Month: June 2022

We arrived at Argostoli with no plans. As we were walking to the center of town, we were initially accosted by a local tour person trying to get us to take one of the tours her agency was promoting. None of us liked her “style,” so we said no thank you and walked on. We then ran into someone sharing information about a little red train that goes through town and stops at different places. We thought that that was interesting and kept the flyer. We then ran into another person from a tour agency, and she was very friendly and was not trying to push on us something we did not want. We agreed to the tour that brought us to a cave, a “photo shoot” of a beautiful beach, and a beach.

Before we started the tour, we went to what appears to be a famous footbridge. It joins the two parts of the island. What was great about the bridge is that it is known for sea turtle sightings, and we were able to see a couple of turtles, so that was fun. We also chatted with a group that was on the cruise and found out that one of them got a video of the turtles, and he sent it to Dawn. She was thrilled!

I likened the cave tour to traveling from my kitchen to my living room. The lagoon was more impressive than the cave. The stop was amped up and did not necessarily live up to its dream. It was interesting, but I am still not sure why it is so hyped up, but I guess that that is not for me to decide.

The next stop allowed us to take pictures of a beach from a distance. Unfortunately, we were not able to go to that beach as the weather report showed bad weather, including thundershowers, so the beaches were closed as a precaution. The weather predictions were very wrong, but despite that, that beach remained closed. The drive to the lookout point for the pictures was not Cindy’s favorite part of the day. There were many instances where there were beautiful scenes, but the drop-off made her very nervous.

On a positive note, there was an open beach, and we were there for an hour. Cindy and Dawn were in all of their glory. The beach was absolutely beautiful. While we were there, we rented chairs to sit and enjoy the waves. Dawn and Cindy went into the water and walked on the beach. It was a peaceful way to end the tour.

We went to dinner in the dining room, and they had lobster tail on the menu. The only issue is that they broiled it instead of boiling it. It was good regardless. After dinner, Cindy and Dawn decided to attend the 70s Dance Party that evening. I stayed behind and read my book on the balcony. I needed a recharge and did not want to “people” that evening. Cindy and Dawn said the party was fun and returned to the room with a balloon. The next day while we were at sea, the balloon decided to join us on the balcony, and we were afraid that it was going to jump to its death off of the balcony, so we returned it to the room.

That is about it for Argostoli. As always, thanks for reading.

Mykonos was a shorter day. We were not on the island for long, but it was a gorgeous place. We saw the windmills for which the island is famous. We also went into this little gift shop, and the owner talked with us about some of the paintings he had for sale. He told us that the students from the local art school painted the pictures, and he sold them in his store. It was very cool to look at them as you could see the same scenery in each painting, but there was always a different interpretation of the items in the painting. The paintings were beautiful. I bought one to put on my desk at work.

We walked through what is called “Little Italy,” and in that section, they paint the areas in between the stone sidewalks white. It looks amazing, but I cannot imagine the upkeep. We also saw people painting houses to keep them the bright white color that Greece is known for. We finished the day with a quick visit to the very rocky beach. We put our toes in the water and just admired how clear the water was.

After getting on to the ship, we went up to the concierge lounge – like always – and the concierge and the staff had a surprise waiting for us. They made us drinks – chocolate martinis – and wrote happy birthday and our names in chocolate. They also gave each of us a piece of cake with a piece of chocolate on top that said Happy Birthday. The crew in the lounge was AMAZING.

Interestingly enough, the ship has to get permission from the authorities to enter the port so the arrival time is just an estimate. I watched as the tug approached and guided us into port. We were very close to the predicted arrival time, so that was good. Today we decided to do our own thing in Athens. We took a bus from the port to the center of the city. Once off of the bus, we headed to the Acropolis. The views from the top were amazing as were the ruins themselves.

As we were heading to lunch after climbing down from the top of the Acropolis, we were passing by some buildings and Dawn mentioned a building that just had windows drawn on it instead of having actual windows. When I looked, I did see what she was talking about, however, it was not a building with drawn on windows, it was a building that was under construction and the tarp covering the construction had windows drawn on it. Once this was pointed out to Dawn, she said it was all about perspective.

We ate lunch at a nice restaurant. The restaurant had cooling fans, which were very welcomed as it was quite hot, and we had just exerted some energy with our trek at the Acropolis. Cindy was happy as she was able to get her chicken gyro. Dawn played it safe and got grilled chicken and I got lamb gyro. We also split a spanakopita. The food was fantastic. The waiter was not warm and fuzzy, but he got the job done.

