Planning, Planning, Planning…

It was the beginning of May when we booked the cruise and air for this trip. Which left us a mere 5 months to figure everything else out. I can’t even begin to count the hours spent on the phone and the number of emails that transpired in planning for this trip. There was so much to do, and I was totally in my element. It is funny how Shannon and both think – Shannon focused on what she wanted to see in each of the cities while I thought about where we were going to stay, how we were going to get from point A to point B, what mass transit systems are available… basically the logistics. It worked out great.

The first thing I did was set up a timeline of what I wanted to get done when. Thing on that list included vaccinations, visa, renewing my passport, figuring out all the currency exchanges, learning Italian.. I could go on and on. Thankfully since I had been on two cruises in the past year the list of items I needed to buy was pretty small, but those were put into the timeline as well. The biggest need I had was a new camera; my old one was literally falling apart. I spent quite a bit of researching camera’s until I found the one I wanted and my family agreed to give it to me as an early Christmas present. I put together budgets, lists, timelines, you name it. Every aspect of this trip was thought and planned out.

Our original plan had us flying into London on Friday, spend the day and night there, take the train mid morning to Paris, spend Saturday day in the city of Paris. Travel out to Disneyland Paris Saturday evening and stay there Saturday night. Spend Sunday at Disney and then take the overnight train to Venice Sunday night to Monday. Spend Monday in Venice, spend the night there and then take the train to Rome Tuesday morning to get on the ship. (Are you tired yet?) As we were doing all this planning we figured out two things. One was that while taking the train around Europe is the traditional method, flying is significantly cheaper. There is a multitude of regional low budget airlines that fly all over Europe. The other thing we realized was that our plan was way too ambitious. We would spend more time traveling from place to place then actually being in the place. We also realized that there was so much that we wanted to do in Rome that we needed more time there. I really had no desire to go to Paris, but knowing Shannon did, I agreed to go. So I let her make the call to drop Paris from our schedule. Once we cut that out, we revised our pre cruise plan to the following:
Oct 8 – Leave GRR
Oct 9 – Arrive London 11:00 am, stay overnight in London
Oct 10 – Leave London 8:00 pm, fly to Venice
Oct 11 – Spend day in Venice take train to Rome mid afternoon
Oct 12 – Rome all day
Oct 13- Rome in AM, go to cruise ship early afternoon.

Even though it was cheaper and faster to fly from Rome to Venice we deiced to take the train. We wanted to experience traveling through the Italian countryside and I knew we would need the 4-5 hours of down time. Every time we talked about our itinerary these pre cruise days I would end with “and then we die” I knew we would just be exhausted with this ambitious of an itinerary.

We also decided to split up the cities when it came to planning. I took London and Shannon took Rome – we wanted to lighten the load. Venice we did not have a ton on our list of things to do so, we figured we could wing it. We also had all the port cities on the cruise to plan for.

Like the previous cruises I went on Cruise Critic to “meet” others from our trip online. It ended up one of the persons was a travel agent and was planning private excursions for every port. The benefit of the private excursions are that they are significantly cheaper then the ones from the ship. Donna, the travel agent, was also putting together an overnight in Cairo. The cruise ship actually docks at Port Said, in the Suez Canal and offer trips to Cairo which is about 3 – 3 ½ hours away. The next day it docks in Alexandria, which is also about 3 hours from Cairo (if you map out Port Said to Cairo to Alexandria it would make a V shape.) Due to the distances, many people choose to overnight in Cairo. The ship offers the overnight as one of its excursions, but it is really expensive. Donna put together a trip that was the same as the ones the ship offered, for about ¼ of the ship’s price. Which made it actually affordable for Shannon and I. Affordability was not the only consideration for us when it came to Egypt. We both had come to the decision separately that since safety was a concern that we both wanted to stick with the ship’s excursions and not spend the night in Cairo. Once we made that decision we picked the excursions in both Cairo and Alexandria that covered what we wanted to do. In the end we ended up booking excursions with Donna for our stop in Naples which we went on a tour of Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast and Kusadasi where we toured Ephesus.

