Live from Viking Sky on Mediterannean & Adriatic Sojourn

[FetaCheese]

DrKoob,

 

You have been on the "Luxury Motor Coach".  The quotes must mean something to you.  Will you describe it for us?

[debbieandnorm]

19 hours ago, DrKoob said:

Messina, Taormina and Mount Etna and some ship observations

Before I get to the fun/destination part of this post, here are a few more observations about onboard life.

 

 

This brings me to going back to the Main Dining Room. Our new friends Corky and Larry said they had an outstanding server, and if we came to dinner with them, we would have amazing service. They were right. They have a waiter (whose name I believe is Joku0) who takes great care of them. Not only that, but we met THE wine steward. We asked him if he was the ONLY wine steward on board, and he said he was not. There was one in Chef's Table and in Manfreddis, but he told us, "I am the only one in THE Restaurant. Therefore, I am THE wine steward." But we still did not have that great an experience. The food was "fine" (we still had much better in the World Cafe), but the noise was off the charts. Corky and Larry are not overly quiet people, but I thought I heard about half of what they said. And my friends know that I am not exactly a quiet guy, but Kathleen had to ask me to repeat a couple of things—and she was sitting right next to me. I felt like you needed to shout to be heard, and obviously, so did everyone else. There is no sound deadening when the room is full, and it was slammed.

 

 

We have to agree with you! We were part of that group of quiet passengers who disembarked in Rome lol.

The last night of our cruise, we had a lovely table (#125) in the aft, port side of the Restaurant. We were hoping to enjoy our final dinner together peacefully. But, a table of 6 people next to the empty table of 2 beside us, made that impossible. In fact, they were so incredibly loud, that another couple who were about to be seated there, asked to be moved before they even got their menus!

We lasted until dessert, but had had enough by then & our server suggested that they send it up to our room via room service. 
The staff apologized profusely to us, but other than that, what could they do?

 

We were talking with other passengers about the noise & wondered why they couldn’t have a section of tables for 2 only. A quiet room. For conversation, not shouting.

 

On another note, we are thoroughly enjoying your photography, especially the Mount Etna ones we didn’t get to visit. It’s funny to see the same pictures we took of places we visited, only better! Home now, but still feels like we are on the cruise! Thanks.

[miami mama]

DrKoob, I have really enjoyed your pictures. Thank you so much for sharing.

 

The possible answer to the question on the tree in Cortone might be cork oak tree (or some other kind of oak). 

[DrKoob]

Pizza and Piazzas in Napoli

 

For those who were worried because I missed a day, never fear. We were in Monaco yesterday and did an eight-hour excursion that had us wiped out by the time we got back, so we had dinner and slept. But I am back now with my short tail of pizza and Piazzas—a Napoli excursion.

We had initially decided to do this elective (as opposed to included) excursion because, being the pizza-crazy Italian-American that I am, I wanted to watch them make pizza in the home of pizza—Napoli. But first, the Piazzas.

 

Wait! I should mention that when I got up for my morning walk on deck 2, I was treated to an incredible display of lightning on the sea about (I am guessing now—using the old count, the time between the lightning and thunder) 20 miles behind us. Every time my walk would take me aft, I would see five or ten streak lightning bursts hit the sea behind us. As we were trying to get into port, the storm caught up to us. Luckily for me, I had finished my walk by then and was safely inside. The storm was pretty much very heavy rain by this time. But it also meant that the visibility was cut down so much that we could not get into the port. It wasn't because we couldn't see to get in by because the pilot boat could not bring us the pilot. So Viking Sky kind of went back and forth just outside the port until the pilot boat could come in and get us.

 

I should mention here that when we eventually got into the harbor, we (Viking Sky) were moored very close to Wonder of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world. This Royal Caribbean behemoth made Sky look like a lifeboat. We have 9 decks; she has 18. We carry 928 passengers while she carries as many as 6,590. I didn't notice a huge difference in how crowded the port was, but my brother, who went to Pompei (we had been there before), said the place was swamped with her passengers.