After lunch, we did a little shopping. Again, no discussion regarding what we bought as some are gifts and there will be no spoilers here. After some shopping, we went to watch the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The whole ceremony was incredible. I need to look up more information about why they step the way that they do – that is what is the symbolism of it. Once I am able to find that out, I will update this page. The guards dress in classic uniforms. One thing that I found interesting was that after the guards changed, another soldier (it appears that he is there to watch over the guards) approached each guard and wiped down their faces. After that, the guards went into a small hut – each had his own right next to him – and the soldier when went into the hut, poured some water, and then poured the water into the guard’s mouth. The guards did not move while any of this occurred. Once they had their water, they then returned to their post outside of the hut. Again, I do not know much more about this ceremony, and I will definitely do some research once I have a Wi-Fi signal that will cooperate. I will also post some pictures.

Other points of interest that we saw were the Columns that marked a memorial to the Greek God Zeus and Adrian’s Gate. More on these after research. The guide told us about these, but I did not take any notes, so I cannot give more detail now.

I just want to note that the salesperson in one of the stores that we went into was very nice. She told us about Athena and the evil eye.

Okay, that is all for now. I know that this post is lacking information, but it has the highlights and as I noted above will be updated soon.

As always, thanks for reading.

We got an early start today. We had to be ready for our tour at 7:30 this morning, and it was well worth it. As I noted yesterday, we decided to do a 4-wheel adventure tour. We were hoping for Jeep Wranglers and got Suzuki Sidekick like 4-wheel drive SUVs. The SUV had a manual transmission, so the driving was left to me. The tour included a trip to the beach, a trip to a restaurant, and a trip to a small village store before we started the journey back to the pier.

Our guide was Stephanie, and she was fantastic. She was an excellent guide – knowing when to give us information and knowing when to just let us explore and take in the views and culture. I very much appreciated her approach, and I think that she was the best tour guide I have ever had. Enough with that, let’s talk about the ride…

So, there are two kinds of people, those who enjoy cliffs and those who do not. I happened to be in the car with one of each of these kinds of people, which made the day interesting. Allow me to introduce the players for the day: character playing person fearful of the car falling off the cliff – Cindy; character playing person hanging out window to get pictures – Dawn; and driver – Kim. We were the second car in the procession, which made it easy for us. The ride took us up to mountains, and the views were amazing. The ride had a total of 27 hairpin turns, and some of them were really tight and were along the cliff, so the view was open and incredible unless you were Cindy, and then they were terrifying. Dawn and I often had to say to Cindy, do not look left (or right) so that she would not see the cliffs and thus not have an anxiety attack. The pictures are beautiful, and they will be added here once I have a strong enough signal to upload them.

At one point during the ride down the mountain, Dawn was hanging out of the window (not really, but she did have body parts outside of the car) taking pictures. Cindy told her to make sure that she did not drop her phone, to which Dawn responded that she should not worry as she was holding on to her knobby (a pop socket on the back of her phone). Cindy followed up by asking if her knobby was secure. That caused a bit of laughter while we were driving. It is never a dull moment when we are together – further examples of this a bit later.

Our tour guide told us that one of the famous chase scenes in For Your Eyes Only was filmed on the same streets that we drove – now that is pretty cool. That being said, I am not sure how they were able to drive so fast on some of those roads. Major kudos to the stunt people. Another cool thing from the day was that we could see Albania from one of the locations. I knew that it was close, but I forgot how close it was to Greece or that we would be able to actually see it from where we were.

I also learned that driving a stick is like riding a bike – it all comes back to you. It was so much fun, and I really enjoyed the chance to drive in Greece. It was never on my bucket list, but it is now, and it is checked off!

When we got back to the ship and Dawn and Cindy went to the pool, and I decided to hang out on the balcony and read. We left Corfu at 3:00 p.m. and headed for Athens, Greece. When Cindy and Dawn came back from the pool, we decided to have dinner in the room so that we could watch the sunset.

