K&K’s European Adventure ~ Carnival Legend Review May 2013

[CupKayke]

When you see the VA, push yourself through and say VA VA VA

 

Question: How is "VA VA VA" pronounced?

 

I'm enjoying your review and all the tips that you so thoughtfully include in your comments.

 

Vee-Aay - just like it looks. :D The official name is Vaporetto dell'Arte which they pronounce sorta odd - they seem to drop the Vaporetto and simply say "d'Arte" and all the signs say VA with a green circle around them.

 

Thank you for your comments. I am about to start four days in a row in Italy -a country truly thankful for tourists this year - and it shows!! :)

[JimAOk1945]

Try to sleep on the plane, especially if it's an overnight flight. When you arrive at your destination, stay up until it's nighttime. It was easy to adjust. However, I'm still struggling to get back to my old routine now that I'm back. I find myself going to sleep early and waking up early. :rolleyes:

 

Thanks for the tip! I'll give it a try.

Happy cruising!

[CupKayke]

Random pictures of Turkey…

As you are leaving the ship for the day, Carnival gives you a Visa and you are supposed to have it on you to get back through the port OR ELSE. They never even asked for ours. Maybe the two overweight middle-aged people with 10 bags each was a sign??!!

I found it odd that we had to have our Visas on us but Carnival still had our passports from Turkey.

We went into a shop to buy something and the shop owner pinned one of these on both myself and my husband – for good luck, he said!

The Carnival Legend in Izmir

My husband bought this jacket – it’s lambskin – for just over 75 Euro. I’ve checked it out since we got home. It seems to be well made. It came with spare buttons, inside pockets, a nice lining, etc. He was happy and it was affordable so that’s all that really counts.

My DH also bought a Fez in Turkey. We are SUCH tourists!! LOL

Up next… our second and final sea day….and then… ITALY!!!!

[JimAOk1945]

Jet Lag getting there was no big deal

:)

 

Thanks so much for sharing how you dealt with jet lag. It sounds like it was easier to adjust to the time difference while you were on your cruise as opposed to adjusting after you returned home.

 

I hope you don't mind another question. I notice that you also did a Med cruise on Royal Caribbean. How was that cruise compared to those you have taken on Carnival?

 

Just asking since we are thinking about a Med cruise but can't decide on the cruise line.

[wmowan8485]

Great pics!! Really enjoying your review...:)

[gailjen]

Loving your review, we are doing the same itinerary on the Sunshine on 28th July, I think it will be a little hotter then...

[maryann2]

Thank you for taking the time to do such a great review. It brings back so many memories. I remember a couple of years ago when we were trying to figure out which ships would be in Europe and I am so glad that you have made it.

The little blue eye is to ward off the evil eye, they have it in Greece too. You will see it on buses cars houses etc.

[CupKayke]

Thanks so much for sharing how you dealt with jet lag. It sounds like it was easier to adjust to the time difference while you were on your cruise as opposed to adjusting after you returned home.

 

I hope you don't mind another question. I notice that you also did a Med cruise on Royal Caribbean. How was that cruise compared to those you have taken on Carnival?

 

Just asking since we are thinking about a Med cruise but can't decide on the cruise line.

 

Thank you. I don't mind answering your questions at all... but I am just one person with an opinion. Of course, my husband is home now and sharing his opinion about RCCL. So... here was my first thought.... O. My. This is a tough question to answer. Here's what I came-up with...

 

I don’t know if one is better than the other. Here are our observations – some better for Carnival, some better for Royal.

*A little bit of an older crowd on Royal Caribbean – and I only mean about our age – 40s and 50s. Carnival had lots of younger couples and younger travelers in general.

*Royal Caribbean was a little more formal – you are required to dress-up for dinner every night. Slacks and a nice top is enough but… it’s still a requirement.

*The Royal Caribbean boat was FULL of Italians. There was Italian karaoke at night in a big lounge and we would sit next door in a smaller lounge and listen and laugh hysterically.

