KeithJenner

Yes thanks. Not happy though.

In a rather interesting development, I was at the bar on o’Sheehans watching the NFL when a passenger who we had been talking to earlier came and sat next to me, started shouting abuse, punched me on the arm and drank my beer. He was last seen being escorted away by security. It isn’t NCLs fault, but it also isn’t what you expect when on holiday. We will have discussions tomorrow.

Today in Messina we took the “Taormina on your own” tour. The original plan was to take the train, but I found out a while ago that it doesn’t run on Sundays (or was too late in the day, something like that). The on your own tour was cheap with free at sea plus, and it worked fairly well. We had about two and a half hours in town. It is a really nice place and did wow us, although it was very busy. I would certainly recommend a visit.

A bit of catching up to now, now we have been to the two new ports. I was a little disappointed with Valletta. It is a nice port and maybe my expectations were a little high. When we go to a new port which is within walking distance to town we tend to walk around to get a feel of the place. It is a nice town with a lot to see. There we’re plenty of taxis outside the port, along with hop on hop off buses also running. Overall I liked it, and we would certainly enjoy going back (when we would pick some specific places to visit). A great port, but I was hoping that it would really wow us, which didn’t quite happen.

Day 8 dailies.

Day 7 dailies

I wonder whether this may be due to stocking issues. If they are running low on wines that are in the P+ package then they may restrict them to others. Just speculating. I’m currently on the Breakaway and whilst there isn’t a restriction on paying the difference they do appear to be rather hiding those wines away in some bars, which I wondered whether is because they are trying to look after stocks.

I agree that Olympia is clearly the main attraction from Katakolon. We’ve been here once before and we hired a car to go there last time. This time was just stayed in Katakolon. It is a small town and we had some excellent ice cream at Maniera Gelateria. We are going to be more busy in the next few days (it’s our first time in both Valetta and Messina).

Finally managed to get a picture.

Just noticed you are on the Dawn. The Dawn goes to some ports where tendering is particularly challenging, due to long tendering distances and some short port times which really make things busy. What port are you taking about?

It really depends on the port and how individual ships deal with the process. You book a tender ticket and are given a group (unless you are on an NCL tour or have priority due to latitudes status or or in a suite). They call the group numbers and once those are done then it is open access. Getting through the groups usually takes a couple of hours so if you need to get off early then get a ticket as soon as you can. You can usually get tender tickets through the NCL app as well as places mentioned earlier.

We went to Ocean Blue yesterday. We’ve not been before as my wife isn’t a big fan of seafood, but it was a really excellent meal. Probably my new favourite NCL restaurant.

Day 6 dailies.

Yup. Things have certainly changed. I wouldn’t say it’s a waste though. We’re having a great time. They do need to limit the ships in Santorini tough. It’s crazy.

Forgot to post the dailies earlier.

Weather was much nicer today. Not too hot with a nice breeze. Tendering was painless, although we did leave after the initial rush and came back an hour before last tender. Mykonos town itself was busier than I have seen it before. There is a Royal Caribbean ship docked and another smaller ship tendering. My wife seems happy with her shopping. 🙂

The speed that they were getting through the tender groups slowed down as time progressed. I expect that lots of people who had lower numbers weren’t actually ready when they were called so more people were arriving later. The first group was called at 7am. Our group (26) was about 9am and they finished all the groups at 9.30. We didn’t request tickets until quite late yesterday so if you want to get in the first hour then I think it will have been very easy to get tickets for that time. Last tender back is at 2pm so I expect there will be quite a queue near that time.

The wifi is good. I would say noticeably better than other ships.

Tendering at Mykonos seems to be going well. 40 minutes in and they have just called group 18.

Pick up from Oia was at 4.45 so it must have been soon after 5pm. Our tour start time was 1.45 in case yours is different. You basically get about an hour and a half in Oia, which is just right to take some pictures and do some shopping or grab a drink,

It depends. We were on the waterfront port side and had a great view of the island. The sunset would have been the other side. However, the staff said that the previous few times the ship had been the other way round. I suppose it depends on the anchoring location.

As stated above, the plus package doesn’t now include Veuve. We have had rose champagne in restaurants and it is very good. Other than the items specified in the menus, drinks are included in the p+ package. No extra charge:

My phone just started buzzing and I got his warning. It says to limit unnecessary movement and I’m at the bar, so I guess if better stay here. 🙂

When we were there on the Jade last year there was one other ship in port (mid sized, from memory). There were no problems.

The weather brightened up for a while earlier, but it’s taken a turn for the worse again now. Storms all around us again. I was going to do the ropes course this afternoon but I’m assuming that it is closed. The view from the bar is slightly different to yesterday. All aboard is in 30 minutes. I bet there are some wet people coming onboard now. IMG_2984.mov