Review of Summit Med cruise - it may get long

[Sun-Cruisers]

Roy,

I am thoroughly enjoying your review. We made the same trip on the Summit as your’s, only in the reverse, last May.

Keep reading folks, it only gets better.

Don

[valli54]

 

P.S. I feel so sorry for your wife! If that had been me I, too, would have been in tears. The only difference would have been that you would have had to take your food to go and come and find me! I would have been in too much of a 'state' by then.

 

Please believe me I was in tears I really thought that I would never see Roy again!!!!!

Lost in a city, where I only came across people who spoke Greek to me I was convinced that something had happened to Roy on the Acropolis and that nobody would be able to contact me, but as Roy said "alls well that ends well"

 

Val

[mhcruisers]

Hi All,

 

We were on the same cruise a few weeks ago and Roy is doing an EXCEPTIONAL job of bringing it all back to life! Our experiences as new travelers to europe included some cruise offered tours as well as one private tour with a group of 8. All were enjoyable, but I must say that we had a better experience with the smaller group travelling the Amalfi coast. Most time to stop when we wanted to and to adjust the schedule to our needs. For a first trip to Athens and Rome, I suggest the cruise-directed tours...no chance getting lost or missing anything! Santorini was fabulous--absolutely gorgeous and of course we enjoyed our lunch with Roy and Val!

 

Pat in Minnesota

MH Cruisers

[Ardy53]

Thanks Pat, watch for the "Fred" incident below ...

 

Santorini

 

You will probably have noticed by now that we were on this cruise to relax and have fun as opposed to a “cram as much possible as there is to see in one day at every port” type of holiday. Sure there were some things that were kind of “must see”, like the Acropolis, but quite frankly there is always more to do than one could possibly get done, so there will always be things left out.

 

We started the day with a relaxed breakfast outside, watching the ferries heading to shore below those towering cliffs dotted with hundreds of little white buildings. It was truly beautiful.

 

Our plans for Santorini had been to wander around Fira for a while and then take the bus to Oia. Once all the queues for the ferries had disappeared, we headed down and were soon bobbing our way to the little dock. We boarded the cable car without any queuing and enjoyed the spectacular ride to the top.

 

We then wandered around together till 11:30, which was the time that we had arranged to rendezvous with our friends from Minnesota. We met outside the little restaurant next to the upper cable car station, were introduced to another couple of friends of theirs and arranged to meet back there at 13:00 for lunch.

 

There is no way to describe how quaint the little streets of Fira are; the views across the water are stunning, our little ship in miniature below us, the roofs of the white-washed houses. We had already discarded the idea of taking the bus to Oia, as there seemed enough here to keep us happy.

 

We had at one time even thought of renting a car or bike to explore the whole island, but it occurred to me that the less we ended up seeing, the more reason there would be to come back here again. Our Irish dinner companions did that; they rented a quad bike and spent the day driving around the island, which they thoroughly enjoyed.

 

I needed to spend some time on the internet, so arranged to meet Val at the restaurant at 1.00 pm and spent an hour catching up on emails etc. (luckily there was not even one Starbucks on the island)

 

As I was wandering slowly back to the restaurant for lunch, I saw a man sitting on the steps just outside one of the tourist shops. Although we had seen a few beggars in Athens, I didn’t expect to see this in Santorini and was planning to just walk by. As I drew level with him, he muttered “please help” and held out his hat for a donation. I refused to make eye contact and continued walking.

 

Only after I had passed did something strike me as odd and out of place and I realized that it was his clothes. He looked just like a holiday-maker. I turned around for another look and realized I had been caught, hook, line and sinker by one of the four people we were due to meet with for lunch!!!

 

Fred had seen me walking up the narrow street where he had been sitting on the steps, waiting for his wife who was inside the shop. Not even thinking that he would fool me, he held out his hat begging style and then watched in amazement as I refused to catch his eye.

 

He could not get over how I fell for it, and this story was recounted many times over the next few days.

 

We had a great lunch together with some delightful local food presented to us and some lovely wine produced on the island. We were in no rush to get anywhere else and it was just so relaxing sitting there with the most beautiful views around us.

 

After lunch we went shopping for some souvenirs and I bought two bottles of Santorini wine as well as a gift box of Ouzo for a friend. We headed back down the cable car and by 3.00 pm we were back on the ship. We did at one point consider walking down, but all the stories I had read about the donkey mess on the stairs put us off that idea.

 

I had expected that we were going to encounter problems with our wine at security again, so this time we put the 2 bottles in Val’s handbag and left the Ouzo in the shopping bag. However when they asked us to go to the “bottles table” and I presented them with the boxed Ouzo, they waved me through. I was quite disappointed; I actually wanted them to look after this in case I was tempted to open the bottle in the cabin.

 

For those of you that haven’t sailed in the Med, there is traditionally a Greek themed “White Night” party on the pool deck as one leaves the last port in Greece, known as the Flava night.

 

Traditionally, the wind always blows like crazy on this night and it did not let us down. Despite that though, it was very well organized and the buffet style food did make a change from the 5-course dinner.