After dinner, we decided to take in a show…big mistake. It was not good, so we left after the third song. The person had been a “finalist” on XFactor UK in 2008. think that things have changed for him since that time – not saying for good or bad, but I do not think that he would be a finalist today. So, we then decided to go to a trivia night. It was adult trivia, and the host was a character. We laughed at how animated he was in reading the questions. Cindy’s favorite was this riddle: I go in your mouth hard and turn soft, and I do not mind if you blooooow (for emphasis as that is how he read the question) me. Now, get your mind out of the gutter as the answer was bubble gum. We must have repeated that one a few times, just copying how he said it.

After trivia, we went to the room, and I started to blog. We were all in the “living room” and just started talking and laughing. We must have laughed for an hour straight at least, and sometimes for no apparent reason. Once we started, it was all over. I wish I had had my recorder going as each of us made priceless comments, but I cannot recall them. Below are a few that I can remember.

At one point, Dawn asked, how can room service be available from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. I proceeded to explain how a clock works, and the next question asked was well when don’t they service room service. I then explained it was from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. This may not be funny to others or to us when we read it at a later date, but I assure you that it resulted in much laughter when it occurred – trust me on that!

Another funny moment happened when Cindy asked if I had any extra eye makeup remover wipes, and Dawn pipes in with I have some funny things that will help you. I am asking that they stop for the night as I do not have enough space to continue including all of these quips in today’s blog.

As always, thank you for reading.

So, after my last post, we decided to check out what was happening on the ship. We went to the piano bar for a bit to listen to some, wait for it, piano music. The piano player was pretty impressive. He did not have any sheet music and just played, and he sounded great. He even took recommendations. After the piano bar, we stumbled in on adult karaoke. Unfortunately, we only caught the last song. We will have to go back another night. Cindy then suggested that we go to the club on the ship.

When I say that Cindy was in her element, that is an understatement (IYKYK). We stayed at the club until about 1:30 a.m. It was a lot of fun. There was a group there – a family group who were/are celebrating one of the member’s birthdays – and they were a lot of fun. They got the dance floor going at one point. And Cindy made her first new best friend on the dance floor (again, IYKYK). The count is on to see how many new friends she makes on this cruise.

Day 2 – Kotor, Montenegro

I woke around 8:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. on Day 2. Cindy and Dawn slept in a bit. I was out on the balcony enjoying the view, and as we started to approach land and see different cities/towns in Montenegro on the way to Kotor, I decided it was time for Cindy and Dawn to wake up and see the views. After getting ready, we went to breakfast and headed to the tender to get to the port. The ship could not dock in Kotor, so the only way to get to land was to take the tender. The process was super easy, especially since we are staying in a suite, which allows us to get priority boarding. Yes, we are those people. When we got to land, we decided to take a city tour. The “hop on – hop off” tour allowed us to, yes, you guessed it, get on and off at the different stops. The only stop where we got off was at the beach.

The water was amazingly clear and warm (picture will be posted at some point – again, the ship’s Wi-Fi is less than stellar, and we paid for the alleged enhanced service). The beach was made up of stones – they were not sharp, but they did get a bit hot from baking in the sun. Also, when you stepped into the water, you sank a bit, so that was interesting. After getting our feet wet in the water, we decided to go and get a drink at the bar. I had an iced coffee, Cindy had a tropical sunrise (enhanced with rum), and Dawn also had a tropical sunrise (not enhanced with rum). The waiter then tried to get us to agree to an excursion where a friend of his would come and pick us up for a speed boat tour – do we look that naive, sir? We respectfully declined. He then had trouble with his credit card machine, so we paid in cash. After we settled the bill and were leaving, he approached Cindy and asked if we had a Visa card as they prefer to have customers pay with credit. Well, the card Dawn initially gave them was a Visa, and Cindy let him know this and said thank you and walked away.

We made our way back to the bus stop and waited for the tour bus to pick us up. We got on and returned to the starting point. From there, we walked into Old Town to look at the shops. We made some purchases (not going to disclose them here as some were gifts) and then returned to the dock to board the tender back to the ship. We met some nice people on the tender and had a good conversation during the trip from the pier to the ship. In fact, one of the people that we spoke with was at the club the previous evening. A funny thing happened before we got on the tender. As we were walking toward the line to get to the tender, Dawn says, how are we going to get to the ship? Are we going to have to swim? I am just going to let this sit here.