*On Royal, we counted exactly TEN Americans on the boat. Granted, we didn’t leave our room too much (it was our honeymoon) but still… we were by far the minority…and we kinda enjoyed it!! It gave the cruise and the trip more flavor, in our opinion. Lots of Brits, Italians, etc were onboard.

*Carnival has Anytime Dining which, in 2009, RCCL did not offer. We have no idea if they offer it now or not. We like Anytime Dining.

*Royal allows you to order the main dining room evening menu – even escargot or whatever they are offering – as room service at night. A big perk if you’ve been out touring all day, you want decent food, but you don’t want to get dressed-up.

*We felt the rooms and the balconies were the same size on both ships... at least, there wasn’t enough difference for us to notice.

*Royal Caribbean would not even allow us to bring ONE bottle of wine onboard. No alcohol permitted whatsoever in every port and they were VERY strict about it. Carnival allowed us to bring wine and whatever else we wanted onboard at every port. No questions ask. We did not hide it. We believe this is an unwritten rule for European cruises with Carnival as last year, Cruise Critic reviewers reported the same allowances.

*Carnival did a fantastic job with customer service on this cruise. There are some crew members who go above and beyond what is necessary so kudos to them however… Royal Caribbean’s customer service cannot be beat when comparing Carnival. Carnival, specifically John Heald, seems to spread the message that the staff is working soooo hard for you so you should almost feel guilty and help them out - frankly, it's odd. Royal, on the other hand, acts as though you are on a private yacht and they are there to serve you... they have more of the customer is never wrong attitude. That is just my opinion. Maybe we've just cruised Carnival too much in recent years and we need a small break and we'll come running back?? I don't know.

*So far, we've cruised Carnival because we like to wear jeans to dinner.

*Also, we were sticking with Carnival in hopes of becoming hoping Platinum members soon. With CCL's new program, there is no way we will reach Platinum for four or five years so there is no incentive for us to continue with Carnival. Besides, I don't ever want to become loyal to just one line and, at this point, I'm dying to try one of the larger ships with more activities like Oasis of the Seas or Allure of the Seas.

*There is always a snarky Carnival crew member somewhere and even though CCL cannot control all their crew members all the time, we did run into that in the dining room on our first formal night. It was the only time the entire cruise that a staff member was rude but I still remember it! We simply made a request for our picture to be taken since it was formal night and we were leaving. We had waited nearly 30 minutes for the photographer (Sasha) to reach us and she never did. The waitress was exasperated that we asked her to see if the photographer would take our picture and the photographer came-up and scolded us, saying she would have gotten to us, eventually. We had been watching and watching for Sasha, the photographer, to make it to our table to take our picture for a long time and our request was not unreasonable. She spent 100% of her time, every night, up front with the larger tables of families taking multiple pictures at each table... the same thing she did every night of the cruise, btw... in 12 nights, she never made it up to the tables for two…. which is counterproductive when you think about it because the family groups all have people to take pictures of them and we did not, obviously. We never had our picture taken at dinner before or after that first formal night, despite my wanting them to approach us, they never made it. Again, the customer service on Carnival just isn’t what it should be in some areas. We never ran into anything like this on Royal, ever. Would we?? I can't imagine but I don't know so we are interested in trying Royal again. We'll see. Every line has its goods and bads.

This cruise was good. I mean, really… isn’t any?? However, my husband wants to try Royal again. I would like to try NCL or Holland America. I just want something different - new room colors - new activities - more movies in the staterooms or activities besides bingo or trivia. We are looking at Alaska next year so we'll see who we use....when it comes to port-intensive cruises, frankly, the cruise line doesn't matter too much to us.

 

Great pics!! Really enjoying your review...:)

 

Thank you! I'm back for about 30 minutes so I'm going to try to post one more set of Turkey pictures I really wanted to share.

[CupKayke]

I took some pictures of Turkey that I really wanted to post and I forgot so before I talk about our sea day... here's more Turkey!

