ashlynn1021

Hi All, We made it onboard the Odyssey of the Seas today but once again I need to catch up on what we did yesterday. I have a feeling I am going to be continually behind but hopefully I will be able to catch up since tomorrow is a sea day but then I might quickly end up behind again as the port days start. Anyways all of that to say just bear with me 🫣. Ok so back to yesterday. We started our day heading to a cafe near the hotel for coffee and pastries. We opted to not do the hotel breakfast again after the first time so I literally searched coffee shop on Google maps and went to the first place that showed up. Here are some pictures of the pastries and coffee: After that, we once again ordered an Uber and headed to the restaurant for our cooking class. The class was called “3 in 1 Cooking Class near Navona: Fettuccine, Ravioli & Tiramisu” and was conducted in the back room of a restaurant. Promptly at the start time of the class, our chef instructor Danilo came out to check us in for the class and had us come in and wash our hands before starting with the Tiramisu. Danilo already had the eggs separated in two bowls and then added sugar to the yolks. From there he asked for two volunteers to use the hand mixers to beat the egg whites and beat the yolks. I volunteered and ended up beating the yolks and sugar mixture. About halfway through the beating process we stopped and he got another volunteer up to drop spoonfuls of mascarpone in the yolk mixture as I continued beating with the hand mixer. Once the egg whites were stiff and the yolks, sugar, and mascarpone mixture was completely mixed, my job was done. From there he had a few more volunteers come up to fold the egg whites into the yolks mixture. My dad volunteered for this part and ended up being on of the people doing the folding. From there, Danilo instructed us how to assemble the tiramisu. We each were given a glass and two lady fingers (they have a much nicer Italian name that I don’t remember 🙃). They had bowls of brewed coffee on the tables and we broke the lady fingers in half and quickly dipped the first half in the coffee and smushed it on the bottom of the cup (smushed is a technical term 😂). We then layered in the cream, the other half of the lady fingers dipped in coffee but not smushed and some more cream. Finally, we topped it off with cocoa powder. We then labeled our cups of tiramisu and put them on trays to go chill while we prepared our pasta. For the pasta making, we did the whole process by hand including the rolling and cutting. Danilo demonstrated each step and also came around to help. My mom has never been the cook in my household (she likes to talk about how she failed home ec in high school), and she required a lot of assistance to get the pasta mixed, kneaded, and rolled out. Thankfully he helped her out otherwise she wouldn’t have had lunch, he said there was one of her in every class 🤣. Not only did we cut thicker fettuccine noodles, we also filled and cut ravioli. We were given a card to write our name on and select one of three sauces for our fettuccine. My mom and I both selected cacio e pepe and my dad selected a tomato sauce with pork in it called Amatriciana. From there we left our finished pasta on our boards with the cards and headed to the actual restaurant side of the space to sit down at a large table as a group to enjoy what we made. The server came around with some house wine for everyone and then our pasta started coming out as it was prepared. Unfortunately one of my ravioli burst in the water so I lost one but it was still really cool eating what we just made. After we ate our pasta, they passed out our tiramisu and each enjoyed what we made. It was definitely a fun experience that while not a typical tour was a fun way to experience Rome. The class was operated by Eat and Walk Italy and I once again purchased it through Viator. The whole thing including the lunch took about 3 hours and at the end we got to download a recipe booklet of what we cooked to keep. The same operator also offers pizza and other classes and all the recipes for all the classes are included in the recipe booklet. Here are some pictures I took at the class: After the class, we finally had some free time so we walked to the Spanish steps (about a half mile from where the class was) and did some shopping. Let’s just say we did some damage and now have to figure out the VAT refund process when we leave FCO in 2 weeks. I will report back how that goes if we are successful. From there we got ditched by an Uber driver who started driving in circles trying to get us to cancel until he finally canceled so we ended up shopping some more before getting a cab at a taxi stand to get back to our hotel. We once again ate dinner at the pizza place near our hotel. Here are our pictures from this time: After that we got some gelato near our hotel: And finally went back to our rooms to pack up and prepare to board the ship the next day. Overall, this was our most relaxed day in Rome and definitely needed after the 2 busy days prior. My next post will probably be a shorter post about boarding day, it was rather uneventful as everything went pretty smoothly, as well as finally a hotel review. Spoiler: we definitely would recommend the Doubletree by Hilton Rome Monti. Thanks again for reading and TTYL! - Ashley

Yeah, we have been quite happy with how well she has kept up and how much she has been able to walk, although the cruise tours will definitely be the test. Thankfully, she definitely still can walk, her mobility issues are extremely minor compared to some. She had brain surgery in 2022 to remove a benign tumor and that caused numbness in her right foot. She went to physical therapy then for it and bounced back for the most part. Unfortunately, the fall in February re-triggered her symptoms again so she has been going to PT again and also trying acupuncture even (which shocked me considering she has an extreme fear of needles so I guess that is just how bothered she is with her foot). All her doctors told her to walk and go on this trip, just not to overdo it, especially after she had a panic attack a few weeks after falling when I spent the day walking around the Tempe Arts Festival with her and we ended up in the ER after (although a theme for her has also been dehydration, and that definitely was a factor that day, hence why we have been trying to keep her with a refillable water bottle where we can). And obviously the numbness makes her a bit unsteady so my dad and I have been assisting her with steps and things where we think we should. At home, she just started driving again a bit since the fall but doesn't feel comfortable yet behind the wheel (considering the numbness is in her right foot) and we definitely aren't pushing her there. I hope this trip is a nice break for her from the stress of that at home. - Ashley

