LIVE from Celebrity Reflection - 4/27/18 - 10 nt Italy & Greek Isles Cruise

[WonderMan3]

was it easy to find your driver outside baggage claim? How did you know where to go? Is there only one exit? I've hired Cabs 4 Rome for our transfer in September and am a bit nervous about finding them.

 

 

 

You won’t miss it. It’s right as you exit the baggage claim. There is only one way out. Now you will have to scan carefully among all the different drivers to find your name on a sign. Today there must’ve been about 60 drivers standing there with signs.

 

 

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[Pantheral]

You won’t miss it. It’s right as you exit the baggage claim. There is only one way out. Now you will have to scan carefully among all the different drivers to find your name on a sign. Today there must’ve been about 60 drivers standing there with signs.

 

 

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I used the same limo company last summer and I sent then a small picture of myself in my last confirmation e-mail. The driver actually ended up spotting me before I was able to scan all of the name cards and find him. :D

[WonderMan3]

The hotel we are staying at in Civitavecchia is the Hotel San Giorgio. It’s a pretty average property quality-wise but was the highest ranked on Trip Advisor which is why I chose it. We are paying 119 Euro for the night for a deluxe room with queen size bed including breakfast buffet, free WiFi and shuttle to the cruise terminal. Our room is clean and quite large being spread out over two levels with the bed in the upper loft area and the bathroom and sofa bed on the main floor. There are a number of stores and restaurants near the hotel and there is a nice waterfront park across the street.

 

After checking in and getting settled we went for a walk to find a grocery store to get some snacks for the cruise. There are two smallish grocery stores within a 5-10 minute walk from the hotel. One is called PAM Local and the other was called Meta Supermercati. They both had essentially the same type of items although Meta seemed to have toiletries for sale too. There is also a pharmacy over near the PAM Local. After our shopping we headed back to the hotel to relax before dinner.

 

To make it easy on us as we are tired we decided to have dinner at the hotel’s restaurant called Bistrot 34. It was pretty good. I started with a fried appetizer collection that included arancini, fried zucchini and ham & cheese croquettes with different dipping sauces. For our main entrees we had the L’amatriciana and the Carbonara. Service was pleasant but a little distracted (server kept forgetting things like napkins, took forever to get our check, etc.). But, for all that food plus a beer and a cocktail it only came to 38 Euro! Very cheap! I’m sharing photos of the menu and what we ordered for those who might be interested.

 

 

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[WonderMan3]

 

 

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[WonderMan3]

 

 

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[WonderMan3]

After dinner we took a stroll along the waterfront park and got to see an amazing sunset. What a wonderful way to end our first day! Now it’s off to bed...and on to Reflection tomorrow!

 

 

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[robertmartha]

Adam - thanks for the information on Norwegian Air. Definitely will add them to my airline searches when flying overseas. Making a big push on the east coast and their flights sometimes are almost to good to be true price wise. Enjoy your trip - will be sailing along with you

 

Bob

[Tomato53]

Hello Adam! I'm enjoying and learning from your posts so far.

 

I was especially interested in your experience flying Norwegian. We are sailing on Eclipse from Barcelona in November and Norwegian from Newark is one of the flight options. I've been watching business class fares but Norwegian's premium economy is about half the price of those. Hmmmm. This will be my husband's first trip to Europe and my first in about 25 years. Really looking forward to the trip!

 

Hope your hearing issue is resolving. I suddenly lost hearing in one ear last year and have a lot of annoying tinnitus - my doc says there's not really anything that will help with that.

 

Hope you and Mike have a great cruise - I'll be following along.

 

John

[Blockschip]

I use earplanes on every flight I take. I don't need them on the takeoff, but always on the landing. You're right though, you have a to get a good seal or they don't work.

[h20cruzer]

love your review and pics. looking forward to everything you will be sharing.

norma

[ecslady]

Following along.. I am very interested to find out how your flight from EWR to FCO is. . Have a great cruise.

[RomyFamily]

Following along too. Thank you very much for taking time and posting. I will be on the same itinerary with my family later on this year :).

 

We will be staying at San Giorgio pre-cruise as well. Please let us know if their shuttle service is working well.

[WonderMan3]

Hello Adam! I'm enjoying and learning from your posts so far.

 

I was especially interested in your experience flying Norwegian. We are sailing on Eclipse from Barcelona in November and Norwegian from Newark is one of the flight options. I've been watching business class fares but Norwegian's premium economy is about half the price of those. Hmmmm. This will be my husband's first trip to Europe and my first in about 25 years. Really looking forward to the trip!

 

Hope your hearing issue is resolving. I suddenly lost hearing in one ear last year and have a lot of annoying tinnitus - my doc says there's not really anything that will help with that.

 

Hope you and Mike have a great cruise - I'll be following along.

 

John

 

 

 

Thank you! I tried to be as detailed as possible with my Norwegian review. I have never flown Business Class before so this was definitely a step up for me from Economy. If you are used to Business Class perks though I think this will be a disappointment. But if the cost savings are worth it for you to have less frills then definitely go for it. Our flight time going out was only around 7 hours. It will probably be 8.5 coming back. What they offer makes it bearable. If this was a flight to Asia or Australia then you’d probably want to just go for a flight with full Business if you can afford it. Hope that makes sense.