 

There were various food stations with a little flag denoting the food style; I recall French, Italian and of course Greek, but there might have been another one too.

 

There was some great music and performers were dancing on the pool stage and we actually rather enjoyed the evening.

 

Because we were in a great party mood (well, we were every night) we decided to go up to Revelations a bit earlier than usual and spent quite a bit of time dancing there.

 

We then headed down to the casino for a while, discovered we were hungry after all that exercise and so we went to our cabin to order room service.

 

The next day would be a sea day so we retired knowing that we could sleep late the next morning.

 

 

Day 6

 

coming up soon...

[dancermom5]

Agghhhhh! Nooooooooooooooooooo. You can't hold us up for days!:eek: That is way too long. Great drivel.

 

We were thinking of taking this cruise, and wondered about flying to Venice (probably via Toronto). I wondered if there was a direct flight. Did you have any difficulties moving from one terminal to another in London Heathrow? We have never had to do that. Then, we wondered about Venice, also. I don't particularly like the place, but that's where the ship departs. So, thanks for the write-up so far. We really are looking foward to the rest of the story. :)Bill

 

Hi Bill,

 

We are from NS and have sailed to the Med on Millennium in 06 and will be sailing again in Oct on Summit. We went on AC from Halifax to Heathrow, to Munich to Venice. THis time it's Montreal, to Munich, to Venice. As far as changing terminals at Heathrow it wasn't a problem. Did that this summer enroute to Scotland. Very easy transition compared to two years ago when we flew from Halifax to Heathrow.

 

Good luck, Dancermom5

[spearmint]

Hi Bill,

 

We are from NS and have sailed to the Med on Millennium in 06 and will be sailing again in Oct on Summit. We went on AC from Halifax to Heathrow, to Munich to Venice. THis time it's Montreal, to Munich, to Venice. As far as changing terminals at Heathrow it wasn't a problem. Did that this summer enroute to Scotland. Very easy transition compared to two years ago when we flew from Halifax to Heathrow.

 

Good luck, Dancermom5

 

Hey, Neighbour! Thanks for the help. Bill

[Ardy53]

Another chapter on it's way...

 

Day 6

 

This was to be another lazy day (which is why we were here in the first place). The only item on our agenda for the day was a second CruiseCritic get-together that I had arranged.

 

Our first meeting (the official one, which we had missed), had failed to be attended by about half of the registered members. Fearing that they may have suffered the same fate that we did (oversleeping), I asked Guest Relations to drop a note to all the CC registered members that we would be holding another informal gathering at 4 pm on this sea day at the pool bar on deck 10.

 

They were very obliging and printed out an invitation card which was placed in our cabin the day before. There are so many areas that Celebrity is just great at, that I am sorry to mention that there were incidents that caused us irritation.

 

We had a really peaceful day at sea, marred only by several “deck chair incidents” and were looking forward to meeting a few of our missing CC friends.

 

Surprise!! Nobody that had not been at the official gathering turned up at this get together (except for Val and I). We did subsequently learn that there were some of our roll call that would have liked to attend, but it clashed with other functions, like a meeting with the Captain. That can certainly be forgiven!! Out of the 32 roll call members signed up we only met 16 of them during the cruise. I often wonder if the others actually were there or not.

 

Tonight was another formal night and we decided to go see the 7:15 show before dinner. This was one aspect of cruising that always struck me as a little strange. I fully understand that if one is going to be dining at the late seating and then expect to see a show afterwards, that it would be a really late night performance for the artists concerned.

 

It is time to have a small diversion here to talk about the entertainment on board our cruise. There is really nothing much to say. Nothing that we went to watch was really bad, nothing was really gripping; the rendezvous lounge band was OK to listen to as one walked by (I think they only played 5 different songs the entire cruise). The extravaganza shows were pretty OK, but nothing that I would go back to watch again. The bottom line is that it was OK but could have been a lot better.

 

The formal dinner was once again not attended by our honeymoon couple because he didn’t have formal dress for the evening. Whilst we did see a number of people not formally dressed, it was certainly only a handful.

 

However, because the dining room was so full and hot, almost all men removed their jackets immediately upon being seated. By this, the 2nd formal night, many men were carrying their jackets over their arms into dinner, especially those (like us) that had been dancing for a while in the lounge.

 

So we decided that our honeymoon couple could just as easily have joined us if he just wore a borrowed tie. Really, could anyone care less? We certainly would not.

 

There were even some men that got dressed up in skirts for dinner!!! (only kidding; there were about 3 or 4 Scots dressed in their formal kilts and it really looked great)

 

The memorable part about dinner that night was my first time seeing frog’s legs on a menu. I was really in two minds about the idea of eating them but I thought that I would be adventurous, so I did. They were really lovely!!

 

I offered Val a taste of mine and she also enjoyed it. So then, everybody at our table that had not tried them ordered Frog’s Legs as a second starter.

 

It is worth mentioning here that the waiters are extremely obliging when it comes to choosing items off the menu. Earlier on all the ladies at the table had decided to place a standing order of shrimp cocktail for starters. This in no way meant that they could not also a starter off that night’s menu, which they did.

