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(Thelma
and Louise take Mom on a Cruise ...) |
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The Ship
On Saturday, Mom and I
took a taxi (through the pouring rain) to the Cruise dock in Barcelona,
where we planned to embark on
Royal Caribbean's Splendour
of the Seas. The embarcation lounge wasn't
crowded and they had cookies (yum ...) and drinks. We thought we would
meet up with Barb, who was scheduled to have arrived several hours earlier.
She wasn't there, so we assumed that she was sitting on a bus
at Barcelona airport waiting for other passengers to arrive. Silly us!
The other passengers were sitting on a bus at Barcelona airport waiting for
Barb to arrive - she had a several hour delay due to the bad weather.
Barb barely made it onto the ship before the scheduled departure time.
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ITINERARY |
| Day |
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Port |
Arrive |
Depart |
| 1 |
Sat |
Barcelona |
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| 2 |
Sun |
Marseilles, France |
Cancelled - At Sea |
| 3 |
Mon |
Villefranche (Monaco, Monte Carlo) |
7:00 am |
10:00 pm |
| 4 |
Tues |
Livorno (Florence, Pisa) |
7:00 am |
7:00 pm |
| 5 |
Wed |
Civitavecchia (Rome) |
7:00 am |
7:00 pm |
| 6 |
Thurs |
Naples (Sorrento, Pompeii) |
7:00 am |
7:00 pm |
| 7 |
Fri |
At
Sea |
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| 8 |
Sat |
Barcelona |
7:00 am |
Depart |
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Click on the map to visit our destinations |
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At check in, we found out they had unilaterally
"upgraded" our cabin to an outside balcony cabin. Most
people would consider this good news, but we didn't. Barb had
carefully selected the specific cabin by location, size, proximity to other
things (i.e., nothing noisy), positioned for minimum rocking and rolling,
etc. And they had already given away our inside cabin to some people
who had already arrived. After a long ordeal of us being
pig-headed, Mom and I decided to take the upgraded cabin and keep our
fingers crossed that Barb wouldn't mind. She didn't.
She had picked the other cabin location so Mom and I had less chance of
getting seasick!
It was a lovely
cabin with lots of room and an outside balcony and we absolutely loved it! Funny
how things work out.
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Meanwhile, my luggage didn't arrive. And
didn't arrive. And didn't arrive ... F i n a l l y ,
when it showed up, it had clearly been stored in a tub of water (possibly in
the harbor), as everything in it was soaking wet. I had to set
about washing clothes by hand to get salt/water stains out of them.
Things were off to a little bit of a rocky start ...
So, after we had conducted our
lifejacket and evacuation drill, and settled in for dinner, the Captain
announced that due to the bad storm there were
40 foot waves off Marseilles - our first port stop. Captain wisely
decided to spend the night docked in Barcelona at the dock and skip
Marseilles, so we spent the first day "at sea".
We also spent the
last day at sea, playing in the casino, eating all day, resting on the deck,
and reliving our adventures!
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Always tied to that Blackberry |
Passing Sardinia on the way home |
Aren't I cute? |
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Several evenings we watched the entertainment on
the ship. Some of it was pretty darn good and/or funny.
The Cruise Director, a very funny young man, listed the top ten stupid
questions he gets asked by passengers (some of which you will find sprinkled
throughout the site). His parting comment on the final night was
suggestions on how to prolong the cruise atmosphere:
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Save the chocolate bedtime mints
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Take home the towel sculptures
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Put all your furniture in the
closet and SLEEP IN THERE!
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