May 31

I am having major problems getting things posted. I'm not sure when I will be able to catch up. Hopefully in the next day or two. However, in the meantime all is going well.

May 26/27

May 26 at Cobh (which is pronounced "cove"), Ireland which is the port on River Lee for Cork. The weather was lightly overcast and the temperature at 10:15 a.m. was about 54F. Everyone comments on how unseasonably cold it is for late May. I can only agree with them.

I had a half-day tour this afternoon to Cork and Blarney. No, I did not go up to Blarney Castle to kiss the rock. Didn't feel I needed it, and wasn't thrilled by either the back-killer position required to reach the thing, or the thought of all the germs that stone probably harbors. I was supposed to tour on a bus, but wound up in a handicapped accessible van with just two other people plus the guide and the driver. This was fine as we were small enough to take the  back country roads which were lined with furze, aka gorse, in full bloom as you see here. Our guide was most informative about the history, language and differences between Ireland and England, i.e. a truly dedicated Celt of the Irish persuasion.

The main stop was a tourist shopping center called Woollen Mills. There were several stores, pubs, a restaurant, etc. The three of us passengers passed on the free Irish Coffee at a pub. The older lady wanted to shop, so her son was obliged to go with her. Most readers of these accounts know by now that I am not into coffee-flavored anything, so we three went with a whole 90 minutes to do our separate things.

The main store was three floors of everything Irish. Gorgeous woven wools. More gorgeous Irish knit sweaters of every style, gloves, scarves, hats, you name it. For Megan who asked me to look, and all my other knitting friends, there was plenty of great wool in skeins. Yes, they do ship, and I'm pretty sure they have a website. Then there was a wide selection of Celtic jewelry, and every shape and kind of Waterford crystal (a local product), etc. I was restrained and only bought a pair of Fair Isle socks (which I will probably need if the weather doesn't get seasonal soon), a few postcards, and a dish of superior soft-serve ice cream. I had a sequence of conversations with 3 ladies from Denver, then a couple from Cornwall all on land tours, and finally a couple from British Columbia who are on our ship, all of whom needed a seat while they ate as the restaurant was very crowded.

On the way back, my fancy Polish-made Canon camera that is less than a year old died with its lens partially extended and a message that it would fix itself, but it didn't. I took it to the Photo Shop on board, and they say all I can do is send it back to Canon to be fixed. What to do for the almost five weeks of cruising that remain? So now I have a new Nikon CoolPix L28 as being the cheapest of the models available on board. Pfui! 

To round out the day, I again rammed one of my toes into the back of my walker hard enough to draw blood for about the hundredth time on this trip. It happens when I get tired and stop paying attention, and especially when traversing cobblestones. I still think I probably at least chipped a toe bone back on Mykonos. Must buy more Band-aids.

Our Turkish table-mates haven't been seen since the first night. This evening we learned that they
moved to a table for four. We guess that they didn't feel comfortable with the language difference. So Ray, Irene and I continue in splendor at our table for seven. After dinner I actually trekked to the far other end of the ship to watch a show in the main theater. It was a British comedian named Kevin Devane who was quite good although I think some of his jokes were lost on most of the Americans in the audience.

May 27. Today we are at Dublin. The weather is somewhat warmer which is appreciated. 

I'm just back from the most hysterically fun tour I think I've ever had! Our tour guide, Renee, should give up her day job and do stand-up in the clubs! She was as staunchly Irish as the guide yesterday, but with a wicked sense of humor and a lightning fast wit. She had the whole bus load laughing from start to finish, except when we were actually in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and even there I thought I heard a titter or two. Every monument or statue we went past had its formal name, e.g. "Molly Malone," and it's other name, e.g. "Tart with a Cart." Or the newest, a tall needle-shaped thing which is formally "The Spire," but she referred to it as "The Stiletto in the Ghetto." That's The Spire in the background with a statue of Daniel O'Connell in the foreground. 

The tour guide companies here in Europe are beginning to use electronics. Judging by several guides' reactions to them, I think they are relatively new.  I don't mean taped lectures, but low power radio where each tourist hangs a little receiver round their neck with a disposable ear bud, and the guide has the transmitter, so she can talk to the whole group in a museum or church or other crowded place without having to shout. 

