Live Blog: Reflection, Italy, Croatia and Montenegro. September 16-September 26.

[calicakes]

4 hours ago, MR_T said:

I think we made an enquiry at one point but it just didn’t work out this time, I’m sure we will bump into on the cruise though 🍸😎

We'll be @ Sunset bar at sailaway. 

[countess5]

2 minutes ago, calicakes said:

We'll be @ Sunset bar at sailaway. 

Is there any other place to be! 😂

 

[calicakes]

Here is a link to the last VLOG I did on Equinox  in September 2019.   This was our last cruise before the world shut down.   

 

[Redking]

14 hours ago, chemmo said:

Thank you. A few health issues at present. We have moved our cruise to a similar one next year and have a Caribbean one to look forward to in March so we hope to be back on board soon. Makes enjoying reading the live blogs of others even more pleasurable!

I'm so sorry to hear that, hope things are on the up very soon. Having cruises to look forward to and sharing with others is almost as good as being there.

[Lastdance]

Enjoy everything about your cruise with your glass half-full.  We loved  Montenegro and Croatia.  The zig-zag in Montenegro had so many different photo opps and our driver was fantastic.  Croatia is such a beautiful country, not to mention all the water in those areas is just so clear and welcoming.  We are returning next spring, as our first trip left us wanting more of these beautiful places.  We are traveling soon after you to celebrate our anniversary/birthdays too.  Being dog lovers, we think standard poodles are smarter than a lot of humans, although we had a Bichon that left us a little less than a year ago, so now we love everyone elses' dogs.  Your photos are adorable!

 

Congratulations on your retirement, Julie, so breathe...you've earned it many times over and over again!  Thanks for sharing your trip with those of us who are on land, but need some exciting reading material and photos, so that we can live vicariously through your adventure on th high seas.  Welcome to your new life of travel, excitement and dreams that really do come true!

Edited September 8, 2022 by Lastdance

[calicakes]

I know its not required for the cruise, however, Julie and I went yesterday and had the new Covid booster( the one with omicron).  This makes 5 shots for each of us.  My last booster was in March 2022.  We had ZERO side effects ( except a sore arm)from the vaccine yesterday. 

[calicakes]

21 hours ago, Lastdance said:

Congratulations on your retirement, Julie, so breathe...you've earned it many times over and over again!  Thanks for sharing your trip with those of us who are on land, but need some exciting reading material and photos, so that we can live vicariously through your adventure on th high seas.  Welcome to your new life of travel, excitement and dreams that really do come true

Thanks so much.  Its been a stressful couple of years with the defund the police agenda. 

[calicakes]

All packed and on the way to LAX Hilton. Stopping for dinner @ The Point in El Segundo before we park the car at lot.  I always use cheap airport parking. Org to find a good rate. 

[countess5]

Love the luggage! So much and yet so good.

We have to fly first class now because of luggage weight!  All good and I never want for anything wile cruising…… so here no complaints!

 

Cheers! 

[calicakes]

4 minutes ago, countess5 said:

Love the luggage! So much and yet so good.

We have to fly first class now because of luggage weight!  All good and I never want for anything wile cruising…… so here no complaints!

 

Cheers! 

Lol.  I will never be a person who can cruise with just a carry on or a backpack. We would normally have one large and 1 carryon per person, but since we're going business class we took 1 extra suitcase  with us.  It's going to be fun for Julie carrying all those suitcases up the one flight of stairs at the airbnb.

[calicakes]

Its 7pm and we're winding down.....  We shared a chicken/mozzarella panini at True Food Kitchen( it was just ok). We walked into Warby Parker and tried on some glasses. LOL.  We're so exciting!!

 

  We went to Shake Shack afterwards for a frozen custard.  Julie is from Wisconsin originally, gotta have her custard.  We also picked up one donut from Randy's donuts.  They had a satellite location right next to Shake Shack.   We checked into the Hilton.  The room they gave us was so hot.  The A/C was on, however the room was not cooling off.  We had to change rooms, I'm glad we didn't start to unpack.  They moved us to a higher floor.  We have multiple alarms set for 3:35am.  We missed a flight one time, now we like to be extra early.  We can hang out in the AA lounge before our 7am flight to JFK, then on to Rome.  We should arrive in Rome at 7am on Tuesday.  We didn't want to fly out on September 11th.  Julie is wearing her 9/11 Tribute Shirt.  

[irvington]

Congratulations and looking forward to following this. 
 

I love Rome. So many amazing things to see. 
 

being on the West Coast, I know it has been a very hard time to be a police officer. 

Edited September 12, 2022 by irvington

[swigso]

We arrived in Rome yesterday evening, the weather is very nice.

looking forward to a relaxing time. We are taking a train to Florence

on Wednesday and will likely take the Test there.

[calicakes]

We arrived this morning. Flights were all on time. Luggage took almost an hour to arrive. I'm glad we got it all. We had a 3.5 hr nap, then had a colleseum tour at 3pm. Currently waiting for a table at Ai tre scalini.

[sbt518]

Happy Anniversary! And Congrats to Julie on her retirement!

I hope you have a great trip.

 

One tip I have for buying oils and other consumables is to save any plastic bags you get from your souvenir purchases and double or triple wrap the bottles.  I even sometimes bring those giant zip loc bags from home but you've already left so that isn't super helpful for this trip.

[calicakes]

11 hours ago, sbt518 said:

Happy Anniversary! And Congrats to Julie on her retirement!

I hope you have a great trip.

 

One tip I have for buying oils and other consumables is to save any plastic bags you get from your souvenir purchases and double or triple wrap the bottles.  I even sometimes bring those giant zip loc bags from home but you've already left so that isn't super helpful for this trip.

