you, the price of our plane tickets was a king’s ransom. But then, BOOM. The “surge” hit and Scotland went into lockdown again. Travel restrictions were so tight that had we gone, we would hardly have been able to leave our hotel room. So after many hours of careful thought and tears, we cancelled our trip and our daughter graduated with a Masters degree and all we have to see for it is a couple of photos, one seen here. That’s the bad part of the story (to the extent that a proud father can say that his daughter earning two degrees is at all bad.) The good part is that while we could not get a refund for the money paid for our plane tickets, American Airlines issued us a full credit, provided that we used the sum within a year. As soon as travel became feasible, we booked a trip to visit our daughter in Edinburgh, (she has elected to stay, live and work there, at least for the time being) and we got to see her in May. But after booking that trip, we still had over half of our original airfare banked with American, to be used by the end of the year. And with my job responsibilities, travel in November and December is really a bad idea, so we had to figure out how to use the credit before the end of October. With that, I put on my thinking cap and looked for a way that we could celebrate all of her graduations in one big, fun, family vacation on neutral territory. As fun as Edinburgh is, I wanted us all to go someplace else, and I focused on Europe so that it would be easy for our daughter to meet us. With degrees in Classical Archaeology, and having lived in Greece for nine months as an undergrad, I thought that a family vacation to Greece would be great, as I knew that my daughter wanted to reconnect with friends she had made there. In the course of my research, I came upon a Princess cruise that started in Athens and went to lots of places that my daughter had studied, and quickly concluded that this would be the perfect family trip to bring everything together: Us, her graduations, and her areas of study. Done, and done! Hence the title of the Trip Report. We were off to the the ruins! Believe it or not, that really is the “short” version of the story. But it gets us where we need to be. So my wife and I flew direct from JFK to Athens, and our daughter flew not so direct from Edinburgh to Athens, all arriving on October 6 with plans to board the Regal Princess on October 8 in Piraeus. Up Next: Our Time In Athens .

Because the menus in the Main Dining Rooms are kicked up several notches on those nights and we find no reason to skip the very best offerings that are already paid for in favor of paying a premium for very similar offerings.

As a general rule, I find the last night's menu the most lacking, but we usually tough it out so that we can bid farewell to our servers. Our strategy is to avoid the Specialty Restaurants on the first and last nights, (on the first night we want to strike up a rapport with the MDR staff and on the last night we want to say our farewells); avoid the Specialty Restaurants on the Formal or Dress to Impress nights, and then not sweat the details of the other nights.

Canyon Road is what you bust out when you are the host paying for an open bar for your guests...and you really don't like your guests!!

Joining a real name chat board and posting about your upcoming vacation plans is about the easiest way possible to direct thieves to your door. Best to post something to the tune of: "I'm getting ready to board the Ruby Princess on 11/1. Got my Ring camera all set up and linked to the local police, and by nephew is going to house sit for us to take care of our three Dobermans. 😉

With the Crew Chat feature, asking the bartender to track you down if there are any nice bottles in need of finishing is never a bad idea! Thread drift, but back in the day when the California Grill first opened at Disney World (if you are familiar with it), they had a policy (since changed) that you could order wines by the glass from almost any bottle on their list. (They excepted out things like Harlan and Hillside Select.) One day my wife and I arrived in town too late for dinner, but we decided to try to have dessert up at the California Grill bar. We ended up closing the place down with the bartender (Ray. I'll never forget him.) Once he figured out our passion for wine, it was two hours of: ""Try this!" (Peter Michael Chardonnay) and "See if you like this" (Martinelli Pinot Noir). And on and on. He said that these were all opened during the evening and they never try to store fine wines because, well, what's the point. They would all be taken home by the staff if not consumed by customers. Since most of what we had were short pours for educational purposes, at the end of the night he only charged us the equivalent of two glasses of wine when we probably had the equivalent of 5 or 6. So he ended up with a tip that was the equivalent of the price of about 5 high-end glasses of wine. So yes, it pays to make friends with bartenders who find themselves with a glass and a half of great wine left in a bottle. Oh. And as for the spoiled wine. There is no guarantee that the wines spoiled due to being opened for 24 hours. Few wines are that delicate. How many bottles have you had that improved on day 2? Countless. It is entirely possible that the spoliation came during the pause when the storage conditions of wine on board ships remains a mystery. Were these wines kept in 55 degree wine lockers? Probably not. 90 degree storage areas in and around FLL? Quite possibly.

All good points. Wine storage for open bottles is irrelevant on a ship with 3,500 people. They go through way too many bottles/glasses a day to worry about storing open wine. Any good bartender will know how to use a smooth sales pitch to pour out the back half of an open bottle after 10:00 p.m.. Or use heavy pours to drain the bottle if need be. Or make the wine available to off duty crew members in the crew lounges. But the turnover of the bottles on the ship is so fast that spending money on Coravins or other such systems would be foolish. I've drunk some mighty fine "last pours" around midnight with sommeliers over the years. Including an almost full glass of '61 Petrus from Magnum that the diners who ordered it did not finish. 🍷☺️

The Chocolate Block was available at Vines but did not appear on the MDR wine list, and I believe was a few dollars above the $1 addition. Might have been a $16 glass. Or $14. But definitely not $13. No wines were. Our general strategy was to take our own wine glasses to Vines, get a nice wine to take into the MDR to have with our first course(s) and then order the remaining glasses from the MDR wine list. There were no surcharge Pinots on the MDR list, so if you wanted a Pinot that was not generic, you had to go to a bar to bring it with you. Belle Glos was the best option at Vines. Much more on wine service and the wine experience when I get my trip report posted.

You will be told at the time of departure. 1:00 seems to be the average. Just recently we boarded at around 11:00 and were told 1:00. At noon I walked to our cabin (Mini-Suite) and found it ready, so we dropped off our carry -on luggage and headed to Alfredo's. By the time lunch was over, the bags we turned over to the Porters had arrived.

??? We put it on our TV while unpacking and the system confirmed that all three of us were in the cabin. (Or in reality all of our medallions were in the cabin.) Once completed once on the TV, all three of us got a check mark in one box, and we achieved our second checkmark once we tapped in at our muster station. We did not have to do anything on the app.

Recently off Regal. We had the Plus Package but used OBC to pay for the overage. Between the three of us in our group, we ordered one Plus wine, (a Rose that was printed by name on a list.) Almost all of the other Plus wines were sold as generic blind guesses and we don't play that game. But we found plenty of good wines in the $14-$16 range, so our total bill at the end of the trip (paid for by OBC) was modest. Bottom line is that there really has not been any improvement over what the OP reported in the opening post, but circumventing generic wines is easy and not all that costly. And almost all liquor-based drinks fall within the Plus Package limits. There were some premium liquors that we wanted to audition to see of they should find space on our home bar, so we splurged now and again on sipping alcohols (mostly Scotch, Rum and Gin) and those came in around $18. But we could easily have avoided those surcharges had we wanted to. But I figured the extra $6 was worth the cost to see if a $70 bottle would be worth buying. Full Trip Report to come once I get my photos downloaded. But those are my initial thoughts on the Plus Package.

With the introduction of Plus and Premier there isn’t much of a need to run specials.