Dublin architecture is mostly Georgian, and several of the squares are very well preserved. Dublin, at 1.4 million people, has traffic problems like any other city and lots of pedestrians who make a serious hobby out of jaywalking. Renee recommended that we NOT try it. During our "free time" (read "help the Irish economy by shopping") I stayed on the bus and helped Willie, our driver, defend it from hordes of Princess passengers who mistook us for the shuttle bus back to the ship.

May 24 - 25

May 24, cruise two begins. After a night and morning luxuriating, and a lovely room service breakfast splurge at the St. Ermin's Hotel, at 12:15, a bus-load of us are finally headed through the rain and London traffic, albeit slowly, toward Southampton. No photos as it's raining and I'm too far back in the bus for a good shot.

We've just passed where the Horse Guards are usually stationed, but each horse and rider were standing guard in a separate, fancy, little stone shelter, still looking resplendent in their red and gold get-ups. Next was a very wet statue of Lord Nelson presiding over the traffic at Trafalgar Square. There seem to be an unusually large number of red buses clogging the streets. Our driver says that there are always more buses about when it rains. A brief glimpse of St. James Palace, but no Royals living there at the moment. 

Even stopped in traffic (as we are stopped more than moving ahead) the shop windows are so very interesting, and the more up-scale, the more stylish. Of course Harrod's is still there...I haven't been in there in decades, but our driver says you can still get almost anything at all at Harrod's.

Part of the reason for all the extra traffic is the Chelsea Flower Show. We went by it yesterday, and are evidently going by or near it again today. There was a program about it on tv last might. I certainly wouldn't want to go there in this weather! Another factor for bad traffic was the start of the Bank Holiday weekend. Our driver says he's never had it be that bad all the way out of the city. 

Finally, after more than an hour, we got out of London, and reached one of the Motorways which are the equivalent of our Interstate highways. We whizzed along for a while, then made an unscheduled (at least for us passengers) stop at a service plaza because our driver was going to run out of drive time before we get to the dock. There are strict rules about drivers taking breaks, so we had to stop for at least 45 minutes. So at 3:15 we got moving again with, hopefully, only about an hour left to go.

We got to the pier about 4:20. After checking in, we had to wait another 45 minutes in a very drafty, yea, even windy, building at about 48F because the gangway had shifted somehow. Finally we were allowed to move to an unheated but not actually windy space with chairs for another good wait. I got to my cabin about 6:20. Evidently others were even later as we were supposed to sail at 5:00 and didn't get away until after 8:15. Probably the emergency landing at Heathrow this morning that closed one runway for most of the morning delayed flights all day, then add in the weather and the bad traffic on the roads. During dinner we finally slipped away down Southampton Water toward the Isle of Wight.

My table companions this cruise include Ray and Irene who live just outside Southampton and rode the train just two stops to get to the ship. The others are a party of four from Istanbul, but I don't know their names. I would guess they are a couple plus the wife's sister and niece, but am not sure. They do speak some English, but my Turkish is non-existent so I don't how much we'll be able to converse. There do seem to be a lot of Americans on board. Enough for now.

May 25 at St. Peter's Port. Guernsey, Channel Islands. Another photo-less day. Although the sun has been out, the temperature is still in the low 50s, but as one lady on the tender said, "One step at a time."

I had a brief, late morning tour scheduled. I say brief because we were only at Guernsey for a bit over half a day. As it turned out (and I should have remembered), St. Peter's Port is too small for a ship our size, so we were anchored off at a spot that looked to be almost halfway to Sark, and tendered in. I managed to board the tender without too much drama, and got back off it at the dock as well. Then I looked up. This area has very high and low tides, and it was low tide at this point. There was a concrete stairway of between 20 and 30 high, narrow, wet steps with one spindly-looking handrail on the INSIDE rather than between you and the water.  I tried it, but only got about six steps up (with help from some of the shop's crew) when I decided to back out and return to the ship. They told me that in the early morning when we arrived, there were only about 6 or 8 steps showing up to the pier. 

