Cruisin’ Again
If you look back two posts you can read about our cruise to the Caribbean. In that blog I told about how much I loved the cruise and listed the many reasons why. I mentioned that I would like to cruise again, but little did I know I would cruise again so soon. Here’s what happened so that I got to go cruisin’ again so soon…and of all places to Italy and Greece where I never dreamed I would get to travel to.
Our good friends, Larry and Paula Call, invited Orie and I to ride in their sailboat from Alaska to Seattle at the end of May. We jumped at the chance and were eager to go. Then one day they called and said they had a change of plans and instead were selling their sailboat and cruising in the Greek Islands…in a couple of weeks. I remembered that Megan and Kyle were looking for another cruise to use the credit she had for missing the Caribbean one and we figured out they and the Calls were looking at the exact same cruise. They invited us to come along. We are not usually so impulsive but we decided to go along as our last experience had been so wonderful…and Orie was retired afterall. When our friends, the Moreheads, heard about the trip they decided to come as well. We ended up with a group of 12. The more the merrier on a cruise! Afterall, no one has to cook or clean up after anyone else so a big group just makes for more fun and more friends to go around with.
We flew into Venice Italy on May 26 and spent several days enjoying that fun city before we set sail for some other really fun ports of call in Turkey, Croatia, Greece and Italy. We sailed at night and arrived in each port early in the morning so we had all day to explore. We have hashed over many times which of the twelve ports was our favorite but can’t really say for sure as they were all fun and had some wonderful things about them. I think the consensus was that everyone loved Venice Italy first and Rome Italy second. Maybe it was because we spent more than one day in those cities and got to do and see more and enjoy the evenings there. I posted photos of each port in the photo section of this blog so you can check those out and see if you can tell by the twinkle in our eyes which port was best. Some of the highlights I really enjoyed were walking the fortress wall in Dubrovnik Croatia; hiking the Valley of the Butterflies in Rhodes Greece; swimming in the warm pristine water on the beach at Rhodes; riding the 4 wheelers to tour the island of Santorini Greece; shopping in Turkey (amazing prices on “genuine fake watches” and leather goods); driving the Amalfi coast south of Naples Italy; eating the best Italian food in my life in a little beachside restaurant in Sorrento Italy; seeing all the “Old” rocks in almost all these locations; enjoying the evening stolls and vibrant nightlife in Rome; strolling the wonderful little streets in Venice looking for the next gelato shop; eating gelato; and sailing out of Venice along the Grand Canal as the ships loudspeaker played inspiring Italian music. Wow that was cool!
Dinners each night on the ship were a blast. We had a large table that seated 12 so we crowded in around it and spent about 2 ½ hours each night at dinner. We ordered just about everything on the menu and tried some very different things than we would not usually order at a restaurant. It was all delicious and a lot of fun. Kyle and Larry often wondered if their appetites were bordering on obscene but if they were we were all right there too. The dinner time conversation was great. We laughed and talked about our day, our dinner and our plans for the next day.
After dinner we each set off (sometimes together and sometimes separately) to various venues on the ship to finish off the evening entertainment. Among our favorites were “movies under the stars”, the clean comedy shows, ping pong, the hypnotist show, and very often listening to the piano playing of Ray Coussins, former pianist for Frank Sinatra. He could tickle the keyboard so wonderfully and powerfully that he broke piano strings. He is amazing!
There were a few down things and disappointments that happened, such as one in our group having to spend a large sum of money for a personal seminar on pick pocketing, but we all learned from his experience and he was good to shake it off. Our hats were off to Larry and Orie for being such a good guides in each port. They did an excellent job of figuring out the best alternatives for the days adventures and making them happen. And special thanks to Larry for being willing to take the heat if “on a scale of one to ten we were ticked off” about anything. I for one was never once “ticked off” about anything and just enjoyed every minute of our time on this cruise. It was great and I am very happy I got to go.