As we were waiting for dinner, we looked at what is on the schedule for tomorrow – Day 3 Corfu, Greece. We discovered that there is going to be a Jeep Tour, so we decided what the heck, let’s go for it. We will be driving our own Jeep during the tour. Who am I kidding, I will be driving as the Jeep is a manual transmission. The tour will bring us to the beach and a place for lunch, in addition to touring other parts of Corfu. We are looking forward to it. Dawn is a little concerned with the narrow roads and 27 switchbacks that were mentioned in the tour description. Despite this concern, it is going to be a good day.

Tomorrow we have to report to our assigned location at 7:30 a.m. for the tour, so this will be the end of this entry. As always, thanks for reading.

Today started with breakfast in the hotel. It was quite good. We then had to check out and catch the bus for the cruise. A very helpful lady – who we found out was also on our cruise – helped us get checked out by walking right up to the front of the line and telling the person at the counter she needed to check out, and then once she was done, she told the person at the desk our room numbers and got us checked out as well. To her, I say thank you.

So, the bus ride was faster than we thought. It took just a little over 2 hours to get from the hotel to the ship. There was an interesting group of individuals on our trip. For the first part of the trip, they were very quiet, then all of a sudden, they all got their second wind and just talked for the rest of the trip. All I am going to say is thank goodness the dining is not set up so that they sit you with other parties because if I had to dine with them, I would likely just eat in the room for the entire cruise as I think that I might hurt any one of them if they asked questions or made comments like those they did on the bus. So, please allow me to share a couple of the comments that were made.

1. “I think that we are heading toward the water.” To this I say, really, we are heading toward the water? Say it isn’t so. Here I thought we were going on a land cruise.
2. “I hope that that is our ship, as it is the only one there” (as we approach the dock). “Check to see if it says Royal Caribbean.” Are you kidding me? What other ship would it be???

Now for the check-in process…it was amazing and fast. They had different stations to check our Covid test results, one station to check the vaccination records, and another station to check the passport and boarding passes. Since we are in a suite, we were able to bypass the longer lines for check and go straight to a location with no line, and we were on our way to the ship in no time at all. We made it to the “safety briefing,” if you want to call it that. They asked if we did the online training, and we said yes. They said if we hear the signal to get our life jackets and meet at our muster station. Check – got that out of the way. We then made it to our room, and to the surprise of Cindy and Dawn, there were happy birthday signs on the door, chocolate cake, and chocolate-covered strawberries in the room waiting for them. Our travel agent also sent us chocolate-covered strawberries and a fruit plate. We were missing some items, but the person at guest services was able to address the issues.

Before dinner, we decided to hit happy hour in the concierge lounge. From 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. each day there are hors d’oeuvres and free drinks. It was very nice, and we met the concierge while we were there. After the lounge, we took a look at the shops before heading to dinner. We ate in the main dining room, and all of our meals were great. After dinner, we took a stroll of the ship. There is a lot going on each day.

Tomorrow we dock in Kotor, Montenegro. We dock at noon local time and have to take a tender to shore. Tomorrow is a short excursion day as the last tender leaves Kotor at 5:15 p.m., thus giving us more time to explore the ship and plan for the evening.

That is all for today. Unfortunately, there are no pictures today as the ship’s Wi-Fi is SLOW tonight, and I do not have the patience to wait for them to load. As always, thanks for reading.

Day 1 of the adventure started at around 2:00 p.m. at the airport. It actually started a bit before that – getting to the airport and all, but let’s go with 2:00 p.m. We checked in and checked our bags and we were off to the gate. Well, who knew on a Friday at Logan Airport the security lines would be short and easy. So, we made it through security and found ourselves wondering what to do. We decided to get ourselves some food and sit and chat and people watch. After a while, we got up to take a walk, and we came across the first “event” of the trip. The airport had the letters B O S O N with the T missing – so of course, Cindy and Dawn made the T to complete the word. As I said in the title, let the shenanigans begin.

We finally got to board our flight and start the trip to Madrid – the first, and only, stop on our way to Venice. This was to be a 7-hour flight, and it was. I am going to suggest two things to avoid while traveling – two things that happened during that flight:

1. Do not get a migraine as even though they dim the lights, it still is not dark enough.
2. Do not get your carry-on soaked with some kind of liquid while it is in the overhead compartment.

We survived both, so not too much of an issue. We met a very nice person on the plane and she gave us a suggestion of a restaurant to go to while in Venice. We are planning on trying it out when we return to Venice after the cruise. The view from the plane as we approached Madrid was beautiful. It was beautiful for two reasons, the first is just because it was beautiful, and the second was because it meant that we were that much closer to our final destination. The picture does not do it justice!