Before I tell you more about the pizza, I should tell you that Kathleen bowed out of this excursion. She still had not been sleeping well, and we were worried that the old stones of granite and marble that made up most of the walking surfaces in Naples would not be conducive to her not falling again as she had in San Francisco on our last trip and in Taormina on this one. So I was off on my own. The "luxury motor coach" picked us up just outside a flooded parking lot at the cruise terminal in Naples, and off we went for about two hours of just driving around. I think we stopped once to take pictures, but that was it.

 

This needs to be mentioned here (and it was just as true when we were here on a previous trip); Naples is a dirty city. There is garbage everywhere. Since it is highly industrial, the air isn't the cleanest. So when you see my pics, realize that they do reflect the place.

 

 

Then it was lunchtime (we were running late due to getting into port late), so it was pizza time. This was fine with me because that's why I was there. We stopped at Viking's designated pizza stop. As you can see from the sign, Solopizza has been in business since 1979. Since pizza was invented in Napoli, I kind of thought we would get a place that had been in business since 1799, but it was not to be.

 

 

Inside we all sat down and waited while our pies were made. I was under the impression that we were going to be able to see a demonstration of how the pizzas were being made. I love making pizza, and I am always looking for new techniques, so this was the real reason I signed up for this tour. I asked the guide, and she said she would see what she could do. I got really lucky. Since I was the only one who even asked about it, she got them to let me watch them make the pizzas in the kitchen and take as many pictures as I wanted. I got some great technique ideas from the two pizza makers.

 

You could tell they had been working together for quite a while as they made the pizzas with very little discussion, just one after the other. And let me tell you, the pizza was amazing. The hit was the Pizza Margherita, the most traditional Napoli pizza with just tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, basil and olive oil on it. The crust was as close to perfection as I had ever eaten.

 

They also had a rule, "One person, one pizza." Thankfully when they brought the pizza, it was to be split among the groups at each table. But then they just kept bringing pizzas. They brought enough (and left the empty trays in the middle of the table) that we (9 of us at the table) realized we had almost eaten one pizza per person. It was a great lunch.

 

We then hopped back on the "luxury motor coach" and drove back into downtown Naples where we disembarked for a short tour of downtown followed by 30 minutes of "on-our-own" time. To me, this meant go take some pictures, which I did. You can see all of them my looking at this post on my blog at wwwDOTjktravelredmondDOTcom.

[DrKoob]

16 hours ago, miami mama said:

DrKoob, I have really enjoyed your pictures. Thank you so much for sharing.

 

The possible answer to the question on the tree in Cortone might be cork oak tree (or some other kind of oak). 

Thanks Miami Mama. You might be right. 

 

[DrKoob]

On 9/19/2022 at 12:11 PM, FetaCheese said:

DrKoob,

 

You have been on the "Luxury Motor Coach".  The quotes must mean something to you.  Will you describe it for us?

It's just my little dig about the busses they use. They never call them busses. They are always "luxury motor coaches". 😂  I didn't start using that term until we were going to Cinque Terra, so I will make you wait until I write that one up. It's going to come right after the Naples review I just posted.

[DrKoob]

23 hours ago, debbieandnorm said:

We have to agree with you! We were part of that group of quiet passengers who disembarked in Rome lol.

The last night of our cruise, we had a lovely table (#125) in the aft, port side of the Restaurant. We were hoping to enjoy our final dinner together peacefully. But, a table of 6 people next to the empty table of 2 beside us, made that impossible. In fact, they were so incredibly loud, that another couple who were about to be seated there, asked to be moved before they even got their menus!

We lasted until dessert, but had had enough by then & our server suggested that they send it up to our room via room service. 
The staff apologized profusely to us, but other than that, what could they do?

 

We were talking with other passengers about the noise & wondered why they couldn’t have a section of tables for 2 only. A quiet room. For conversation, not shouting.

