August 31st Italy and Greek Isles Cruise - Trip Report

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We just returned from the August 31st Italy and Greek Isles cruise aboard the Celebrity Reflection. The cruise was 10 days, Rome to Rome, and we stayed an extra three days in Rome at the end. I avidly read the forums in preparation for my cruise, even though I didn’t post much, so I wanted to thank all of you for the help with a trip report. I will report for each day and try to include a few pictures of each. First, an introduction:

 

 

We are three friends who have known each other since grade school and are now in our thirties. Though we no longer live in the same town, we usually see each other a few times a year, and we have taken vacations together before. For this trip, we left the men behind and took a girls trip. We are relatively active and love history, but we also enjoy taking it easy at the pool or beach or enjoying some beautiful scenery. Neither shopping nor museums is something we want to spend a lot of time doing. None of us are too picky and we can find enjoyment in most situations, however.

 

 

We decided on an inside stateroom, because we didn’t figure we wanted to spend much time there, and it would save some money, which could instead be spent on more important things, like wine. However, we also didn’t get any beverage package, because we’re usually pretty happy with one good drink a night.

 

 

I have never cruised before, and they have taken a couple of Caribbean cruises on Royal Caribbean. However, I have previously traveled in both Italy and Greece, and neither of them has. Of the stops on this trip, I have only been to Rome and Athens, though. I was prepared to explore on our own or book private tours, but neither of my friends was comfortable with this idea,preferring things to be a little more guaranteed. It was lower stress to just go along with their thoughts of booking excursions through the cruise ship. However, we did book ahead of time when we discovered a 20% off sale on select shore excursions, many of which were ones we wanted to do.

 

 

I figure that at least half of the enjoyment of a big trip is the anticipation leading up to it, so I decided to wring as much out of it as I could. I researched extensively leading up to the trip, and I took Duolingo lessons in both Italian and Greek,neither of which got much use with all the English speaking. Nevertheless, I had a good time picking up as many hints as I could and making sure we were ready. One friend was of a similar, if less severe,persuasion, while the other had no interest in preparation and was happy to follow our lead and not think about anything.

 

 

I’ve written everything up already, so I should be able to post it fairly quickly, as I select pictures, but I fear it’s already a bit rambly. Of course, feel free to read as little or as much as you like, as I’m sure this will be too detailed for some. If you have any questions, I’d be glad to answer them to the best of my ability!

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Arrival in Rome went very smoothly. I felt good about our 9:15 am arrival time until I read all of the suggestions to never arrive same-day, but it was a bit late at that point. Luckily, the worrying was for naught. We were through customs by 9:30, but our transfer wasn’t scheduled to pick us up until 10. But by 10, I had connected to the free wifi at the airport and got two conflicting messages from the transfer company. One on Messages said that the driver would be there at 11, and we would get a 25 Euro discount, and the other on WhatsApp said 10:30 and no mention of the discount, though they agreed on the meeting point. Since the 10:30 message came second, we assumed that was the updated message, but at 10:45, with no luck yet, I tried calling over the wifi. It was hard to hear over the airport noise, but I think he asked me to keep waiting. At 11, the driver did show up, we had no further issues with the transfer, and we did receive the discount. I believe we used Roma Cabs, which at 120 Euros was already cheaper than the later transfer arranged by our hotel or Celebrity’s transfers, but the discount was nice to make up for the hour wait.

We were through security and check-in and on the ship soon after 12, where we went straight to the buffet. Lunch was good but nothing too exciting, and by the time we were done,we had heard the announcement that rooms were done. We went to our stateroom, checked it out. We were in an inside stateroom on the 8th floor, 8149, which was set up to accommodate all three of us. There was two smaller beds and a third bunkbed. We did have our attendant push the two beds together to make more room by the closet, but they continued to be made up separately, which worked well for us three friends. After that, we got ready to swim. We had planned for this, placing suits in our carry-on bags, which was good as our luggage had not arrived at our room yet. There were plenty of sunbeds available and we enjoyed swimming and sunning for a while. Once we returned to our room, our bags were sitting out front, so we got unpacked and ready for muster. Our muster location was in the theater. Muster was a very corny video that didn’t feel that useful. It kept going on with different sections that would alternate between being announced, played on a video screen or addressed locally.

After muster, we explored the ship some more and stopped by the spa, before we went to dinner in the main dining room. At the spa, we took a small tour and they told us about their raffle, which would be drawn soon. Best of all, we could lounge around on the heated beds for free while we waited for the raffle. And then I won the very first drawing. Unfortunately, it was for a fitness class, available only on port days. As I intended to use my port days to explore port, and I am not excited about fitness classes on the best of days, I never actually got around to using it. I probably would have made myself take advantage if it had been available on a sea day, or sent one of my friends, but it didn’t seem worth giving up port time.

For dinner, we had anytime dining, but they had ‘assigned’ us an 8:15 pm time for the first couple of nights to ensure things went smoothly, communicated in a little note on our bed. However, that wasn’t going to work for us. We tried to call, but it was busy, so we just went a bit after 6 anyway, and there was plenty of space. They had no problem seating us immediately and they set us up to be served by Franco. Dinner was delicious. I had a prime rib which was especially tender. The sommelier Suzana was disappointed that we weren’t up for any wine,but were trying not to fall asleep through dinner, after not having slept at all on the plane and now being up for more than 36 hours.

