Solo in a Studio; Epic Western Med 7/6-7/13

I cruised solo on the Epic’s Western Mediterranean cruise from 7/6/14 through 7/13/14 in a Studio cabin. This was the second time I had been on the Epic as I had been in a spa suite in December so I was very familiar with the ship but it was the first time I had been to Europe. With no single supplement for the Studio cabins, the price was just too good to pass up and it was great timing for me since my PTO would be at the right level to cover all my days off at that point.

First off, let me just say the cruise and the ports were fantastic! Having been on the ship before I knew ahead of time what to expect food (alright to excellent) and entertainment (nothing I can’t see in Vegas so I don’t really go to anything) wise so there wasn’t any disappointment there. The unknown for me was the actual ports but I am one to read, watch, and study everything I can about someplace new so I was armed as I could be. I read a lot of travel books and websites (found I liked Rick Steves for the most part), watched a lot of Youtube videos, and used the ports section of these boards for a lot of up-to-date information. I like picture reviews so that’s what I plan to do so I’ll break my posts out by days.

Travel Day 7/3 – I decided to stay a couple of days in Barcelona before the cruise since I was looking at a +9 hour time shift. To maximize my time and minimize my jet lag I planned to leave in the afternoon, sleep on the way over, and then step out and about after checking into my hotel until the evening. For the most part, it worked. I did splurge on business class for the trip there for the lie-flat seats to help maximize my sleep time which did help.

It also helped that at my Gatwick layover I had lounge access and was able to take a shower and change clothes after my 9+ hour flight. Here's a couple of pictures of the shower room:

I guess I'm going to have to break these up a little more since I'm getting a message telling me I have double the pictures I actually have in these posts.

Barcelona Day 1 - 7/4 - It was then a little over 2 hour flight to Barcelona and I had luggage in hand by 3:30pm. I took the Areobus to Placa Catalunya which is its last stop and then rolled my luggage down La Ramblas to Hotel Curious where I reserved a single room. Check was easy and I wound up with a double bed in my room and a small balcony overlooking a residential courtyard. I'll put a review of the hotel on Trip Advisor if you’re curious (see what I did there?) about the hotel. Spoiler: I liked it.

I then headed over to the nearest Metro stop, got my T10 ticket (I bought a little cheapie souvenir at the closest kiosk since I only had large bills and the machine only gave back change in coins) and headed over to Placa Espanya to seek out Mies Van Der Rohe Pavilion. I wandered briefly through the Harley Davidson rally going on and found the Pavilion and had a great time actually walking through one of my favorite architectural pieces from my long over college days.

Coming back through the HD rally I had to take some pictures of hogs and other hogs. I also stopped for dinner at one of the stands and had a beer along with a sausage inna bun; which was not what I thought I ordered but I ran with it. I also stopped and got a lovely Mojito made with copious amounts of rum and brown sugar.

Harley hogs:

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Other hogs:

Barcelona by goddessocoffee, on Flickr"][/url]

Mojito!

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I then headed back to the hotel but got off at the metro stop at the bottom of La Ramblas to see how long of a walk it would be from my hotel to there. I wasn’t sure at that point if I wanted to walk down there on Sunday and then take the port bus or if I wanted to do a taxi so I figured I’d give it a walk without the luggage and see what I was in for. It was not that bad a walk but I wound up going with a taxi for other reasons which will be presented shortly.

Barcelona Day 2 - 7/5 – So today I had plans to check out a little local market called the Honey Market that happens on the first weekend of the month and then La Sagrada Famila in the afternoon. I was up around 8am, had some breakfast at the hotel of meats, cheese, toast and coffee and then headed off to find the market thinking it opened at 10:00am. I found it easily so decided to walk around the area and check out La Bouqiria as well. I picked up a coffee at the Dunkin Coffee at the corner of La Bouqiria and let me tell you, American Dunkin Donuts coffee wishes it was Spain’s Dunkin Coffee coffee. Oh man that was a good cup of coffee.

I puttered around the market a while but it was pretty crowed so I headed back to the Honey market thinking it would open soon. Well the stalls still had their coverings on and it turns out it didn’t open until 11:00. So I decided to start heading towards the church, stopping to have lunch at a little bakery that had free wifi and a good review on Trip Advisor.