 

On another note, we are thoroughly enjoying your photography, especially the Mount Etna ones we didn’t get to visit. It’s funny to see the same pictures we took of places we visited, only better! Home now, but still feels like we are on the cruise! Thanks.

That's a great idea. When you get to the host, you give him your stateroom number and they ask, "Loud or quiet?" or maybe "Conversation or Laugh Your Asses off?" Either way I had to quickly check that our party of six wasn't the ones being to raucous that night. Whew! We ate in the buffet. We have been known to be a little loud. I can always tell when I am too loud—my shins hurt. Think about it 😜.

[DrKoob]

On 9/19/2022 at 10:22 AM, LindaS272 said:

I don’t use a TA and I’ve had different experiences in my several cruises with Viking. What you experienced is not a general rule because we have filled out forms and then been told there is no provision for extras. It’s not about making noise and going up the chain of command. Sounds like occasionally you’ll get lucky and they had room for you.

I did not say it was a general rule. What I said was that I had done it. If I have done it, then someone else should at least give it a try. And NEVER be afraid to escalate an issue. So many times I have had people on the front line tell me something can't be done. I ask for their supervisor and lo and behold, it can be done. In many of those situations, I have had the original person I talked to (who was still on the line) tell me thanks for that new knowledge they now have.

[DrKoob]

On 9/19/2022 at 9:23 AM, Mrs Miggins said:

Looking forward to come onboard on Saturday.  Reading your reports with interest.  What is the entertainment like and who is the Cruise Director.  Have you been to Torshaven.  We have really loved it on our previous Viking cruises and the band were excellent.

It is strange that each sector of this cruise has a different vibe ?  

Wonder what our group will be like.  Friends currently on Jupiter say only 20 from the UK and 6 from Australia with the rest from North America.

 Sorry, I am not the person to tell you about the entertainment. I think I mentioned earlier that we watched one show (a Beatles tribute) on TV in our cabin while it was being performed. Not sure if it was the broadcast but their voices were horrible. I mean ear piercing screeches. And the band was kind of sad. 

 

As to Torshaven, I have only been inside during the day to take pictures. My wife and I often laugh when we hear people talk about the nightlife on a cruise. I get up to walk my 4-5 miles on deck 2 every morning at 5:00 so if we do dinner at 6:30 or 7:00, finish at 8:45 or 9:00, I am off to bed to get up that early. At home I get up at 4:30 so not really a night-life guy. Sorry.

[FetaCheese]

2 hours ago, DrKoob said:

It's just my little dig about the busses they use. They never call them busses. They are always "luxury motor coaches". 😂  I didn't start using that term until we were going to Cinque Terra, so I will make you wait until I write that one up. It's going to come right after the Naples review I just posted.

Thanks, I 1st learned the term visiting Europe decades ago.  That's what they call excursion tour buses.  Back then they were mostly Mercedes Benz.  

 

And yes, they really were, and still are, luxurious!

 

Enjoying your posts.  You have a fine writing style.  

[DrKoob]

27 minutes ago, FetaCheese said:

Thanks, I 1st learned the term visiting Europe decades ago.  That's what they call excursion tour buses.  Back then they were mostly Mercedes Benz.  

 

And yes, they really were, and still are, luxurious!

 

Enjoying your posts.  You have a fine writing style.  

You must have had a different "luxury motor coach" than we have. I was being sarcastic. The busses have been horrid for myself, my brother and his bride. I am 6'2", my brother is 6'8" and my sister-in-law has a bad knee and must keep it extended as much as possible. For us, those busses are nothing but torture devices. My brother has to rush to the bus to make sure they get the furthest back seat on the bus because otherwise he has nowhere to put his legs. I have nowhere to put mine so I just hope that the bus isn't full so I can turn sideways in two seats. They may be "luxury motor coaches" for some people but for us, not so much. 