We got to Madrid and I think that we hit every corner of that airport. We had a general idea of where we were going and just trusted the process. We had a 2¹/₂ hour layover and we thought great, this will give us plenty of time to get some food and move around before we have to get on the next plane. Well, since we had to go through a checkpoint and have our passports stamped, our expected time to get food and move around was not as long as we thought. We were not running to the next gate, but I was a little concerned that we were going to have to rush. Dawn says she was not worried at all…she is better than I am with that.

We finally boarded our last flight of the day – at this point we had been up for quite some time (we awoke at 7:00 a.m. ET on Friday, June 3, 2022, and it was now 8:45 a.m. local time (2:45 a.m. ET June 4, 2022, with little sleep had on the Boston – Madrid flight. Wheels up and we were off for the final leg. We landed in Venice early and immediately headed to baggage claim. Now was the moment of truth, did our bags make it? Will we need to shop while in Venice? Well, losing luggage would have impacted Cindy more than Dawn and I, but it still would have had an impact on our trip. I am happy to report that all luggage was accounted for so then it was off to the hotel. Our driver met us at the airport and in what felt like no time at all, we were at the hotel.

We were TIRED, but we held true to our mission and we stayed up to adjust to the local time zone. We opted to shower before heading out to the Venice proper. We also decided to do our Covid tests that are required for the cruise. We are happy to report that we are all negative and we can get on the cruise tomorrow.

After all of that, we headed to the train station – just behind the hotel – and took the 20-minute train ride to Venizia. It was during this train ride, we had the first Dawnism – it was not a full Dawnism, but it was close enough. Dawn was playing Pokemon on the train and then informed us that she discovered multiple Pokemon in her room and proudly stated that she did not turn them away. In fact, she noted that she allowed them to stay despite not offering to cover any part of the cost of the room. The train station was big, and the train reminded us of the Commuter Rail back home. When we arrived we decided that we needed to eat as we had not eaten since the Boston – Madrid leg of the trip. I called up Google Maps and found a cute little restaurant not far from the station. While we were waiting for our food (tortellini for Dawn, lasagna for Cindy, and pizza for me) Dawn looks to her left and starts to say oh there are people over at that table. Here is the thing, Dawn was looking at a mirror on the other wall and it was not a table of other people, it was us in the mirror. I will give Dawn a pass on that one as we were tired and hungry. The food was amazing and they had some interesting decor…we rather enjoyed this.

After eating, we decided to just walk around. Well, we soon discovered that Venizia is made up of many little alleys and we soon discovered that while we enjoyed seeing all the different parts of the city, we were not quite sure where we were and how to get back to the train station. So, we decided to ask Google Maps for help…big mistake. It took us around in circles. We finally decided to ask for help and Cindy asked a store owner how to get back to the train station. Best directions EVER! The person came out of the store and said, you need to cross this bridge – he tapped his hand on the railing – and then you need to follow this road along the water all the way until you see a flat iron bridge (and it was in fact a flat iron bridge). He then said we needed to turn right after crossing the bridge as going to the left would end in a dead end. He then told us we would then see a larger bridge and once we crossed it we would be at the train station and damn if he was not spot on. We were back to the train station in no time at all. Thank you sir for your amazing directions.

The following is the train station. I tried to upload more photos, but they were not cooperating and I am far too tired to try and figure out why tonight.

As always, thanks for reading. It is 9:40 p.m. local time and I am calling it quits. Tomorrow we have yet another adventure prior to getting on the ship. We have about a 3-hour bus ride to get to the ship – we will be leaving our hotel at 11:45 a.m. We cannot wait to get on the ship so that we can unpack and be settled for a few days – 7 to be exact. Be sure to check back if you want to hear more about the trip!

We’re leaving on a jet plane…

Can you believe that the day is finally here? I know that we cannot. We are so very excited to start this adventure. I will be updating this blog each night (at least that is the plan) with pictures and stories of our adventures of the day. There may be stories that do not make you laugh as hard as it makes us laugh, but they will be recorded so that we have a detailed recording of the trip. I am so very excited to be taking this trip with Cindy and Dawn; it is going to be truly epic! That is all for this morning. I may post from the airport as we should have some time between getting through security and boarding.