When I visited here in 2000 with Mark, Jeff and Simon, not only was the weather warmer in March, but I saw much more of the island than this tour covered, so I don't feel too bad about missing the tour. I came back, had a sandwich and a couple of hot chocolates, and met some folks from Houston before taking a nice nap (an inside cabin is really great for naps!). It's been a good while since I gained weight on a cruise. If I do gain on this trip, it will be the hot chocolates to blame!

May 22/23

May 22 nearing the dock in Venice about 1:30 p.m. I got great photos of the main part of the city right from my cabin as we sailed in. Interestingly, St. Mark's Square is supposed to flood at high tide tonight. It does that rather regularly these days, so they put out wooden walkways so you won't have to wade. Our guide today said that these occasions are accurately predicted and announced so that the locals can plan accordingly. Climate change anyone? This certainly wasn't happening when I was here 50 years ago!

Hah! The Guest Services people, in the person of one Bruno Dentone billed as Access Officer, have decided to let me use a wheelchair for my tour free of charge. That's fine, and I'm sure it will work okay, but that does not erase the garbage they put me through yesterday.

As it turned out, I had an entourage of about nine people on the tour who all said they wanted the opportunity to "push me around," and I'm not sure they meant in the wheelchair! The main roster of the entourage included George and Chris, Debbie, Megan, Lynne and Dave, plus there were several others of our group on that tour including Carolyn, Rita and Pat.

It was a fine tour by water tour bus. I especially like tours that are different from the usual center-city churches and museums.Our first stop was the island of Murano and its glass factory. We had an interesting presentation about glass working and watched one of their remaining 16 master artists (and no apprentices these days) make a vase and then make a horse statue. Megan got a good video of the horse-making, but I don't know whether or where she will post it. Then we went upstairs to their showrooms and drooled over the spectacular items there like vases, wine glasses and carafes, bowls, statues of all sorts of things, jewelry of glass beads, and chandeliers. There was one of a rainbow of colored long glass teardrops that several of us wished we a) had a place to put it and b) had the money to afford it.

Next our water tour bus took us to the island of Burano with its tradition of lace-making. We went into one place where a woman
demonstrated how they make lace. Each piece begins as a drawing on paper that is stitched to the fabric. Then there are seven separate steps to creating the piece in fine cotton thread, each step done by a different woman. There were shops all along the street with exquisite lace items, as well as shops with less expensive lace items. Several of us settled at a nearby trattoria for beers and sodas before heading back to the water tour bus and the ship. The houses on Burano are all painted really bright colors as you see here.

May 23 was quite a transition! Disembarkation and getting to the Marco Polo Airport was the usual
kind of chaos that ends a cruise. With a wheelchair assist, I was whisked through everything and soon deposited near my departure gate with about two hours to wait. As the area filled up. There appeared a good number of people from NCL Spirit, including Debbie. My British Airways flight was on time, and although parts of it were bouncy, we landed fine at Gatwick. 

It took me a while to find the Princess agent, but once we connected, Robert gave me a nice ride to my hotel in an elegant Mercedes. I am in absolute LOVE with the St. Ermin's Hotel! It is elegance personified! I was given a room on the first floor with a view of the courtyard. The decor and furnishings are right out of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." The bathroom is larger than some bedrooms I've seen, and the whole place is totally handicapped accessible!! What a switch from the cramped bathroom in our cabin on NCL Spirit! I plan to spend my one evening here luxuriating! 

May 20/21

May 20 and we are at Piraeus, Greece which is the port for Athens and is one of the largest passenger ports in Europe. There were at least 4 or 5 ships in today. I had always thought that there was a distance between Piraeus and Athens, but there's not. Together they make a metropolitan area of 4.5 million people with roads and traffic just as crazy as any other large European city plus more motorcycles and overhead trolley wires.

Debbie and I were on the same tour this afternoon. It was essentially another drive-by photo shoot. There was a long stop at the National Archeology Museum, but with one look at the number of steps with no handrail to get into the building, I opted to stay on the bus. Debbie reported that the part the inside she saw was mostly statues with missing arms and/or legs. I did get a glimpse of the Acropolis and one of the Temple of Zeus, and a nice view of the 1896 Olympic Stadium. We finally were let out for free time at a pedestrian mall where most of the people set off to walk to a view of the Acropolis, but Debbie and I landed at the first sidewalk cafe for a cool drink. We sat in the shade (it was 95 F) and chatted with various members of our travel group who happened by and the handsome young man from Kansas City who had shared his table with us. That was much more pleasant than hiking to see a sight that I can find pictures of everywhere. In fact, here is a photo that I did take this afternoon of the Parthenon at night! (It was part of an advertisement on the bus in front of ours.)