 

And thanks for the comment on my writing style. I try to make it as conversational as possible. Just want to connect.

[DrKoob]

"Rome wasn't built in a day," and you can't see it in a day

 

That headline was my feeble attempt at humor and to explain why we decided to stay on the ship when Viking Sky arrived in Civitavecchia, the port for the city of Rome. We have been to Rome at least three times before, and as much as we love the city, the idea of leaving the port at 6:45 am, driving the 45 minutes to an hour into Rome and then just driving around looking at the sites from the outside is just not something we wanted to do.

 

So this post is about pretty much nothing. We did some laundry. Stop! Let's talk about that—laundry on a ship. Most cruise lines no longer have laundry facilities on board or never did. Our long-time old favorite, Celebrity, never has. If you needed something washed, you either did it yourself in your stateroom sink, or you sent it out to their fairly expensive laundry. On our January Holland America cruise, we were in a Neptune Suite, so we had laundry included. But being newbies here on Viking, we weren't sure how the whole laundry thing would work out.

 

Laundry

 

It turns out it works wonderfully. On each deck, there is a small "laundrette" with three washers and three dryers stacked on top of each other. There are also two ironing boards for passenger use. If you decide to use the machines, you drop in your load, push a button to add the free soap and softener and then start it up. A timer on the front of the machine tells you how long until it's done. I set a SIRI timer on my Apple watch for that amount of time and then I come back to change the loads. Only a couple of times when we have tried to use the machines has there been anyone else using them.

It's all about the timing. If you go in the evenings, I have heard it can be very crowded. But we have done laundry three times. First when we got on board because we had been traveling on land for six days, then in Rome two weeks later because we were running short on some items, and today we are doing a quick load while we are here in Marseilles. All three of those times have been during the day when most of the ship is on shore.

 

Another great thing we found that kept me away from the ironing boards is that the type of stateroom we are in (a Penthouse Verandah) has free pressing included. So I wash the shirts I have been wearing to dinner and then toss them in a bag, and they come back tomorrow ready to wear, hanging on hangers. I love it.

 

In case you are wondering, we both pretty much do our own laundry at home, but she does the linens and other household stuff, and I do most of the cooking. Onboard I have to do the laundry because the way the dryers are situated above the washers, she can't see into them, let alone reach them. This surprised a couple of the women I have run into while washing clothes.

 

Lots of places to relax

 

Another thing I want to mention about the ship is that is VERY evident when you are on board in a port but still very true all of the time. This ship has a lot of great places just to sit and relax, to have a conversation, to play cards or games, to do just about anything you want to do.

 

At first, I thought it was that way because they just built in those spaces, but then I realized that there is another HUGE reason all these great spaces exist—the Nos. About a week before we sailed, I wrote a post about all the reasons we were sailing on Viking Ocean for this cruise and not one of the other lines we had used before. You can check it out by clicking here.

In that list, you can see that Viking has:

• No children (which means there is no space for a kid's club).
• No art auctions (which means that space is not needed).
• No casino (which means an extra room where a casino would go)
• No ship's photographers (which means you can use that space as well).

When you add up all the space that is revenue producing for other cruise lines and take it off the table, no wonder they have such awesome areas all around the ship that are just for passengers to relax. Here are some quick picks of some of my favorite places on the ship. You can go ahead and look at these with your phone...they are just onboard photos of some of my favorite spots. You can see them at wwwDOTjktravelredmondDOTcom.

 

[wine-wine-wine]

28 minutes ago, DrKoob said:

cruise lines no longer have laundry facilities on board or never did.