Hey Guys! Back from a fun day of pasta cooking and shopping to recap yesterday, Friday, our second full day in Rome. Yesterday was another cold and rainy day. The first half of the day we took a semi private tour of the Vatican and the second half of the day we had a walking food tour. We started our day with breakfast at the hotel. While it was very civilized for hotel breakfast, the coffee was self serve at a crown lounge/suite lounge-esque coffee machine and not good according to both my parents who are coffee drinkers (I am not so I would not be the one to ask), and the food was just ok (this I can confirm myself). I forgot to catch pictures but needless to say we are not going to be doing it again. We then ordered an Uber and headed on our way to the Vatican and the meeting point for our Vatican tour. One quick note about Ubers in Rome: there is only Uber Black offered, you can also use the Uber app to order a cab but we haven’t tried that, we have stuck to Uber black as well as traditional taxi stands when they are convenient for us. You can’t just hail a cab in Rome, you have to go to a Taxi stand and in some cases that additional walking to find a taxi stand is not great for my mom. Anyways, after about a 30 minute ride with some traffic, we made it to our meeting point for our tour, the Caffe Vaticano, and it seems most tours meet outside of there so it was quite hectic. That combined with that fact that it started down pouring rain shortly after we got there provided for some interesting challenges. We were also a bit early for our meeting time. Anyways, after a short time the LivTours check in person arrived and we checked in and were pointed to our guide, Monica. The tour was just us and one other couple for a total of 5 guests. We headed across the street to the Vatican Museum. The entry times had gotten backed up, not entirely sure why but we waited a bit with our group (in the down pouring rain) before we were allowed to enter. Once we entered, we went through security. Security was very simple, you had your bags go through an x ray machine and walked through a metal detector. I had read online that they didn’t like reusable water bottles so we opted not to use ours as we didn’t want them taken away but the other couple in our group had theres and had no issue so in retrospect we would have been fine but your mileage may vary. It also looked like there was a bag check for oversized bags. Not entirely sure the rules there nor how you would be able to get them back since you don’t end the tour at the starting point so probably a good idea to look at the size restrictions on the Vatican website. My dad had a classic Jansport backpack with some jackets and umbrellas in it and had no issues, and same with my mom’s and my crossbody Travelon bags. Once through security, our guide had us take a brief pause to use the facilities and also dry off a bit. There was literally a line for the hand dryer in the women’s restroom but I managed to use it to dry off my jacket and it was better than nothing but I definitely did the tour pretty drenched. Speaking of my Travelon, it was also completely soaked including all the contents. I just had to live with it for the duration of the tour. We then re-grouped and were given radios to wear throughout the museum, even though our group was small, our guide Monica didn’t want to have any issues since it was extremely crowded. We then entered the museum. We spent about 1.5 hours going through the museum, after losing the first half hour of the tour to the wait outside as well as security, etc. It was very busy but Monica did a great job of keeping the group together as she talked us through each gallery. She shared loads of anecdotes about each room and I don’t know what we would have done without a guide in there. It was truly overwhelming between the crowds and the sheer magnitude of it. I think I took close to 100 pictures in the museum. We then spent about 15 minutes in the Sistine Chapel. Before the Sistine Chapel, she talked us through what the different paintings on the ceiling were and what they represented and prepped us where to meet her after our 15 minutes were up since she wasn’t allowed to guide us through that part. Then, we exited the museum, and had to turn back in our radios as they were the ones owned by the museum. From there, we proceeded directly into St. Peter’s Basilica. The biggest advantage of doing a guided tour was that we directly entered St. Peters from the museum and did not have to wait in the general entrance line. As someone who has waited in that line multiple times before, I can confirm this is a great perk. Once inside St. Peters, we spent the last half hour of the tour going through the highlights of the property. All in all, the tour was 3 hours long. Monica also gave us some advice about where to go while in Rome at the end of the tour. She really was a great and thorough guide and we were extremely impressed. As I said earlier, the tour was operated by LivTours and I purchased it through Viator. It was called “Rome: Skip the Line Vatican, Sistine Chapel, St Peter 6 PAX Group”. It was pricey, but definitely worth it and a lot cheaper than a completely private tour, even after factoring in the cost to Uber there (the private version of the tour offers a hotel pickup). The was my 3rd time to the Vatican and St. Peters but I definitely got the most out of it doing a guided tour. It was also our first time going into the Vatican museum and the Sistine chapel so those were both very neat experiences. Probably the closest thing I have to compare it to was when we did the hermitage museum in St. Petersburg in 2016 in terms of how crowded it was (I know, probably a terrible comparison), but I got a lot more out of this thanks to how small our group was and the truly fantastic guide. Here are some photos from the experience (I took a ton so this is just a few to give you an idea): After St. Peters, we headed out to the Vatican and found a side street where we were able to order an Uber to pick us up and take us to our hotel. Thankfully the rain had stopped and the weather was starting to clear up. One good thing we have noticed is we have had an easier time finding Uber pickup points on side streets here than in other cities such as London. We had originally planned to spend some time shopping and exploring independently then but we were all a bit tired from the Vatican between the crowds and the weather along with the walking and many steps. The tour is definitely not handicap accessible, which we knew going into it, but I don’t think we realized the amount of walking for my mom. Thankfully, she was a trooper but we definitely all needed a siesta after. We opted to skip lunch as we knew our food walking tour later would have enough food to suffice for lunch and dinner. After an afternoon siesta, we once again took an Uber from our hotel to our meeting point for the 5:45pm walking tour. It was about a 15 minute drive from our hotel to the Piazza Mattei, the starting point for our tour. We had gotten in the habit of leaving early for tours to account for crazy Rome traffic (I could literally go on a diatribe about how crazy people drive in Rome but I won’t, I will just say I am constantly amazed I have not seen an accident here) so once there, we stopped in a bar so my dad could get some coffee. Many of the bars here also have espresso machines so you can order cappuccino, americano, espresso, etc. We then headed out a few minutes before the meeting time when it became obvious that other people were there waiting for our tour and our guide Andrea arrived promptly on time. We had a group of 10 people for this tour and it was a really great mix of people in our group. From there, we headed into the Jewish Ghetto where we started our tour covering some of the Jewish history in Rome, including the history of the Jewish Ghetto and saw one of the only synagogues in Rome, lots of Kosher restaurants that were closed for the sabbath since it was a Friday night, as well as one thing I remembered from Amsterdam last year: Stumbling Stones aka Stolperstein. They are these metal cobblestones in front of properties where people who were sent to concentration camps lived prior to World War II. They contain inscriptions with the names, birthdates, and other details about the people who lived there. It was truly sad to see so many of these again especially when you think about how only a handful of Italian Jews who were sent to concentration camps survived and the unfortunate parallels with current events. Most of the Jewish population in Rome still lives in this area and we saw numerous Israel flags outside windows and a very sad Bring them Home banner, none of which were things I anticipated seeing in Rome. Our guide Andrea then took us to our first stop. It was a Kosher-style restaurant. Here, we ate "carciofo alla giudìa" which are artichokes fried and salted. They were actually really good, quite the unexpected gem of the tour. Our guide talked about how over time the Jewish people had become good at taking cheap ingredients and making them taste really good, and frying anything makes it taste good. Our next stop was another Kosher Style restaurant where we had a sampling of 3 different appetizers: roasted zucchini, roasted tomatoes, and anchovies. These were all a bit unexpected. After that stop, we headed out of the Jewish ghetto and got a taste of two different types of Roman style pizza: Pizza Marinara and Pizza Margherita. Roman style pizza is a square pizza that is a bit thicker than Neapolitan style pizza but it is cooked at an extremely hot temperature so it gets really crispy. It is also sold by weight so you literally tell them how much you want and they cut off a piece and weigh it for you. We enjoyed the pizza with some Peroni beer. Next, we headed to Campo de' Fiori where we learned the history of this square, went on a little quest for a Virgin Mary, and then headed to our next restaurant where we sampled some pasta dishes. The restaurant was a very unique location with some literal ruins in the basement. At that restaurant, we sampled 3 kinds of pasta and an eggplant dish. My favorites were the cacao e pepe and the eggplant dish (kind of like lasagna made with slices of eggplant, I think they called it eggplant parmesan but it was definitely different than the fried dish with that name that I have had before. We also had a choice of a glass of white or red house wine at this location. My dad says he has not found a bad house wine in Italy yet and he is finding lots of great, inexpensive wines here so he has been happy (heck, the 3 bottles he bought on Thursday for the cruise were combined cheaper than many single bottles he buys at home, granted he does have expensive taste). Next up we headed to Piazza Navona for some Tiramisu. From there our guide talked us through the history of the square as well as explained one of the Baroque fountains to us. Finally, our last two stops were for espresso and gelato. Once again, I am not a coffee drinker and it was both too late for my mom to drink coffee and she also only likes her coffee heavily polluted with cream and sugar but my dad partook in the espresso and he continues to rave about it. He is comparing his shot of espresso to a milkshake in consistency… take with that what you will but he loved it. Finally, we headed over to a Gelato place and got a choice of a cup or cone with two flavors. I personally had Hazelnut and Cream in a cone and it was really good. I haven’t had bad gelato here yet, and the same story with tiramisu. From there the guide Andrea wrapped up our tour. All in all it was about 4 hours long. My parents and I definitely enjoyed this tour as well. It was the second year in a row of great food tours abroad for use as we also had a great one in Amsterdam last year. This tour was called “Jewish Ghetto and Campo Dè Fiori By Night Food, Wine and Sightseeing Tour” and it was operated by Food Tours of Rome purchased through Viator. I would also like to add from a walking standpoint that it was definitely less walking than the Vatican tour in the morning and the walking was more spread out in terms of being a slower pace with longer stops. My mom had no issues other than needing some assistance from my dad on some steps. Here are some photos from the food walking tour: After the tour we Uber’ed back to the hotel to get to bed after our longest day out in Rome. Thankfully, today the weather improved and we were finally able to enjoy some time outside independently. I will try to get in a post about today tomorrow sometime but tomorrow is probably going to be a busy day as we are finally boarding the beautiful Odyssey of the Seas in Civitavecchia. Also, I promise I will do a thorough hotel review in the next few days. Thanks again and TTYL! - Ashley