Istanbul is a funny story. One day Shannon called me and asked me about what to do in Istanbul – at that point I has not given it much thought – so she went on to say she found an excursion through the ship that visited Hagia Sophia, the bazaar, and then we went to this hill that overlooked the city, I was like okay. She went on to say it was really reasonably priced and I was like okay – at this point I was thinking why do we have to decide this right now. Then she added that the hill was in Asia (for those of you who do not know Istanbul is split between Europe and Asia.) At that I was sold – and said sign me up – anything to go to Asia. Of course we later realized that Ephesus was also in Asia – but we decided to stick with the tour.

This left Athens and Mykonos to figure out. We decided not to take tours at either place and that we could do them both on our own. Poor Athens was the one place that we just never really got around to plan.

In all our planning we only really hit one snafu. A few weeks before we left we found out there was going to be a national train strike on the day we were to take the train from Venice to Rome. Initially reports were that there was a possibility that it could be rescheduled or cancelled, but we did not know when this might happen (don’t even get me going on the whole announcing strikes a head of time – doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose.) So we held off making alternate plans until we absolutely had to, since we both were so excited about taking that train ride. We ended up booking a flight from Venice to Rome. Thankfully that was the only real planning issue we had.

Let’s start at the very beginning….

Another cruise? I know anyone who has known me longer than a year or so was probably asking yourself, what do you mean you are going on another cruise? I asked myself that so many times over the months. This trip kind of started as a joke, at least on my end, in April. Or maybe a dream or a fantasy is a better way of describing it…

Looking back a year prior I agreed to go on an Alaskan cruise. Not because it was a cruise, but because I was in the middle of an 18 month contract for a major event and I just wanted to get a way when it was finished. To me, nothing sounded better then the idea of being in the middle of a large body of water where no one could find me. So when the Alaska cruise was offered, I said sign me up. A funny thing happened on that cruise – I fell completely, 100% in love with cruising, which was the last thing I had ever expected. I had been on a cruise in 2001 – a 3 day Caribbean cruise that I absolutely hated. To be far I was very sick, bronchitis, sinus infection and secondary infection in my lungs, I think I would have hated anywhere at that point. But at the end of the day my attitude was, I tried cruising; if I never go do it again that’s fine. So going into the Alaska trip I was very excited to see Alaska and hoped I just did not hate the time on the ship. My experience on the ship could not have been a bigger surprise. I loved it, I had the best time, I wanted to live on the ship (still working on this one.) That is why when the great deal came up for Mexico in January, I jumped right on going and when I unexpectedly got twice the amount I planned on my tax return I started looking at cruises.

At this point I was not serious about taking a cruise, I was just dreaming and thinking it would be nice. I really needed new flooring in my house and have windows that need to be fixed and my air conditioner that does not work so well… Those would be responsible things to do or build up my savings some more, we are in a recession. I made my list of priorities and cruise was at the bottom. But still I day dreamed of going on a cruise and of course continually checked out Princess’ website for deals. There was actually one cruise that caught my eye, as it kept going down in price. It was a 16 day cruise starting in Los Angles and ended in Santiago, Chile with nine stops along the way. It was over Thanksgiving, which I thought would help with the amount of time off of work I would need to ask for. As I was pricing things out I began to think, maybe this is actually doable. I did not say anything to anyone because while doable is one thing, smart in another. So I continued pricing out carpet and wood flooring as well.

Then one day, April 22 Shannon posted on Facebook that she was planning her next cruise. I replied with “who are you going with this time?” Her answer “you.” Well that started the ball rolling. Again, I was not really serious when we first started talking about this. Shannon was all set to go and she began sending options my way. I shared with her the South American one I had been looking at, but the timing did not work for her – she would not be able to get the time off. Then she brought up a Mediterranean cruise. Now there is a story here too (of course there is, this is me, there is always a story!)