Grateful that Silversea, Regent, Seabourne and Crystal (in the old days anyway ) all have self service laundry facilities. Perhaps it is just lacking on the huge ships? 🤷‍♂️

 

I know it won’t be a thing when we finally book Sea Cloud but that is a different kettle of fish. 🤣

[TayanaLorna]

7 hours ago, DrKoob said:

That's a great idea. When you get to the host, you give him your stateroom number and they ask, "Loud or quiet?" or maybe "Conversation or Laugh Your Asses off?" Either way I had to quickly check that our party of six wasn't the ones being to raucous that night. Whew! We ate in the buffet. We have been known to be a little loud. I can always tell when I am too loud—my shins hurt. Think about it 😜.

Kathleen must have a spasmodic foot.

[Jjg34219]

We have only done one Viking cruise ( Orion in August) and we also mentioned how many places onboard there were to “just relax”. We will do our second in 24 Empires of Mediterranean…booking onboard and during the 25 dollar deposit was a nobrainer!

[PasadenaDave]

9 hours ago, DrKoob said:

 Sorry, I am not the person to tell you about the entertainment. I think I mentioned earlier that we watched one show (a Beatles tribute) on TV in our cabin while it was being performed. Not sure if it was the broadcast but their voices were horrible. I mean ear piercing screeches. And the band was kind of sad. 

 

As to Torshaven, I have only been inside during the day to take pictures. My wife and I often laugh when we hear people talk about the nightlife on a cruise. I get up to walk my 4-5 miles on deck 2 every morning at 5:00 so if we do dinner at 6:30 or 7:00, finish at 8:45 or 9:00, I am off to bed to get up that early. At home I get up at 4:30 so not really a night-life guy. Sorry.

You sound as nightlife crazy as me.  My typical at home is sleep 9:30-5:45.  Same on cruises except bedtime is a little earlier.  I do like my sleep.  but Viking beds after walking on hard rough surfaces, oh my.

[DrKoob]

The Best Day of the Entire Trip—Cinque Terre

The day after we took our day off in Rome was absolutely the best day of the whole trip from Amsterdam to Athens to that day. The ship was docked in Livorno, Italy, which is the port for Florence. And about 95% of the passengers on board were headed to either Florence itself or the Tuscan countryside and Pisa to see the Leaning Tower. We, on the other hand, had decided to do our own thing.

As I said about Rome in my last post, you can't see Rome in one day. I also believe you can't do justice to Florence in one day. If you really want to see the Uffizi or the Academia, you need half a day in each. That leaves no time for the Duomo, the baptistery, the Ponte Vecchio, or so much more that is Firenze. Besides, we had been there before. So we opted out. But sadly, that was the only place that Viking was offering tours to. So we created our own.

 

About three months before the cruise, I started looking for someplace else to see in the general area of Livorno that we had not seen. We had never seen the Leaning Tower and the rest of Pisa, but that was a two-hour tour, and we would be in Livorno for two days and would see that on the second day. So where to go? I searched maps and Cruise Critic for ideas, and in doing that, I looked up the coast, and lo and behold—Cinque Terre. We had heard so much about it but had never been there, and we really wanted to see it, but for some reason, Viking does not do any tours in that direction (although it took us the same amount of time to get there as it did to get into Florence). That meant I had to find us a tour. So off I went to Google, and the first tour that popped up was a "Tour to Cinque Terre from the Port of Livorno" by BellaItalia Tours. That sounded like just what we were looking for, so I contacted them.

 

Like most tours, this had one price—the price of the tour. Actually, there were two possibilities—a tour with a driver who got you there and got you off on your way into the first "land" and then picked you up and took you back to the ship after you finished touring everything. The other option was a driver AND a guide. The driver got you there, but the guide accompanied you throughout the day from village to village telling us all about them on the way. We wanted to do this because we were looking for someone to walk us through the entire thing.

If you got the driver and the guide, the price was just about 800 euros for two people. But if you could find more to join you, the price went down because you were paying for the car, driver and guide no matter what. Up to 8 people could come along. To find someone else to join us (the other four in our party had never been to Florence, so they were going there), I went on Cruise Critic to our roll call (click here if you need Cruise Critic and Roll Calls explained) and found Corky and Larry from Maui who said they would love to join us. This meant our price was basically cut in half. And not only did that make this tour a bargain, but we made two great friends in the process.