They had the Passion facade mostly covered since they were doing work on that side but it was still awe inspiring. I was pretty early for my pre-purchased timed entry so I took some pictures and bummed around the area and went into the gift shop.

It was around this point that my left foot started to hurt beyond the dull ache that had started the day before. I don't know what it was or how I hurt it but it was to plague me for the rest of the trip.

Thanks for the report!

Look forward to reading more! Heading on the Epic in a few weeks!

Nice. You did more in Barcelona than we did. Our 1st day, we got to hotel (more like a closet with a bed) and went to Sagrada Familia. Had dinner and went back to hotel. 2nd day was breakfast and to the boat.

I wish I could see more, but oh well.

Oh I loved Barcelona! I wished I would have had more time there and if I do another cruise out of it I'd come in early again to maximize my time there.

I still have a bunch of photos uploading to Flickr so I need to wait on those to finish up my Barcelona days.

Loving your report; waiting on more! (I too saw La Sagrada but also spent some time at Gaudi park).

Looking forward to more! :cool:

Finally it was time to enter the Sagrada Famila and I picked up the audio guide I also reserved online and went for the tour. These pictures and all the other pictures really can't match actually being there.

I really enjoyed the museum in the basement along with the actual building and went up the Nativity facade tower. This is one where you need to walk down the stairs after they take you up in the elevator.

Unfortunately that walk, while amazing, did not help my foot. So after that I got back on the metro and went back to my hotel.

A couple more of the lower part of the tower stairs:

The front desk recommended a few close restaurants and I had dinner at Rita Rouge which included a glass of cava and a 1/2 liter of sangria.

Not feeling much pain from my foot then, I went on walk around the Barrie Gotic until my foot started hurting again and then went back to my hotel to get a good nights rest for tomorrow.

Embarkation Day 3 -7/6 - Since my foot was not happy, I decided to take a cab to the port. Tip for people doing that: make sure you know what the port is or can explain it in Spanish. the cabbie first thought I meant airport and asked "terminal 1". I said no, the sea port for ships and we had a little back and forth before he got where it was I was asking to go.

I was at the port quickly after that and check in went relatively smoothly even though I had forgotten to grab my printed ticket from my large bag before it got taken. The port building wasn't very big but I was there a little before 11am and had a #2 pass so I wasn't expecting to wait long. I picked up two small bottles of wine in the duty free shop there in the port and put them in my messenger bag. In case anyone was wondering, no one checked my bag as I boarded even though they did have the scanners on the ship. I sat at the little bar they have in the port, had a beer, and by the time I finished it was time to board.

Oh! They had a table right there in the building that you could use to make dining reservations for the pay restaurants and for the chef's table. I signed up right there for the chef's table which was to be on Tuesday, Naples night.

I thought I'd see if I could put my messenger bag in room and I was able to get right to it, put my bag away and just take my purse to go up for lunch. Also I took a few pictures of the room that would be my home for the next 7 days.

And the Studio Lounge:

I went to Spice H20 because I knew from the Caribbean cruise they had a nice little buffet up there for lunch. Sure enough they had my favorite pineapple-mint salad and some good tandori chicken.

Now at this point, had my foot not been hurting, I would have had lunch then gone back down and taken the port bus back out to Barcelona to walk around a bit more. Sadly, since my foot was hurting, I just stayed on the ship. Oh, I had stopped at Guest Services after I boarded and got a one day Posh pass for Monday since that was a sea day and I wanted to have a nice adult only place to hang out and read. Turns out that was not a wise purchase.

However, I did go to the spa after lunch to inquire about a day pass and it turned out they were doing a week pass for only $149 not the normal $199. Having enjoyed the spa my last cruise and not having a balcony this cruise I went ahead with the week pass. That was a wise decision since there was only one day when I didn't go but I spent the first part of every other day back from port soaking and then reading on the balcony.

So I decided to head on down to the atrium and checkout their coffee and the Cake Boss stuff. I had a coffee and a cupcake and both were not very good.

Really, the coffee was weak and just icky and the cupcake was dry. the frosting was good though. I avoided the atrium bar from then on and the best coffee I had on the ship was at the studio lounges espresso maker.