After dinner, we tried to stay awake a bit longer by going back to the pool. This time we tried the solarium and the hot tubs there, which we had pretty much to ourselves. There was only one showtime that night,perhaps due to muster or it just being the first day, and it was at 10:15, but there was no way we were going to make it that late, so we missed the magician comedian, and, indeed, we were asleep by 10.

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We were all exhausted enough to sleep through to about 8 the next morning. We took our time getting ready and had breakfast at the MDR. It felt fancy for a breakfast, but it was very nice, and they kept offering us pastries and drinks, etc. I found the bacon a bit crisp, but the frittata was excellent. We saw ourselves coming into the port at Messina through the window.

Our shore excursion was supposed to start at 10:30, so we wandered around the deck and looked out at the port, only to realize at 10:15 that we were supposed to meet at 10 in the theater for our excursion. There was a big line for excursions, but they gave a call for anyone else on our tour, and they pulled us in almost immediately. They sent our tour down with no waiting. The buses outside had signs with numbers that matched the number stickers they’d given us inside, so it was very easy to find the correct bus. My friends tell me that this was much more organized than their experience on Royal Caribbean. We went on a tour with the cruise line to Mt.Etna and Taormina.

Etna was first, about two hours from Messina. Our guide was very expansive, and he explained non-stop for about our first hour and a half. Unfortunately, it took him five minutes and several repetitions and rephrasings to say anything at all. One friend put on her music and went to sleep, but the other two of us enjoyed watching the scenery with views of the strait, terraced hills, lemon trees,grapevines and into the volcanic landscape. As we were getting into the little station at Etna with the craters and funicular and several little restaurants and gift shops, our guide was telling us about the craters and the restaurant together like it was one stop. We would stop there for an hour and then we would go to another volcanic location. We had our cannoli and water at the restaurant, and then we hiked over to the craters on the other side of the little village. It took us about twenty minutes to get to the crater, and it was an easy walk around it with some great pictures. We had to hurry a bit to get back to our bus and use the restrooms, though. We made it right in time to get to our bus, which proceeded to drive 5 minutes across the village to the crater we had just been at – our second stop. Oops. Our guide did warn us not to climb the second crater as it was too dangerous (steep?) or take the gondola to the top (not enough time). We took a few more pictures, did some souvenir shopping and bought some drinks with our half hour stop there. We could and probably should have grabbed something to eat there too. The tour information had warned us to bring a jacket, but it was a lovely day, and we didn’t end up needing it at all. Everyone spoke English to me, even when I tried my Italian. I guess I wasn’t very convincing.

Back on the bus, it was another hour back to Taormina,following the same route we had come in on in reverse. We parked in a garage below Taormina, and we were able to take its elevator up 7 stories to Taormina with barely any steps. Once our guide walked us in,pointed out the shop where we could get free waters with coupons he provided and where to meet at the end, he gave us one and a half hours of freetime. We had ‘whisper’ radios for Taormina, but there didn’t seem to be much point in them. We used them for 5-10 minutes to get situated in Taormina, and my friend’s device even stopped working at one point. In our free time, we went to the Greek theater, taking pictures and enjoying the views along the way. The theater was very neat to see with some absolutely amazing views, but we felt a bit rushed through it and didn’t take time to read all the history or see all the parts towards the end. We started at the top and made our way downwards. It was an interesting dichotomy to see the ancient crumbling theater filled with modern seats, lights and stage at the bottom, and I’m not sure that I liked it, but it probably does make the big shows that they have there much more comfortable. We used all our time enjoying the theater and hurried back. We would have loved more time in Taormina and would love to go back some time. We grabbed out free waters on our way back,but we were too worried about time to pick up an arancini or anything on our way, so we didn’t anything but the cannoli all afternoon. Based on how long before others arrived, we could have grabbed something, but instead we arrived hungry back at the ship after another hour drive.

We got ready for dinner and went early to eat again. We got in immediately, back to Franco’s section, and I had a delicious beef ragout and a tasty porkchop. We were interested in wine, but my friends felt a bit overwhelmed by the choices and Suzana’s description of the red they wanted as very dry, and they were saying we would just skip it altogether. Suzana picked up on the real issue and brought out the red for them to try. After trying it, it wasn’t too dry and they did want it after all, so they had that and I got a pinot grigio. It’s not really much fun to drink all by yourself. After dinner we went to the show Elysium, which seemed to have a reasonable amount of seating still available. The show was fun, if not able to communicate an in-depth story – current songs were used along with dancing and fancy costumes to portray the story. We took another hot tub trip in the solarium afterwards, which we determined closed at 11, an excellent end to the day. We had also received an invitation to a sail-away party on the helipad in Malta the next day, because we were first time Celebrity guests, so we decided to worry less about the sail-in.

 

 

 

 

 

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Despite planning not to worry about the sail-in, I was up and ready early to breakfast at the buffet during sail-in pre-7 am, so we sat on the back deck of the buffet. Buffet breakfast was good with nice variety, and the views sailing in were amazing. We made a point to arrive early in the morning to our tour after almost being late the previous day. We had plenty of time to wait after checking in, though sitting further into the theater, we were still at the back of the bus.

