DoniaG

I've had so much fun reading this thread - and gotten so many good ideas from it! Thanks to everyone for sharing. My small contribution includes -

• Baby powder - Shake a little on sandy feet and brush the sand right off. No fuss, no muss! There are small travel-size containers available.
  
• Paper hats - I suspect everyone knows this one, but just in case ... You can buy hats made of paper straw that look like real straw. The major advantage is that you can fold them into your suitcase without destroying them. They'll shake out when you get there as long as you don't cram them into toooooo small a space.
  
• Large zip-lock bags - The compression bags are great - but very pricey. You can do virtually the same thing with the 2-3-gallon zip-lock bags for a fraction of the cost. Fold your items carefully, place them in the bag (don't stuff it too full) and seal all but a small opening on one side of the zipper. Then lean, kneel, sit, or lay on the bag and close the small space as you do it. It will seal just like a vacuum seal. You can pack a lot more and have it arrive in better shape. I have no idea why things packed this way are so much less wrinkled on arrival, but they definitely are. (There are also giant zip-lock bags, but I find them a bit hard to seal.)
  

Happy cruising! Donia

What is a muster drill?

It's a safety drill you go through shortly after sailing. At the appropriate announcement (and they will give you warning as to when they're going to make it) you get your life vest from your cabin, put it on, and proceed to your "muster point" near the lifeboats. There is a diagram on the inside of your door that tells you exactly where to go and exactly the route you should take. Your attendance is absolutely mandatory - the officers in charge of each muster station (there are a bunch of them!) are supposed to account for every passenger in their group.

Some people think they're fun - many lines even have the ship's photogs there to take your pix after it's over. I can think of much better ways to use the time, but it has a "reason to be" - so I do it without too much complaint. :rolleyes:

Donia

OMG! I'm so thrilled to find people who loved that ship as much as I did. I took my very first cruise on her and had the best time of my life! I remember Captain Potenzoni very clearly - every woman on board was in love with him and I actually got to dance with him in the disco several times. My girlfriend and I were the youngest (and we thought the cutest) women on the ship. We only had to think about how nice it would be to have a drink or a sandwich or a towel or whatever and one of those cute Italians would materialize at our elbow with the very thing we wanted. We had drinks in the bar every evening before dinner - always served by Maurezio. And went to the dining room to be served by our waiter Paris.

There was a cute young engineering officer named Dominic that my friend went totally ga-ga over - and it appeared to be sincerely mutual. He snuck her on the ship when they did an overnight in Acapulco a few months later - very risky business under Captain Potenzoni! And he wanted her to go home to Ischia with him. But, she chose to stay in Texas and marry a millionaire. He was senior enough to be one of the officers who were allowed to hang out in the disco at night. Sadly, I have no idea what any of the last names were.

The Fairwind became the Albatros owned by Phoenix Reisen and I think did short cruises from European ports aimed at the German market. You can go to this website - http://www.ruderhaus.de/international.htm

click on Fotogalerien, then click on MS Albatros. Someone on these boards gave me that link several years ago and I still treasure it. The pictures are instantly recognizable. Sadly, in early 2004, she was sold to breakers and beached at Alang - wherever that may happen to be.

Ahhhhhhh - the sweet memories!

Donia

On my very first cruise (more than 30 years ago - EEEEEKKK!), one of the ship's entertainment staff took me the darkest part of the stern so that I could see a sky without the lights of civilization dimming the stars. The sky was literally powdered with them - it was a breathtaking site, and totally unlike anything I had ever seen before. Since then, at some point during a cruise, I go seeking that same kind of dark spot on the ship to get that thrill again. It's always somewhere on the bow or stern because there is too much ambient light along the sides where the balconies are. It gets harder all the time to find those kinds of places because most ships don't want the liability of allowing you into an unlighted area.

I'm just beginning to read my way through this whole thread. Can't wait to grab all this good info. Just wanted to share the experience I had with booking a taxi tour in Athens. Based on information I read here and on Travel Advisor, I contacted Spiros athis website (see below).He is charging 150 euros (total) for a 5-hour taxi tour of Athens for just our party of three - which is the best price for the best service I found. Going to Cape Sounion adds another 100 Euros. He was kind enough to warn me that most of the extra time we would be paying for would be spent on the highway because the drive is 1 hr. 15 minutes each way.

Now back to all the good stuff I can learn from this thread!

D.

www.athenstaxi.com

Many, many years ago, a girlfriend and I took a long cruise on the old Sitmar Fairwind. We were the youngest (and, in our own minds, the cutest) women on a ship crewed by very cute young Italian guys who treated us like royalty!

• Our cabin was directly across the passageway from the Steward's panty and we quickly learned to keep our key in the door lock on the inside. They would knock and pop in the door so quickly that we got caught undressed once or twice - which I suspect was the point of the exercise!
  
• My friend took up with one of the ship's officers, and I found romance with a young and dashing member of the entertainment staff. Mary's friend was senior enough to have a private cabin; but my friend was not. We spent a rather lengthy breakfast negotiating who was going to be where at what times. When we got it all figured out, my friend Jim stood up, leered around the quite small breakfast room, and told everyone there that he was thrilled to announce that we had solved our "scheduling difficulties" - leaving no doubt in anyone's mind of what he was talking about!
  
• The best part, however, was when Mary returned to our cabin about 2:00 AM one morning, and she, Jim, and I sat down to have a snack. It was a formal night and we had all been dressed to the nines. In the middle of a sandwich, I looked down at Mary's feet and saw these "poochy" things on top of her insteps. It took me a couple of seconds to figure out that she had put her panty hose back on with the heels on the top! Jim caught on about the time I figured it out; then Mary looked to see why we were staring at her feet. She turned soooooooo red! And we laughed so hard!
  

This was more than 30 years ago, and Mary and I are still friends. To this day, we can look at each other and say "scheduling difficulties" and fall down laughing. And, if I mention backwards pantyhose, she still turns just about as red as she did that night - but she also giggles.

That was my first cruise and I've been on many since - but none of them were ever as great as that one!

Donia