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Day Eight – At Sea

Friday, August 15th, 2008

At sea today so everywhere is packed. The ship is doing about 20mph so it was a bit windy doing our walk a mile this morning!

We went to the towel folding demonstration this morning which was very good.. We even got an instruction book on how to make them at home which should keep cathy busy :). After that was a napkin folding class which was pretty silly. The guy was doing stupid folds rather than anything you’d actually use. We also used our free spin voucher in the casino and I won extra big!! Won an extra big t-shirt with ‘jackpot winner’ written on it anyway 🙂

Lunch was at Johnny Rockets. Apparently it’s the ‘original’ burger place from the states and it’s like a 50s American diner at the back of the ship. Normally there is a charge to eat there, but we had a free voucher. We had onion rings, fries, big burgers with bacon, stawberry shakes and a chocoloate sundae.. A nice light lunch! It’s very very windy outside, even with the extra burger weight cathy almost got blown overboard.

The afternoon was wine tasting and snooze time. Water is getting pretty choppy and the ship is rocking all over the shop. Packing was funny to do while staggering all over the cabin; they’ve actually closed most of the outside bits now because it’s so wobbly and windy. We played another game of air hockey, which cathy won, but unfortunately, due to the wind conditions, official regulations say it doesn’t count 🙂

We’ve booked an excursion round barca tomorrow to kill some time. It takes us round the sites, including the nou camp which I want to see, then drops us at the airport about 1pm.. It’s costing about 10quid more each than a straight taxi would cost, which is pretty good.

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Day Seven – Scicily

Thursday, August 14th, 2008

Up early this morning for the walk a mile but the guy didn’t turn up for our ship shape dollars so that was a waste of time! Hottest day so far and very sticky, couldn’t even sit on the pool deck for more that 30minutes or so.

Palermo is, unfortunately, another built up industrial port. We took a wander into the city and found one or two nice buildings to look at but most of it is ugly with lots of people badgering you for taxi or horse drawn carriage rides.. There also seems to be dog muck everywhere, but bizzarely hardly any dogs. Once we got off the beaten track (we followed Cathy’s directional instinct) we found a nice bay area with a park. We could see a beach, but it was a few miles walk away. The ship looked quite close from where we were, but it took about 40minutes to get back in the baking heat, so this afternoon was just chilling out and snoozing 🙂

Entered the pub quiz with two of our American friends and scored a pitiful 8 out of 20.. Luckily everyone else was marginally thicker than us and we won! We are now the proud owners of his and hers matching royal Caribbean luggage tags!!!

The show tonight was songs and dances from films, but it was all films from the 1920s so it was a bit boring. We won a few quid in the casino, but put it all straight back in 🙁

When we got back to the room we found some FREE hats.. They will go well with the tags and make us the envy of all our friends!

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Day Six – Pompeii and Vesu.. Vesuiv.. A Big Volcano!

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

You’d have to be pretty mental to go to the med in the height of summer and climb a volcano, but you’d have to be totally stupid to do that and THEN spend the afternoon walking round some ruins in the baking heat with no shade.. So that’s exactly what we did today.

The volcano was good, but hard work. The ground was very loose so it was like walking a few miles up a vertical beach.. Where the beach was inside an oven on gas mark 7! The volcano is still technically active but has been sleeping so unfortunately there was no steam or anything exciting going on, just a honking great crater. On the pictures of the crater, the ‘bushes’ at the bottom are actually 4m high trees. The road on the way up and down was like a roller coaster ride and one guy threw up into a carrier bag on the way down.. Which was lovely.

When we arrived in pompeii we got a ‘free’ scoop of icecream for our lunch.. Expected a bit more for our 120 dollars each. The ruins themselves were amazing, and the guide was good, but it was so hot we were all flagging a bit.. It was a relief to get back to the airconditioned bus!

Both completely knackered so probably an early night tonight. Think I might need to buy some new legs when I get home because these are beyond repair!

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Day Five – Rome..ish

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

Apparently where we are today is the ‘gateway to Rome’. It’s actually a very industrial port that’s 1.5 hours drive from Rome. There doesn’t seem to be anything close by so we are staying on the ship today.

This morning was very active, starting with our morning mile followed by breakfast. We then played ping pong.. But when I say ‘we’ I actually stared out of the window while cathy repeatedly hit the ball into the platic net and chased the rebound across the deck 🙂 Next up was mini golf, which was much closer, with me only winning by 14 shots over 9 holes. We then tried ‘first to 10’ on the basketball court. 30minutes later it was still 2-1! Finally finished 10-7 to me.. Netball ace my arse! We took a wander into the arcade next and cathy spotted the shufflepuck game.. Which she never loses at.. Until today! Obviously I was very modest in defeat and cathy was an excellent loser :). She wants a rematch, but I am not sure we will have time 🙂

The afternoon was spent in and around the pool and snoozing.. It’s a hard life 🙂

Tonight was the ice show on the onboard skating rink, which was brilliant, but unfortunately nobody fell over 🙁

Later in there’s a wine event going on, if we can stay awake long enough.. And tomorrow it’s climbing a volcano and visiting pompeii!