Our excursion in Malta was to the Blue Grotto and Marsaxlokk. Our guide Cynthia was native Maltese and very nice and easy to understand. She taught us a few phrases in Maltese, which I promptly went on to forget, and she pointed out interesting things from the bus as we passed them. She didn’t guide too much at our stops, since these were more experiences and free time, though. We stopped at the overlook to look down on the grotto, but Cynthia made a point of ushering us along quickly so that we could get to the boats first, before any other tour groups and before it got too busy. The Blue Grotto was lovely, though the boat ride was only about 20 minutes, and some of the other caves had more dramatic blue color at the time we were there. We had free time for about another 30 minutes after our boat ride and we could have swum there if we had brought along our suits, though it wouldn’t have been long. The souvenir shops and exploring weren’t great there, though, so we were ready to go when our time was up.

Next, we went on to Marsaxlokk. It was Sunday and thus the market day, so everything was really crazy and busy. We had to park the bus further away and walk in to the waterfront. We had about an hour and a half there. It was hot and the market seemed interesting, but we got about half way through with nothing really calling to us. It looked like good prices, though the selection had a lot of stuff unappealing to tourists in addition to a few more traditional things. We saw a place with icy coffee drinks which looked nice – Costa Coffee, so we ordered a couple. A friend ordered for me, since I had forgotten my wallet in the safe back on the boat. Unfortunately, they seemed really disorganized. My friend seemed to get charged for a large when she wanted a medium, though she didn’t notice, and then they called out drinks instead of names or numbers. The one thing that might have been hers was called out as a large (probably what they charged her for), so she didn’t take it and someone else jumped in to do so. Finally, something else came up that might have been hers, and she just took it. It ended up tasting caramel, though, so it probably wasn’t hers either. We were almost out of time after spending more than 30 minutes trying to get our frosty drinks, so we had to hurry to get back in time to catch our bus. We saw Cynthia walking as we came in, so we knew we weren’t too late, but it was close. The whole issue took a lot of the enjoyment out of Marsaxlokk. We accomplished no shopping due to that fiasco, and barely took time to snap a few pictures of the colorful boats, so that left a bit of a poor taste in our mouths.

Back in Valletta, we still had half a day, so we stopped in the ship for more water and to grab my wallet before exploring the city. We took the Barakka Lift up top to the city, which was a great option for less than 2 euros, saving the exhaustion of climbing up in the heat. We saw a scary-looking spider in the Upper Barakka Gardens and decided to go find food. I had some notes with good restaurants that were supposed to have Sunday hours, but as we went, we noticed that everything was eerily quiet and decorated like for a festival. After the first two recommended restaurants we found were both closed, we gave up and went to the next restaurant that was open. We had a traditional Maltese platter with cheese, fruits and dips, which was tasty, especially the sun-dried tomatoes with the cheese, and a ftira tuna sandwich. Our other friend also had a generic toast thing that she was happy with as a less adventurous eater. We were very stuffed at the end, enjoyed the free wifi to check out emails and updates from back home. Afterwards, we decided to try the Grand Master’s Palace. The state rooms were pretty to see, but not that extensive, and the included audio guide was pretty dry. In the armory, there were a ton of arms and armor, but we ended up staying less than an hour, so we could check in on the 4 pm battery salute, which apparently wasn’t happening that day either, perhaps due to the same holiday. At that point, we were pretty ready to go back down to port anyway. We shopped briefly for souvenirs on the waterfront, following a free ride back down the lift, and returned to ship.

We enjoyed a swim back on the ship, and we were too full to go to dinner early, not having found lunch until after 2. We attended the helipad sail-away with a bunch of other cruisers new to Celebrity. We were given glasses of champagne, met the cruise director Rich, watched the gorgeous views and took lots of photos. It was generally an excellent way to make us feel special. When we arrived for dinner finally after 7, everything was really busy. We had to wait 30 minutes with a pager, and then they sat us in a new section with a different waiter. Everything was fine, but we didn’t feel like we got as much attention. Perhaps because it was so hectic in general. We ended up being 15 minutes late for the 9 pm show, a Freddie Mercury tribute, so we sat in the balcony and weren’t able to hear much. Later on, we went to an 80s party at the Sky Lounge. My friends were disappointed in the music selection. It was pretty poppy with not much danceable, but we met a nice couple that we chatted with for a few hours. We planned to see them the next day at the pool, but I never did notice them again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The next day was at sea. We ate late at the buffet after sleeping in, and we didn’t ever eat lunch. We played several hours at the pool before getting ready for our evening chic night. One friend had decided to do a botox appointment, which I don’t quite get, but okay. She scheduled that at 5, right before our dinner reservation, which we actually made this time, at 6. She warned us that she might not show up for dinner if she was too red. We had just given up on her and ordered almost 20 minutes after arriving, when she finally showed up. Apparently, the spa was running behind, and they didn’t get started on her one-hour appointment on time. We had decided to be more adventurous and try some appetizers that she wouldn’t approve of, like caviar on fish tartare, escargot and frog legs, and we went with it anyways, and she could just watch us eat it. All great! Franco took it like a champ and quickly got her back on schedule along with us.

Entertainment was the production cast singing broadway songs. It was fun, but I would have preferred an actual story which fit together, instead of just a random sampling of songs. As far as I’m concerned, a broadway musical is not composed of just the songs, but also the characters and stories, so I don’t think this was sufficient to fulfill ‘People kept asking for more broadway, so we did this.’

