Odyssey - Europe 9/19/24-10/5/24 - LIVE 🚞🚌🚢 ✈️🚐

[Denversail]

I managed to fall asleep around 8 pm. I stayed in bed until about 6 am. We were supposed to go to the Vatican this morning but after I fell asleep they cancelled. I don’t know how many others have this issue. We planned ahead but have had multiple things cancelled. This unfortunately was cancelled last minute. @julies5280 thinks she found us other tickets but I’m not sure how much it cost. 
 

I’m sitting having some fruit and cappuccino at the hotel breakfast. They have a nice looking spread. Lots of people in here so no pics yet. I’ll see if I can get some.

[Dakota Kid CO]

I’ve been on a walking tour with these ladies, @julies5280 and @Denversail.  We had a great time with the sites yesterday and touring the Vatican and coliseum today.  This knocked off 3 of my bucket list items. We had our Vatican tour  cancelled at midnight last night that we booked 6 months ago. However, we just showed up at Vatican this morning and we were able to acquire tickets thankfully. Paid a little extra but couldn’t pass it up when traveling this far. I’m looking forward to the sailing days ahead!!

[Thisguylikestocruise]

Rome was food heaven. Some of the best food I’ve had in my life. 

Edited Saturday at 01:42 PM by Thisguylikestocruise

[niugrads]

Glad to hear that Hotel Smeraldo is nice, we'll be there in a couple of weeks.  We're interested in the restaurants that you have reserved and if you enjoyed them. Your feedback is appreciated!

 

[Denversail]

5 hours ago, niugrads said:

Glad to hear that Hotel Smeraldo is nice, we'll be there in a couple of weeks.  We're interested in the restaurants that you have reserved and if you enjoyed them. Your feedback is appreciated!

 

We ended up canceling all our dinner reservations. We found plenty of options for drinks and food near our hotel worked just fine.

[Denversail]

We had a full day today. We were very disappointed with our Vatican scheduling. @julies5280 made a second reservation last night that was again cancelled. We ended up getting to the Vatican around 9:30. We at that point had no reservations. It was explained to us that they cancel cheaper reservations and sell them for more. We don’t know for fact what happened but it was disappointing to plan ahead and have them cancel last minute. 

 

As I said we arrived about 9:30 and were able to buy Italian tickets for 10:30 at 95 euros each. This was way more than we had paid when we reserved. We obviously felt slightly ripped off. We went with it. We could not understand anything the guide said but he seemed good. I enjoyed our time there.

 

Vatican photo dump…

[Denversail]

At some point when we there my sister asked about all the leaves over the pee-pee’s. I was adamant that they must be original, they wouldn’t change and ruin all that art. I was wrong she looked it up later and some pope decided he was offended. Once again our history was altered to pacify an old white man. I’m not surprised just disappointed.

Edited Saturday at 08:28 PM by Denversail

[Denversail]

We had thought the Vatican would take about 2 hours. We didn’t finish until almost 2. At that point we were starving. We needed to meetup with our Colosseum tour around 3:15 and we didn’t have a lot of time. We approached an area with taxi’s and were told the trip would be 38 euros which I thought was outrageous. The colosseum isn’t far from our hotel and it cost us 12 euro to get to the Vatican. 

[Denversail]

We agreed to pay the ridiculous amount. 1) we were very short on time. 2) we were starving at this point. @Dakota Kid CO was not about to give the driver a penny more. Did I mention she was a B-I-T-C-H? He refused to get out until she could give him his 2 euro in change. 

[Denversail]

I enjoyed our afternoon at the colosseum. We also got to go to the forum. I thought the forum was very cool. I think that was my favorite spot of the day. 
 

photo dump…

[Thisguylikestocruise]

8 hours ago, Denversail said:

We agreed to pay the ridiculous amount. 1) we were very short on time. 2) we were starving at this point. @Dakota Kid CO was not about to give the driver a penny more. Did I mention she was a B-I-T-C-H? He refused to get out until she could give him his 2 euro in change. 

Our taxi driver in Rome spoke English at the beginning of the ride, and conveniently spoke zero English at the end. I think he was trying to confuse me to see how gullible I was giving more money than necessary. He kept staring at my wallet and saying how much I owed, even though I gave him the correct amount and it was in his hand. Walked away at that point. 

[Denversail]

I’m clearly lagging on my posting. Getting to the ship was smooth. Our driver showed up about 10 minutes early. He said it was good that we got out a few minutes before planned. I guess a demonstration was planned and they would be closing some of the streets. 
 

We arrived at the port about 11 am. We breezed through check-in. They hand out boarding numbers. We waited about 10 minutes for ours to be called. We headed on board and started our cruise vacation.

[Denversail]

We didn’t do much on the first day. We decided to book a few specialty restaurants. We will be doing a night in chops and wonderland. Our first night in the MDR was fine. They messed up our table but it has already been fixed and we have a nice table assigned to us for the rest of the week.

 

it was just your typical first day with bad choices. I made a donation to the casino and then went to bed. I think @julies5280 and @Dakota Kid CO went to playmakers to watch football and pretty quickly got tired and headed to their room. They were able to finish watching the games in their room.

[Denversail]

Let’s talk about Naples. We loved this port. It was a really great day. I was hungover and still managed to enjoy myself. We got off the ship a little before 9. We headed to the Galleria to meet our tour guide Aldo. He was fabulous. We really enjoyed his food tour. We had some yummy food and he shared a lot of Naples history with us. He also made many suggestions on what we could do in the afternoon.