We definitely enjoyed the Golf Cart tour! We did it through Rolling Rome (booked on Viator) but lots of operators have them, I just used trip advisor reviews combined with availability to decide which one to book. The private ones like we did are fully customizable so you really get out what you want to. The Vatican tour today was also booked through Viator operated by LivTours. Our guide today there was absolutely wonderful, I would definitely recommend that tour. It was called "Rome: Skip the Line Vatican, Sistine Chapel, St Peter 6 PAX Group". I will be posting more details on how it went later as today was a long day but I would say it was definitely worth it. Yes, sadly I do. We walked through the Jewish Ghetto tonight on our food tour and it was heartbreaking see a big "bring them home" banner there. I never would have thought this would still be going on and wish that the hostages could all be returned home. Also saw numerous Israeli flags hanging out of windows. I am doing a bad job of keeping up with the news while on vacation but I just wish the ridiculous protesting and encampments on college campuses would stop as well. Anyways, end rant, I am sure you could have predicted where I stood on this issue. I did say I was grateful our itinerary was changed early enough that we had time to prepare, unlike obviously this same cruise in both October and May last year (in May, rockets were being shot at Israel, the Odyssey was literally docked with passengers going through immigration when they decided to cancel the port). It has been a bit unseasonably cold for this time of the year in Rome. Our highs the past 2 days were in the mid 60s and of course it rained both days. I am a bad judge of cold being from Phoenix though. Tomorrow it should be a bit more normal in the low to mid 70s and sunny.

