trudog9

Hi Arlene,

 

It's true...two engine fires on one cruise! And our embarkation was initially delayed due to a coast guard inspection, which makes me wonder if these incidents are related. The captain apologized for the fires but said the cause was beyond his control. :rolleyes:One of our fellow passengers said she was so upset by the volumes of black smoke coming out of the funnel that she put on her life jacket!

 

We await to see what will happen tomorrow....but we are not too concerned at this point.

Thanks Lisa for the update...we are leaving tomorrow for Germany before our cruise. I will be checking here for any news you have to tell us. Hopefully it's all in the past and you can enjoy the rest of your cruise. Have a great time!!

Arlene;)

We are set to sail on 9/30 also. Hope everything will be OK by the time we get on the ship.

Please keep us informed on this forum.

We hope your cruise will go on as planned and you don't miss any of your ports. Arlene:eek:

Hi Anna,

Thank you for your wonderful and insightful commentary on the Med cruise. I can't wait for our cruise so we can experience all of these wonderful ports also. I'm still hoping that one of these days we will be able to travel on the same cruise with you.

Safe travels home to you and Keith and when things calm down a bit send me an email and we can chat some more.

Cheers!!!

Arlene:p;)

Hi Anna,

Thank you once again for your wonderful commentary on your last two ports. Reading about Rome brings back fond memories of when Mark & I went there about 10 years ago. Sorry you didn't get a chance to see the Trevi Fountain and throw your coin in but hopefully on another trip you'll get to see it. I'm also glad that your experience with RIL was good as we are using them as well. Since we have been to Rome we are taking their "Alternative Tuscany" tour which I'm hoping will be excellent also.

It sounds like we also made a good choice for our DIY port in Corsica. I'm still hoping to get to the Tortoise Protection Center and then maybe a short tour around the city. Does anyone reading this know anything about the Center? If so please post here so I can find out a little more first hand. Trip Advisor has some good things to say about it.

Well Anna, hope you have as good a day in Florence as you did in Rome as I wait in anticipation for your next post. Have a gelato for me as there is nothing that quite compares to authentic Italian gelato. Arlene:p;)

Hi Anna,

Thanks for the Barcelona report. Just reading about it makes me more excited about our cruise. Looking forward to the rest of the trip and also about Corsica as that is our only DIY port. Also, thanks for the info on the washers and dryers.

Enjoy and thank you for doing this. It seems like you have a lot of people following you...you're like a celebrity:cool::cool:

Arlene:p

Hi Anna,

Arlene here just anxiously waiting for your live posts.

I have a question for you...I had heard that Princess was going to change their washers and dryers from coin to swiping your cruise card and have it automatically go to your bill:confused: Could you please find out for me because we usually bring quarters with us. I would really appreciate it.

Talk to you soon. Arlene:):p

Hi Everyone... my husband and I just recently came back from our cruise. We were on the Star that went from Rome to Venice in November. That was our first time on CC and we decided to go on independent tours for most of the ports. We had the best time, the most we had in our van was 16 people, we saw more than the ships excursions and saved lots of money.

Here is a list of tour companies we used. They were all wonderful, reliable and we had the best of both worlds by using them.

Pompei and Amalfi Coast - info@aptours.it

Santorini - www.oceanwavetours.com

Rhodes - www.rhodesprivatetours.com

Ephesus - info@ephesusdeluxe.com

Athens - nikosloukas@gmail.com

Olympia - www.geo-travel.gr/katakolon/?p=113

Corfu - www.corfutaxitours.com

Check out their web sites and send them an email for prices. I guarantee you'll have a great time. This was by far our best cruise we ever took.

The Olympia tour is amazing. It's 10 euros per person and if you have more than 10 people they provide a guide. I started with about 12 people and by the time we got off the ship we had 44 people in our group.

They all have great reviews on both Cruise Critic and also Trip Advisor.