 

Everywhere in the bazaar (and all over Turkey, we noticed) they were selling wedding dresses... elaborate wedding dresses... and formals...and little children's formals... and suits for kids & suits for adults...for cheap! I don't remember if it was 65 USD or 65 Euros or 65 Lira (which would make a big difference but maybe someone on here will know) but you could, for 65, get a full suit - slacks, jacket, shirt, and tie! A girl from our roll call got her son a full suit for 35. I want to say Euros but I don't know. Anyway, if you are getting married or planning a wedding... Turkey would be the place to buy your goods!!! :D

 

 

 

 

And... my final pic of Turkey cracks me up...an obese mannequin!! LOL

[CupKayke]

Loving your review, we are doing the same itinerary on the Sunshine on 28th July, I think it will be a little hotter then...

 

Thank you!! O My! It will be hot-hot ~ I would remember a hat and/or umbrella and a water bottle in every port. Hot or not, you will have a great time. We were very lucky with the weather on this cruise!!

 

Thank you for taking the time to do such a great review. It brings back so many memories. I remember a couple of years ago when we were trying to figure out which ships would be in Europe and I am so glad that you have made it.

The little blue eye is to ward off the evil eye, they have it in Greece too. You will see it on buses cars houses etc.

 

You're welcome. I am glad you are enjoying my review. I that that's what the "eye" did but I was not for sure. We saw them all over Greece! :D

[Velvetwater]

Random pictures of Turkey…

As you are leaving the ship for the day, Carnival gives you a Visa and you are supposed to have it on you to get back through the port OR ELSE. They never even asked for ours. Maybe the two overweight middle-aged people with 10 bags each was a sign??!!

I found it odd that we had to have our Visas on us but Carnival still had our passports from Turkey.

We went into a shop to buy something and the shop owner pinned one of these on both myself and my husband – for good luck, he said!

The Carnival Legend in Izmir

My husband bought this jacket – it’s lambskin – for just over 75 Euro. I’ve checked it out since we got home. It seems to be well made. It came with spare buttons, inside pockets, a nice lining, etc. He was happy and it was affordable so that’s all that really counts.

My DH also bought a Fez in Turkey. We are SUCH tourists!! LOL

Up next… our second and final sea day….and then… ITALY!!!!

 

The little bead pinned to you is called a Turkish evil eye, it is supposed to ward off evil spirits an evil glances.

 

I have a Turkish evil eye ring somewhere from when i went, love love Turkey!

[CupKayke]

Second and Last Sea Day

Today was a lazy day. There were no good game shows, no good movies, really not much of anything to do. I got bored. I did laundry in our sink – rinsing a few t-shirts and items we had purchased with an Italian version of Woolite I purchased in Venice at the store next to P. Roma for 1 Euro.

Which reminds me… the pants I purchased in Turkey were hanging on the oddest hangers I’ve ever seen… I really liked the hangers, however. They were flexible to adjust to your waist size. Here is one…

The most exciting thing to happen today was our decision to eat breakfast in the formal dining room where we met six other people with neat stories. We sat across from a couple from Australia, probably not even 25 years old yet, recently engaged, and had taken six months off from work to travel the world!! They had spent three weeks in Vietnam and some other areas of Asia prior to flying to Venice and boarding this cruise… after the cruise they will go to Luxembourg and then to the Baltics and they plan to visit every continent if possible. Amazing, huh? DH & I had the least amount of vacation of any couple – as usual – Americans vacation time is nothing compared to other countries. Anyway, they were really neat people and we enjoyed talking to all of them!

We were given gold VIFP pins this cruise so today we took the coupons they gave us and redeemed them for free drinks..

It was hot out today (mid 80s maybe) and the sun was blaring on our balcony. This is why we won’t be getting a true aft room again… it’s not for us, at least. We need a covered balcony again. My husband smokes and he was told the Medusa's Lair smoking lounge was not available for smoking during the day - only at night. So, his only option was to smoke outside today. To each his own.

By the way, we didn’t use the OFF as I don’t like the idea of it being potentially harmful to us but we did use Avon Skin-So-Soft body spray as it is a well known fact here in Missouri that it keeps bugs and mosquitos far away from you. We would spray our balcony with it and not only did our balcony smell slightly nice (it’s a very mild smell) but the bugs ran away. We also sprayed our feet and legs in Venice. The main places we had bugs on our balcony were Venice, Greece and Turkey.