 

Also, if there was a really difficult choice between two attractive starters or main courses, the waiter suggested ordering both and managed the delivery of food very well.

 

After dinner we visited the casino for a while and decided to get off to bed in anticipation of four consecutive days of ports to be visited.

 

Naples

 

almost done ...

 

 

Roy

[dancermom5]

Thank you Roy and Val for taking me down memory lane. Hubby and I took a similar Med cruise in May 06 on Millennium and will return this Oct. on Summit. Reading your advertures reminds me of the wonderful exotic places we visited and your 'story teller' is spot on. Congrats!! Looking forward to your next publication.:D

 

Donna

[Ardy53]

On with our story...

 

Naples

 

As I have previously mentioned, we had not booked for any ship or private excursions and so basically decided what we were going to do each day when we woke up and saw what the weather looked like.

 

We bumped into our Australian friends at breakfast and agreed that we would take the train to Ercolano to visit the Herculaneum ruins. From there we would take the train on to Sorrento for lunch and then return by Hydrofoil to Naples.

 

Of course, as with all our plans, they never turn out the way that we originally plan them.

 

Another couple from Mexico, two ladies that we had previously met, joined us as we were leaving the ship and so the 6 of us set out for the train station, which can be reached by bus, taxi or a bit of a walk.

 

We tried the taxi option, where we were inundated with all-day offers, much like in Athens. We eventually opted for an offer to drive us to Herculaneum, thus saving us the hassle of catching the train and the long walk in Ercolano from the station to the ruins.

 

On the way to Ercolano, we discussed our driver’s offer to wait in Herculaneum for us, drive us to Sorrento and then bring us back to Naples any time in the afternoon. At €30 per person each it actually sound like a good deal for us, meaning no hassles finding stations and trains and also cutting out a lot of walking. So we accepted his offer, which actually worked out perfectly for us.

 

After spending about an hour and a half in Herculaneum, which I found fascinating, we met up with our driver and then sped to Sorrento.

 

Italian taxi drivers all think that their Fiats are actually F1 Ferrari’s and they only know two speeds; Fast and flat out!!!

 

Somehow we managed to arrive in Sorrento without suffering any physical damage. En route, we had stopped at a couple of scenic spots for photos (and a quick cigarette) and the trip only took about half an hour.

 

In Sorrento we all parted company, arranging to meet our driver in the main square at 3pm. The two Mexican ladies went off by themselves while Val and Felicity headed for the shops and Richard and I strolled around together for a while before settling down to enjoy a lovely cold beer.

 

We had considered going down the hill to stroll along the beach, but it really was quite hot and probably looked nicer from the top of the hill than down at the bottom.

 

About 2pm, Val and her friend joined us and we had a lovely outdoor lunch. They really were a fantastic couple and we spent all our further port trips exploring together with them.

 

After our lunch, the waiters brought us Lemoncella on the house; at least 3 glasses each before we realized that it was just about time to meet our cab driver.

 

He was there as promised (of course he would be, he hadn’t been paid yet) and soon we were on the formula one track back to Naples.

 

Al in all we had a really enjoyable day, saw enough of what we wanted to and were glad that we had taken the cab ride instead of on and off trains all the time. I was a little sorry that we had missed out on the Hydrofoil back to Naples but we will return to take it to Capri next time.

 

Later on we spoke to several people that had tried to do all three; Capri, Sorrento and Pompeii and they all indicated that it had been such a rush that they later regretted trying to pack too much into one day.

 

At this point the evenings start fading in my memory, but they almost invariable followed a standard pattern.

 

We were convinced by now that the sushi had not been the cause of Val’s illness earlier, although she was still a little wary. However, our evening routine was to stop by the sushi bar at about 5.30 (actually, that is when it opens) for sashimi, as I really think that sushi is overrated – most of it is just rice, which I am not fond of, while Val would quite often have a little Asian stir-fry.

 

After taking the edge off our appetites, we would head for a bar to relax with a beer or a glass of wine. After that, depending on how warm it still was, we would either enjoy a dip in the pool or hot-tub outside or else relax for a while in the thallasotherapy pool.

 

I haven’t yet made mention of the spa. Nor can I, because we did not even set foot in it. We are not Gym types nor did we really find the need to do the massage thing at any stage. We did however enjoy the t-pool on numerous occasions.

 

After that we would either hurry to our room for a quick shower and to get dressed before heading to the 7:15 show or else skip the show and have a short lie-down or relax with a glass of local wine in our cabin.

 

Dinner would be the highlight of the evening (except for the night that I hit the jackpot on the slots), as much for the food and atmosphere as for the company at our table. We were invariably amongst the last to leave the dining room.

 

After dinner we also followed one of two routines. This was a show such as the comedian or contortionists and then the casino or else the casino first, followed by whatever was happening in Revelations that night.

 

Most nights when I was not doing too well at the slots, I would take a walk while Val was happily ensconced at her blackjack table (the obstinate non-smoker never appeared again). My favourite spot was the aft deck bar where I would sit and watch the wake of the ship trailing behind us.