 

As soon as the ship had been cleared by the port authorities, we were off and looking for my name on a placard being held by our guide, the amazing and hilarious Luigi. And he and our driver (Alessandro) were waiting right where they said they would be, we jumped in their Mercedes van, and we were off. What joy it was to ride in a van and not a "luxury motor coach." It meant that there were two of us to a seat, with plenty of legroom and Luigi giving us non-stop play-by-play as we drove along.

On the way, we got to see some things we hadn't expected, like the famous marble mountains of Carrara. I suppose if I had thought about it, I would have realized that the Carrara marble that makes up so many buildings in the Mediterannean or our very own tile floors at home comes from a huge mountain of marble. The mountains are magnificent to look at, as you can see in this small gallery.

 

By now those of you on Cruise Critic know the drill. I took more than 500 photos in Cinque Terre but whittled those down to less than 75 but to see the you have to go to wwwDOTjktravelredmondDOTcom. Sorry. Just too many to upload here.

 

A little while after passing through Carrara and some amazing hilltop towns on either side of the AutoStrada (Italian forfreeway), we reached La Spezia, a coastal community that is the gateway to Cinque Terre. You climb far above it and that puts you about even with those hilltop towns, so here are some views from the hill above La Spezia and some hilltop towns we had seen between there and Carrara. Don't forget; they can be viewed as a slide show and they are also on my blog.

 

As soon as you have seen La Spezia go by, you go over the hill, and you are looking down at the first of the five "lands" of Cinque Terre (literally translates to "five lands"), Riomaggiore. It's a beautiful little village built into the side of a very steep hill. Alessandro dropped us off, and we walked down into the town itself. We would next see our illustrious driver at the other end of Cinque Terre. From this point on, our transport was the Cinque Terre ferry. Luigi led us down through the town, pointing things out to us as we went. We all took a much-needed restroom break and then met Luigi to board the ferry to move to the next land.

 

Luigi was a font of knowledge all about the region. We all learned a lot, especially that we should wait for the fourth village, Vernazza, to get gelato because they had the best, then have lunch at the end of the journey in Monterosso because they had the best food. We liked that—eat dessert first.

The second stop on our visit was to the village of Manarola, which might have been the most picturesque. The best photo I took all day was taken there. Luigi was more than thrilled to help me find my shots because he said we had something in common. His real vocation in life was a guitarist, and he loved it. He told us it was "his art." And he said photography was mine. I truly appreciated his interest, and from that point on (he had this conversation with Kathleen on the ferry while I was outside taking photos) he took me to what he thought would make great pictures...and he was right.

 

The ferry to the next of the five lands (actually four because the ferry does not stop in the middle land of Corniglia as there is no place for it to dock—it is only accessible by train) comes just about every hour, so once we landed in Manarola for instance; we had an hour to take photos and look around before we got back on the next ferry and left for Vernazza.

Vernazza was the village where we heard about the awesome gelato, and again, Luigi proved to be correct. He had advised me that if I truly wanted to try what the locals loved, I would have basil gelato (seen at right). So I did, and it was wonderful. Kathleen had lemon, and when we put the two together...perfection. Vernazza was a great village for photography, so again, I took more shots until the hour went by and we boarded the ferry for Monterosso.

 

Monterosso was the final village and is the most commercialized of the five. It has bigger hotels, sandy beaches, etc. It also has amazing food, and this was where Luigi said we should get lunch. He was all set to drop us at a restaurant to fend for ourselves when we insisted he join us for lunch—our treat, which he did. He said that like the gelato I had tasted, the people of the five lands believed their basil was better than any other basil in the world and therefore, their pesto sauce was the best anyplace—hands down. So, of course, we had to try it. The traditional pesto pasta is improved in Cinque Terre by the addition of potatoes and green beans to the mix. This came about when they started making pesto at a time when those things were plentiful, and the recipe stuck.