Hi Everyone! Just got back from our Vatican tour. My parents are in siesta mode before our food tour tonight so I figured now was a good time to catch up on yesterday’s activities. Yesterday we did a private golf cart tour booked through Viator operated by Rolling Rome. The driver picked us up from our hotel at 10am and it was a seven hour tour so we were dropped off back at our hotel at 5pm. Unfortunately yesterday morning started off quite rainy so the rain shields were down on our golf card but thankfully it cleared up for the afternoon and we were able to roll up the rain shields. As far as itinerary, we pretty much left it up to our driver/tour guide Antonio, although I did tell him we had a tour booked at the Vatican so we didn’t need to see that. Also told him that we have been to Rome a few times before so we didn’t need to try to squeeze everything in (for example, the Trevi Fountain was very packed yesterday as was the Pantheon so we skipped those this time). We did see a couple churches, the Borghese gardens, the Spanish Steps, the Colosseum, the Spanish steps, Circus Maximus, and a few other sites that I can’t remember anymore. The tour also included lunch and gelato so at 1pm we stopped for lunch and afterwards had gelato. Our driver also took us for some Italian pastries at the end, I don’t think those were supposed to be included in the tour but I think he liked to treat his guests but not sure honestly. My parents didn’t get coffee before the tour yesterday so I did request a stop for coffee at the beginning so he did take us to a cafe with coffee and pastries to satisfy that need, we paid for that ourselves of course. Anyways, the tour was overall a pretty good tour and I think you could cover a lot of ground if you needed to and it wasn’t raining. It was also kind of fun being in the golf cart and being able to ride through lots of interesting areas that are not accessible by car. It worked out really well for my mom since we didn’t do a crazy amount of walking. Here are some assorted photos from our tour yesterday: After the tour yesterday, we got back to the hotel, we walked over to the termini station as my mom needed something from Sephora that she forgot (and she is the one with a packing list 🤦‍♀️) and then went to a pizza place near our hotel for dinner. Here are some assorted photos from dinner: After dinner, we went to a wine shop near our hotel so my dad could buy some bottles to carry on the cruise on Sunday. Here are the bottles my dad selected with the help of someone at the store: Then it was time for bed as we knew the next day (today) was going to be an earlier day since we needed to get breakfast before heading to the Vatican. As I said earlier, this morning we did the Vatican and rain came down again. Tonight we are doing a food walking after some rest. I will try to post about that either tonight or tomorrow sometime. I also finally got photos of my parent’s half of then hotel room so I will talk about the hotel in the next couple days sometime. Tomorrow morning we have a pasta cooking class (when in Rome I guess!) and then are free the rest of the day to relax (and maybe shop if my mom gets her way) before getting on the ship on Sunday. Thanks again for reading and TTYL! - Ashley

Cool! Just going by the terrible description on the cruise planner for the tour, and some comments in some other older threads on here, clearly I need to research this topic more. Thanks!