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The next morning, we were in Mykonos, where we were tendering. We decided to go earlier, before things got too crazy, even though we would just be doing a beach day on our own. After a quick buffet breakfast, we caught a tender boat about 8:45. Our captain had managed to secure us the closest tender location, and even though a bit of line was building up, it didn’t take us too long to get into town. We had decided on Platy Gialos for our beach, because we were in a mood for sunbds and beach restaurants. We wandered and took a few photos as we searched for the Fabrika bus station. Once we found it, there was a little ticket booth, which gave us each 2 one-way tickets and provided change. We bought some huge bottles of water for 1 Euro each while we waited for the 10 am bus, which ended up being a comfy, tourist style bus. It took us about 10 minutes to get to Platy Gialos at the end of the line. We followed the line of 75% of the bus just down the road we were on to find the beach, three minutes away and then walked down the boardwalk through three or four restaurants until one offered 10 Euros each for sunbeds. They moved 3 beds together for us under an umbrella. The place was called Yialo Yialo. The sand on the beach was a bit rough and there were some slabs of rock just in the water, but a bit further out, it turned to super soft sandy bottom. The water was so clear and blue and it was very comfy, even though we had expected it to be a little warmer. We swam a while, lounged a while, enjoyed some traditional Mykonian appetizers and a Greek pizza in the restaurant. They had a beach menu, but it didn’t have the appealing appetizers on it, so we were happy to go up onto their porch. One friend recommends their pina colada as absolutely amazing, and they both tried ouzo for the first time as well – assessment was good, but very strong. After another swim and playing around with the phone case for some underwater photography, we returned to town on the 3:10 bus, which came every 30 minutes.

It was an easy ride back with our already procured return tickets, though I think we could have paid on the bus as well. We then spent some more time exploring Mykonos. We found some nice souvenirs and some lovely photo ops, but after about an hour wandering the town, we were well down and ready to tender back to the ship. The cold towels and flavored waters were very appreciated as we waited a short time for a tender boat.

We have continued to do dinner every night with Franco, Mario and Suzana, and Franco has decided to remember our names and bring us extra treats and advice to tell us about the ports for the next day. He highly recommended the shopping on Rhodes for the next day. The show was a Phil Collins tribute, which my friends found enjoyable, but may have put me to sleep – that kind of music and I am so much more visual than sound oriented. I wouldn’t blame the act at all. We enjoyed more late hot tub and pool time to ourselves in the solarium as well.

 

 

 

 

 

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Rhodes was another excursion day. We got in very early here. We don’t hear much from our Greek captain and when we do, he is a bit hard to understand, but he is great at getting us in to good places in Greece, it seems! Franco had mentioned that as well, that the captain could often get us in early at the Greek ports, especially Rhodes. We were almost running a bit late again due to a bathroom stop, so I went ahead and got all of our stickers. Waiting more towards the top, we got a front spot on the bus. Our guide Dia was great, easy to understand and also funny. We started with a quick stop at the harbor to see the site of the Colossus of Rhodes for a picture break and she pointed out a few other sites along the way as we passed through Rhodes on our way to the Valley of the Butterflies. At the Valley, we parked at the middle and Dia sent us further up the valley for the best view of butterflies. We had 45 minutes to wander. The butterflies, actually moths, did not disappoint. There were a reasonable number soon after we started, some landed, a few flying, but as we got further in, there were huge numbers coating rocks and trees. They are supposed to be there until late September, and this has apparently been a good year for them. The valley itself was lvely and wooded with a stream running down the middle, not even too hot, but it probably would not have been worth going out to without the butterflies. The road to and from the valley was right along the west coast, and the beaches looked beautiful and very inviting, even though we didn’t have time to get out to them.

Back in Rhodes, we parked outside the old town and walked in as a group. Rhodes was gorgeous with huge fortifications and old medieval designs. We went first to the Grand Master’s Palace, which had been rebuilt in the 1930s by the Venetians but using the original design. It was very impressive and having a guide was nice, but she never really waited long enough for us to get caught up and take all the pictures desired – perhaps that was more to do with how many pictures I wanted to take. After the palace, she took us down the street of the knights, pointing out each of the inns that had housed knights from a different country. All of it was super neat, and, at the end, we came back to the bus. Dia encouraged us to stay in the city and enjoy ourselves for the rest of the afternoon, as the ship was an easy walk on our own – we knew that; if it hadn’t been for the trip out to the butterflies, we would have happily done this one on our own.

Taking off on our own, we were searching for a restaurant on my recommended list, but hit with the sudden need for a restroom, we decided on the restaurant right next to us. We had dolmathes stuffed grape leaves and an order of gyros pita each. This ended up being two huge gyros each and a pile of fries. We probably would have been good with one to two people. The wifi here was finicky but enough for a small check-in. After that, we wandered the streets souvenir shopping and taking pictures. The temperature was great, the town was beautiful, and we had a lot of fun here. I would love to come back to Rhodes for more time. There was a lot more to see, but we felt satisfied with our enjoyment of the stop. Getting back to the ship was easy, and we got some cool pictures with the ship behind the city walls – a neat juxtaposition.