Sea Day 4 - 7/7 - So this was the one and only sea day for the cruise. As previously mentioned I had purchased a Posh pass for this day since I was planning to spend some quality time on Arrakis and wanted a comfortable outside spot where I would have bartenders available. Also, where I wouldn't have to worry about children running around and that would be Posh. Except, this day turned out to be rainy and windy with only a short time where I was able to enjoy my time up there.

I slept in so I didn't get up on the deck until 11:00 and I had missed the big rain. Still there was only one couple up at the bar and it was still sprinkling a little when I got up there. It cleared up a bit even though it was still windy so I curled up on one of the clamshells (they had the covers down since it was windy) and ordered a swordfish burger for my brunch.

Empty!

And windy!

The bartender introduced me to my new favorite drink; Hendricks and tonic with cucumber and black pepper.

And the grilled swordfish sandwich from the Epic Grill was really good.

Sadly it was just a little too nippy for me to stay long so I went back to my room and then to the spa where I read on their balcony. I really didn't do much this day since it was my planned rest up day before all the ports.

I did go back up to Posh a couple more times to see if it was any better and it was still deserted and just a little too cold to stay. So my $15 for that day's pass was not the best purchase it could have been.

Naples Day 5 - 7/8 - I woke up early and ate breakfast while we were docking in port.

A little aside here about the cabin. This was my third cruise ever and the first one in an interior cabin. I like being able to wake up and get an approximation of the time based on the sky outside but I didn't have that here. I tried the tip I read from someone here and kept the bridge view muted up on the TV and that worked fairly well except for disrupting my sleep a bit. I do have to say though, I definitely prefer having a window as opposed to being fully interior.

Anyways, my plans for the day were to take the Circumvesuviana train to Herculaneum, wander around there for a few hours, and then take the train to Sorrento. I then planned to take the ferry back to the dock from Sorrento. And that is just what I did.

I bought the day pass which included buses, trams, and the train for the day at a little news stand right across from the port entry. Then I got on Tram 1 which stopped right there and took it to the train station. While waiting for the train I got myself an espresso at the little stand since it was going to be about 1/2 hour before the train I needed came in.

Taking the train was easy, and the people were friendly and willing to help any lost tourist. I do have to say that the walk to the entry of Herculaneum was a little convoluted since once you hit the end of the street you needed to go down a little side road/alley and then walk back a little bit to get to the entry. But it was worth it.

Wonderful - enjoying your review - thanks for sharing with us.

You said you got a one day pass for POSH - I didnt know you could do that - do they sell them daily?

We have a spa mini for our TA - thought with all those cool sea days we would make good use of the SPA -

Hope your foot got better!!

After a very hot and muggy tour I was ready to head to Sorrento and enjoy the sea breezes I would occasionally get a tease of in Herculaneum. So it was a trudge uphill back to the train station and pushing myself onto a crowded, hot, train to head to Sorrento. Now Herculaneum is before the Pompeii stop so I was hoping to get out of the cattle crunch and grab an actual seat once we stopped there. Sure enough, there was quite a disgorge once we hit the Pompeii stop. It was also interesting to see that there were a whole bunch of vendors lining the walk to the Pompeii entry.

The rest of the trip was better as most people wound up getting off at the stops and not a lot got on. Except I had the same obnoxious accordion player on the train that Meanee had on his. Ugh.

Sorrento is the last stop on this line and everyone got off there and head on their way. It was already cooler here then it had been in Naples and I decided to start at the lemon grove and then make my way towards town and lunch from there.

Then I wandered around the town for a little bit before I headed on down to the port to get my ferry ticket. I should have gone down a little earlier since they only had the ferries every so often and I needed to wait an hour for the next one. With my foot still hurting I didn't feel like walking back up to town so I soaked for it a little in the sea and then had a seat at one of the cafes there and had some iced cappuccino and a local pastry.

Then it was onto a ferry for a rough ride back due to some high waves. But we docked right at the port and it was easy walk back to the ship.

This was the only day I didn't use the spa since I didn't have time to. I took a shower and then got ready for the Chef's table which was a great experience. We met up in the Epic Club where we all served Champange to start the experience. As I mentioned in the beginning, my first cruise on the Epic was in December and I had a spa suite so I ate in the Epic room a lot. I was surprised when the Maitre d' remembered me from that cruise seven months ago. I guess the Haven staff really do remember you!