Hi All! Just had a wonderful first full day in Rome doing a private golf cart tour (despite some rain). More on that later though, I am going to back track a little and talk about our travel day(s). On Tuesday, we were picked up by the local transportation company we use right around 4pm, as I stated earlier, first they picked up my parents and then headed my way. We were dropped off at Phoenix Sky Harbor just before 5pm and checked in for our 7:35pm British Airways flight to London Heathrow. Our luggage was checked all the way through to Rome FCO. Once through TSA, we headed to the Escape Lounge that British Airways gave us access to in Phoenix for flying Club World (there version of business class) with them. Phoenix Sky Harbor also has a Centurion lounge right next door to the Escape lounge that we also had access to for being American Express Platinum card holders and meeting the minimum spend every year to get guest access but you can only check into one for some reason. We opted to go to the Escape lounge since it was primarily British Airways passengers in there. No clue if anyone reading this will ever be in the same situation but we should have gone in the Centurion lounge (I am speaking that into the universe to avoid anyone else making the same mistake, albeit a super minor mistake in the long run). The Escape lounge was small, cramped, and pretty much full when we got there at just shy of 2 hours before boarding. It was still an adequate lounge just a bit of an awkward situation especially with all the British Airways Club World guests in there from a sold out A350. Anyways, after all that fun, we board our plane. Here are some pictures I took of the Club World Club Suite: The flight being pretty much right at 10 hours meant we got served 2 meals. Shortly after boarding they came around with the menus for the meals: They also came around with a choice of pre departure beverage, either orange juice or champagne. I got a champagne: Shortly after take off, the flight attendants took our orders for dinner. They also took our drinks orders. First my soda was delivered with some nuts: Then our dinner was served. I opted not to have a starter and to have the salmon as my main course: It was good, a little bland but the fact that I ate a full meal on a plane is still amazing to me. My dad had the lamb and my mom had the courgette fritters. My dad said his was good and my mom said hers was gross but she is a very picky eater so take that with a grain of salt. After the main course was done, the flight attendant took my dessert order. Having flown American Airlines for long haul international flights multiple times, I am a little spoiled with their sundaes. British Airways doesn’t come close there sadly. Anyways, I ordered the cheese plate: Then, I made my seat flat and settled in to try to sleep for a few hours. I think I maybe got 3 hours of sleep when I gave up. Yes, I know I am the young one in the group and should have no issues sleeping on anything but I just couldn’t get comfortable in addition to the plane being overly warm (which shocked me since I am usually freezing cold on planes). On the plus side, my mom seemed to get more sleep than I did. Anyways, about 1.5 hours before landing, the flight attendants started coming around again for breakfast. I had the omelette: And shortly after that we landed in Heathrow Terminal 3 almost exactly on time at 1:35pm and it was now Wednesday (which is crazy to think about since it feels like we lost that day). Now the fun in Heathrow began. As an in transit passenger. we had to follow the purple connections signs on a long walk from one end of Terminal 3 all the way to the other end where we saw the flight screens to check the terminal for our connecting flight to Rome FCO. We knew in advance we would have to change terminals to terminal 5. We then got in a line for the bus to terminal 5. A few minutes later, one arrived and we boarded it. After they stuffed it completely full (I was shocked how full they filled it), we headed to terminal 5. Since these buses are only for connected passengers and technically “airside” (although not considered post security, it’s complicated), we drove literally right next to planes at gates. I thought it was kind of cool watching all the planes out the window, I even saw an Emirates A380 very up close. Anyways, now you see the geek side of me 🙃. After arriving at terminal 5, we passed by a British Airways check in counter. They are big on paper boarding passes but thankfully we already had ours from Phoenix so we had no need to wait in that line. After that was the dreaded London Heathrow security screening. Long story short, LHR doesn’t trust security at any other airports so they make all connections go through security again. We knew about this in advance and were thankfully prepared. Since we have TSA pre check, we are a little spoiled with not having to take liquids or laptops out. Also, TSA is much more relaxed about the size of your liquids bag than LHR security is. It was the first time in ages I used an actual ziplock bag and not a reusable pouch that is definitely bigger than a quart bag despite the marketing saying otherwise. I also took out my laptop and iPad while I was in line and took off my jacket. With all my preparation, I had a smooth security experience. Also, one important note: they are going to be relaxing the liquid rules later this year after they install new scanners. I am pretty sure they were already installed in the security line we were in but not all the airports in the UK have them yet and Heathrow is behind in some terminals. The date to be done was supposed to be June this year but it sounds like this is going to be delayed. Now we were finally able to head to the club world lounge in Heathrow terminal 5. The whole process took a little more than an hour even with us stopping in terminal 3 for the facilities. The Heathrow website has a tool for checking connections and it told me the process would take 90 minutes which I would say is extremely generous. Even with a moderate security line we were less than their estimate although I would definitely refer to their tool when booking connections to be on the safe side. British Airways had marked our boarding passes for the fast track lane due to our class of travel on the flights so we had a slightly shorter line but not significantly by any means, so I could see their estimate even being long without that but I would still follow it. This is also a good time to talk about the advantages of flying through Heathrow over something like Dallas or Chicago beyond just the flight timings for us. We didn’t have to reclaim our bags in LHR and re-check them. It was nice not having that extra hassle. We also didn’t have to go through UK immigration and on the way home we won’t go through US immigration until we are back in Phoenix and therefore won’t be stressing about making a connection while in immigration. Anyways, back to the terminal 5 lounge. We got to the British Airways Galleries North Club Lounge and it was completely packed. It made the Escape lounge in Phoenix look empty by comparison. My dad headed straight to the shower rooms. He was determined to clean up after the long haul flight. My mom and I walked back and forth a bit until we were able to snag a table and 2 chairs when someone left. When the group next to use was leaving, we also grabbed a chair so we would have 3. When my dad got out of the shower, I followed him and got on the list for the showers as well. By the time I went, there was a short wait but we had no stress since our flight to Rome wasn’t until 7:10pm. I got a pager and about 15 minutes later it went off (the girl at the desk quoted 30 minutes when I asked as I checked in). The showers were cramped, it was difficult to open my luggage in there to grab things I needed, but it was nice to clean up a bit. It also woke me up after the minimal sleep I got. They had a wall mounted hair dryer in the shower room and no outlets to plug mine in to use instead. They only had shaver plugs so I rocked wet hair for a bit as the wall mounted hair dryer gave no pressure. Thankfully I have short thin hair that dries quickly (well not so thankfully on the thin part). Anyways, after many hours in the lounge, it was finally approaching boarding time for our flight to Rome FCO. Heathrow does not give you gates in advance (and is quite famous for it) but at least for our flight, flight aware posted the gate a bit before they even posted their standard “Head to B gates” message on the Heathrow signs. This was helpful as we had time to get to the gate and didn’t feel so rushed (which was especially good for my mom). Thankfully, the flight aware gate was correct for our flight but your mileage may vary. After a short wait, we boarded our final flight of our day and a half of travel. We were in Club Europe (business class) for the short 2.5 hour flight (since we booked club world for the long haul and the British Airways booking engine doesn’t really let you downgrade segments in our experience. Unlike the US, the seat is no different than economy but the middle seat is blocked off and has a tray on it: (my knees in the above photo are for reference since I am only 5'2") They also serve a meal which was interesting to me as I have flown US domestic first class on American Airlines before and from PHX to DFW we don’t get a meal and that flight is about the same length as this. I guess the offsets the sundae situation at American Airlines. Anyways, here was that meal, we had a choice of a vegetarian pie (I think it was mushroom and asparagus) or prawn (Shrimp) Thai curry. I got the shrimp: Anyways, we finally landed in Rome at 10:45pm. We went through probably the simplest immigration I ever have to get into Rome and after claiming our bags and walking through the nothing to declare door at customs, our driver from Stefano’s Rome Cabs was waiting their with a sign with my name on it. He didn’t speak much English but it was not a problem as he knew our destination in advance. I also knew that would be the situation since they typically only book the English speaking drivers on tours and this was just a transfer. He walked us to his van and helped us push our luggage. Then we had a quick drive to our hotel where we checked in shortly before midnight. We woke up this morning and were pretty much adjusted to the time (the primary reason we booked these flights), so aside from having a strange, short Wednesday, we would definitely do this again if we go to Europe and I know I at least intend to do the PHX-LHR flight again next year for a cruise from Southhampton I am doing without my parents. So far we are very happy with our hotel, the Doubletree by Hilton Rome Monti. We have a family connecting superior room and it is really the perfect set up for us where I have a separate room from my parents and a separate bathroom but we share a little hallway with 1 door that goes to both the doors for our 2 rooms. Anyways, more on that later, I need to photograph my parents half of the room. Tomorrow, we are going to have a semi-private guided Vatican tour in the morning and then we have a break until the evening when we are doing a food walking tour. Sorry for the long post today about flights and not a cruise 🤣 but just in case someone was looking for this information, I definitely wanted to be of help. I know I had a difficult time researching the whole process at LHR in advance of the trip. Tomorrow I will try to catch up and post about the golf cart tour we did today but no guarantees as our food tour ends kind of late. Thanks again and TTYL! - Ashley

Thanks so much! Will definitely look at what you shared. Just made it to the hotel in Rome after a very long day of travel. Thanks! Ashley