We hung out in the pool for a bit until sail-away, but then we were a bit late running down to the room and back up on deck to get photos of the city walls from above, though the sail-away was still great. At dinner, Franco found us an extra pair of chocolate souffles from another restaurant, which were amazing. We also enjoyed trying out another wine. The show was another production cast show, Broken Strings. The story was very simplistic, and the concept was similar to Elysium, with singing and dancing to modern songs to tell the story. It was a love story this time without the cirque-style acts and a more modern setting. It was enjoyable enough, but not much depth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The next day we were in Santorini. We had an early start with an excursion to the volcano and hot springs. Of course, we tendered again, and again the captain had gotten us a great tendering location, the closest among the boats present. With our excursion, we tendered to the old port under Fira, even though it was an excursion, because we were going with a boat, not a bus. Another tour came along with us, as well. They had the same start and then would be doing sea kayaking later. As a very active tour, this was the youngest group of cruisers we saw. At the volcano, which has built up as a new island in the middle of the caldera, our guide Svetlana led us on a hike up to the top. It was very much a strenuous activity, and I had a hard time keeping up. Svetlana would pause for some breaks, but only until the last people caught up. Unfortunately, that meant that these people got no rest, and arguably, they were the ones that needed it the most. Once we finally got to the top, we had great views and longer stops with explanations, but getting there was rough. We were able to see gases coming off the volcano and to feel heat coming out of a vent. We were very glad we were doing this early when it wasn’t so hot. After hiking back down, our next stop was the other island, just off the hot springs. We tied at a dock, but they attached a ladder into the deeper water beside the boat for us to climb in. We were provided pool noodles and swam to an inlet of the little island with murky water and spots of warmth. It was a fun little experience, but not really that impressive. I had read reviews ahead of time that the water could stain your suit, so we did all wear dark suits. At least one in our tour group had worn and regretted wearing a white suit, however. We spent about 30 minutes there and then headed back onto the boat, which took us first to the Athinos port to drop off the sea kayakers, before dropping us at the old Fira port about noon or so.

We had been given tickets for a ride up and back down on the funicular and the line going up was not bad. Two more people joined the three of us in the first car. One of them was afraid of heights and nervous, but he seemed to do okay with the short time that it took to get us to the top. We decided to do lunch at a nice place with caldera views. I had notes on a few recommended ones, and the first one we saw was Idol, though we also saw Argo once we settled in at a great corner seat at Idol – it was just down the hill, with approximately the same view. We ordered a few appetizers, a moussaka and a few local wines. The tomato fritters and the moussaka were both delicious. The dip trio provided four individual wedges of pita for three dips and was just not sufficient. The Argyros vinsanto wine was excellent for a sweet dessert white and something Svetlana has told us about. Apparently, they spend a long time drying the grapes or something like that – we added it to our souvenir shopping list for sure. After some photos with the great view and some souvenir shopping, we were a bit tired of the heat and crowds and decided to head back down. At the funicular, the line already looked long at 2:30ish. We didn’t want to wait, so we decided to take the donkey path. One friend headed on ahead, while the other two of us stayed on a bit longer for one last souvenir we had just passed. Apparently, the friend who went ahead slipped and fell on the slippery, polished steps on her way down, bruising her bottom pretty significantly. It had walls and the steps were shallow, so I wouldn’t expect serious accidents without doing stupid things, but it was easy to slide, even though it was completely dry and the fresh donkey droppings were easy to avoid. Us other two made our way very slowly with frequent picture stops and had no issues, but it did take us more than 30 minutes and it was hot. I wouldn’t have gone up it, but down was a reasonable option with care, if not fun. It all makes for quite a story though, especially for my friend who fell, but saved her nice wine from breaking! Given the choice, in the same situation, I would probably wait for the funicular next time, but with scant time to get back to the ship for last tender, I wouldn’t hesitate to brave the donkey path again.

At the bottom, we got gelato and had never before appreciated the cold towels and water quite so much. The tender line was long but moved quickly. The cruise director later told us that a whole cruise ship had cancelled, so there was a couple thousand less people in Fira than expected, and our captain had managed to get their tender boats for us in addition to our own. I would not have wanted to have seen Santorini at its worst. It was busy enough for us as it was.

Back on board, we remembered we still had our swimsuits on from our morning excursion, and we decided to put them to nice, refreshing use in the pool. We took pictures as we sailed out before going to dinner. We took this as our chance to see Oia as we hadn’t had excursion time, but I don’t think we got much of the effect. It was a gorgeous sail-away, though. After dinner, we attended the late show – Tre Amici. They were three opera singers with great voices and it was a very good show and nicely impressive even without a lot of visuals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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We started early again the next day in Athens. Our tour was the Acropolis and Thermal Experience at Lake Vouliagmenis. Our tour guide Roula was reasonably easy to understand, but I had expected ore details from our guided acropolis tour. She gave us explanations at three or four points, but didn’t even take us all the way across the acropolis, just pointing out a couple things in the distance. She started out free time at the top, so we could finish on our own. We had 1 hour and 15 minutes of free time, but she told us to plan 30 minutes to get back down to the meeting point. The description had suggested we would have time to explore the plaka and buy souvenirs in our free time, but she didn’t point out the plaka and did point out a recommended shop by the meeting point as the only chance we would have to buy souvenirs. She did spend a fair amount of time before we climbed the acropolis showing off her different jewelry pieces, ostensibly to demonstrate the symbolism, but she did mention you could get pieces like those at the recommended jewelry shop. When we got back with a bit of time to spare, I made my small protest by buying my silver trinket at the shop across the way from that one, but that was the only other shop immediately in sight. From there, we continued the tour with a drive through Athens. We did see the changing of the guard at Syntagma Square in passing and an okay peek at the stadium, but for the most part, what we saw was quick glances without the time to even snap a decent picture. It was not really an effective way to see anything.

