"Live from" Queen Elizabeth to the Mediterannean! My First Cunard Experience

[lovely_serenity]

46 pictures thus far and not at the ship yet.

 

Well, that is my style of reporting. I'd like to say pictures speak louder than words. If you are familiar with my way of reporting, you should know that I literally have about a pictures per couple sentences in order to illustrate my story.

If you do not like the pre-cruise trip portion of my report, I can always message you in private later when we actually arrive at the ship, so you can pick up at the point you'd like to read. Otherwise, with all due respect, there is just no chance that I will be changing my style of reporting. It just isn't going to happen. I am who I am, so cutting off a portion of me would no longer make me myself. I feel the same way about my report.

When I get to the ship, I'll make some sort of post ever once and a while at the last page, linking to the beginning of the cruise portion of the trip.

 

Thanks for understanding,

[lovely_serenity]

Following along Sarah!! Love your reviews…especially the food pics…and your commentary…thanks for another one:):):)

 

Thank you for following along! (: as well as for reading my reviews haha. I can assure you that I have many food shots!

 

Thanks again! ^^

[Scrapnana]

I love people watching in airports but I think I would have gone crazy waiting all those hours you did. Looking forward to your adventures in Rome.

[Yoshikitty]

Sarah, love your style of blogging and had some laughs!

 

The excitement before boarding is more than half the fun and I enjoy reading it, It feels a bit like being together with you!

 

Being native from HK I understand the focussing on food too well :D

[capnpugwash]

Well, that is my style of reporting. I'd like to say pictures speak louder than words. If you are familiar with my way of reporting, you should know that I literally have about a pictures per couple sentences in order to illustrate my story.

If you do not like the pre-cruise trip portion of my report, I can always message you in private later when we actually arrive at the ship, so you can pick up at the point you'd like to read. Otherwise, with all due respect, there is just no chance that I will be changing my style of reporting. It just isn't going to happen. I am who I am, so cutting off a portion of me would no longer make me myself. I feel the same way about my report.

When I get to the ship, I'll make some sort of post ever once and a while at the last page, linking to the beginning of the cruise portion of the trip.

 

Thanks for understanding,

 

I'm not suggesting for one moment that you change your "reporting" and I don't require a private message.

Edited November 30, 2013 by capnpugwash

[glojo]

Sorry about the quality of this snap. It is a still that has been taken from a small video shot. Is the person in the snapshot likely to be yourself? It was taken around 7.15am GMT, if the metadata is correct.

 

 

I do hope you do not mind me playing 'silly fools' with your shot which you have very cleverly extracted?

 

On 'blowing up' your image I noticed some writing on one of those shipping containers and I am guessing they may well contain shoes for the World Cruise of a certain person who will remain nameless ;)

 

[QM2 fan]

Enjoying your trip report so far-looking forward to your ship shots!! Coincidentally, I flew through YYZ last week, also on ID standby!!! I used to work for British Airways, also in baggage like your dad- I was in Baggage Tracing at LGW......we did LHR-YYZ-SYR-JFK-LHR.

[lovely_serenity]

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

 

 

 

We got off the plane at around 12:30pm and dragged our luggage toward the customs area. After fixing ourselves up at a nearby bathroom, we were on our way. When lining up for customs, the first thing I noticed was the split in line-up amongst European Union (EU) members, and everybody else. I had actually now known about it before. Huh, learn something new every day. The guy who checked our passport couldn’t have cared less. We got through with ridiculous ease. We proceeded on, and I learned something else. Italy doesn’t require any declaration forms. Isn’t that great? We kept walking, past all of the rickety, old luggage dispense carousels and went to the train ticketing area. We had no intention of taking the more expensive trains, so we passed (after accidentally going down) a set of escalators:

 

 

And took the path to the right.

 

We then proceeded to buy tickets for the Terravision shuttle:

 

 

It’s a shuttle that takes you directly to Termini station, and supposedly costs 6€ in person, but for some reason, actually cost 5€ per person. It costs 4€ per person though, if you book a ticket online. I believe you simply present the ticket to the person letting people of the shuttle.

 

 

After purchasing our tickets, we proceeded outside to where the shuttle was supposed to be (out the round, glass exit to the left):

 

 

After returning from our cruise, we would come back in through this exit and go upstairs to the Departures section. The shuttle stops at the same place.