The Chef's Table was great, the food was excellent, the wine was free flowing, and I had some great table mates including Meanee and his lovely significant other and the two British men who were celebrating their anniversary. After dinner they took us back to the Epic Club and gave us the drink of our choice. We were all feeling no pain at time.

Wonderful - enjoying your review - thanks for sharing with us.

You said you got a one day pass for POSH - I didnt know you could do that - do they sell them daily?

We have a spa mini for our TA - thought with all those cool sea days we would make good use of the SPA -

Hope your foot got better!!

They do sell one day passes for Posh as long as they have space but they also sell the whole week passes. I knew I wouldn't care for the whole week so I just picked up the one day. You could probably buy the days you wanted one day or just check with Guest Services on the day you wanted.

Enjoy your spa passes! I know I did.

A Med cruise is on my to-do list. Loving your review, thanks for writing!

great review thanks, beautiful pictures too

Love the report-almost took this trip this year but switched to another plan. Still would love to do this trip so cannot wait to read more!

I'm glad people are enjoying the review. I'm having fun remembering and writing.

Rome Day 6 - 7/9 - Amazingly I was not completly out of commission in the morning after the Chef's Table last night. We had already docked when I went up for my breakfast but I still able to get to the shuttles and to the train station early for a planned 8:44 express train into Rome. Yeah, that didn't quite work out so well.

The Civitavecchia train station or hell on rails:

There were quite a few people waiting for the same train and an announcement came up that it was running 15 minutes late. Then another one that it was now 20 minutes late. There was a regular train getting ready to leave a few trains over so I was debating whether I should go on that one or wait. Quite a few people decided to abandon the late express and make a break for the regular one. I decided to stay for the express. I made the wrong choice.

Once the express train finally showed up (more like 40 minutes late) it was packed. Once I had finally found a seat I waited with some very disgruntled passengers for the train to get under way. Well, it never did. An announcement came over in only Italian but I got the gist of it when all the passengers exclaimed disgustedly and started getting off the train. Yep, the train was not going anywhere. So we all made our way to the the platform that had the next regular train and finally we were on our way.

I had hoped to get to the Pantheon early enough so that it wasn't filled with tourists but after the train fiasco, that didn't happen. But it was still an excellent experience to stand there in such an ancient building that was built to house the gods of the ancient Romans and now housed the gods of the gods of the contemporary Romans.

After the Pantheon I headed over to the fountain in the Piazza Navona to take some pictures of Fountain of the Four Rivers and start seeking out some lunch.

I decided I'd start heading towards the Trevi Fountain and see exactly how much renovation was going on. I had seen a diagram in an Italian newspaper that showed there would be a catwalk that went up to the fountain's sculptures and I was hoping it would be open. On the way there I found Cafe Friends and stopped and had lunch at the counter and to check my email and post some pictures.

Then I was off back towards the fountain. I came around the corner and it was almost completely covered in scaffolding. Sadly the catwalk was not open. They had but a little pool of water right at the front that you could toss your coins into but many people still seemed perturbed at the renovations. I had known about them from a thread here so I was prepared, but I can imagine what it would be like for someone who didn't know.

By that time my foot was not in great shape, so I decided to make my way back to the tram that would take me back to the train station taking a few pictures on the way.

This time the train was on time and it wasn't long until I was back in Civitavecchia and taking the little bus back to the shuttle drop off point for the ships. Now, there was one shuttle already there when we were dropped off but the driver was being completely cranky and not letting people on. Finally the people there got it straightened out and I was let onto one of the shuttles going back to the ship.

Once I got back on the ship it was time for a soak in the spa. I then went and had dinner with Meanee & sig, and the two guys from the chefs table. it was a lot of fun and my one and only meal in one of the main dining rooms. I was not impressed with the meal and decided to stick to the buffet like I had been doing for the rest of the cruise.

Enjoying your review and pictures. I also stayed at Hotel Curious pre-cruise and thought it was a clean, service oriented, budget friendly hotel in a perfect location. Surprised it doesn't get mentioned more often on these boards.

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