Thank you, we packed our clothes in compression plastic bags.  They are like giant zip lock bags.   

[calicakes]

Here is a quick recap of the last couple of days.  

 

Jet lag is real.  We had a 9am Electric bike tour booked on Wednesday.  We overslept!! At home, the Poodles wake us up at 6:15 every morning for their park visit. With out them as our alarm clock, we slept until 8:30.  I knew we(me) couldn't get ready in time for the tour.  They would not let us reschedule.  130 bucks down the drain.  

 

Plan B.  We decided to jump on the Hop on, Hop off bus by the Coliseum.  I bought the tix online, we walked down and then spent 15 min trying to figure out where the bus picked up.  Once we figured that out, the first bus was full, we were able to get on the 2nd bus.  We went 2 stops and got off at the Trevi fountain stop.  We had a mediocre lunch and then walked to the fountain and Spanish Steps.    At this point, I was getting stressed about the covid tests we had to take before our food walking tour.  I was not going to wait for this bus again to make the entire loop around.  There goes another 57 bucks down the toilet.  We were on the bus for a total of maybe 20 minutes. LOL. 

 

  We jumped in a taxi and went back to the Airbnb.  I took my Emed test, Julie could not find her log in/password for her account.  We had taken tests back in February for another cruise.  Julie tried to recover her account, but she never received an email.  She ended up making an entire new email to re-register.  It was a total Sh*t show with me getting very stressed out.  Thankfully, we were both Negative. Let's hope we stay that way with the no social distancing here in the city.  

 

I thought our food tour started at 6, but nope, we had to be there at 5pm.  We took a taxi to the meeting spot.  The food tour of Trastevere was fun and informative and we tried a lot of different food items.  I've learned I do not like my pasta Al dente!!    The tour went until 9pm and we came back to the room and went to sleep.  

 

This morning we( along with 7 million other people) did the Vatican/Museum tour. 

 

We arrived early and I made the mistake of going into the cafe right across the street.  I wanted to buy a pastry since we were very early for our tour.  I chose a pastry and the woman rang me up for 3.00.  She then said 5.00.  I originally handed her a 5 euro bill when I saw 3.00.  I said " Its 3" and she said " No, 5.  I said " I don't want it'.  An employee came over and said " Maybe you can return food in your country, but not in Italy".  I began to argue with him, that he is trying to rip me off, etc, etc.  I feel so dumb for getting ripped off.  I looked at the reviews on Yelp after and everyone said the same thing.  Don't go there, they rip people off.  How is this even legal?  I was really upset and took it personally.  The one thing I hate more than anything is getting effed over.   I dumped that gross, stale pastry into the trash.  Uggggg, DONT GO THERE. 

 

 

 

We plan to spend the rest of the day, window shopping in our neighborhood.  I'm on the hunt for a particular item that has alluded me thus far.  

 

Edited September 15, 2022 by calicakes

[J18ktleo]

Calicakes,

Thanks for posting.

We're headed to Rome next week, 4 days in the city then board Reflection on the 26th so please leave us some great wines!

We're also doing a walking food tour of Trastavere, looking forward to that. 

All our tours are private and we did book an early 'before it opens' tour of the Vatican, hopefully we can escape the crowds!

Enjoy and will be looking forward to your updates!

[LATTELOVE]

 

Congratulations to you both on your

wedding anniversary and Julie's retirement.

How exciting!  Happy for you both.

 

Looking forward to following.  

[LATTELOVE]

Loved the picture of the doughnuts.

They look amazing.

I'll take one of each please!!!

[Jim_Iain]

Randi -  So happy to see you have fired up your Live Post.   First up -  Thank you to Julie for her service to all of us and Congratulations to her upcoming retirement.    I hope your retirement is close behind so you can do more cruising.

 

I'll definitely be following along and look forward to all your fun times.

[Jim_Iain]

On 9/9/2022 at 12:54 PM, calicakes said:

I know its not required for the cruise, however, Julie and I went yesterday and had the new Covid booster( the one with omicron).  This makes 5 shots for each of us.  My last booster was in March 2022.  We had ZERO side effects ( except a sore arm)from the vaccine yesterday. 

 

Glad to hear you got the new Covid shot I think it will be more effective than the old one.  We are getting ours next Tuesday and the flu at the same time.

[dritan]

HI - just wanted to say that I will be enjoying your blog here but am sorry that the start of your trip in Rome has been a "bit of a mixed bag".  Having a bad culinary experience near the Vatican is really a badge of  honour 😉  On my first visit, my pasta dish was presented still in its microwave cardboard container lol.

 

I'm sure it is a relief to get the test out of the way.  Waiting with baited breath to see if they change the rules again before I need to do the same in Sorrento next month. 

 

Hope you have some fun things planned in Rome before getting on the ship. 

[chemmo]

Thoroughly enjoying reading along!
 

We have the opposite time issue each time we fly to the US to tour. We call it reverse jet lag…We manage first night to slot into US time and stay up to at least 10pm but then next morning we are wide awake at 4am! No fooling our body clock. We manage the morning but then are on our knees by 3/4pm…Totally understand the plans you made and the second strategy of the Hop on bus…Sometimes in hindsight you realise you would have been better if you had given in gracefully and simply sipped a coffee or two…
 

Food right next to major sights is frequently both disappointing and ridiculously expensive. Surprisingly just a street or two away there is usually a gem of a cafe/restaurant at a decent price. Asking someone in a shop or at your b&b where the locals eat can often be a good strategy.

 

Looking forward to your next report!

[calicakes]

We've arrived. Check in was smooth.  We went to a muster station, our boarding pass was scanned. We went to our room, our sea passes were there. Now we are going to find something to eat.