After exiting the building, you turn right and walk straight down:

 

 

Until you spot the shuttle bus (or the little bus stop sign):

 

 

*Important: Stick your luggage and suitcases into the right side of the bus (so the side you see here), otherwise you’ll be trying to pull you bags out on the street side. Narrow street, many cars. It’s more dangerous.

 

From all of the offered modes of transport to Termini (which if you didn't know, is the most important, biggest train station in Rome), this appeared to be the most reasonably priced, and the most convenient. It connects and intersects both Lines A and B. (Lines A and B make an X shape across the city). This is also the station in which we would take a train to Civitavecchia.

[lovely_serenity]

The shuttle took about 45 minutes to get to the city center:

 

 

(If the shuttle's full, be prepared to be sitting randomly dispersed from one another)

 

And got off at our destination a while later:

 

 

As Mom and Dad unloaded the luggage (because they didn’t want us to get hit by a car while trying), I took this photo!

 

 

Across from the spot the shuttle stops is this Terra Café:

 

 

This is where you buy your return ticket after you get back. Make sure you specify which airport you want to go to (Fiumicino or Ciampino), and how many.

 

We went on, to the pharmacy to buy Mom a toothbrush, and proceeded in that direction:

 

 

In an extremely short walk, we were met with this:

 

 

And proceeded to our hotel.

 

*Note: Be wary of pickpockets. Very wary. Sis thinks she spotted a group (they travel in 3’s) who were eyeing my camera as I passed by.

[Keith1010]

Continuing to enjoy your narrative and your photos.

 

Keith

[PSR]

Any info on your flight on Alitalia? Pros/cons? Seats/food?

[lovely_serenity]

We had heard that it was very close to the station “Castro Pretorio”, and so we went up and down stairs everywhere to take the metro, one station away from Termini. Of course, not before buying our 3-day pass! The tickets are purchasable from those Tobacco & Lottery ticket stores. Just ask for the 3 day metro pass and gesture how many.

 

The work from going up and down stairs, and carrying all of our suitcases into a crowded train would’ve been a much longer trip than the 8 minute walk to the hotel.

 

Once arriving at Castro Pretorio, we got lost for a bit, asking random strangers how to get to the hotel, and eventually found it:

 

 

We went inside to this area:

 

 

And proceeded up the stairs from which I took that picture.

 

We initially got confused as to where to check in, because the drink station room was the first thing we saw:

 

 

We turned left one more time and found the check-in area. We then proceeded up another flight of stairs:

 

 

And got to our room:

 

 

The building’s weird, apparently it used to have multiple hotels in it, so the rooms on each floor look really different.

 

Here’s what our room looked like (exactly like on the website for Hotel Romae):

 

 

There’s another bed to the left that’s all bad and springy, as well as another to the left of the picture that Sis & I ended sharing because we didn’t like the feeling of the spring bed. We fought over who should sleep in the bad bed, but ultimately wound up refusing to.

 

We unpacked a bit and settled in. The room was clean, pretty good, well priced, so no complaints here. It did its job just fine. ^^

[lovely_serenity]

We lied around and ate some snacks we brought/took from the plane, and went downstairs to get drinks from the drink station:

 

 

We played on our iPad for a bit since the hotel offered complimentary Wi-Fi, and rested from the aftereffects of our flight.

 

It was approaching 5pm, and apparently sunset was at 5:30pm. We decided to head out to buy some things, walk around and get some food for dinner:

 

 

We headed back to Castro Pretorio and took the train to Termini:

 

 

I have no idea as to how we managed, but after going down an alarmingly steep escalator:

 

 

We ended up somewhere here, where we walked about like awkward random tourists in search of food:

 

 

We couldn't really find anything we wanted though :/

 

The place was just across the street from Termini station, and we finally got a glimpse of the main building:

 

 

We went around the side and entered the building. We then went downstairs to the mall-like area of it and walked around.

Edited December 1, 2013 by lovely_serenity

[lovely_serenity]

We went into this convenience/mini supermarket called CONAD (which we would actually visit extremely frequently) and looked around. It opened until very late, so we looked at things we wanted to buy, and would come back to buy them, right before going back to the hotel.