After what may well be the best dinner of the cruise (except for the Teppanyaki the other night), a bunch of us took over several tables in the Game Room up on Lido Deck to play games that were totally new to me and/or just sit around to talk, and swap stories of the day's adventures. Several among us actually climbed the Acropolis, slippery marble steps with no handrails notwithstanding. One couple's bus headed out along the coast to Poseidon's Temple had a flat tire which delayed their tour somewhat. One couple went to see the Corinth Canal which the wife had always wanted to visit. We also watched the sun set into the haze comprised of sand blown in from Africa.

May 21 is our second and last day at sea and next to last day of this cruise.

I had another round of discussions with the Shore Excursion people about the tour of the Murano glass factory in Venice. I specifically wanted to know more details about walking distances. I also wanted them to make some arrangement so that five of my friends and I can all get on the same bus/water taxi/tour group/whatever together because some of them have offered to help me with steps, etc. 

I cannot even express how angry I am with this cruise line in general, their home office Shore Excursions staff who write the close-to-fictional tour descriptions, the on board Shore Excursion staff who have proved ineffectual, the Shore Excursions Manager who has an attitude problem. The Guest Services Dept told George that I could rent a wheelchair for my half day tour in Venice by paying $95 for a minimum three days' rental, and the on board Guest Services Dept. which has no connection or cooperation with Shore Excursions, and lastly the twit on the desk at Guest Services who, when I had decided to pay the ridiculous amount of $95 (above the original tour cost) to be able to tour with my friends, told me that I must actually pay $340 to rent the wheelchair for the entire cruise despite there only being one day of it left.

All this doesn't include the myriad other ways that this cruise has irritated me and many of the others in our group. Incredibly slow service at dinner even though we get there well before any kind of evening rush...2.5 hours for dinner? The food is adequate most nights, but only twice was my meal good enough to comment positively on. There is virtually no place other than your cabin to sit in the evening and read or have a conversation away from the excruciatingly loud "entertainment" going on at all venues, and some members of our group can hear that noise in their cabins on a lower deck! In fact, all announcements are physically painfully loud. Poor service in our cabin...and we have yet to lay eyes on our steward, and only once have I seen his assistant. While they seem to work at keeping the ship clean, it is in need of maintenance in various areas, e.g. portions of the promenade deck are blocked off for repairs which should probably have been done during her last refit less than two years ago. All these things and others are relatively minor individually, but they did add up to dissatisfaction even before this business today about the tour and the wheelchair.

The best thing about today was watching George's gelatin dessert at lunch jiggle. It was a molded, round, opaque white (vanilla) thing in the middle of a plate surrounded by a ring of raspberry sauce and with one big drop of sauce in the center of the gelatin. It was pretty suggestive even before it jiggled! Megan had her camera and made a video of it, but I don't know where she may post it online.

In the late afternoon most of us got somewhat gussied up to pose on the grand staircase in the atrium for a group photo by the ship's photographer. I think that, as a group, we are each supposed to get a copy. Heaven only knows how that will turn out.

May 18/19

May 18 watching The Golden Horn. I spent a quiet day doing pretty much what I said in my last post. We are docked in the perfect spot to view Istanbul's Golden Horn which is a confluence of waterways. I spent much of the afternoon up on Lido Deck with a spectacular vista of Topkapi Palace, Haiga Sofia, and the Blue Mosque (seen here left to right), along with the busy water traffic. (And no, I don't know what the big white ship is.) There were ferries of every conceivable size and type -- those for passengers, cars, overnighters to other cities, etc, -- going in every direction at once. It's amazing that they don't crash into each other, but with only one bridge between the European and Asian sides of Istanbul in a city of, I think, 14 million people, the ferries are a total necessity.