 

This was really where I made friends with a lot of others and had some really interesting conversations. There were a lot of people that I saw time and again by themselves, either at a table for two in the dining room or sitting by themselves at various places around the ship.

 

I often wondered if they perhaps wanted to meet new people and enjoy the company of others or just preferred to be on their own. Many times I would join them if they nodded a greeting, but just as often it appeared as if they wanted to be by themselves.

 

There was a very nice singer that performed each evening at the aft bar between about 6 and 7. I never saw him anywhere else on the ship, but of course he may also have been in areas such as the Cova Café, which I never visited.

 

 

Civitavecchia

 

coming soon...

 

Roy

[spearmint]

I still am avidly reading your epistles. Good stuff! :)We are still thinking about booking this cruise.

By "several deck chair incidents" are you referring to chair-hogs? Or fights? I can't recall seeing any more than one disgruntled passenger by the pool chairs in 6 cruises. :eek:

[Ardy53]

I still am avidly reading your epistles. Good stuff! :)We are still thinking about booking this cruise.

By "several deck chair incidents" are you referring to chair-hogs? Or fights? I can't recall seeing any more than one disgruntled passenger by the pool chairs in 6 cruises. :eek:

 

On our 2nd sea day, there were 3 deck chair incidents that I know about, 2 of which I witnessed.

 

The one that I heard about occurred quite early in the day and apparently had two people squaring up with fists bared, before the attendants sorted them out.

 

Another involved a CC member that laid out her belongings about 9 am, then got involved in a meeting, some other things, lunch etc and arrived back at 12:30 to find everything had been collected and was available for collection at guest relations. She was very upset about this.

 

Later that afternoon, I saw an officer summoned to stop the bickering between two guests that each felt they had ownership of a couple of deckchairs.

 

We didn't spend too much time in the heat of the day at the pool, but when we did, it was very simple. We would sit with our friends on the pool edge if there were no seats available and if a couple of chairs were unoccupied for more than half an hour, we would move the towels and book/sandals etc to the side and use the chairs. Invariably when the owner returned, they would apologies for being away for so long, pick up their belongings and leave.

 

If a chair had towels lying on it but no personal belongings, we would throw the towels in the dirty bin and use the chairs.

 

Roy

[Ardy53]

another update ...

 

Civitavecchia

 

The plans for this day had been made as far back as the previous evening, so at about 8.30 am we got together at disembarkation with our Aussie and Irish friends to spend the day in Rome.

 

It was a short 10 minute walk to the train station, which was quite busy, but after a while we discovered a short queue in the newsstand next door also selling train tickets. The tickets were €9.00 which was an all day pass to Rome and back as well as travel on the metro in Rome. I’m not sure how often the train runs (every half hour, I think) but with 2 or 3 minutes we had one arrive and were on our way.

 

I seem to recall that the trip to Rome was actually just less than an hour, but I could be wrong. The first Rome stops were definitely less than that, but we had planned to go all the way to Termini, the last stop.

 

Once out of the station, we debated taking a cab to the Spanish Steps but eventually decided to walk. Our planning the evening before had been as follows; walk, shop, Spanish Steps, walk, shop, Trevi Fountain, walk, shop, Coliseum, walk, shop, train back. Well, that was the plan of the ladies.

 

As it turns out, they only found one area to do some serious shopping, while the guys sat around in the sweltering heat waiting for them, but in the end it put everyone into a good mood. We spent quite a bit of time at each of the places that we stopped, just soaking up the atmosphere that we found there. After we had finished at the Coliseum (we walked around, didn’t go inside) we found a lovely sidewalk café where we had some ice-cold beers, wine and a lovely meal.

 

We had not planned to go to the Vatican as three of us had been there before, two of us were planning to return another time to do that, and one of us doesn’t like doing places like that.

 

After our lovely outdoor meal, we headed for the nearby Metro and took the underground to Termini, where we were just in time to catch a train back to Civitavecchia.

 

On the way back to the ship we split up. I went to spend some time in an internet café, Val and Felicity went to browse through some touristy shops and the others were off to buy some wine. (Actually, I did that too)

 

I got back to the ship just before 6 pm to find that Val had got back shortly before. We went to have a drink at the aft bar and reminisce about our day in Rome.

 

We once again had a lovely dinner with our friends and then headed for the casino. Luckily it was not so busy there that night; I think that the past 2 days had tired a lot of people out.

 

I had been about $100 down at this point in the cruise and then that night I hit the top jackpot on the “Bulls Stampede” machine. It was a great feeling as I had never done anything like that before. Unfortunately it was actually a very small paying machine and I only collected $400 dollars for my win.

 

I was so excited though, that I ordered drinks for all my friends that were in the casino (thank goodness it was a quiet night, as I said) and then settled in to play a bit more. Val was also having a good evening at the blackjack table and we eventually had to leave when they switched off the lights.

 

Livorno

 

We had so enjoyed our trip to Rome with our Aussie and Irish friends, that we decided to stick together again for our outing today.