Our towel animal from Ratna today…

This is a random picture of a statue in the main lobby and I like it…

Nothing much else to report from our final sea day…next post… SICILY!!

[MnMomW3Boys]

I love your review, the pictures are wonderful.

 

We are considering a European cruise next year with our 3 boys, we usually travel in either late spring or early fall due to my job. Were there many kids and tweens on board during your cruise?

 

Thank you ~ Karissa

[CupKayke]

I love your review, the pictures are wonderful.

 

We are considering a European cruise next year with our 3 boys, we usually travel in either late spring or early fall due to my job. Were there many kids and tweens on board during your cruise?

 

Thank you ~ Karissa

 

Thank you for the nice compliments about my review! I'm looking forward to finishing it and then reading it, reliving our vacation all over! :D

 

The child question is interesting. I asked my husband and his answer was the same as mine - the planes were FULL of kids - all under 5/6 - we previously joked on the 8 & 9 hour flights that maybe the parents were drugging the kids because they were all so well behaved, both ways. Even our short flights on Aer Lingus had LOTS of kids. The ship, however, seemed to be sans kids. We saw John Heald's daughter (Ky?), who is 4 years old, all over the ship. We don't remember seeing any other children of any age at any other time. :eek: Strange, huh?? We both remember there being a very large amount of 20-25 year olds on the cruise but no real kids. I went back and looked through most of our pictures and still could not see any kids. Maybe someone else on our cruise would be more of a help to you on this specific question. Sorry. :o

[CupKayke]

May 11th – Messina, Italy - Sicily!

We walked around Messina today. No excursion, no tour, no plan. It was nice.

You walk off the ship and walk straight ahead to the clocktower …or you can walk to the right and, well, that area had a lot of graffiti and traffic and I wouldn’t recommend it necessarily… or you can walk to the left to the mini central park area with high-end shops all around. There isn’t necessarily a lot to see or “do” in Messina but it is pedestrian friendly and there is some neat architecture and something interesting at every corner. We walked for four hours, from one end of Messina to the other, stopping along the way for pictures and to eat a cannoli and to check-out a grocery story (one of my favorite things to do in ports) and etc. We felt we saw lots of Messina and we enjoyed it. From almost every vantage point, you can see your cruise ship in the background – that’s how close the ship is to Messina.

View from our balcony…

And since I posted a picture of a bank… it seemed there was a lot of money on the island of Sicily. Lots of beautiful, tiny, expensive cars. I drive a Mini Cooper and we actually saw a MINI, MINI today – a super tiny car that said Mini but it was about half the size of my car. So cute!

This was just steps away from the ship…

The Carnival funnel was always in the background, pretty much everywhere you went in Messina…

Some of the antique shops next to the clocktower were selling some adorable items… but, as usual on this trip, none of the shops opened until at least 10am and some of them never opened which is strange really since John Heald had warned us that everything in Messina shuts down at 1pm. We don’t know because we were off the ship at 9am and back-on at exactly 1pm. Lots of others followed us rather quickly so I would think he was correct.

I fell in love with this little guy…but the store was closed.

There was a bakery next to the ship already open, and selling lots of different items. There were a few locals going in and out.

Sicily will be continued…

[CupKayke]

Sicily, continued…

This guy was just hanging-out in Sicily..

The famous clocktower in Messina…

In case you don’t know… every day at noon the clocktower puts on a big show with the mechanical figures moving and going around & around… but about every 15 minutes or maybe every half hour… the bells ring and different figurines move to make the bells ring. It’s neat.

Some close-up details of the clocktower..

More details of the clocktower…

I find birds like to sit on top of statues…

The main clocktower, church, & fountain area is pictured below. There is a big outdoor restaurant also in this area that seems to be popular. There are also guys selling sunglasses, hats and scarves in this area. DH bought his mom a scarf for 3 Euro. I think they were asking 5 initially but as usual, we are bargainers.

Messina will continue in a moment...