Hey Everyone! Sorry for the delayed post, things have gotten a bit hectic between getting ready for this trip and me finishing up things at work before I leave. Anyways, happy to report that more than just my mom is packed now, my dad and I are now pretty much packed as well, unfortunately we ended up taking one more case than planned (I am going to plead the 5th on what the planned number was). Anyways, here are all the shore excursions we have planned for on the cruise (all booked through the cruise, we don’t normally do this but given foreign countries we did this just to be safe): Note: I should clarify that we booked most of these last year and did have a family meeting going through them after everything that happened in February, at that time we changed one and held on to the rest after both my parents read descriptions and agreed, I am trying to take no responsibility if things go wrong here 😆. There is one port we are still concerned about (Santorini, more on that below, but nothing else was available). Day 3: Chania Chania Old Town Walk When in doubt about what we wanted to do, we tended to pick walking tours (or tours involving food or wine, more of those later). We will see how these go with my mom but for the time being we are going to be optimistic. Unfortunately, this is our first port so if it is a flop, it will be down hill from there on the excursion front for my mom. Also unfortunately, this one doesn’t list a distance and just says “extensive walking on cobblestone streets”. Wish us luck with that. (Not sure if I said this before but she was told she should walk and get exercise but she just needs to be careful not to overdo it.) Day 4: Mykonos Mykonos Exploration with Farmhouse Wine Tasting This was one of the ports added late. When we finally got around to booking a tour here, we saw wine and said that’s the one (pretty much all the thought that went into this). Anyways, this one has a small walking element but lists it specifically at 1400 yards over cobblestones and very specifically 3 steps. That should be fine if it is accurate. Will report back on all of these. Day 5: Ephesus My mom and I are not planning to get off here, we understand the Virgin Mary sight is rather strenuous and my mom was not interested. I am staying on board with her to keep her company. My dad finally booked a tour today! He booked the Exclusive Small-Group Best of Ephesus tour, I will make him report back on how that goes. We did a "small group" tour through Celebrity last year when we were on the Apex in Belfast... it didn't go well, Celebrity overbooked it so the small group ended up being a completely full, full sized coach bus. They should have split us up but they didn't. We fought for onboard credits in the retreat which was a whole other ordeal I don't need to get into here. Hopefully this one goes better for my dad's sake. Day 7: Limassol My Mall Yes, we booked a transfer to a shopping mall on our Europe trip. And yes, I did it to make my mom happy. Also, nothing else really interested us there and I was not pushing another walking tour. Day 8: Rhodes Medieval Rhodes Walking Tour Yes, another walking tour, this one says 2 miles over uneven surfaces. The whole tour is 3.5 hours so that time with that distance once again should be fine. Once again, wish us luck. Day 9: Santorini Pyrgos Village with Mezes and Wine Once again, the wine stole our interest. This one will truly be a play it by ear situation for my mom as it is 1 mile over steep surfaces with 30-40 steps. We are nervous about the steep but we also know that is the reality in Santorini so there wasn’t really an alternative. We just need to think positive “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” vibes. Day 10: Athens Ancient Athens, Plaka, and Shopping This was a last minute change. Originally we were doing a longer tour that went into the Acropolis. This was an easy one for us to change to make it easier on my mom by instead getting more of a panoramic view of it. This one still says one mile of walking with some steps but didn’t sound nearly as strenuous as what we originally booked. Day 12: Naples Sorrento with Pizza and Gelato This time, the pizza stole our interest (see a theme here?). Anyways, this one says 600 feet and 5-10 steps. All of that sounds doable. I should note we have been to Pompeii before and done tours there before so there was no need for us to do that again this time. Anyways, we fly out tomorrow night so it is getting very real now! I go into the office one last time for a bit tomorrow (don't feel too bad, my commute is only 1.8 miles from my house 🙃) and then have to head home a bit early as my parents are getting picked up by our transportation company at about 3:30pm and my house is about 30 minutes away from them, and a lot closer to the airport so I am getting picked up second. We went out for Mexican food on Sunday since we know we won’t be getting that for the next few weeks so enjoy the pictures of some wonderful Arizona Mexican Food: Thanks again and TTYL! Ashley

Hi Everyone, As promised, here is a post about our pre-cruise plans in Rome. Just some back story, we have done Rome as a port of call at least 3 times before that I can remember (and I think we went there on one cruise before my memories as well). Those times were all as a port of call and not an embarkation/disembarkation port. Two of the three times I remember we did private tours with Driver in Rome that picked us up in Civitavecchia and drove us into Rome to see the sights. Those were in 2004 and 2008 so no clue if that was the same Driver in Rome company you can find when you Google it now. In 2004 we went to the Colosseum (at my insistence because of the Lizzie McGuire movie that came out the year before 🤣) and hit most of the major highlights and in 2008 I think we mainly went shopping (pretty sure our tour guide got annoyed at us for not wanting to do anything). Both those times were with my grandparents and my grandmother had just started using a wheelchair occasionally around the time of that 2004 trip. The third time was in 2014 with just me and my parents and we did a shore excursion that was a walking tour that started at either the Spanish steps or the Trevi Fountain (I don’t remember but I know it went to both) and ended at the Vatican, covering all the sights in between (except the Colosseum) including a stop for pizza. It was listed as strenuous (something we couldn’t do anymore with my mom but were more than capable of back then). It was a fantastic tour that I would recommend if it was still offered but looking at Royal Caribbean’s site, I don’t see it listed granted I don’t have access to a specific sailing with Rome as a port of call. Now to our current plans! We land in Rome late in the evening of the 1st so we have the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th to explore Rome. Since we have seen most of the major sites before, we are focusing on the things we wanted to see again as well as some more fun experiences. We are staying at the Doubletree by Hilton Rome Monti which we chose based on a combination of TripAdvisor reviews and location. We have never stayed there before obviously so I will report back how it is. I booked tours each of the three days on Viator, leaving some time each day as free time ie shopping time that my mom insisted on having. I used a combination of Viator and TripAdvisor reviews when booking tours. One of the days we are doing a private guided golf cart tour, another day we are doing a small group guided Vatican tour (every time we have done the Vatican in the past has been self guided so this was something my dad really wanted to do). We are also doing a pasta cooking class one day as well as a food tour one evening. We did a food tour in Amsterdam last year and it was our favorite tour we did so hoping for the same success again. The food walking tour this time also goes through Rome’s Jewish Ghetto so a bit of Jewish history as a consolation prize for not going to Israel I guess. I will share the tour operators if people ask but none of this is a review yet so I don’t want to recommend any of our choices yet as we might be getting this all wrong 😆. Finally, for transportation, we are using Stefano’s Rome Cabs booked through Viator based on reviews on TripAdvisor as well as on all the cruise board sites. They are picking us up from the airport and taking us to our hotel, taking us from our hotel to the cruise, the cruise to our post cruise hotel, and then taking us from our post cruise hotel to the airport. Speaking of our post cruise hotel, we are staying at the Cardo Roma, Autograph Collection since it is just one night. This is a little closer to the airport than staying in the center of Rome and our flight is very early the next day. This was a last minute change (we were originally staying at the Hilton at the Airport but then heard some pretty bad reviews). Hopefully it was the right change, at least the hotel is very newly renovated and just reopened, so much so that it doesn't have any new TripAdvisor reviews. In another post I will talk about the cruise excursions we have booked and I plan to post a packing status update soon. I just took out my suitcases today so no progress as of yet but my mom has started putting stuff in her suitcase so at least she is going on this cruise 🙃. Warning: we haven’t exactly mastered the art of packing light so please don’t judge too much. We also got Euros from our bank this week and started all of our obligatory pre-cruise prep of stopping the mail, printing out baggage tags, etc. Thanks again! TTYL! - Ashley