 

I was ambivalent about Florence, but definitely wanted to go to Pisa, the Irish couple were not keen on Florence as they were going to come back to Tuscany soon and the Australian couple had been to Florence before. Val was quite happy to go to Pisa because we accidently forgot to tell her that the shopping in Florence is great.

 

So, Pisa it was to be. When you get off the ship there are taxi’s waiting to nab you or a ship shuttle that takes you to the town centre for $10. We opted to get a taxi shared between 8 of us to take us to the train station, because from the town centre it is still quite a way to get to the station. The cost of this was €20.00 shared between 8 of us.

 

We bought our tickets to Pisa (about €3.50 each return) and waited about 20 minutes for a train. I don’t think that I have mentioned this before, but once you have got your ticket you must ensure that you have it validated before you board the train. This is done by inserting it into the little yellow boxes that are dotted all around the platforms.

 

Failure to do so results in an immediate fine on the train. We only once in all our train trips had a conductor ask to see our tickets and we were so glad that we had remembered to have them validated.

 

Once in Pisa, we decided to forego the fairly lengthy walk to the tower and took another cab at less than €2.00 each.

 

Then we enjoyed a leisurely stroll around the tower, the cathedral and other monuments. We all posed for the obligatory picture pushing the tower up straight again, then split up to wander around by ourselves.

 

At our pre-arranged time (13:00, I think) we met up again to find somewhere to eat. I suppose it is like this everywhere, but for every 50 metres farther away from the tower one goes, the cost of a beer or a slice of pizza falls by €0.50. So we ended up around the corner, out of sight of the tower, at a lovely restaurant and enjoyed another great Italian lunch.

 

All of our lunches at the ports had been great, with food choices mostly being pizza, calamari, mussels, pasta or just salad.

 

All of our lunches were also taken at a leisurely pace, with lots of time for laughter and conversation. Some of our other friends, particularly those on ships tours, complained about how rushed their lunch stops were, with no time to really soak up the atmosphere of the places that they were eating in.

 

After lunch we took a cab back to the station and from there a train and cab back to the ship.

 

I think it was this day that our Irish friends had a major hassle bringing their 2 bottles of wine from Pisa onto the ship. At security, when they were told to move to the bottles table, I tried to switch their bag with mine, but the wine police spotted this sleight-of-hand and recalled them. They claimed that the policy stated 2 bottles at embarkation and as they were embarking, they could take their 2 bottles aboard.

 

The wine police were adamant however, but our friends said they were off to their room with the wine and if there was an issue with this they would be available to discuss it in their room with an officer. Needless to say no officer ever arrived.

 

If one reads all the threads on CruiseCritic (there are several active now) concerning this issue, it seems pretty obvious that this is a policy that is sometimes enforced and sometimes not, and the more that people read about it not being strictly enforced, the more likely the chances are that many people will disregard the policy, which makes one question what it is really all about.

 

Although we had not done a tremendous amount of walking today, the cumulative effect of 3 port days had made people quite tired. One of the most common problems encountered was swollen ankles, which both Val and I and many of our friends were suffering from, coupled with a strange rash on the ankles.

 

We asked the nurse on board but she couldn’t give us an explanation and suggested that we see the doctor. The problem did not seem to warrant seeing a doctor, but this has just reminded me that I left out an important part of the story when Val was in the hospital.

 

If you recall, she had been vomiting all day and I took her to the hospital at about 5 pm. She was given an injection to relieve the nausea and then put on a drip for 2 hours to rehydrate her, before being sent away with some tablets for the next day.

 

The next morning we received the account for her brief sojourn to the hospital. It was $454 for that little trip. We found that to be extremely high but luckily our insurance is covering it with only a $50 surcharge. Many people commented however that they also found it expensive.

 

We must have had a fairly uneventful evening that night as I can’t really recall what we did. Just the usual, I guess, which was always enjoyable.

 

 

Villefranche

 

getting near the end now...

 

Roy

[Belle]

Thank You so much for your

wonderful review. Can't wait to read more.

 

I have two questions...How long did it take to

walk from the Termini Station to the

Spanish Steps? (without shopping) Also how long

between the Steps and Trevi Fountain?

 

Thank you in advance for answering.

[Ardy53]

Thank You so much for your

wonderful review. Can't wait to read more.

 

I have two questions...How long did it take to

walk from the Termini Station to the

Spanish Steps? (without shopping) Also how long

between the Steps and Trevi Fountain?

 

Thank you in advance for answering.

 

Hi Belle

 

I guess the walk to Spanish steps was about half an hour, maybe just a bit more - depends whose pace you measure that by.

 

Trevi fountain is really just 10 minutes away from the Spanish Steps.

 

I am nearly done with this review - it has been a lot of fun writing and hearing such positive comments.

 

Roy

[Dowunder]

Great review and have read every word. We Aussies also love to travel as no doubt your Aussie cruise friends would have confirmed. Can't wait to do that cruise next September.

[Ardy53]

Great review and have read every word. We Aussies also love to travel as no doubt your Aussie cruise friends would have confirmed. Can't wait to do that cruise next September.