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Day Four – Pisa

Monday, August 11th, 2008

Mmmm.. Pizzaaa…

Early start today for the morning trip to Pisa. The port we were in was incredibly ugly so there wasn’t much to see on the 30 minute drive there.. Other than a huuuuge American army base. Apparently Pisa used to be on the coast but they diverted so much water away its now 30minutes inland. Parked up about 15 minutes walk from the main Pisa square, we were warned by the tour guide about gypsies in pisa, and there were people trying to sell knock offs, but a simple no and they left us alone.

The main square in Pisa was just breath taking. Ranks alongside Venice as a place that is exactly how you’d hope it to be. It was too sunny to see the camera screen, so I have no idea what I was taking photos of. The guide was very good and explained a lot about the main buildings and the history of the place, then took us to the tower for our organized walk to the very very top!

They only allow 30 people at a time into the tower because it’s a bit of a squeeze! You walk around the inside initially, but because on one side of the tower it’s tilting to you left, and on the other your right it feels like the tower is swaying as you walk! The first section was fine, ending up at the bells in the tower, then it was walking round the edge of the tower on the outside, followed by a spiral staircase that was a foot wide up to the very top. It wasn’t actually that high, but hearing about how close it was to collapse a few years ago and your mind telling you it’s swaying made it a bit scary!

Spent the afternoon round the pool and napping. Had a terribly serious conversation about politics over dinner followed by a ‘welcome back party’ for return cruisers with free crap booze and a truly terrible band! Apparenly the new oasis of the seas launches next week almost twice the size of this boat and if it docked next to the statue of liberty it would need two statues to reach it’s top deck!

The show tonight was a magic act, and it was something you’d expect to see ok Blackpool prom. The main guy seemed to be more interested in posing than performing.. It was pretty cringeworthy.

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Day Three – Monte Carlo

Sunday, August 10th, 2008

Started the day with a light breakfast on the balcony which consisted of bacon, sausage, scambled egg, hash browns, tomato, fruit, yoghurt, cereal and a selection of pastries, all washed down with juice and coffee. We easily burnt all those calories off by walking the daily mile for our ship shape dollars 🙂

Spent the morning round the pool then jumper on a tender to head off on our tour of monte carlo. The drive there along the French riveria was very nice, even with the guide babbling nonsenese the whole way. The casino itself was disappointment, wasn’t half as grand as we expected. It might impress the yanks, but we have more impressive buildings on our doorsteps. The guide was completely hopeless, she spoke so quietly nobody could hear her and was only 5foot10, even with her ‘follow me’ board so you couldn’t see her either! She actually managed to lose a set of people on the 5 minute walk to the casino, which is quite impressive! The area round the casino had so many high rise concrete buildings that, if it wasn’t for all the ferraris, you’d think you were in benidorm! 2nd stop was the palace, which was nicer, but we didn’t have much energy left at that point. Trip overran so we were 30 mins late for the first formal dinner, even after rushing. Our American diners actually spoke tonight though which is good! The dining staff sang us a happy anniversary song and gave us a little anniversary cake, which I would have included a picture of, but half of it mysteriously vanished before I could find the camera.

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Day Two – The Ship!

Saturday, August 9th, 2008

LET THE EATING COMMENCE!

Found where the ship was without any problems, too far to walk though so the nice man in the hotel organized a taxi for us. The port was chaos, hardly any staff around and nobody seemed to know where to go.. Once we had got inside the queue for normal checkin was actually shorter than the express checkin queue 🙂

Cathy was very restrained in her first visit to the WindJammer, she kept it to salad, sandwiches, pork ragu, pizza, burger and a corn on the cob.. We then washed it down with a BBC cocktail in the bar 🙂

The ship is miles bigger than the other one, I think I might need to get cathy an ‘if found please return to’ badge for when she gets lost.. Just need to decide where to get her returned to :-). Our original dining table was stuck in a corner but they’ve managed to move us to a nicer table and sorted out our Gold membership.. finally!

Dinner was fantastic, as ever, and they now do a wine plan so you save money if you buy lots of wine.. Be rude not to! We are sitting on a table with 4 very quiet Americans, not a huge amount of conversation so far!

Some of the staff did a bizarre show on the shopping promenade in wierd costumes with huge heads! Main show tonight was hilarious, guy called Neal Austin who was half Paul daniels half lee Evans.

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Day One – Barcelona

Saturday, August 9th, 2008

Flight was delayed by 30 minutes so unfortunately had to get another wine in the VIP lounge!

Flight was good, taxi driver from the airport didn’t speak a word of English and was either saying our hotel was very expensive, very crap, or very seedy as we drove through one of the more colourful areas of barcelona with sex shops and ‘caberets’ on every corner!

Hotel is very nice, just off the main road. Went out for something to eat and had a horible meal with a ‘small’ sangrua that cost us a small fortune. Almost got away with paying next to nothing though because cathy left Croatia money worth about 50p rather than euros.. The waiter chased us down the street!!

Tomorrow.. The boat.. Hopefully!!