This evening Debbie, Dave and Liz, Chris and George, and I all went to one of the ship's "specialty" restaurants, a Teppanyaki place. We had a lovely meal, but of course, no flaming onion volcano since we are on a ship. I have five eye witnesses that I ate more than one bite of  a seaweed salad (very green in color), a whole big slice of carrot (enough garlic butter makes almost anything edible), and more green for dessert which was green tea cake and green tea ice cream (both surprisingly good). I had also had two vegetables for lunch, i.e. french fries with catsup (if the government can count it as a vegetable, so can I).

Also this evening I had an in-depth discussion with Shore Excursions about walking distances past and future, and the lack of adequate information on same. The Holland America system for handling handicapped people on shore excursions is far superior to NCL's, and the information on shore excursions available online at Princess beats 'em both all hollow for being able to make informed decisions.

By bedtime I was feeling a whole lot better although still achy in a few spots. I think I should be okay by tour time tomorrow.

May 19 and I'm pretty well back to "normal," at least MY normal.

Mary, please tell Betty that Izmir is now the third largest city in Turkey! I've sent her a postcard of it. I doubt there is any piece of it that she would recognize from when she lived there.

My tour today went to Ephesus, but it was sort of a drive by photo shoot for both the upper and lower gates. The photo here is of the ruins at the upper gate. for a good photo of the big amphitheater at the lower gate, you can scroll back to my other visit there. There was a longer visit to the Basilica of St. John. We had a very good tour guide who did a lot of educating about both Turkey and Islam. 

The countryside has ranges of high hills or even low mountains that separate very flat valleys. The hillsides remind me very much of the Hill Country region in Texas. They are very rocky with what appears to be limestone, and have an arid-looking cover of scrub and pine trees. The flat valleys are very fertile and are planted with just about every kind of fruit and nut trees and vegetables.

A fair chunk of time, as determined by a poll of those on the tour, was spent at a shop in Kusadasi where we got the usual glass of apple tea and a roll along with a lecture about how Turkish rugs are made an a display of some gorgeous samples of the craft. I have now been to various Turkish ports a total of eight times. For seven of them I managed to resist the salesmanship of the Turkish men. This time I succumbed and bought a rug, but it's a very small one. It's being shipped home, so if you want to see it, you'll have to come visit me.

May 17/18

NCL's cabin stewards do towel animals just like the other lines. I sometimes wonder if each cabin steward does his/her own, or if there's some poor soul in the depths of the ship who spends all day making swans, elephants, monkeys, etc. to be distributed to all cabins. But yesterday evening we had one I hadn't seen before...a bat hanging from our ceiling, wings out-spread. I wonder if this is a comment on my cabin mate's habit of sleeping in until noon or even later when she doesn't have a tour so that the cabin steward can't get in here until late. Hmmm...

May 17 and we are at Mykonos, Greece. I had signed up for basically the same tour that I took last time to the village of Ano Mera. It's a good tour, scenic with ouzo to drink (or not), Greek appetizers, and village cats to watch. Almost everyone I've talked to in the last couple of days seems to be signed up for this one. We may just over-run the little place.

We anchored off and tendered in because the huge Ruby Princess was taking up the cruise ship dock that was just being completed the last time I was here. Fortunately, the ocean was very calm which made getting on and off the tenders a good deal less strenuous than the "Tender High Jump" event that I have occasionally experienced in the past. 

The weather was overcast and extremely windy which did not help the ambiance of the island or of Ano Mera. Even the town cats were snugged away somewhere warm, except two or three who must have been the designated tourist greeters for today. I didn't take any photos worth uploading today, but if you want, you can scroll back through this blog to my previous visit.

UNfortunately, while we were out on tour, some "they" with a non-operational brain moved the location of the tender dock ashore from where the buses had picked us up and then also dropped us off to the other end of Mykonos town. I'm sure they did it so that the tourists would have to pass through the shopping area. We had to walk the entire length of the waterfront which I'm guessing was about a mile since the guide kept referring to it as a ten minute walk. And it was all rough cobblestones! I made it with numerous stops to rest, but toward the end I had some serious questions as to whether I really would survive it.  Bless my friend, George, and my cabin mate, Debbie, who stayed with me the whole way back. I plan to have some strong comments for the NCL Shore Excursion people who did not mention this when I specifically asked about walking distances on the tours I had booked.