 

Hi Downunder

 

yep, you Aussies do love to travel; our friends still spent another 2 weeks after the cruise in Spain and then Bali.

 

They only got back to Sydney yesterday!!!

 

Thanks for reading - although I was determined to write the review, it is nice to know that there are people reading it.

 

Roy

[anoldworldphotographer]

Quite enjoyable--thanks for posting!!!:)

[Bobblsc]

Hi Belle

 

I guess the walk to Spanish steps was about half an hour, maybe just a bit more - depends whose pace you measure that by.

 

Trevi fountain is really just 10 minutes away from the Spanish Steps.

 

I am nearly done with this review - it has been a lot of fun writing and hearing such positive comments.

 

Roy

 

Roy, I know that you are an extremely intelligent person because you and I agreed a couple of months ago on the thread involving the poor couple who brought only denims and would not leave their cabin in the evening.

 

We have been fortunate to share river cruise tables with couples first from Australia, later from South Africa. Your United Nations table seems great.

 

I am happy you tried frog's legs. When I was much younger, I and a friend used to gig them and take them to his home where his wife would fry the legs the next day. Oh my gosh, were they good. I once ate 13 legs at an Air Force club in Japan. I cannot recall if one frog had three legs or I just could not finish the seventh frog's two legs. :D I always thank the little guys for living and adding to my enjoyment.

 

I am sorry you did not go to Florence. We lived in Italy for a short time some years ago and went there twice. We have returned several times since. David by itself is worth the trip. We have seen him only once, but will not see him again because the image is fixed in our minds and we don't want to add confusion to that fixed image.

 

Your writing is very entertaining. I was so involved with the ring and later incidents that you kept me up late at night.

 

We are on the Summit for its November 29 Transatlantic. Your information will be helpful.

 

Bob :cool:

[Ardy53]

 

...

 

We are on the Summit for its November 29 Transatlantic. Your information will be helpful.

 

Bob :cool:

 

Thanks for your comments, Bob

 

We have decided that we would really like to do a transatlantic, but that will have to wait till at least next year.

 

Roy

[ramrax4]

Hi,

love your stories and enthusiasm! We are planning this same cruise for oct. '09, so I am hanging on every word!

About the Colluseum, did you not go in because of the lines? We have never been to the med. so we are interested in seeing both the colluseum and Sisten Chapel. Would you recommend using the excursions Celebrity offers or taking the train as you did which seems fairly easy and inexspensive compared to what the ship charges?

Thanks,

Robin

[Ardy53]

Hi,

love your stories and enthusiasm! We are planning this same cruise for oct. '09, so I am hanging on every word!

About the Colluseum, did you not go in because of the lines? We have never been to the med. so we are interested in seeing both the colluseum and Sisten Chapel. Would you recommend using the excursions Celebrity offers or taking the train as you did which seems fairly easy and inexspensive compared to what the ship charges?

Thanks,

Robin

 

 

Robin, it is very difficult for us to recommend, because peole feel differently about certain issues. We had budget constraints, didn't mind missing something if we changed our minds, liked the idea of lingering longer when we felt like it. You can't do these with a ship's tour, unless it is an "on you own" tour. Then the issue is really whether you are happy to look after yourself concerning transport (bearing in mind traffic or train strikes) or leave it over to Celebrity with the peace of mind that they will get you to the ship, no matter what.

 

None of us felt compelled to visit the Coliseum inside, but queues was not the issue.

 

Roy

[Ardy53]

Villefranche

 

When we woke up and went on board, it was to see the delightful village of Villafranche lying in front of us. We were tendered in the small bay with little villages and houses practically surrounding us. The look was so different to that of Santorini, although it was probably about the same size.

 

We joined our friends for breakfast while we decided what to do for the day. The unanimous choice was to take the bus or train to Monaco, followed by a visit to Nice, then back to the boat.

 

We boarded the ferries once the crowds had cleared and headed for the small port. Once there, we tried to sift through the conflicting advice of whether the train or bus was the better option.

 

Eventually we opted for the train and en route to the station we were introduced to a couple of ladies from Arizona that two of our friends had previously met. They decided to join us for the day, so now we were eight.

 

We bought our train ticket and waited about 15 minutes for a train to arrive. It was a delightful 15 or 20 minute trip to Monte Carlo, with villages on the cliffs above and below us, as well as plenty of short tunnels.

 

In Monte Carlo, we walked down the hill in the direction of the Casino, marvelling at the number of expensive cars and expensively dressed people that we saw. One thing that was truly amazing, apart from the views, was how clean everything was.

 

This applied to everything, from the parks and buildings to the monuments and even the streets. I am referring to more that just not litter lying around. It looked as if someone actually came round and scrubbed and polished the street each morning.

 

From the casino we ambled along the promenade in the direction of the palace, stopping at a small supermarket to buy some pastries and cool drinks. It was a beautiful day in Monaco, quite hot with a scattering of cloud to keep us from burning out.