 

Something I thought was interesting was the fact that pepperoni pizza in Italy was apparently not pepperoni pizza. You’d get some sort of pepper, tomato, & cheese thing. Now I know why:

 

 

CONAD had a pretty impressive alcohol supply as well:

 

 

Something my parents would later buy due to curiosity was the white wine version of this:

 

 

A juice carton styled, re-closable carton of wine. So cheap, too! Wine was really cheap in Rome, more so than soda.

 

As Sis and I roamed around the place, we found an amazing Kinder area full of Nutella, milk and white chocolates. Buenos of all kind, as far as the eye could see!

 

Here, I spotted this, a wonderfully huge Kinder Surprise Egg!! (I purposely put my hand there to show you guys that it was the size of my entire hand! :0

 

 

After wrapping up our exploring, we hopped back on the train (keep the ticket in somewhere convenient, to get through the little movable double plastic doors, you stick your ticket in a slot, it’ll pop up somewhere above it, before you get to walk through. The door opens for a short period of time though).

We headed over to station “Pyramide” because Mom had read online that this area was where most locals ate at night.

 

 

The station was appropriately named, since, there is a pyramid there! :D

 

 

By now, it was pretty dark. It was about as dark as it was going to get.

[lovely_serenity]

We walked and walked, all the way down the street until there was pretty much no further we could go without leaving the lit up area/street.

 

At the end of it (near this little random fruit stand), we finally decided on something to eat. We went into this pizza shop next to a pastry shop, and chose to eat “Pizza Bianca”, which loosely translates to white pizza. This is because the stuff is inside the topping-less pizza. It’s apparently famous in Rome.

 

After looking at the different kinds, I chose one with spinach, cheese and some sort of black pepper-y seasoning.

 

It was weird, she chopped off a chunk of display one and heated it up. We were wondering how she was going to charge for it, since the menu looked confusing. Apparently it was by lb or kg or something. She weighed it; we paid for it, said thanks and left.

 

I used the lighting of the store to take these!

 

 

 

The street we were on looked like a very food based street. We crossed the road to the other side (it’s scary crossing the street in Rome. D: Cars don’t wait for you. They only stop if part of your body’s in front of their car!) and looked for something else to eat.

 

We came across a gelato shop and after careful inspection, we decided to get some. According to Mom, she had read on the internet that there was fake & real gelato. Fake gelato was made from powder and had an extremely bright, almost neon colour to it. Real, authentic gelato on the other hand, was made using real stuff. Ice cream machine, throw the ingredients in there and really make it taste good. They had a duller colour. This theory would prove to be correct, as all of the gelato we inspected and ate because of dull colour, were absolutely delicious. Mom & Dad had tried gelato once before near the Trevi Fountain, and did not like it at all. They though the ones we picked were delicious. When we actually did go to the Trevi Fountain, we saw that all of the gelato shops in the area were of bright, neon, fake-looking gelato. That explains it. ^^" We'd be super picky in choosing where to eat gelato throughout the whole 3 days, and would only eat authentic ones. We walked in and walked out of dozens upon dozens of stores in our 3 days!

 

Anyways, hey charged 2€ per small cone, which was 2 scoops, you can & should pick different flavours (almost all of the gelato shops we would eat at, charged that much). We wound up eating a lot of gelato in our few days in Rome. Dad said he felt spoiled at home after eating so much excellent gelato, because regular ice cream didn’t taste good anymore :D

 

Here’s how the colour of the gelato should look to be authentic:

 

 

 

Sis got a Limon (lemon) – Fragola (strawberry) gelato cone:

 

 

I on the other hand, instead got Pistacchio (pistachio) – Melone (melon, cantaloupe) one.

 

 

And my gosh, were they good. All of the fruit flavoured ones actually had pieces of fruit in them. The pistachio one had a strong dense, strong flavour of pistachio. YUM! ^^~

 

Afterward, we headed back to the Pyramide station and went back to Termini. We bought stuff from CONAD, as well as some hot food (from the hot food corner) and headed back to the hotel via metro. On the way back into the hotel, we noticed another gelato shop, right next door our hotel entrance! We vowed to try it next time. We would wind up going there several times, as it was very, very good. One of the best we would later realize.

[lovely_serenity]

Great Report Sarah

 

Thank you (:

 

Buon giorno Italiano !

 

Good day to you too! ^^

 

I'm not suggesting for one moment that you change your "reporting" and I don't require a private message.