[CupKayke]

Messina, Italy continued…

Like I said earlier, we walked to the right of the ship for a little while… until we realized it was becoming unfriendly for pedestrians and the graffiti became worse. These faces were on what looked to be an abandoned library.

Before leaving Sicily for the day we stopped and had our first cannolis… EVER!

A fresh cannoli sure sounds good right now!! Yummo!

We were back on the boat before 1pm and it was nice and quiet onboard for about 30 minutes. I took some pictures of the ship and the pool.

We attended the Past Guest Gold, Platinum & Diamond Party this afternoon – it was PACKED! Calvyn, John Heald’s Assistant, was greeting guests at the door. He was very nice.

The beautiful main lounge…

Despite attending several shows and talks on this cruise, we were unfortunate that we were never able to meet John Heald face-to-face. We did, of course, see him around the ship – many times with his beautiful wife and daughter as they were onboard for this cruise with him – but of course we did not disturb them when they were having rare family time. It would have been nice to have a time when John Heald was simply available to meet and greet guests but that never happened. I find that odd. Oh Well.

Around 8pm or so… we started to sail pass Stromboli…an active volcano that people actually live on!! It was a thrill and WAY BETTER than I imagined it would be!! John Heald reminded everyone at sail away that we would be passing Stromboli and my-o-my did she give us big show!! We stayed outside our balcony for nearly an hour – until dark – watching and taking pictures!! At one point, she rumbled SO loud I thought it was thundering and lightening outside but it was the volcano – and we were two miles away!! Can you imagine living at the base??!! Anyway, it was exciting. We took a video and pictures.

Up Next…. The port of Naples, Italy and a full day tour of the Amalfi Coast with Rome in Limo!!

[CupKayke]

Thank you so much for this wonderful review. I'm really enjoying it and look forward to each new installment!

 

Thank you! I am enjoying putting it together! :)

[CupKayke]

May 12th – The port of Naples, Italy...known as Napoli to the locals.

Today was the day I was looking forward to the most!! I loved the movie Under The Tuscan Sun with Diane Lane when it came out – and if you are taking a cruise to Italy and haven’t seen it – go buy it now –it’s so old you can probably find it for $5 somewhere!! Today was definitely a great day and ended-up in my top days for the cruise!!

I had organized a Rome-in-Limo Tour to Positano, Ravello, and the Amalfi Coast. Eight strangers met in the atrium lobby and we were off! We were to meet the driver outside the port at 8am with a sign that said CupKayke. O. My. Definitely makes one rethink their Cruise Critic name. We met Tony immediately and I liked him immediately! He was friendly, talkative, and a great source of information today!!

Today we drove from Napoli…to Sorrento…to Positano…to Amalfi...and finally, to Ravello. It was a long, curvy, beautiful road with constant breathtaking scenery. Even with lots of stops along the way, this drive is not for the faint of heart.

The views are immediately dreamy…

We first stopped just outside of Sorrento.

A mussel farm…

Another scenery stop on our way to Positano…

We stopped at a hotel Chelsea and Hillary Clinton have visited or visit occasionally or something along those lines… minimum room rate is 296 Euros per night but it does advance to nearly 3,000 Euros per night. The hotel gave us free postcards and a free brochure. Nice way to possibly attract business. There is an elevator going down to the hotel’s private beach, pool, and beachside restaurant…

Next… The Famous Town Of Positano!

[CupKayke]

The Amalfi Coast Continued... Positano!

We soon arrived in Positano and we were given just over an hour to walk down to the beach, shop, etc. Positano is just like the movies… so quaint and beautiful!

The walk down to the beach…

This bread was freshly baked and smelled sooooooooooo good!!

Signs in Positano…

Shopping in Positano was actually a fairly decent deal at the shops at the top of the hill. I noticed the shops on or near the beach were much more expensive. I purchased a beautiful scarf and still regret not buying a beautiful, lightweight top for only 19 Euro.

View of Positano from the beach…

Colorful and famous beach… where Under The Tuscan Sun was filmed. Tony said they filmed here for three days.

Up next… more of the beautiful Amalfi Coast!