 

From the promenade it was actually a fairly exhausting walk up the hill to the palace. Once there, we watched the changing of the guard and then wandered around the curio shops, before deciding to find a table for 8 in the shade somewhere.

 

Several of the establishments would only seat people if they were planning to eat, which we were not. We continued till we found a nice shady spot that would serve us drinks, only to suddenly decide that we were actually hungry. As we were in no rush to get anywhere, we ordered some light food such as pizza and seafood and enjoyed several glasses of wine.

 

This would now be the fourth day in a row that we had enjoyed a protracted lunch in the town or village that we found ourselves, and I can honestly say that it came close to being the highlight of each of our days in port.

 

Sometimes our café would include stunning views, such as at the Coliseum or Pisa, but other times it was tucked away in a quaint little street. It was the charm and friendliness (mostly) of the locals that went a long way to ensuring that we always enjoyed our lunches.

 

After lunch we wandered back to the train station and yours truly decided he knew which platform the train would be arriving on for our trip back to Villefranche. Of course I got it wrong, but we only realized this as a train arrived on the tracks across from where we were and suddenly recognized some faces from the ship about to board.

 

We started running down the subway to get to the platform, waving our arms and screaming at the driver to hold on another 30 seconds, but when we were within 30 meters of the train, the doors closed and he pulled away right under our noses (he received a number of rude finger gestures from us, but I guess he was used to that).

 

We waited 20 minutes for the next train to arrive and debated whether to travel on to Nice or get off at Villefranche. The other option was to get off at Eze and explore a little bit there.

 

I had read a lot about how pleasant the village of Villefranche was, so that’s what we did.

 

Below the station was a lovely beach and some of our group decided that they had to wade in the water there. Being in the south of France, there were of course a great number of topless sunbathers on the beach. We decided to split up again after that, as the ladies wanted to do a bit more shopping, and I wanted to find an internet café.

 

This might be an appropriate time to talk about the internet. I had brought my laptop along as I needed to check-in with email every couple of days or so. I have a data card that I have used for roaming before in Europe, the USA and in Australia. For some unknown reason I could not get it to work on this trip, which meant that my choices were limited to connecting through the ship wireless, using the computer on the ship or using an internet café on shore.

 

The costs for internet on the ship were extremely high and from all accounts of passengers we spoke to, extremely slow. I find it very irritating that if someone is charging for usage on a time basis rather than a traffic basis, they can have anything other than decent broadband speed.

 

It’s like charging for your trolley of food at the supermarket based upon how long you spend in the store, not how much is in your trolley, but then only opening one till to be served at.

 

The option of using the internet cafes worked out fine. The cost there also varied, but in the region of €1 – €4 per hour, compared to the cost of $20 to $40 an hour on the ship, depending on the package purchased.

 

The internet café in Villefranche was actually expensive, perhaps because it was the only one there. It is however situated in a pub where they offer happy hour between 16:00 and 19:00, so we thought that was a great place to relax while waiting for the ladies to meet us.

 

When they eventually did, we decided to order some tapas to tide us over till dinner time. The ship was only departing at 20:00, an hour later than usual, and it was glorious sitting watching the sun drop over the Mediterranean from our café in the south of France.

 

Tonight would be our last formal dinner and we would be joined by our Irish honeymoon couple who had borrowed a tie and jacket for the evening. It was also our “lobster” night at dinner, which was pretty good – Val ordered a second serving but strangely enough that night there were two other main courses that were very good too, so I ordered one of those (I think it was quail)

 

As usual on formal nights, and especially before a sea day, the ship was a lot livelier, both in the casino and at the other venues. I think that was the night we went to the Karaoke and I was persuaded to stand up and sing out of tune. It could not have been too bad, as I got a decent round of applause and the next day we bumped into someone who said he had heard me sing, and it sounded better than the 5-song crooner in the lounge.

 

 

The last Sea Day

 

This was to be a great day for just relaxing. I seem to recall that this was the day that there was a brunch served, but it may have been the previous sea day. Nonetheless, we decided to attend it and found it a lttle strange trying to decide whether to have the bacon and eggs before or after the lovely shrimps and rare beef.

 

It is a great idea and the display of the food was rather nice, but I think you need to decide if you are going there to have a late breakfast or an early lunch. It was open from 11 am till 1 pm, so it was really more like an early lunch with eggs on the menu. Now that I think about it, it was actually on the previous sea day, and they only did it once on the cruise.

 

They also had these wonderful ice sculptures, but I missed the other occasion when they did even better ones.

 

That afternoon we had signed up for a wine tasting, which was one of only 3 activities that we participated in. The other was a trivia game early on in the cruise, which was only attended by a dozen people; the other was a darts competition, which I won first prize for. This was not too difficult, as I was the only contestant.

 

We actually never attended any of the bingo games; they always seemed to clash with something or else took place when we didn’t feel like playing. I think the bingo may have been well attended, but I got the feeling that most other activities were not.

 

About 100 people showed up for the wine tasting and it proved to be very informative and enjoyable. A lot of effort was put into the program for this and it was well worth the $10 per head.