We ended the day at Lake Vouliagmenis. It was very pretty, just a couple minutes from the beach, caused previously by an earthquake, and it was a saltwater lake. It was advertised as a thermal experience, but, while the water may have been warmer than it otherwise would have been, it didn’t even feel warm. The swimming was nice though, and there was a ton of tiny fishes that would nibble at your dead skin if you held still. This tickled but didn’t hurt at all, and it was pretty cool to see them flocking around you. We did also have the VIP area set aside for our use with our own lounger and bathroom and an entrance to the water. We were also able to order food from there, and I had some tasty pork skewers with tzatziki. At the end, there was some delay or problem with paying, though. We were starting to make the bus wait a bit, so I went ahead to tell them we were coming while my friends sorted that out. We had a couple hours there and then got back to the ship with no real time to get out of Piraeus – only a couple more hours before all aboard. It did go smoothly, at least.

Dinner and our servers were again great, and the show was the Flywrights, spirited soul singers with vibrant personalities. It was fun, though I’m not really a great judge of their music style. There was plenty to watch as they danced about, though. After that, we stopped by the martini bar. Before the cruise, I had purchased the martini flight for each of us as something fun to do. When we arrived on the ship, I received no notice that it was on our accounts, so I stopped at guest relations to ask about it. The lady there told me it was actually an event, and I would receive an invitation when it was coming up. Since I hadn’t, I stopped again at guest relations. This time, another woman said we could just stop by the martini bar for it whenever we liked. Right before a sea day, this seemed like a good time. We each got 6 smaller martinis of various flavors. The traditional tasted very strong and out of place against the others. One friend couldn’t drink more than a few sips of hers, so I helped. But she also found the peartini strong, so our other friend helped with that one, while she ordered this full-sized, chocolate coffee dessert martini. After approximately seven small martinis each, all three of us were feeling very silly and had a great time. Once we got to bed, we all slept very soundly, but felt decent the next morning – no hangovers, thankfully.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tsarenzi]

The next day was our second sea day and formal night. Still feeling the deep slumber of the martinis, we woke up late. We decided to try out Caffe al Baccio for fancy coffees and pastries for a light breakfast, and then we would do lunch in the dining room a bit later, since that is only offered on sea days. There were only a few lunch options, but they were good. We all had mozzarella sticks, and I had a sandwich while my friends had chef’s salads. I don’t think it was really worth the effort of changing any plans to attend, but it worked well enough as a lunch option.

After lunch we decided to play some games. We’d brought our own, and after going up the glass elevators, we saw some suitable looking tables on deck 9. Once we got there to check it out, we discovered that this was the Game On area, which was set up for playing board and card games and such. They provided some traditional games, but the only euro-style game was in Russian, so we were glad we had brought our own. We had been planning on spending some time in the pool and sun bathing with pina coladas, but we were enjoying the low-key game-playing enough we just did that until our event. I think this ended up being the only day of the cruise we didn’t swim at all.

The event following that was the Walk Around the World wine tasting. Suzana had told us about it at dinner and gotten us signed up – she’d been clear she would get bonus points if we went through her for it, in addition to guaranteeing a spot, so we were happy to support her. It was held in Cellar Masters for $20, and it included 12 different wines from 7 different countries. There was a red and white each from California, Italy, Spain, Argentina, France and Australia/New Zealand. The California wines came from a guest vintner who was there, and ended up being our favorites, and the rest were selections from Celebrity’s cellars. We had papers with listings of what we tried and places for notes, and there was a big table of cheese and breadsticks, with plenty of options for water and dumping excess wines. As someone who prefers sweet whites, nothing was geared towards my palate and I gained no new favorites, but I still had a lot of fun. It was a good deal compared to buying wines in the dining room, and we may have had enough to be a bit tipsy by the end, even with ample cheese.

Following the hour-long event, we went back to our room to get ready for our evening chic night dinner. We had all bought matching, Greek-goddess style dresses on the islands (Mykonos and then Rhodes) and we decided to all wear them for dinner together. It was fun, and I think it amused our servers as well. Franco was very accommodating in getting those of us who wanted them each a lobster tail on the side of our prime ribs without having to deal with the whole second entrée. Everything was excellent, and we were quite full at the end. We were passing through the Strait of Messina right as dinner was finishing and the sun was setting, so we went up on deck to take pictures and enjoy the views.

After that the show was another cast production, Euphoria, this time more focused on the specialty acts. There was no pretense of story for this one, but it was still very interesting to watch, with aerialists, dancers, crazy costumes, inflatable giant puppets. It was sexier than we expected it to be and seemed designed to impress. We definitely enjoyed ourselves. We didn’t get our private late-night dip in the solarium hot tubs, as they were hosting a silent disco in the solarium. My friends decided to attend this briefly, while I went back to the room to laze around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tsarenzi]

The next day was our last on the cruise and we were at port in Naples. We had booked an early excursion to Pompeii, through the cruise ship. I was a little annoyed that we started out in Pompeii at the cameo factory before we’d even gotten to the ruins, but I had to admit I was thankful for the free restrooms offered, as there was none anywhere in the ruins.