Shannon and I have talked about going to Europe together since we were in high school. The details of the trip have changed over the year with is first being us going as “the adults” on her high schools once-every-four-years band trip, until it morphed into a Mediterranean Cruise. Now even though I was not a fan of cruising prior to the Alaskan cruise, I had two dream cruises, the Mediterranean and a Panama Canal (don’t ask me why.) Over the years Shannon and I had looked into and priced out the Mediterranean cruise countless times and always talked about “next year.” In fact after Alaska we had tentatively set a date of summer of 2011 as the year for the Mediterranean Cruise. Although we both had admitted we did not think it was really going to happen then, that we could not swing it.

So here we were back to the place we always went – talking about going on a Mediterranean Cruise. Shannon started sending over possible cruises and we both noticed that the prices for the cruise were pretty good, in fact as good as we had seen them in the past. I then went back to Princess (you know me and product loyalty J ) and found a 12 day, round trip from Rome that included Egypt. It was a great itinerary, a good time and thanks to the fact that we were previous cruisers on Princess we could get the cruise for 1/3 of the book price. We were talking about a 12 day cruise for under $1000 in the Mediterranean. While this was a really good deal, the catch on this trip has always been the airfare. So we started pricing it out. We were looking at both round trip to Rome and into London and back from Rome. Our plan always was to add some time in Europe before the cruise – the whole you might as well get the most out of your trip over there. Normally these types of tickets run somewhere between $1200 - $1500 (at least from Grand Rapids), but I was able to find a flight for under $700, it was even cheaper for Shannon from Orlando. At this point, we kept thinking we are never going to get this trip any cheaper and if we do not go now, we never would.

Of course I had major pre buyer’s remorse. I was not sure about this at all – I was really just joking when this whole conversation started. Now a few days later we are seriously considering going on this trip.

After days of talking and planning we put together a plan and an itinerary –

Pre-Cruise travel
Thursday, Oct 8 – Leave GRR
Friday, Oct 9 – Arrive London 11:00
Saturday, Oct 10 – Leave London arrive Paris
Sunday, Oct 11 – Paris Disneyland, overnight train to Venice
Monday, Oct 12 – Arrive Venice
Tuesday – Oct 13 – Arrive Rome
Cruise portion of trip-
Tuesday, Oct 13 - Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy
Wednesday, Oct 14 - Capri/Naples, Italy
Thursday, Oct 15
Friday, Oct 16 - Athens (Piraeus), Greece
Saturday, Oct 17 - Ephesus (Kusadasi), Turkey
Sunday, Oct 18 - Istanbul, Turkey
Monday, Oct 19 - Mykonos, Greece
Tuesday, Oct 20 - at sea
Wednesday, Oct 21 - Port Said (Cairo), Egypt
Thursday, Oct 22 - Giza(Alexandria), Egypt
Friday, Oct 23 - at sea
Saturday, Oct 24 - at sea
Sunday, Oct 25 - Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy
Post Cruise
Monday, Oct 26 – Leave Rome arrive GRR While the plan was great – it was also 19 days. That was a lot of time to ask to take off of work. Shannon got it off relatively easily. I was still quite apprehensive about the whole thing. Not sure I could swing it, not sure I wanted to do it yet – for me, this was one of my two dream vacations and when I did this vacation I wanted to do it right and not worry about finances the whole time. But everything was falling into place and all signs were pointing to going. Finally I said if I can get the time off, we will go.

So here I left this whole plan, dream trip in the hands of my boss. His reaction – have a good time. So here we were on our way…. With only 5 months to plan……

The Last Day!!!

The last day of a cruise is always biter sweet. You want to continue having fun, but you know you need to pack and get ready for the next day’s early disembarkation. The realization sets in that your time on the ship is almost done.

During the night the seas started to get rough, but not in the regular way, this time the ship was rocking from front to back. The morning was not too bad, but as the day went on it felt like you were on a never ending roller coaster. Rex our room steward looked just green. Karen actually got sick from the movement, I felt bad for her.

At morning trivia there was this couple that we had met at the Cruise Critic gathering and she was kind of a piece of work – thought very highly of herself. At the end of Trivia she went up to Trevor, in front of everyone and rip him a new one over the time of the trivia game that evening. She claimed Princess was discriminating against those who had late dinner seating when they scheduled their evening events. She went off for about 5 minutes. I was standing there to chat with Trevor and actually jumped in to defend Princess. I could not believe she was so mean about the whole thing. Trevor handled the situation well, but it was a bit ridicules.