 

It was slowly dawning on all of us that the cruise was going to be coming to an end very soon. You can always tell this is happening, because whenever you speak to someone, there is always an exchange of telephone numbers and email addresses.

 

We had made an enormous amount of very good friends and had also made friends with a lot of other people that we will probably never see again. However, they all contributed to an amazing cruise, that will always be remembered fondly.

 

Most of the last day was just spent in a very relaxed fashion. One problem that we encountered that would be unlikely to occur on other cruises is that the ship sailed between Villefranche and Barcelona at a snails pace. We had one day and two nights sailing to cover what the ship could probably do in 5 to 6 hours.

 

This resulted in us cruising at less than half the normal speed. As a result, there was much more roll to the ship that day. I realize that they could not sail at normal speed without covering a lot of unnecessary sea miles, hence using a lot more fuel.

 

What I would have preferred is that the ship tendered overnight in Villefranche and only set sail for Barcelona later in the day. I’m not sure if that would be practicable, but it sounded like a nice alternative.

 

Late afternoon we went to pack our cases, keeping only one of our four bags for the last minute items that we would require.

 

Then we headed for our last sundowners at the aft bar before making our way to the dining room. We had a pleasant dinner; made sure we exchanged all the last minute email addresses and then headed to the casino for the last time.

 

I don’t think that we spent too much time there and were soon in our cabin for our last sleep.

 

 

Barcelona

 

This was to be the only day that we were booked to take a ships excursion. The reason was that we were flying to Heathrow at 16:00 and wanted to see a bit of Barcelona without dragging our suitcases everywhere. The alternative was to find a luggage storage somewhere, leave our bags there, walk and/or taxi to the places we wanted to see, then get back to retrieve our bags and then still get to the airport.

 

For only $50 each, we were able to load our bags into the coach, be escorted to the 3 places of interest on the tour and then get dropped with our bags at the airport.

 

The day started with us having breakfast with a few friends at 7.30 and then to the theatre for our disembarkation slot at 8:15.

 

This was very well organized with our colour-coded tags, but then we had to wait a very long time for our bags to actually appear.

 

Soon we were on our bus and headed off for a city tour, with the first stop at the Sagria Familia. It was rather impressive and our guide certainly knew the history of the building and of Gaudi, the architect. Too much history actually, we never thought he would stop talking.

 

He then gave us 20 minutes in an adjacent tourist gift shop; I guess he gets a cut of the commission because he warned us to stay near him in that shop and not to wander off anywhere else.

 

From there, the bus took us to the Gothic quarter and we spent an hour there, including a tour through the Cathedral, which was splendid.

 

Our last stop was on the hill overlooking Barcelona and that was also rather stunning. We would have loved to stay an extra day or two in Barcelona, as we had heard from friends that it was really a great place.

 

Alas, we were not able to, and so we were soon heading out to the airport, which we reached precisely at 13:00 as planned.

 

We had almost 3 hours to wait before boarding our plane, so we bought some Spanish rolls (they looked like Panini’s, which I thought was Italian) and local beer and settled on a bench outside the airport (the smoking thing, remember) to wait. The beers were really good, so we ordered another round and soon it was time for our flight.

 

It is always hard to pinpoint exactly when one’s holiday ends. It could be said that it is when you walk inside your front door, but for us, I think this was the moment, as we left Barcelona and started our long journey home.

 

It was just a short flight to Heathrow and then another 2 drink wait (almost 2 hours) for our 9 pm departure to Cape Town.

 

The 12 hour flight back home was uneventful, but certainly filled with sadness that our glorious holiday was finally over.

 

The End

 

 

Roy & Val

[judyfssw]

Wow, Roy. What a great review. Thank you so much for sharing your adventures with us.

You are a wonderfully descriptive writer. Please let us know the next time you decide to cruise so we can share the cruise with you.

[CHATTYCATTY]

Dear Roy.

 

Bravo, what a wonderful review! My Husband and I are booked to sail the Summit this coming November 1st, the same itinerary however starting in Barcelona and ending in Venice. I usually am the "planner" and my Husband Ron is the "by the seat of your pants kind of guy" (by the way his non- plans always seen to work out the best) after reading your review it made me so much more appreciative of my dear husbands philosophy (Just relax)! I will definitely be stopping to smell the roses (and

also the wine too ;)) just a little more often on this adventure... and without the have to see it, hurry up or we will miss it state of mind, wow what a relief. Roy, you have reminded me that after all it is a "vacation" with a chance to meet new friends and really "experience" the wonderful places we will be visiting, and so for that, you have my most sincere gratitude and I would chance to say my husband Ron's gratitude even that much more.

 

Thank you for your great insight!

 

Warm regards,

 

Cathy from California:)

[Ardy53]

Hi Judy, Cathy

 

As I might have mentioned earlier, I had decided that I was going to do a detailed account of our cruise. This was in fact based upon a review that I read here a while ago, the only difference being being that review just stopped halfway through the cruise.

 

I have had as much enjoyment writing this review as I have receiving comments such as yours. I gather that I have upset a few people's sleep patterns. So be it.

 

Best regards

 

Roy