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Going LIVE on Nieuw Statendam roundtrip Rome ⛲🛵Oct 26-Nov 9: Planes Trains Vespas & Ships w/GOT!!

Haljo1935

By Haljo1935,
in Holland America Line

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Haljo1935 "Live from...." Rare

Haljo1935

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LauraS
This post was recognized by LauraS!

"And another from Haljo1935! Thank you for generously sharing your time at sea with everyone at Cruise Critic! Please consider submitting it to the site for publication as well: Click: Write a Review"

Haljo1935 was awarded the badge '"Live from...."' and 5 points.

🤭Here we go again - this time round trip from Rome (Civitavecchia) and you're invited! Pack a bag 🧳(or actually not) and let's see the classics plus whatever looks exciting and interesting. 🥴

Let me give a little backstory - I had been on a Mediterranean cruise (not HAL) a few years ago w/my sister to celebrate a milestone birthday of hers. We got a really really good deal, booked our first ever B2B, bought plane tickets and headed off to Europe. First week was great but exhausting, so I guess we were doing it right.🫣 We were among the first off ship and last back on every day - port times were longer then and we were in port 7 or 8 am until 8 pm (approx); we were determined to squeeze every possible moment out of every day. Oh, did I mention this was in June? So, those long days were 🔥 hot days w/summer crowds, ugh😞

Between week 1 and week 2, we received word of a family emergency that completely shifted our focus. We finished out the itinerary as planned as we were not able to secure flights that would get us home any sooner. I know we went on excursions the 2nd week and were still off ship all day, but I don’t really remember what we did. This itinerary was round trip Athens followed by Athens to Barcelona. I remember doing a HOHO in Athens on Turnaround Day and remember going to Familia Sagrada in Barcelona before heading to the airport; other than that, week 2 is a blur.

So, DH and I booked a Med cruise - we were so thrilled to go make some good memories. Covid had other plans. We pushed it out and Covid again had other plans. So now we find ourselves with an 11 day cruise preceded by 3 days in Rome during the fall. Except for 1 port, we have excursions planned for the cruise ports and 2 of the Rome days. This has become an anniversary trip - we are going to have an awesome time!!

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Haljo1935 "Live from...." Rare

Haljo1935

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Here's what we've accomplished, where we're at and what we still need to do.

Accomplished: Odds & ends ordered - charger for Italy, extra wine sleeves (for bringing home yummy wines & oils we're sure to find along our journey), trail mix, socks (who knew we needed socks?), extra tips for the walking sticks, travel pillow & eye masks, bottle sleeves (time to retire the baggies), fur baby food...well turns out we needed lots of things. Started LIVE review 😉.  Created OOO template to go live Wed mid-morning.

Now: Packing, confirming reservations, updating the spreadsheet (I've become that person - so many details I put it on a spreadsheet), laundry followed by more packing, refilling Rx followed by more packing, receiving all the stuff that's been ordered followed by yep more packing.

Still to do: Car 🚗 inspections (they expire while we're gone), order the fur baby food we forgot to order along w/other forgotten items, replace porch light, pack the Travelon, swap out passport holders,  locate DH earbuds...all fun stuff.🙄 find out where the other GO pre-paid card is - only 1 arrived, pre-pay ship internet package (if I miss that, I won't be able to work and this LIVE will be woefully short!!), visit Massage Envy. This section keeps growing...

BONUS - Sneak Peak at What's Planned: In Rome, we have tickets for the Colosseum Underground and that full tour, HOHO and a flex day; hoping to go to Trastevere while bopping around on Vespas on the flex day. During the cruise we'll be doing a combination of ship & independent excursions - 2 ports still not finalized- Bari and possibly Split. If we end up in Olympia, we're set w/tickets, but if it turns out to be Split, we'll wing it so we'll all be surprised together🫣 We're driving 4x4s in Corfu, doing GOT tour in Dubrovnik and Godfather tour in Sicily, tasting wine in Albania and...lots of good stuff 👏  If we end up in Split, it will probably be another GOT day as DH is such a fan and there are many options for him there.

Apparently some of the misc things have arrived, so I'm off to the door and suitcase - more later!

And thanks for being here😊

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Haljo1935 "Live from...." Rare

Haljo1935

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1 hour ago, Cruising-along said:

I look forward to tagging along!  My favorite ship and my favorite cruise destination -- enjoy!!

(oh, I'm a spreadsheet gal too) 😅

Well I'm in good company in the SSG club. If there's a secret knock, I don’t know about it, so I may miss some meetings  lol 😆 

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