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Carnival Cruiser Sails Royal Caribbean ~ Navigator to Italy, France, Spain ~ 10/28/12


gapearl
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I’ve been looking forward to writing this review for a long time! I just flew home from Barcelona yesterday after what was an epic vacation throughout Europe, including my first Royal Caribbean cruise on the Navigator of the Seas. I had an absolute blast! :D As I sit on my couch on this rainy afternoon catching up on two weeks worth of The Young & The Restless, I figure there’s no better time than now to get started.

 

I’m Kimberly, 32 years old, and live in Atlanta. Traveling with me was my friend Jackie. She’s 28 and lives in Orlando. We’re flight attendants and met almost 7 years ago when we were classmates in our initial training class. Jackie has been on 1 Carnival and 2 Royal Caribbean cruises, and I’ve been on 6 Carnival cruises. I LOVE Carnival. Dare I say I might even be a Carnival cheerleader? :eek: I've lurked on the RC boards long enough to know that some of you would rather gouge your eyes out than to ever set foot on a Carnival ship, but I’ve grown to love them. I have never had bad service and I always have a good time. I’ve been wanting to try both Royal Caribbean and NCL, but when looking for an itinerary I liked at the right price for the weeks I’ve needed, Carnival has always been the winner. I usually cruise solo or I take my mom, but thought this trip would be more fun with a friend. Plus this is a belated celebration for both of us. We both participated in Susan G. Komen races last year, right before this cruise was booked. I did a half marathon and raised $1,400. Jackie did the 3 day walk and raised $2,400. That totals $3,800 raised and 73.1 miles walked and run to raise money for a cause very close to our hearts. It’s never too late to celebrate an accomplishment like that, right?

 

Here we are. That's me on the left, Jackie on the right. A sneak preview from our first formal night. ;)

 

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I did 100% of the planning for this trip. Jackie spent almost 2 weeks in the British Virgin Islands on a boat with 9 other people literally days before this trip, and she did all the planning for that. I’m a big researcher and love planning, so she was happy to have a break. She sent money to my Pay Pal account and I bought all of our tickets online in advance (more on that later).

 

Our cruise on the Navigator was a 6 day itinerary. It was her last Mediterranean cruise of the season before she made her trans-Atlantic voyage to New Orleans for the winter. Part of the reason this itinerary was so appealing is because it started in one city and ended in another. We spent 4 days before the cruise in Rome and 2 days after in Barcelona for a total of 12 days of travel.

 

Cruise itinerary:

 

Day 1- Civitavecchia, Italy (Rome)

Day 2- Livorno, Italy (Pisa, Florence)

Day 3- Genoa, Italy

Day 4- Villefranche, France (Nice)- missed this port, more on that later as well

Day 5- Provence, France (Toulon)

Day 6- At Sea

Debarkation- Barcelona, Spain

 

My trip reports are very thorough and picture heavy, and this one will be no different. At the end, I will include some observations and comparisons about the differences I noticed between Royal Caribbean and Carnival. Some good, some not so good, all JMHO. The camera I used in the majority of my pictures is a Canon G12. A few were snapped with my iPhone, and a few with Jackie’s Canon. Please bear with me over the next week or so as I upload pictures, videos, cruise compasses, etc.

 

Ok! Enough small talk. Time to get this review started!

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Packing for a 12 day trip in 1 suitcase can be rather challenging. This was my second attempt after eliminating a lot of stuff already. :rolleyes:

 

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We left for Rome on Tuesday, 10/23, flying overnight and landing the next morning. Luckily it wasn't a full flight. We each had our own row to completely lay out and get some sleep.

 

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As we got closer, our GPS showed we were flying over a couple of our port stops from the upcoming week.

 

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Armed with a little conversational Italian I crammed in the last few weeks, what little bit of French I remember from 3 years worth of classes in high school, and about 8 months of studying Spanish on my own, I was ready to run off the plane and begin this adventure.