 

We finished that tour about 1 pm and decided we wanted to take the cable car up to the top. I think we paid 7,80 euro for 3 round trip. The ride was about 10 minutes. We then walked through a cool little town about 15 minutes over to Elmo castle (might have name wrong). We went a little past the castle for the panoramic view. It was gorgeous. We sat up there for about 30 minutes having drinks before heading back towards the ship. 
 

We arrived back on the ship around 3:30 and headed to the solarium to dip in the pool and relax for an hour before dinner.

 

Naples photo dump…

[Denversail]

[Denversail]

It is now a little past 7 pm on our 2nd day of the cruise. I’m ashamed to admit that I’m laying in bed. I’m exhausted and have run out of juice and my backaches. I’m sure this means I’ll be up at 3 am but I’m wiped out from walking all day and can’t fight the fatigue. I’m going to get some rest and start fresh in the morning. 
 

We have our first of 2 sea days tomorrow. I’m looking forward to lounging. If I had to guess that means I’ll be drinking and gambling a bunch tomorrow. We have our sushi making class in the morning. 
 

Buona Notte!

[Dupable]

Sounds like you are all having a great time.   Love your pics.   Keep up the blogging.

[Denversail]

We are enjoying our sea day. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it much but our weather has been perfect. We did our sushi class this morning and I think we all enjoyed it. 
 

We did have a gross out incident this afternoon in the solarium. Anyone that has read my previous trip reports knows I’m easily grossed out with the pool/jacuzzi situation. Today didn’t disappoint in the solarium. We were chilling in the solarium playing cards and I got up to go to the restroom. I’m one of those that looks where I’m stepping. I immediately saw what appeared to be a spread of 💩. On my way back I notified the bartender. I was like it might not be that but it is what it looks like. He agreed and set up chairs to block the area and called cleaning services.

 

in the 20 minutes it took cleaning services to show up folks moved or took the chairs. I don’t want to deep dive how many folks during that time stepped directly on it and then got in the pool. I don’t think I could have been more disgusted. I managed yesterday to dip myself waist down in the pool for 20 seconds. No more of that. I’ll be cooling off in the shower from here on out. 🤮

[Dakota Kid CO]

We ( @julies5280 and @Denversail ) had a great day in Naples yesterday!  We did a food tour.  

 

Naples Food Tours by Eating Europe - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

 

Aldo, our guide, met us promptly at our assigned meeting location. The location was a wonderful and beautiful galleria (building) which has a long history. Aldo started with introductions and providing the history of the galleria. He asked a few questions about us and learned about our likes in food to help in his presentation of food to come.  From the galleria, we walked across the street to see the Royal Palace and the piazza where he provided more history and showed us a couple special surprises.  Our food stops were a great variety of shops.  Aldo provided insightful information and background on the drinks, pastries, food dishes and their association with the local culture. Between the food stops we walked along the main streets and into the neighborhood where he provided more details and tips of these areas. Along the way he pointed out a few options/sites for us to explore if we wanted to check them out after the tour.  We finished the tour with some wine, an amazing caprese salad, delicious margherita pizza, and gelato for dessert!  After the tour, we decided to take the trolley up the hill and take a walk to a panoramic point where we had some drinks/wine and enjoyed the sites. This was one of Aldo’s perfect suggestions. Aldo had a great personality, and we really enjoyed hanging with him for a few hours! We definitely recommend having Aldo tour you through the great city of Naples!  He provided the perfect amount of sites/history/information to go along with the food stops. 

[Thisguylikestocruise]

We’re on this ship. The first day we saw a bat in the solarium. It was a small baby bat crawling on the floor. Kinda freaks me out because not sure if the medical center has rabies shots. If someone gets bit that possibly would mean having to go to a local hospital for treatment and missing the cruise. Sometimes it happens so fast you don’t know if it bites you or not. Thankfully nobody got hurt, it appeared harmless for the moment. A crew member said they would get pest control. 
 

It’s been a great cruise so far.

[uvadover]

On 9/20/2024 at 5:21 AM, Thisguylikestocruise said:

Been in Rome now for a few days before this cruise, it’s exceeding our expectations! Spoke to a guy during our pasta class who just got off Odyssey, him and his wife both really enjoyed the cruise. 

Rome is my favorite city in the world and our cruise on Odyssey last year to the Greek Isles and Turkey were one of the best we have sailed on.

 

Edit/Addition:  If you return to Rome/Civitiveccia, be sure to pre book some type of transportation back to the city or airport.  If you don't, the taxi situation is an absolute shakedown crime.  I loved loved loved this cruise but the disembarkation was a complete turd show.

Edited 11 hours ago by uvadover
Added info on Disembarkation

[Denversail]

We had a full day in Athens today. I of course started the day with a terrible hangover but it wore off quickly. I think I’ve mentioned what perfect weather we have had so far. I couldn’t imagine being here when it is 30 degrees hotter. 
 

We got off the ship at 7:15 to meet our driver that @julies5280 booked with George’s taxi. This all went very smoothly. He drove us straight to the acropolis and dropped us where our guide was waiting. We spent a few hours there. It was getting hot and very crowded by the time we left. We then went to another site and walked around for about an hour. He took us to see the changing of the guard, the Olympic stadium, and lunch. We finished the afternoon at the museum. We got back to the ship a little before 4 o’clock.

 

Tip: any of you ladies wearing flowing dresses be warned the floors in parts of the museum are glass and folks can see right up. 
 

It was a very nice day but Naples is still the winner for me. 
 

I’ll do a photo dump later this evening. I need to transfer them over. 

[Denversail]

We moved a little but stopped again. I didn’t hear an announcement. We seem to still be in port. Got a nice sunset pic when we moved.

 

No matter how many times I turn it still shows upside down. Well at least it ain’t a pineapple. 🍍🍍🍍