Today we needed to travel about 1 1/2 hours to the port city of Civitavecchia.
The easiest way would be to hire a driver to pick us up at the hotel or even get a taxi to take us there.
I shot down both of those options. I think it is part of the adventure to take the trains in Europe. Of course to get to the train we first need to take the subway.
Charlene agreed with my plan and we headed out with our luggage for the cruise.
This is one of my favorite pictures of Char on the trip.
It didnt take long for Char to start disagreeing with my adventure way of getting around. She was carrying 2 times the weight in her suitcase and backpack. I could see why she was struggling.
Anyway, we made it through the subway no problems and onto the train station.
We had a little confusion there only because the machine would not accept our trip. We figured out that train was full.
A woman asked us if we needed help and Char said NO! This lady followed us all the way to the very last train on the platform and it was a very long way. We would try to lose her and she would catch back up. She tried to help Char with her luggage and Char was ready to hit this lady if she would not leave her alone. It was unbelievable! She would not stop. Char was yelling at her: NO NO NO!!!!
I was already on the train and sitting back to watch this show.
I was laughing so hard because this lady did not have a chance up against my sister. Everyone was laughing around me. I guess you had to be there but it was just comical. The lady finally gave my sister the crazy loco sign and Char said : Thats right lady, I am crazy and you dont want to mess with me. Hysterical!!! Like I said, no one else beside our gladiator guy was going to rip us off!
So here we are on our way on a train with NO air conditioning.
I really think Char was going to kill me and no more decisions made by me.
I was loving her free entertainment she was giving me.
We met a cool family from Argentina traveling with their 3 kids. They did a capital tour of the major countries. It was a cool experience talking with the Mom whom spoke English. Interestingly enough, the family had never been to the United States. I guess I just assume that everyone has been to the U.S.
The savvy travelers that we are, we made it with no other fights, did get some more entertainment from a drunk guy on the train though.
Now we had to walk a few more blocks to get to the ship.
The ship was enormous!!! I could not believe how big it was. I didnt take pictures until later in the week of the ship. Embarkation was so easy. We were on the ship in no time and our luggage was at our cabin!
This was our room for the next 7 days
Little baby tug boat to help very large ship get on her way.
Leaving Civitavecchia
out to sea!
sailing in the Mediterranean
We went to lunch at our first buffet of the week.
Not too bad as the salad bar was pretty good.
Then onto the upper deck for a sail away party and some much needed relaxation.
There was live music but not the Caribbean type that I would be use to.
This was all Italian. It took us a few more hours before we started to figure out just how Italian this ship was.
2 very happy girls
This is the track that I can say I never ran on once!
I guess that should have made me sad but just too much fun to even care.
This was the adult only pool and weird enough we never went to that one.
After an incredible late afternoon nap, we went back to our cabin.
This was the view from our balcony.
Enjoying a nice dinner in a beautiful dinning room.
I wasnt a fan of the food that night but I really enjoyed my Diet Coke!
An art structure at one end of the promenade.
The inside of the ship had a 12 story promenade. It looked like a mall with an art gallery, stores, restaurants, bars.
I could not believe how big it was. Just totally blew me away.
My pictures inside dont turn out very well because I just dont know how to use the lighting on my camera.
After dinner, we went to a variety show in this huge theatre.
We had already fell in love with our cruise director Simona.
She was from Naples and spoke 11 languages fluently.
She would speak in English and then interpret everything in Italian.
She spoke sooooo fast and clear that we were just amazed at her. It wasnt just this night that she did this but every single day for the entire cruise.
We are not sure when this girl ever slept. She was in charge of everything. Besides the captain, the crew jokes that she is 2nd in charge!
She was amazing.
We were told the stats of the ship that night.
There were 3,500 passengers, 1,500 crew. 61 nations represented, only 268 total from the United States. most represented of course, the Italians.
Dont know why this shocked me so much. We were in Italy but I just thought that most passengers would be from the U.S. I was very wrong and Char and I were certainly a minority.
There was a ballroom dance couple, Royal Caribbean singers and Dancers, a contortionist (could have gone without seeing her mangle her body into all kinds of positions) and a bubble art guy. Char and I really wanted to get up and leave when this guy came out. His performance was quite painful but glad to say that he was the only entertainment that was horrible on the ship for the entire week.
It was getting late. Shows dont start until 11:15.
We took a stroll through the casino to just check it out.
We were going to play one game but this was the only place that took money on the whole ship and of course we only had Euros with us. The casino only took U.S. dollars.
It was time for us to go to sleep anyway.
Such a fun first day!
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