 

Besides the pesto, there was one more thing I wanted to try while we were having lunch. It is something that Rick Steves had mentioned in his Cinque Terre video—fresh anchovies. Rick said that if you come here and order them fresh, you would be amazed how little they would resemble the anchovies you see on a pizza or a caesar salad and he was right—almost. I ordered (with Luigi's help) "Tris di acciughe del marinaio" or Lemon, salted and stuff anchovies. The salted looked very much like what we put on pizza but bigger. It tasted like you might think but much less salty. Luigi told me that this is what it should taste like when brined, but it is much saltier when we get it because it has sat for weeks in a can on its way to America.

 

Then there was the stuffed version, filled with some rice, some veggies and who knows what, but it was delicious. But the winner of the three was anchovies marinated in lemon juice and olive oil. I could eat those every day, all day long. Delicious.

 

After we finished lunch, we walked around Monterosso for a while longer before we walked up a hill (thankfully much less steep than the one we walked down in Riomaggiore) to the top of the village to be met by our faithful driver Alessandro and transported back to the ship. This was around a nine-hour trip from ship to ship, but I have to say I enjoyed every minute of it.

 

This brings me to the subject of shore excursions. One of the reasons Viking appealed to us was that they included a free shore excursion in every port. But we are just not sure if that is a selling point anymore. After our day in a van with a guide and being able to move at our own pace, we think if (probably when) sail with Viking Ocean again, we will book our own shore excursions again. We had pretty much always done that in the past until COVID came along, and you couldn't book a lot of private excursions. Now you can again and we likely will. It is so much more personalized, and you meet incredible guides. We had done three tours on this entire trip with private guides (in Amsterdam with Hans and Athens with George), and those were the best tours. Far better than being put into a "luxury motor coach" with 26 other people and a guide who is just a monotonous voice in your "whisper headset." This really hit home with us after touring all day with Luigi and Alessandro.

 

Luigi became a part of our group. Just look at the photo at the top of this post. Don't we look happy? Cinque Terre—what a day. And I took some of my best photos here in the "Five Lands." Hopefully you will drop by wwwDOTjktravelredmondDOTcom to see them.

 

[deec]

What a wonderful day. Good to know it can be done from this cruise especially when there is an overnight in port ....I get nervous on a very long DIY tour about missing the ship!

[DrKoob]

18 hours ago, deec said:

What a wonderful day. Good to know it can be done from this cruise especially when there is an overnight in port ....I get nervous on a very long DIY tour about missing the ship!

I agree and I don't think we would have attempted it without the ship being their overnight. A flat tire means you miss your ship. Never a good thing.

[DrKoob]

Pisa and its Tower

 

This one will be short and sweet as I am still high as a kite about a photographic experience I just had in Tarragona, Spain, today (it's Friday, September 23 as I write this). Besides, our visit to Pisa was not the best day of our trip. Not because the Tower wasn't leaning, but because it was just kind of a ho-hum experience. After so many days of getting on a "luxury motor coach," testing our Vox earsets (so we can hear our guide while we walk around), driving to wherever, getting off the bus, having the guide rush away like a madperson, having to go and ask them to slow down, listening to them tell you the history of everything while wearing the headsets, then going from place to place quickly and standing while the guide talks (you would think the guides are paid by the word), it was getting really old.

 

This was another of Viking's "included" excursions, so we were on the bus to Pisa at 8:30 am. We are glad we went in the morning (we had a choice of the afternoon as well) because those who went in the afternoon said it was a total zoo with huge crowds. We were able to at least move around the square.

Today's guide was a speed demon. She went so fast that the people at the back of the line lost track of her leading the group. And worse, there were numerous other groups from bus tours who had parked where our bus did, and we were mixing in with our crowd and we with them. It was horrible. And this was the day the Vox system that we bring from our rooms (headsets so we can hear the guide) decided to fail. We knew it wasn't our headsets but the guide's microphone because no one could understand about 80% of what she said—too much static.

