October 15, 2011
After Ryan and Laura's lovely wedding in
San Francisco on Saturday night, October 8 we were awakened on Sunday by all 3 of the alarms that I
set for 3:15 am so we could be at the airport around 4:15 am for our
flights. All went quite smoothly and the
flight connection was perfect. At the
Venice airport we were able to buy the bus ticket to the central square near
the port and get euros from the cash machine.
Fortunately you could select instructions in English. Boarding the ship, Costa Fortuna on Monday, October 10 was also quite smooth. The bathroom in our cabin wasn’t completely
clean, but that was taken care of in short order. We also discovered that, although we were
supposedly confirmed at the “early” dinner seating (7:15 pm) at an English
speaking table, we were actually assigned to the late seating (9:30 pm). That was a little late for us so Michael was
able to get it changed. He was told the
early seating was full, but they could squeeze us in at an Asian table. Since the extent of my Asian language skills
are “thank you” and “I love you” (Michael taught me that one), this was going
to be a long cruise. But, when we arrived
at our table we were delighted to find only one other couple, who were
decidedly not Asian. Turns out Claude
and Joanne are from Quebec province and he speaks English quite well and Joanne
doesn’t speak English, but understands it very well. They are a lot of fun so it all turned out
well. After eating with them for several
days I’ve begun to speak with a little bit of a French accent.
English speakers are
definitely the minority on this cruise.
All the ship’s announcements are in at least 5 languages, usually
English is second, but not always so you have to pay close attention. The life boat drill took about 5 times longer
than usual since every instruction had to be given 5 times. Once in a while you’ll hear an announcement
in only one language and then you wonder what secret that group was being
told. The staff here is amazing. They all speak at least some English as well
as enough of several other languages to get by.
We’ve had occasion to visit the Customer Service desk a number of times
and the staff there wear lapel pins to indicate which languages they
speak. They all have at least 3 and most
have 5 or more! Really puts us to shame.
Our first port, Bari, Italy
was nice, although not terribly memorable.
We did hear of a couple who had a bit of a dust up with a local
hoodlum. The young man grabbed the woman’s
purse and she put up enough of a fight for her husband to be able to knock the
fellow to the ground and then, just for good measure he poked him in the eyes,
a la the three stooges. Guess that kid
will think twice about grabbing another purse.
The next port, Katakolon,
Greece is famous for being the location of the original Olympic games back when
it was only Greece involved. The
original Olympic stadium is near and the ship had several tours scheduled to
go. (We did not sign up). Turns out that the workers at the stadium
were on strike so the tours drove the 40 kilometers to show you the outside of
what you would have seen, then took everyone to a local hotel for a drink and a
bit of shopping instead. And for the
inconvenience, they gave everyone a 20% refund of the tour price. You can imagine how pleased everyone was with
that.
Santorini, Greece was
next. We did take the tour there and saw
some lovely scenery, walked through a local village, and visited the island’s
winery to taste their wines. The towns
built right into the cliffs are quite a sight.
Yesterday was Rhodes,
Greece. We took one of those red hop
on-hop off buses that toured the island and points out the important
stuff. Then we walked around inside the
old town that is surrounded by ancient walls and currently is full of shops and
cafes. We noticed that most of the time
the men who are trying to get you into their shop or café will speak to us in
English even if they don’t hear us speaking.
Must be the way we are dressed or something. Yesterday Michael was wearing his socks that
are red, white and black and look sort of like the x-ray of a bear’s foot. (Russ, you know the ones he won at the Altrec
picnic.) Now the vendors approached us
in French! I knew it!
Greece really is full of
cats. They hang around the cafes hoping
for scraps I guess. They are all pretty
healthy looking, albeit very thin, and they don’t bother the customers. We also saw a feeding station for pets in a
park. At the bottom was a bowl of water
and a bowl of food (dog? cat?) and at
the top was a bowl of bird seed. Don’t
know who fills it.
The ship is OK, but it’s a
little different for we Americans. Not
bad, just different. The Europeans smoke
a lot and most of the lounges have a smoking “section”. Obviously that doesn’t work very well so many
areas are just too smoky for us. The
food in the main dining room has been a bit of a disappointment as well. We had “crispy fish” the other night that was
not as good as the Gorton’s breaded fish fillets we buy at Safeway. And it is very difficult to get a glass of
water unless you buy a bottle. They
really push beverage packages so we bought one that includes 4 bottles of wine
and 7 bottles of water. And for an
Italian ship I really thought the pasta and pizza would be better. I was all prepared to take the extra carbs,
but have discovered it’s not really worth it.
Now, the gelato on board is another story … Breakfast in the buffet is very good
though. Since we generally rise early we
get there when it opens at 7:00 am and the only other people there are Asians (“thank
you, I love you“). The coffee is very
strong - even for Michael who sometimes adds water. The Europeans really like to stay up late and
so they don’t come out for breakfast until 9:00 or so. There are a fair number of kids on the ship
(local holidays apparently) and they are up at all hours. We hear them running down the hall outside
our cabin in the middle of the night.
One night I couldn’t sleep around midnight so ventured out. The ship was jumping and there were even
little ones (2- 3 years old) still playing and dancing with their parents in a
lounge. The general age of passengers
here is probably closer to 50 than 60 or 70 as on the American cruises we’ve
done. And there are very few obese
people. Michael has pointed out, though,
that European women tend to wear bikinis long past the time when they should. One piece suits here are few and far between. And the men really do still wear those
speedos.
The sheets on our bed serve a
dual function. Not only are they sheets,
but you get an all over exfoliation treatment every night. Good thing the cruise is only 7 nights or I’d
be losing more than just the top layer of skin.
And don’t get me started on the toilet paper. We’ve noticed that all the toilets in the
towns have signs telling you not to flush paper down the toilet. They thoughtfully provide a garbage can for
that purpose. At least most have actual
toilets although I did go into (and right out again) of one that only had a
hole in the ground. I guess we Americans
are just a bunch of softies.
Tomorrow is our last port,
Dubrovnik, Croatia. Then we return to
Venice on Monday. On Wednesday we board
the Princess ship that takes us back across the Atlantic to Ft.
Lauderdale. It will be interesting to
see how many Europeans are on board that one.
Ciao,
Caroline
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