Yes, picking out excursions was one of the toughest things since my mom can walk but needs to be careful about the amount of distance she walks. Many of the tours either didn't list any distance or were very vague about the distance (must be able to walk over uneven surfaces etc). Anyways, will definitely be putting that to the test and if things don't go well the tours might end up being father/daughter towards the end, although hopefully not. Anyways, wish us luck and I will definitely report back!

Hi Again! Ok so some discussion about the plans for this cruise: The Ship: This is technically our 3rd cruise on Odyssey of the Seas. We did a back to back on her in December for Christmas and NYE just a few months ago so it will feel a bit like coming home as many of the crew mentioned they would still be on for this sailing. My mom and I really like Quantum class, in particular the Coastal Kitchen on it as well as just how classy the whole ship feels for lack of a better descriptor. My dad prefers Oasis class but we out-voted him, and also the two of them will get their Oasis fix with Wonder in August (once again without me haha). The Cabins: My parents are back in a GS, basically the same cabin they had in December just 2 floors lower. Ironically, they both hate the GS on Quantum class but by the time they figured that out it was far too late to change it and prices had been jacked way up. We never have used Royal Up either as we don't love surprises so my parents agreed they will keep what they have and just prepare better for it this time. Hopefully once on board I can post about the downfalls of that category with some pictures, and maybe some pointers to make it work better. Granted, I know we have no right to complain as this category is often booked with 3 or 4 guests and it will just have my parents in it. I am in a J4. I was in a J3 in December. The JS categories have different bathroom, closet and sofa layouts on this ship so I have some thorough pictures from December that I can use to compare once on board. I think there are pluses and minuses to both from past experience and I am one person so really I could make whatever work, I only ended up with this cabin because it was only $213 more than a balcony at the time we booked this with the 150% single supplement. Dining: We booked a 5 night dining package. The other nights we will probably end up at Coastal Kitchen. We are not Windjammer/buffet people so warning in advance you probably won't see much of that in this live blog. Flights: We are flying on British Airways through London Heathrow with a 5 hour layover. We will spend those 5 hours crossings our fingers and toes that our bags don't end up lost in Heathrow. Thankfully we all have Apple airtags in our cases which have proven themselves very handy. We did this flight through London instead of Dallas so we would land in the evening instead of in the morning. Last year we landed at 7am in Amsterdam for a British Isles cruise and my mom said never again, so heres to also crossing our fingers that this flight works out better for us adjusting to the time zone. Pre-cruise: I will detail this more later but we have 3 full days in Rome pre cruise, hopefully after a good night sleep after landing later in the evening. Post cruise: Given the day of the week this cruise ends (a Friday), and the fact that I, unlike my parents, still work full time, we are only staying one night outside of Rome post cruise and have a pretty early flight the next day home. We would have flown home the same day if we could but it is just not that logistically possible with the distance between Civitavecchia and FCO and how early all the flight options are. We are also taking British Airways through Heathrow with the same 5 hour layover on the way home. Once again, wish us luck. And I guess just some backstory on Europe for us: This is my 8th European Cruise. The closest cruise to this one that we did was on the original Pacific Princess aka the Love Boat in 1997. I was just shy of 4 years old so I obviously don't remember a thing. I do know that cruise left from Venice and went to some of these ports but not all of them. All of that to say, most of these ports are going to be fairly new experiences for us (hence why you will see us primarily doing ship tours when I cover that sometime in the future). Also, my mom gets nervous about missing the ship and would have us back on board with many hours to spare if we didn't do ship tours so this is the best solution for us when we do cruises in Europe. I know it means we will just get a sampling of the "Greatest Hits" in each port but I will take it all things considered. Anyways, I will probably mainly be posting on weekends leading up to the trip given my work schedule. In the future posts, I will try to cover what we booked in terms of pre-cruise tours as well as our shore excursions. Also, will probably cover a little of the dreaded packing process when I finally decide to start that. Thanks again and TTYL!

Pre Cruise is the the Doubletree By Hilton Rome Monti and Post Cruise is the Cardo Roma, Autograph Collection (a Marriott property, more outside of Rome and closer to FCO since that will just be one night). Anyways, going to do a more thorough post with our plans later on, that was why I didn't say at first.

We have a different hotel for pre and post cruise, pre cruise we have 3 full days in Rome but I will put more details on that later. Anyways, we haven't stayed at either of the hotels before so I will make sure to share my thoughts on them after as well.