 

We landed around 9:30 am on Wednesday, 10/24. There are no customs forms needed here. When you pass through customs at the airport, you just give them your passport. One of the guys in the customs booth really liked me. He didn't speak a word of English but somehow he managed to communicate through a coworker that spoke broken English that he wanted to take me to dinner. He gave me his phone number and wanted me to call him the next day so we could meet up. I didn't, but thought it was funny that I hadn't even left the airport and had an Italian date already! :p

 

Before leaving the airport, we purchased a Roma Pass. I HIGHLY recommend buying one of these if you'll be spending a few days in Rome. It's 30 euros and includes a 3 day metro pass, free entry into 2 museums, front of the line access at those museums, and discounts at other museums.

 

http://www.romapass.it/

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Instead of booking a hotel, I thought it would be a little cheaper and more of an experience to rent an apartment instead. Through lots of research and reading on reviews on tripadvisor.com and flipkey.com, I decided on this cute efficiency for 60 euros a night. It was a little smaller than I what I was expecting (I actually thought it was a 1 bedroom, not an efficiency), but it was fine for the two of us. We called the owner from the airport and told her were were on the way so she could meet us there. She said it would take us about an hour. The metro pass doesn't cover travel on the train from the airport to the center of Rome. We had to pay 7 or 8 euros for that ride.

 

A local on the train tried to help us find our way and ended up giving us bad directions. We got off the train a stop too early and ended up with an extra 10 minutes added to our walk to the apartment. No big deal, but with our bags, us in dresses and me in heels, it was quite a sight for the local folks we passed. It couldn't have been more obvious we weren't from around here. Everyone was very friendly. People were saying hello and asking where we were headed and pointed us in the right direction.

 

Here are some pictures of our apartment.

 

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We were a 5 minute walk from the Ponte Lungo metro stop. There were several markets, a flower stand, bakery, ATM, dollar stores, and a couple of restaurants close by. It was definitely a lot more fun living in a residential neighborhood rather than a hotel.

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Ready when you are!!

 

I'm ready! Let's do this!

 

Very much looking forward to your review. We'll be taking our first Royal cruise in October 2013 and have only cruised Carnival to date. Excited to read your thoughts, etc.

 

Welcome home! :)

 

Thanks for reading! You will enjoy yourself for sure. Honestly, I think they're alike more so than different. Service was equally as good on both. I have many thoughts on the food, which I'll get deep into later on. I loved the parades down the promenade. Stay tuned for more!

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I'm ready! Let's do this!

 

 

 

Thanks for reading! You will enjoy yourself for sure. Honestly, I think they're alike more so than different. Service was equally as good on both. I have many thoughts on the food, which I'll get deep into later on. I loved the parades down the promenade. Stay tuned for more!

 

I'm kicking back and looking for some popcorn as I read along. ;)

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Subscribing! Can't wait to read the rest of the review and your photos!

 

BTW, both your dresses are gorgeous!

 

Thanks for reading and for the compliments!

 

Im a georgia peach also, from ellijay ga. The mediterranean is on my bucket list so im looking forward to your review.

 

Hi Sharon! Waving to you way up there in Ellijay! :) The Mediterranean is a great cruise to take. I hope you get to do it one day!

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Love pic heavy reviews!! Can't wait to read the rest!

 

I took about 2,300 photos! :eek: Don't go anywhere!

 

I'm kicking back and looking for some popcorn as I read along. ;)

 

Awesome! I hope you enjoy! I love writing these because I get to relive my vacation all over again.

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I can't wait to read more of your review. I'm on the Navigator next year, October 27th, with three other girlfriends doing the Med itinerary, but going to Sicily, Greece and Turkey. We are planning on staying in Rome two days prior to the cruise, but I'm thinking we might need more than that!

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Really impressed with the money you raised for the breast cancer! I am looking forward to your review. We have only sailed RCCL so far but at some point will probably try the other lines. It will be interesting to see how you think the cruise lines compare.

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After settling into our apartment, showering, and changing clothes, we were ready to go grab some lunch and explore the city. The Colosseum was about a 20-25 minute walk from the apartment, so that’s where we were headed first. On the way, we stopped at a typical Italian fast food place for lunch of a couple slices of pizza and sodas.

 

Notice the Michael Jackson art on the wall.

 

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This definitely ain't Pizza Hut. It's so much better!

 

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We continued our journey down the road, admiring how beautiful and charming Rome is and taking it all in.

 

A statue we had to stop, admire, and take pictures of.