 

So there we were in the square in Pisa, with the Tower and the basilica right in front of us and not able to understand a word the guide said, so we ditched the tour. We just took off on our own, went at our own pace and made our own plans. The guides kind of know you are going to do this because they tell you in advance where to meet to go back to the "luxury motor coach."

 

So I shot some pics; it started to rain; we sat by the church and then decided to take refuge at a sidewalk cafe with huge umbrellas and have a cappuccino. It was delightful just to sit and people-watch. After a while, Steve and Jamie joined us, and we started walking back to the "luxury motor coach." Then we found out that we were just going back to the same place to meet the "luxury motor coach." If they had told us that, we could have turned the almost mile-long walk into something where Kathleen and Jamie could have rested every so often instead of their version of the Bataan Death March. These guides just do not get it. Usually, I tip our guides quite well. So far on this trip, I have tipped two. Just two. The others have either been rude, in a huge hurry, rambling or worse. Of course, we all tipped Luigi and Alessandro in Cinque Terre, but they weren't Viking guides.

 

After the march, it was back on the "luxury motor coach" and back to the ship where I wrote you another blog post and processed my photos, which you can see below. Hope you enjoy them. By now I hope you know the drill. Hustle on over to wwwDOTjktravelredmondDOTcom to see my photos of Pisa.

 

That was our day in Pisa. Pretty boring, to be honest. I could have done the entire thing in an hour instead of the two-and-a-half that Viking thought we needed. But I truly think that's because the guide was paid by the word. Too bad we couldn't hear more than twenty percent of them.

 

In case you don't go by my blog, I put a superb quote by Danny DeVito about the Leaning Tower of Pisa on the blog that I want to include here:

 

 

 

[Mr Luxury]

Reading your posts Koob just confirms why I do not do tours on any ship.

Always go out on your own and explore or get a car and driver if there is something specific that you want to see.

Life is too short to do ships tours.

[miami mama]

There have been some included tours that I have enjoyed and there have been some that I use for the transportation (if there are no shuttle buses being provided) and end up going off on our own. Of course we notify the guide of what we are doing so no one is waiting for us if we don't meet up with the group again. We have found public transportation options in most European cities to be reliable and safe and there are always taxis if time is a concern. Because we often wonder off, this occurs primarily on city tours not if we are being transported out to the wilderness somewhere. 

 

To keep life interesting we do like to mix things up. If we choose to do a paid Viking tour we usually try to match it up with an included one (if it is more than driving around a city). If we do something on our own, we try to do most everything far from the ship in the morning and then work our way back closer to the ship by the afternoon. We do also book excursions with outside vendors (making sure their reviews include information from satisfied cruisers who were returned to their ships on time).  

 

It's a nice option to have an included tour but it does not limit what we want to consider (at least at this point in our lives).

[Mrs Miggins]

We will be joining Sky tomorrow in Tarragona.  Hope you manage to write a little tonight about your experience to whet our appetite.  Weather forecast not good ?  

[DrKoob]

1 hour ago, Mrs Miggins said:

We will be joining Sky tomorrow in Tarragona.  Hope you manage to write a little tonight about your experience to whet our appetite.  Weather forecast not good ?  

There is really no way to describe how hard it is raining right now. Lightening and thunder for at least the last three hours. If you have decent enough weather to go into town, the festival they are holding is AMAZING! Go downtown and you will see sights that will amaze you. But the weather may curtail you. Viking is running a shuttle from 7:00 am to 8:00 pm. 

 

Enjoy! You must be at least in Barcelona, right? How's the weather there as we transition to the Nobu for two days starting tomorrow.

[OneSixtyToOne]

1 hour ago, DrKoob said:

we transition to the Nobu for two days starting tomorrow.

We will be doing that extension next Spring. I am interested in your review of it.