Due to the waves, the water in the pools we moving so much it was filling the deck area, about a foot deep. The kids thought it was a riot to play in it. Here are some pictures of the kids surfing in the water. During the afternoon we tried to stay mid ship since it was less rocky there. We did not go to dinner, so I picked something up in the food court. In the evening there was the Lair’s club game – basically balderdash in a group setting. We joined with our regular group and won!!! Then we went to the last trivia game. We did not win this one, unfortunately the women who yelled at Trevor in the morning won. They were the last people Trevor wanted to give the prize to. After trivia was the finals of the Princess pop star. We took a couple pictures of the friends we made on the cruise directors staff
Jorge Rachel (ie Rachel Rebecca) Them together.

The Pop Star finals was really good. Chantelle Barry saw beautifully and her boyfriend Scott did his Elvis impression again. Marcus a crowd favorite also did good. For a cruise ship talent show it was a bit unbelievable the level of talent. Chantelle ended up winning and announced her real CD was coming out in a few months.

After Pop Stars Karen went to bed and I went up to Skywalkers. It was pretty funny. With the ship moving as much as it was everyone on the dance floor was move with the ship – you really didn’t need to dance.

The next morning, Karen and I had to go to different parts of the ship to disembark – due to our different nationalities. We met up at the luggage area and took a shuttle back to LAX. While we were waiting for our flight I got really into the book I was reading. I didn’t put it down as we got on the plane or through the whole flight. Our first flight was from LAX to Las Vegas. The only time I stopped reading was when the pilot came on to talk about how turbulent the flight was going to be. We were now flying through the storm we had sailed through the day before. Karen and I braced ourselves for the flight. We were pretty disappointed in the lack of turbulence, not that we wanted it, but after all the build up, we were expecting something more. So I was able to spend the flight reading. We landed in Vegas with out any issues. Our layover was not too long, and I only had 50 or so pages to go in my book. I wanted to finish it before the next flight so that I could switch the book out for the next one in the series. So I literally walked around the airport reading my book, such a flashback to my youth when I always had my nose in a book. Thankfully I finished it before we boarded. As we went to get on the plane the gate attendant informed me that my carry on was too big. I said I just flew with it and it was fine. She went on to say the rules had changed on February 1st and I said I just flew here from LAX with it. She then got all puffy and told me they did things wrong at LAX and I had to gate check it. Which was fine, but it kind of made me laugh.

The flight from Las Vegas to Detroit was uneventful. I read again. We got back to Detroit pretty late – midnightish. We still had to drive back to Grand Rapids, about 2 hours. The drive was fine and we got back to my house safe and sound. The next day we slept in and Karen left mid afternoon to go back home. It had been another fun trip!

The Tease

I have been home from my amazing trip for a week now and in many way is feels so surreal. I saw so much, had unbelievable experiences, and visited such diverse places it is overwhelming. Not to mention the almost 2000 pictures that together we took. (Half of which I am still waiting for.) So it is going to take time, for me to go through all the pictures, stories, and experiences and then be able to share them with you. Plus I need to finish the last day of the Mexican trip (I am working on it as we speak.)

But I thought I would share a bit of a teaser….

We started our trip in London – Venice was next – Then Rome – After a couple days there we got on the Grand Princess in Civitavecchia. It only took me the whole cruise to learn how to say that.

Our first port day was the Amalfi Coast and Pompeii – this is Pompeii with Mt.Vesuvius in the background. Next was Athens – we got caught in thunderstorms and were soaked – this is the drowned rat look. Kusadasi was next – we toured the ancient city of Ephesus – it was a moving experience. Istanbul – a city scanning two continents, this picture is taken from the Asian side looking over towards the European side – the bridge connects the two. Mykonos – a beautiful island – and my chance to walk in the Mediterranean. Oh and we can not forget Egypt – climbing on a pyramid The Alexandria Library – a modern marvel in an ancient city. Of course there was all the fun on the ship.

The whole story….COMING SOON!!!!!