Hi All! A little about myself since I haven't posted on here in a very very long time, I am Ashley, a 30 year old from Arizona who has been cruising mostly with my parents (and grandparents before they passed) but sometimes solo, with friends, and with groups since I was 9 months old. I have mostly done Royal Caribbean but I have also done some Celebrity and Princess as well as one each of Holland America, NCL, and Carnival (we don't talk about those, there is a reason it was one each). Anyways, all that to say I am very loyal to Royal with nearly 80 Royal Caribbean cruises under my belt. When I am not cruising, I am a full time software engineer to pay for my cruising habit. And now for some history on this cruise.... my parents and I first booked this itinerary for October of 2021 in the summer of 2020. Heck, we also booked cruises in June of 2020 when our May cruise was canceled, August when June was cancelled, November when August was cancelled, so on so forth, you get the idea. Fast forward to summer of 2021 and well over 40 FCCs later, the restart was finally happening and the final payment due date for this cruise was quickly approaching. There we still a lot of unknowns about Israel and what the covid requirements would be to go there and as that was the main reason we booked that cruise (more on that later...), and after a family meeting we cancelled it and I spent 2 weeks in October on the Symphony of the Seas with a friend (and my parents ultimately joining for the second cruise after some convincing) instead where I finally earned pinnacle after waiting the entire restart only a little more than 1 cruise away (I promise, I am not a snotty pinnacle, I refuse to wear the pin and prefer to go with the flow instead). With that I had finally made it back on a ship for the first time since January 2020 but I still hadn't made it to holy lands. Fast forward again to February 2023 when my parents were on the Celebrity Beyond celebrating their 40th anniversary without me (to quote Stephanie Tanner: how rude... not, they deserved the vacation without me and they had their neighbors with them to take my place, also I am pretty sure my work would have killed me if I took another cruise at that point). Before they headed out on their cruise, I looked at the itineraries released just a couple months before for Europe in 2024 and found this one, and made the mistake of emailing my parents with the details. It didn't take much convincing that we had to book this cruise. A week later, after a lot of back and forth with them and the future cruises agent on Celebrity Beyond, we finally got this booked and everything confirmed. Note to my future self and really everyone reading this: never book Royal on Celebrity, while we have successfully booked Celebrity on Royal before with no issues, this was a nightmare to say the least, the on-board agent had no clue what the different cabin categories were and after pleading with her that Odyssey had J1s, J3s, and J4s and they were all Junior Suites, she was finally able to find more than just the J1s available. With the cruise finally booked, let's talk about why we wanted to do it: Israel. My mom and I are Jewish and my mom has always wanted to go to the holy land but has said she would never do it by land, she just didn't feel comfortable due to some experiences her parents/my grandparents had when they went. And similar to me, she loves cruising. So this seemed like the perfect solution. I had also unfortunately aged out of birthright during Covid as a result of them changing the age policy during that time so this would give me a taste of Israel to see if I wanted to join a volunteer trip or something else in the future. When June 2023 arrived and the flights opened up to book, there wasn't a doubt in our minds that we were going on this cruise. Before booking the flights we had a family meeting and I made one important note to my parents: If this cruise doesn't go to Israel, are you still ok with going for the other ports? They both said yes. My mom has always wanted to go to Santorini since watching Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants so while it was not Israel, there would still be something on her bucket list to cross off. Even though the itinerary at the time didn't have Ephesus, Turkey on it, we knew it was likely this would appear if Israel was removed and my dad wanted to see the House of the Virgin Mary after missing the opportunity to see it while on the Splendour of the Seas in 2000. After that discussion, our flights were booked and we started making hotels and other plans for the trip including booking excursions for every port except Israel since conveniently none were open for Israel and also I knew if we did make it there, we would want to do a private tour so we could cover both the Christian and Jewish heritage there adequately. Once again, let's fast forward this time to November 2023. Unfortunately, we all know what happened on October 7th. The days that followed made it very obvious that this was sadly not like other times Israel had been attacked. They were not getting out of this quickly. We received the not at all surprising email that this itinerary was changing. Out was Israel and in was Turkey, as I unfortunately predicted, along with Mykonos. After yet another family meeting (I think this is at least the 3rd one in this story, sensing a theme here...) we unanimously decided we were still going, barring any crazy world event. It was full steam ahead and I finally decided to start planning the tours for our pre-cruise stay in Rome. We also booked an excursion for Mykonos through the ship and I left my dad to figure out Ephesus himself. I still don't think he has that planned, you can tell who is the planner and who isn't in this family. Now let's fast forward to February 2024. It was Super Bowl Sunday and I had plans to go to the Phoenix Open with my dad in the corporate tents on the 17th hole. Instead, I got woken up by a call at 6am with news that my mom had passed out just before midnight the night before and they were in the ER room at Mayo Hospital. This cruise was far from the first thing on my mind, I wanted to know how my mom was doing, what had happened, if there was anything they needed as the hospital is less than a mile from my house, I can literally see it from my backyard. In the weeks that followed, and what seemed like hundreds of doctors appointments, a couple dental appointments, and a surgery later, we finally brought up this cruise again. Her doctor's gave her the all clear to go, they just warned that we had to be careful, she couldn't over exert herself. Another family meeting and the swapping of tours later to some less strenuous ones, we were once again on track for this cruise to happen. Now finally we have made it to today. We fly out in a little more than 2 weeks on the evening of 4/30. We finally settled on a hotel for our one night post cruise in Rome before flying home so the last thing is planned. As many hurdles as this cruise had and the amount of times we thought this wouldn't happen, we are looking forward to it finally happening, even if it is a little different than originally planned. I am just grateful that we are all still here to enjoy this as a family. I have never done a live blog of a cruise before. Something about this cruise feels different, while I hope this isn't my last big European adventure with my parents, I know there is a chance that will be the case so I really want to remember this and document it. Not only are my parents getting older, I am also getting older and who knows what will come for my future as well. While we have plenty more cruises planned as a family out of the US to the Caribbean as well as the Mexican riviera on the west coast, I don't know that I will have a trip like this as a family once again. I promise my future posts won't be as much of a novel. There was a lot of backstory to cover and I hope I at least made it interesting to read. In the coming days I will start to talk about our plans for both pre-cruise and on the cruise but figured it made sense to start with the back story first. Since I have never done this before, not sure how to end these, I am sure I will figure that out better as I go. So for this one I guess I should say TTYL!