[CupKayke]

Amalfi Coast, continued…

On the road again… we passed Sophia Lauren’s former home. She refused to pay Italian taxes and moved to Switzerland where she no longer pays taxes.

Amalfi was my favorite little stop because it was mainly all locals, they were all out after Sunday church, and it felt like a real Italian small town. Prices for items were actually cheap and we purchased aprons and other small items here. I saw a purse in Amalfi as we were leaving and I still regret not buying it. Don’t you just hate it when you do something like that?!! The only good picture I took of Amalfi… I was too busy enjoying the locals and shopping (if you haven’t figured it out by now, I like to shop and my husband indulges me)…

By the way, prior to a hurricane many years ago, Amalfi was the capital and largest city of this coast which is why the entire coast is called The Amalfi Coast. Today, Amalfi is a sleepy little fishing village.

Somewhere between Amalfi and Ravello we stopped for lunch with a beautiful view…

Great food and good wine at reasonable prices…

“Dessert” was free and delicious! Ice cold lemoncello shots! I don’t normally like lemoncello but these were fantastico!

After a long lunch and some good company, everyone was in good spirits so we got in the Mercedes van and sang on our way to Ravello. "That’s Amore" was first!! It was fun-fun and funny!! The wine may have made it even funnier!

[CupKayke]

The Amalfi Coast, continued to the town of Ravello!

 

Ravello was my favorite place today – probably because it was so beautiful – though, I really loved Amalfi too!

Why Ravello was my favorite…

The locals having Sunday lunch in Ravello…

Just what you want on vacation…

Just like everywhere else in Italy… you can drink from the fountains…

There was a friendly bargaining war over the giant lemons in Ravello…

Because the owner had just sold his largest lemons, he sold me the largest one he had and then gave me a regular size lemon for free. If I haven’t already said it… the people in this region are experiencing over 10% unemployment and tourism is the main industry keeping them afloat and it shows – they were gracious, welcoming, and happy to see us today! We felt the same about all of them!

The lemons. The larger lemons are supposed to be sweeter. We found it to be not-so-bitter. We liked it and ate it, however! LOL

 

After Ravello, we slowly made our way down the mountains and hit the freeway and made it back to the port quickly. Tony continued his comments from the minute we got in the van until the very last minute we departed in Napoli. He was fantastic!! I really liked him. We were talking to him for a while in Ravello and he is hilarious. He has a 2 year old and 4 year old – both girls. He said the 2 year old is driving them crazy because she’s so onry. I explained how we have the “terrible twos” in America and he thought that was funny. Tony was perfect and our day today was everything I wanted it to be. I would highly recommend Rome in Limo if you are comfortable touring in a van with 8 people (6 of whom will probably be strangers) and if you want your money’s worth for a tour. We would not hesitate to use Rome in Limo again. If we were to visit Napoli tomorrow I would hope we would get Tony again and this time, I’d like to see Pompeii and visit Sorrento. I would enjoy being out of the vehicle a little more and from all the stories I heard, Pompeii is a do-not-miss so I do regret that we did not visit this amazing excavated city. There is sooo much to do in this port that your choices are almost limitless!! Again, I’m so glad we used RIL and I am very thankful we had a good day touring.

Up Next… being a cheapskate finally bites back as we end-up wasting our day in Rome with Smart Cruise Tours AKA Dumb Cruise Tours!

[heatherbelle]

Really enjoying your review. For those who have yet to venture to Turkey. You haggle for everything. Never pay the price they quote. It's part of the Turkish culture. I usually halve what they want and end up paying somewhere inbetween the two. If there is no battering allowed in a particular shop they will tell you, usually in gold shops, as you pay by the weight. Although I have managed to get a small discount here too, when I have purchased more than 1 item, and yes, it is gold. I've had it valued when I got home and it was worth a lot more than I paid, but it was a few years ago.

[jimbri]

Photos are wonderful.

[krismas_tina]

This is a great review! My husband and I will be doing the same itinerary on the Sunshine in July, so I really appreciate your tips, especially the VA in Venice and the tour bus in Izmir.

Can't wait to hear what happened in Rome!