Once we got into the ruins, our guide Fabio was great. We all had radios with ear pieces to hear everything he said, and I enjoyed the mix of details on how everything fit into grander history and the little signs of how the residents of Pompeii lived – the holes on the sides of the road to tie horses, the pictures to accommodate the illiterate slaves navigating their way around, etc. My friends were highly amused at the brothels and the penis symbols, but I think I managed to not be too obviously there with them, I think. We were walking for more than two hours, and there was definitely a lot of sun, but it wasn’t too uncomfortable with the shadows of buildings and the free water provided by the tour. I was really impressed by some of the beautiful details remaining of Pompeii and how extensive the site was. I don’t think we saw even a large portion of it, but the guided tour definitely helped. I wouldn’t have known what I was looking at, and I think I would have gotten lost and probably missed most of the cool places we saw. I didn’t even notice we were getting higher up as we went, so I was surprised when we ended up a long flight of stairs higher than we started at the end.

We had a little more free time at the end, and Fabio took those of us who were interested by a limoncello factory – like the cameo factory, really more of a showroom, but we were given free tastings, and we had another chance to use the restrooms, though the ones at the limoncello had a fee, so we went across the street to the cameo factory again, and their free restrooms. Both were right outside the entrance to the ruins, so we didn’t have to go far.

After that, we took the bus back to port in Naples, since it was only a half day tour, and we spent the rest of the time exploring ourselves. We started off with a thought to go visit the Castello dell’Ovo, since it closed in about an hour on Sundays, but after a short walk along the waterfront, it seemed like it would be a longer walk than expected, and we diverted our plans to go find some pizza around Piazza del Plebiscito. I had notes with recommended food choices, but when we managed to find the pizza place we were looking for, it was closed. I knew I had checked that everything on my notes was supposed to be open on the days and times we would be there, according to trip advisor, so it was frustrating to find that they had failed me again. I assume reliable hours are not of great importance in the Mediterranean. We decided on Pizza in the Piazza that we had passed on our way, and we enjoyed our pizzas at a great price, 5 Euros for a whole pizza, but the service was a little rough and we had a hard time getting a bottle of water after asking three times.

Our next step was an attempt at the Galleria Borbonnica, a portion of the Naples underground that has an entrance near the Piazza. Once we arrived, we discovered a sign that they would open at 3 pm. With less than an hour to that time, we decided to find some gelato and come back. They opened up again on time and we purchased 3:30 pm tickets for the tour in English. It was a little hot just waiting around, but once we got down to the tour, it was a very comfortable cool. The layers of history were fascinating, seeing the signs of the different times the tunnels had been used, some of the most powerful sights coming from the World War II era, when they were used as bomb shelters. We hadn’t expected that the tour would not end at the same place we started, so we had about a mile further to go at the end. Walking back, however, we liked the nicer portion of Naples that we walked through, and as we passed the Galleria Umberto, my friends were impressed, and they wished we had gone to see that instead of hanging around the Piazza del Plebiscito that they had been less impressed with. Naples was nice, but I don’t think we spent time in the right portions of it to really appreciate it.

When we got back to the docks, we still had enough time to buy some limoncello in the stores at the cruise terminal, which we hadn’t gotten earlier to avoid carting it around all day. Getting back on the ship, they had fruit sticks to offer in addition to the flavored waters and cold towels this time, though I didn’t partake, still enjoying a complimentary lemon candy from the shop with the limoncello.

This was one of the later days we got onboard, and our pizza felt distant, so we got cleaned up for dinner right away and didn’t bother with the sail-away. We had prosecco with dinner as a celebratory final drink, and then Suzana treated us to complimentary champagne at the end after that. We enjoyed lingering over dinner and saying goodbye to our servers, so it was a bit later than intended when we made it back to our rooms. We had planned to pack before the late show, so we could get our bags set outside the room before 10 pm, but as we only had about 10 minutes, we hurriedly just packed up our biggest bags and set them out, planning to deal with the rest later. The last bag was set out perhaps a couple minutes after the first two, and the first ones were already taken by our room attendant when we put the last one out. The show was a comedian who also did music. He was funny, but he didn’t seem terribly pleased with the reactions he was getting, as he kept backtracking and changing his mind on what he was going to do. I had expected his songs to also be comedic, but they ended up being more serious, though I had no complaints with his singing. Following the show, we enjoyed a final late-night hot tubbing round, hanging out there until they started putting netting on the other one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tsarenzi]

Disembarkation morning dawned early. We knew we were supposed to be out of ourrooms by 8, and that is also when breakfast would stop being served. Getting the details was a bit difficult. I’m fairly sure my friend accidentally threw awayour disembarkation procedures flyer, while my friend is fairly sure they didn’tgive us one along with our baggage tags. We were able to call the front desk for details after watching half anhour of ads on channel 1 without the expected video on procedures coming up atall. We finished our packing, left our bagsin the room, and went for one last breakfast in the dining room. At the end, they seemed to have forgottenus. They were filling people in acrossthe room as they came in, and I think we were one of the last ones to be put inour section, so after the initial service, there was no one left checking on us. My friend was able to flag down Franco to gether some coffee, even though he wasn’t our waiter, at least.