 

 

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[WonderMan3]

Following along.. I am very interested to find out how your flight from EWR to FCO is. . Have a great cruise.

 

 

 

Thanks. I posted my review of the outbound flight a little further up in the thread. [emoji846]

 

 

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[WonderMan3]

So we are sitting here on the hotel terrace waiting for our shuttle into the cruise port. We were in bed by 10 last night and it didn’t take long for us to fall asleep after having been up for about 30 hours. The bed was not that comfortable with a firm mattress and thin pillows; looking forward to getting on board Reflection and a comfortable bed! We were up by around 7:30 this morning to get ready for the day. We tried the included breakfast here at the hotel which was a buffet spread that featured a variety of pastries, cereals, bread for toasting, pre-fried eggs, bacon, quiche and some ham & cheese. It was a light start to the day but we’ll grab lunch once we board the ship.

 

Check out of the hotel was at 10am (which they let us extend to 10:30) which created a gap of time since our port shuttle doesn’t leave until 11:30. It was pretty chaotic in the hotel lobby this morning with many people checking out and waiting for the shuttle and groups of people also checking in at the same time. It sounds like they will just take our bags from the shuttle and pass them right on to Celebrity which is an issue for us since we don’t have baggage tags (for the second cruise in a row, Celebrity never sent us our tags). We’ll have to reclaim our bags and get the pier porters to tag them. So a little stressful this morning but peaceful times await us in a few hours.

 

 

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[maggieq]

Norwegian air came up as a choice for Newark to Barcelona for our symphony cruise. We ended up using united miles. However, the price wasn’t bad for one way in economy plus. Was that the class of seats you had?

 

Thanks for doing this review. Following along.....

[WonderMan3]

Norwegian air came up as a choice for Newark to Barcelona for our symphony cruise. We ended up using united miles. However, the price wasn’t bad for one way in economy plus. Was that the class of seats you had?

 

Thanks for doing this review. Following along.....

 

 

 

Yes, they call it Premium Class which is a bit better than Premium Economy on other carriers.

 

 

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[Cruisin caper]

Thanks Adam

We are on the same itinerary starting June 8th and are excited to hear about your experiences. Anne

[WonderMan3]

We are onboard Reflection!! Our hotel shuttle issues worked themselves out once we got to the pier. It was a bit chaotic at the hotel as each employee gave us a different answer as to whether we would have access to our bags again at the pier. The shuttle wound up leaving at 12 instead of 11:30 and it took about 15 minutes to get to the ship because of traffic in town. Once off the shuttle they offloaded our bags and then we had to take them over to the porters. That worked out great as then we were able to get our bags tagged by a port representative. It was a bit disorganized compared to baggage handling in Florida. You had to walk in drop your bags off inside the terminal building as opposed to the porters meeting you outside and taking them off your hands.

 

Check-in was quick. You first had to fill out the medical questionnaire the moment you walked in, then on to security which took a couple minutes and then to the actual check-in. We were able to head into the Suites line which had no waiting. What was interesting was I noticed that here in Rome the Suites check-in was a dedicated line unlike Florida where it is shared with Zenith. The check-in was speedy and then we were on our way to board the ship. We had no escort to guide us on to the ship like we did in January on Silhouette. I’m not sure if that was a Ft. Lauderdale vs. Rome difference or a Royal Suite vs. Sky Suite difference. At the gangway, suites boarded on a separate entry which had no waiting. There was staff inside waiting with glasses of champagne. We walked up one deck to 3 to head into Luminae for lunch.

 

This was probably the busiest I had seen Luminae at embarkation lunch on the various ships I’ve been on, but we were seated immediately. Mike enjoyed a frozen mudslide and Smoked Sausage while I had a Bahama Mama and the Chicken & Waffles. We both finished off the lunch with the White Chocolate Macadamia Cake. It all hit the spot!

 

 

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[mj2000]

Following along too. Thank you very much for taking time and posting. We will be on the same itinerary on June 8th. Look forward to hearing your experience...

[plucasana]

Thank you for taking the time to write this great review!!!

 

 

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[WonderMan3]

After lunch at Luminae it was 1:30 so cabins were ready. We are on Deck 12 in a Sky Suite. It took a couple hours for our bags to show up so we just relaxed in the cabin for awhile. Here is today’s daily and our Elite Plus information that was in the cabin.

 

 

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[WonderMan3]

 

 

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[WonderMan3]

 

 

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[ecslady]

I first saw the photos of your hotel room, and they looked so familiar. It wasn't until I went back and read where you were stayed that I placed the room. Had the exact same room or layout when I stayed at hotel San Giorgio too. And the shuttle service you described from the hotel to the ship was just as I experienced it over a year ago. Also stayed in a sky suite and there was no escort as they do in Florida either. It's Rome! :D:D