 

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It was a common occurrence to see groups of nuns everywhere we went. Once, on the metro, I observed two nuns getting into a packed car, and two people got up and allowed them to sit. It's obvious how respected they are.

 

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I'm a HUGE fan of the Fifty Shades trilogy. We passed by a bookstore and I couldn't resist stopping by to snap this picture. Even Italian ladies love Christian Grey. LOL

 

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Look Jackie! There it is!!!

 

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Up close.

 

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The Roma Pass, which I mentioned earlier, includes entry into The Colosseum/ Roman Forums/ Palentine Hill, all as one ticket. There's a special line for Roma Pass holders. If we didn't have it, we would have been in line for at least 30 minutes to get a ticket. Outside of the Colosseum were tons of vendors selling snacks, souvenirs and tours. One tour guide approached us to join her tour for something like 15 euros. It took us less than a minute of listening to this lady to say NO WAY. She was way too annoying. We went to the Colosseum's tour booth and added on a 45 minute guided tour for 4 euros. Neither of us are "stick followers". You know what I'm talking about. You see a group of 60 people all following a guide, holding his or her "stick" with a handkerchief tied to it in the air, indicating "Follow me guys!" That's totally not our style. But we made an exception here to get as much history as we could of the Colosseum and to understand everything we were looking at. We spent a lot of time before and after the tour, wandering around and taking pictures.

 

This was a piece of a statue that used to hang high outside the Colosseum and fell.

 

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The fighting ring used to completely cover the circular area. That's not part of the original, by the way.

 

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Down beneath is what was the backstage/holding area. They would hold up to 300 slaves plus the animals in here.

 

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Can you imagine how dark it was, and how scared they must have been?

 

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Yay! Hi Kimberly! I've been looking forward to your review. Looks great so far! And you and Jackie did a wonderful thing for the Susan G. Komen foundation. Major kudos to both of you! Subscribing so I don't miss anything :)

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There are lots of holes in the Colosseum's structure.

 

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A historic piece of mosaic art.

 

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If that's not enough to put in perspective how grand the Colosseum really is, here are two videos I shot from two different angles.

 

 

 

The weather was perfect and it was a great day. When I envisioned what the interior of the Colosseum must have looked like in it's original state, I thought back to my visit to Madrid last year and compared it slightly to the Plaza de Toros, or the bull ring. This is a remarkable piece of history to visit if you ever have the chance.

 

It was getting late and we were too tired to visit The Roman Forums and Palentine Hill, so we decided to save those for Friday and head back to the apartment. We took the metro back instead of walking. We weren't very hungry so we stopped at the market for some cheese, crackers, fruit, water and juice, and got a couple of cannellonis from the bakery after getting off the metro. Our first day in Rome was a success!

 

Up next: Day 2 in Rome at The Vatican!

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I can't wait to read more of your review. I'm on the Navigator next year, October 27th, with three other girlfriends doing the Med itinerary, but going to Sicily, Greece and Turkey. We are planning on staying in Rome two days prior to the cruise, but I'm thinking we might need more than that!

 

That sounds like an awesome itinerary! I looked at some of the cruises that went through Greece and Turkey. I still would love to do that itinerary one day. We saw a lot in the 4 days we were in Rome and still didn't get to see everything. Take into consideration that half of your first day will include flying in, leaving the airport, checking into your hotel, getting settled, eating, etc. You really will only have about a day and a half. If you can manage to add an extra day or 2, I think you should. That's going to be the ultimate girls trip!

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I cant wait to read. We will be on her in 88 days. I love all the pictures I can find.

 

She's a beautiful ship! I promise there will be tons of pictures of her....eventually. ;)

 

Really impressed with the money you raised for the breast cancer! I am looking forward to your review. We have only sailed RCCL so far but at some point will probably try the other lines. It will be interesting to see how you think the cruise lines compare.

 

Thanks for the nice words! It was nice to try something different. I say give it a shot. If you cruise another line and don't like it, at least you can say you tried. Keep reading! :)

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Yay! Hi Kimberly! I've been looking forward to your review. Looks great so far! And you and Jackie did a wonderful thing for the Susan G. Komen foundation. Major kudos to both of you! Subscribing so I don't miss anything :)

 

Hi Host Faith! I'm glad you're subscribing! I need to play catch up with your Allure review at some point! :)

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