After breakfast, we grabbed our bags from the room, did afinal check for stow-away items, and went to hang out in the Hideaway until wewere ready to leave. Our ride wasexpected at 9, so even though our luggage group was announced soon after 8, wewaited until 8:30 to go. However, this wholeprocess took about 5 minutes. We scannedour sea passes, we found our bags sitting by the sign with their number, withmaybe 20 other bags, and we were out and ready to go. After waiting a bit outside and doing acouple of checks for our driver, I managed to connect to spotty cruise terminalwifi, where I found an email from our hotel that their driver had had cartrouble and would not be able to pick us up; we should take a taxi instead. There was a group of about five taxis, andtheir drivers were all standing around chatting. They offered that they could take us for 50Euros a piece if we were willing to share with others who were also going toRome, or we could have our own taxi for 250. We had planned to pay our hotel’s driver 150, so we agreed to share, andhe said we would just wait 5 minutes for others to show up and then we wouldgo. However, no others showed up. After about 20 minutes, we checked in on it,and again the driver assured us 5 minutes, but we had to wait still for others,or we would have to pay 200 for our own taxi right now – the price seemed tofluctuate. Finally, another group wasfound whose transfer hadn’t shown up, and the lady agreed to share a taxi to Rome. However, once her husband and friends showedup, it turned out he thought the sharing a taxi was sharing with just theirfriends, and he was having none of going with seven people, so that fellthrough. Impatient through all of this,my friend had managed to wheedle one of the other taxi drivers down to 180Euros to go immediately and was threatening to take that option, so the sharedtaxi agreed to that option instead, and we finally set off on our way, just thethree of us, only an hour later and 30 Euros poorer than expected.

 

 

[tsarenzi]

In Rome, I won’t go into as much detail, as it wasn’t part of the cruise. We stayed at the Pantheon Inn, which was centrally located around the corner from the Pantheon. The location was great, the building was historic and felt very European, and the price was decent when I booked it in February. It was $160 a night with wifi and breakfast included for a room that accommodated three. The beds were not the most comfortable, but the staff was very helpful, and we had no issues besides that initial transfer. We had lunch near the Pantheon, and then walked to the Colosseum, where I had purchased advance open tickets, for any time after 2 pm, any day. Indeed, we had barely any line to worry about, security went quickly, and we were able to enjoy ourselves despite the crowds, using a Rick Steves audio tour on my phone. We had a light dinner at a place the hotel recommended, a charcuterie tray and a bottle of wine. Every day we were there, we managed to find an afternoon gelato snack, and a post-dinner gelato dessert. The next morning, we took a taxi, called online by our hotel, to the Vatican museums, where again I had pre-purchased tickets, this time for 10:30 am, so we didn’t have to wait in the line, which saved us a lot of time. Some of the museums were very crowded, while others were not bad. We enjoyed seeing everything, but we were exhausted by the time we got to the Sistine Chapel, which was full of people, shoulder to shoulder. From there, we followed the tour groups through their special door into the basilica, and no one batted an eye or checked that we were with a tour at all. My friend who had worn a light jacket to cover her shoulders felt a little vindicated when someone was finally stopped for dresscode going into the basilica. I think we were tired enough to not appreciate the basilica as much as we might have, but when we got out and saw the line, we were very glad we had done it when we had. Pastasciutto was a recommended restaurant nearby it – fast food pasta with not enough places to sit, but it was excellent, very affordable fresh pasta. From there, we took a taxi to the forum, where we did another Rick Steves audio guide, at a bit slower pace. I think every taxi we took in Rome ended up being exactly 12 Euros. Back near our hotel, we did dinner at Alfredo alla Scrofa, allegedly the site of the original fettucine alfredo. The alfredo was delicious, so delicate, and they made it right at our table, mixing butter and cheese into the pasta. We wandered to Trevi fountain, which was crowded even this late, after dark. Our after-dinner gelato this night was a recommended one, Giolitti, and it was impressive. We ended up going back again the next day for more. The next day, we had had enough ruins and museums, and we decided to go to the Villa Borghese Gardens instead and enjoy the park there. We took a taxi there, rented a four-person riscio bike-thing for an hour, took a turn around the pond on a boat, and ate lunch at one of the cafes. We walked back ourselves, stopping at the Spanish steps on the way. I wasn’t very impressed by them, and probably would have been just as happy to skip them, but at least they were on the way. We discovered that the other restaurant recommendation I had was closed on Wednedays, so we went to Tre Amici, as suggested by our hotel. It was a bit less fancy than expected, but the food was good, and we had a nice sweet red wine called Rondinella, apparently the only sweet wine they had.

The next morning, our hotel came through on the transfer this time, and we had no issues getting to the airport. One friend did have issues with her carry-on bags. Our first flight was operated by KLM instead of Delta, and apparently, they are pickier about weights of carry-ons. They weighed both of her carry-ons together and made her check one, even though she was within the size restrictions. At least they didn’t charge her extra to check it. The other friend seemed like she would have to as well, but she glared down the attendant enough they let her take her rolling suitcase with her as well, after ensuring it fit in the size checker. Having packed lighter than either of them, bringing only a carry on and a backpack the first time, I had no issues after checking it this time (to fill it with wine and liquor). However, it was over the weight limits for carry-ons when I weighed it for checking, so I would have had issues as well, had I not already decided to do that. Everything went very smoothly getting back, but it was a long day of flying, and I still don’t think I am properly back on Pacific time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tsarenzi]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tsarenzi]

Okay! I think that's everything I have written up. Please feel free to let me know if there's anything else that would be helpful.

[Traveller94]

Thanks so much for your review. It was really informative and a fun read!

[tompeter]

Thanks for sharing!

[tsarenzi]

You're both welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[Taylor D]

Nice review we did the same cruise on July 20th so it brought back nice memories. It was hot and crowded but it was the only time we could get away but i would do it again anytime we loved every port and loved Celebrity.

[cruise kitty]

Thanks for your review & lovely photos :)