Needless to say, I was exhausted, so after lunch I set my alarm clock for our early dinner hour and took a nap. When it went off, I happened to be facing away from it, so rolled over to turn it off, and ran out of bed before I finished rolling. So I'm lying on the floor, clutching the alarm clock, and the muscles in both legs are cramping from all that hiking. Again, blessings on Debbie, as between us, we managed to get me back up again without having to call for a derrick. 

On to Istanbul tomorrow. I'm going to take another rest day instead of virtually repeating the tour I had last time. 

Early on May 18. It's a very good thing that I'm not on tour here. I'm so stiff and sore from yesterday that I can barely move! Sleep late, do some reading or crocheting, and just hang around the ship is about all I can manage today. I need to be in touring shape for Izmir tomorrow so I can report to Betty on what it is like these days, although I've heard that it is now the third largest city (or maybe that's port) in Turkey.

May 15/16

I think (hope) I've got this photo thing under control again, so here's a picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa that I didn't get posted last time.

Yesterday afternoon was perfect weather to remain on board...a deep blue sky, gentle sun, slight breeze, temperature right around 70 F and plenty of chairs to choose from on Lido Deck. I love it when the rest of the world goes sightseeing and I don't have to! To celebrate, I had my hair done then topped off the afternoon with a luscious hot chocolate buried under whipped cream and a slice of vanilla marble pound cake. Yum again. The food on board is fine, but this pound cake and hot chocolate thing is totally decadent! And there's no charge for the pound cake!

May 15 and we are in Naples. I would have loved to tour to Pompeii and/or Herculaneum, but as with many things these days, I find myself going with a Plan B involving less walking. So I was booked to take a tour called "Leisurely Sorrento" instead. However, when I reread the description, it casually mentioned walking. So I asked one of the guides exactly how much walking. The reply was one half mile each way from the bus park to the city center. My reply to that was what you might expect. The Shore Excursion folks were very nice and refunded my full ticket.

So I spent another peaceful day on the ship. There were even fewer people left aboard today than yesterday. One of the many things I did today was go up top and take a lap around the jogging track...no, of course I was not jogging. Get real! But the view of Naples' harbor was interesting. I'm fairly sure that I saw Vesuvius, and from descriptions by friends who did go on tour today, this is it.  

May 16 is a sea day, and is rather choppy, with force 4 winds and 3 meter seas. It's the first of only 2 sea days on this cruise, and the other is the next to last day. Personally I like sea days even though all the other passengers are on board also. This ship has very few quiet places to sit and relax...Muzak everywhere and too loud. I thought I'd found a nice spot and 10 minutes later I was in the middle of a "1970s Name That Tune in X Notes Team Trivia" event. I hadn't heard that much disco music since the 70s ended! At least I met some nice folks from Lynchburg, and the husband got 17 out of 20 correct for "our team" which included me by simple propinquity. 

I tried to post this, but with 2,000 passengers, and probably 60% of them using their various types of electronics, things are slower than usual. Access is always slower by satellite on the ships, but now that the whole ship is wi-fied instead of just a few public areas, more people can get online at once. So, I'll wait a while and try again.

May 13/14, 2013

My weather magic is still working. While it did rain on and off in Barcelona, so far since we boarded the ship, we have had good weather other than some strong winds the first night. There was not a whole lot of motion, but yesterday several of our group complained of being seasick. Most of them have cabins with balconies pretty high up where the motion of the ship is greater. Our cabin is in the steadiest part, low and  midships, although location wouldn't affect me too much.

Today, May 13, we are docked at Livorno, Italy. The skies are cloudless. Most folks are off to Florence which is a two hour bus ride from here. I went to Florence many years ago, and while I liked it, I feel no compulsion to go see it again. This afternoon I have a tour to Pisa to see the Cathedral's campanile (bell tower) lean.

(Later) It was a nice half day tour to Pisa, although Italian tour buses are past snug to very tight on knee room. by the way, the tower really does lean. In fact the Baptistry of the Cathedral (the red dome ion the left in this picture) also leans somewhat as do two other towers in the city, St. Nicholas and St. Michael. Our guide was most informative about the history of Pisa and their celebrations, for  example why Pisa celebrates New Year's on March 25 making this 2014 for them.