 

Alright, nonetheless, I appreciate your comment. It'll remind me not to over-detail & to stay on track.

 

Thanks,

 

I love people watching in airports but I think I would have gone crazy waiting all those hours you did. Looking forward to your adventures in Rome.

 

You have no idea LOL. I almost did! :D

 

Sarah, love your style of blogging and had some laughs!

 

The excitement before boarding is more than half the fun and I enjoy reading it, It feels a bit like being together with you!

 

Being native from HK I understand the focussing on food too well :D

 

Haha, thank you Yoshikitty! ^^ that was the idea I was trying to capture!

 

Oo, that's awesome! :) Food is just the best, in't it? c:

 

Enjoying your trip report so far-looking forward to your ship shots!! Coincidentally, I flew through YYZ last week, also on ID standby!!! I used to work for British Airways, also in baggage like your dad- I was in Baggage Tracing at LGW......we did LHR-YYZ-SYR-JFK-LHR.

 

I'm happy to hear that! ^^ Oh cool! Wow, long flight! How was your trip?

&& that's awesome :p

 

Continuing to enjoy your narrative and your photos.

 

Keith

 

Thanks Keith, I'm glad (:

 

Any info on your flight on Alitalia? Pros/cons? Seats/food?

 

I found that Alitalia's economy seats can lean the farthest back out of all the other planes I've been on! Their food was really simple (Mom wasn't too impressed), but nothing tasted super bad? Seats have a weird removable sheet covering the head rest, on the way there, they were all so gross, had hair stuck to them! Very cool on individual touch screen tv's, can watch plane lift off etc. camera on front, bottom & back of plane! Don't watch it after landing, though. Taxi-ing made me want to puke. Too much spinning. Going there, service wasn't bad, coming back, mom was pissed about the service. They were very disorganized, had food carts all over theirstation, blocking bathroom. Woman flight attendant gave mom the stink eye for going to the bathroom, as if she was intruding in their work space! The guy flight attendant taking care of Sis & My section was nice though?

[capnpugwash]

I was and remain more than a little confused by the title of this thread being "Live from", didn't the cruise referred to finish 10 days ago? Maybe this is like the Christmas Special of Downton Abbey. :)

Edited December 1, 2013 by capnpugwash

[lovely_serenity]

I was and remain more than a little confused by the title of this thread being "Live from", didn't the cruise referred to finish 10 days ago? Maybe this is like the Christmas Special of Downton Abbey. :)

 

As I have mentioned before, this is indeed a Not-So-Live from, my version! I'm already doing my best to write faster D: Each series of posts take a few hours, okay? If it takes that long, it takes that long. My last report took a few months to complete too! i did not purchase the Internet packages, and I probably would've taken more than those 12 nights still! Like I could fit a laptop anywhere in my bag -_- LOL

 

Maybe I will do a Christmas Special, and st like pages of stuff :D you never know

Edited December 1, 2013 by lovely_serenity

[Jules 1970]

Italian Ice-cream , "So Delicious" :)

[CrznonRmynd]

Hello Sweet Serenity....

 

I enjoyed your candid review of your Alaska cruise on the

Volendam. Thank you for notifying us faithful followers

of your most recent Cunard Queen Elizabeth adventure

to the Mediterranean. I am enjoying your current

review, and look forward to reading more...... :)

My DH and I hope to do a Mediterranean Cruise, so

your review is greatly appreciated!

 

Donna

[Krazy Kruizers]

Sarah

I am loving all your details and pictures.

[tourlink99]

Your a very talented young lady. Its a pleasure following your exploits.

 

Sent from my ME301T using Forums mobile app

[nutensteve]

Sarah ... Really enjoying your report and pics. I enjoyed your Alaska report also.

 

I have to agree with your Mom regarding the food and service on Alitalia. We flew to Athens and back to Los Angeles on Alitalia. I have to say the food and service was by far the worst I have ever experienced on any airline.

[Monsoonalblue]

Hi Lovely Serenity, thank you for your wonderful trip reports. I followed on your Alaskan adventure and your photos and descriptions inspired me to look into my own Alaskan holiday:). I am really enjoying reading and following your latest posts. Just wanted to let you know that your hard work and effort is appreciated and I look forward to following again:)

[north east girl]

Hi Sarah, really enjoying your posts. Can't wait to hear about your adventures on board.

 

Catherine