It's only 16 miles from Livorno, and before the Arno River delta silted up, it was the main port in this part of Italy. The silting was partly natural, and partly man-made because the merchants in Florence objected to using Pisa as their port (politics, of course) and preferred Livorno. Since Florence and the Borgias had the upper hand in the area ... well, Livorno is now the port, and Pisa is a university town with an architectural tourist attraction much like Charlottesville except that Pisa has three universities to our one.

On to May 14. Now we are docked at Civitavecchia which is the port for Rome. I was in Rome fairly recently, and am sure that the tourist sights haven't changed in the meantime. The vast majority of the passengers have headed off to Rome which means the ship is quiet except for many, many announcements about "crew only" emergency drills. One of them included automatically closing all watertight and fire doors with a grand round of slamming. Interestingly, while they can close the doors by remote control, they have to be opened by people. 

May 11/12

I suppose I should apologize to whoever reads this that I didn't do any sightseeing or picture taking in Barcelona, but that's just how things worked out. For some reason, the trip over wiped me out more than usual. Then the Hotel Colon was such a comfortable cocoon, and there wasn't anyone to push me to go out...

In the late morning of Saturday, May 11, 5 of us, Chris, George, Sukey, Joan and I, taxied from the hotel to the pier. The check-in area was crowded, but with me in a wheelchair and Chris, who has a high priority level with NCL, we got in a short line and were soon on board the NCL Spirit. It's a cruise ship, so of course the first thing we did was go eat. 

By the time I got to my cabin after lunch, my luggage was waiting, so I got unpacked. About 15 minutes before the mandatory emergency drill, my cabin-mate, Debra, turned up. After the drill, a number of our group met in one of the lounges before heading to eat again. There are something like 32 in our group and evidently the group leader has made a dinner reservation for all of us at 5:30 every evening. I suppose I'll adjust to that. At least we can switch around amongst our group of tables.

Today, May 12, we are at Toulon, France. Well...more accurately we are docked across the bay from Toulon. I did not have a tour scheduled for here, so slept in very late then wandered around the ship some, but still don't have my full bearings yet. I did discover one " bar" that has a selection of fabulous flavors of pound cake and luscious hot chocolate. Yum.

Many of our group who toured today were somewhat disappointed in large portions of their tours, and all commented on the amount of walking and/or steps involved. We had another early and nice dinner and spent the evening in conversation.

(Apologies for the delay in posting...having trouble getting photos uploaded because I brought the wrong cable that connects the camera to the iPad.)

May 8/9/10

I  have survived, yet again, being shut up in an aluminum tube full of people, luggage and germs held up in the air by the Grace of God and the Laws of Physics. Both the flight to Atlanta and the one to Barcelona  were on time. I didn't get any sleep crossing the ocean because each time I was about to drift off the plane would hit a jiggly spot and the "Fasten Seatbelt" light would bong. But that's to be expected.

The Hotel Colon is in the old "rabbit warren" part of downtown. The streets in this area are even smaller and more convoluted than in Rome. However, the very elegant hotel is very close to one of the cathedrals which makes a good landmark. My single room is small but well appointed, and I immediately tested the bed with a good long nap.

The other members of the group on this first cruise are slowly arriving in Barcelona. Most spent the day sightseeing to try to stay awake to adjust to the time zone. Hah! Two naps and a night's sleep and I'm pretty thoroughly adjusted. We are all supposed to meet at a plaza on La Rambla this evening, but I may give that a miss as it's a 10 minute walk for an average person which means probably 30-45 minutes for me, and I would be exhausted and crabby by the time I got there. 

Less than a week to go!

This is one of the most complicated trips I've taken in a long time. Ten different parts (not counting sightseeing excursions), each requiring several pieces of paper, e-tickets, vouchers, schedules, baggage tags, etc.  Sheesh! Bless my travel agent, Kellie, for keeping it all straight and printing it all out for me.

Have begun slowly collecting stuff for the suitcase(s). Have not finished a few sewing chores yet. Still procrastinating on that. Probably won't get the suitcases out until after the cat leaves for Richmond on Tuesday afternoon. (No, she's not going there by herself but will be chauffeured down by her hostess for the next 7+ weeks.) Here's hoping that it all fits into a minimum of bags.