Second Cruise Port Wrap-Up – Part One
It’s time for another port wrap-up. This marks the start of my second cruise (right now I’m on my third) and the voyage number was A010. This cruise was a roundtrip from Southampton, so 90% of the passengers were British. Definitely a sharp contrast from my first Transatlantic which most of the passengers were American – and from Florida. But, it was still a good time. There are a few Americans on the ship, and when I do find them, I gravitate towards them like a magnet!
Anyway, let’s talk ports:
Cadiz (Seville) – April 27 – This was my first time in Spain and it was absolutely gorgeous. I loved the architecture and the general feel of the city. – I got picked for the biggest and best tour: “Best of Seville”. Woohoo! As soon as I got off the ship we were on our way to Seville. The busses were fantastic and probably the highest quality I’ve seen. They had TV screens and nice luxurious seats! On our tour they took us to the Cathedral of Seville, the Royal Alcazar (which had a ton of rooms), and the Santa Cruz Quarter. I can’t believe how luxurious the churches were, although I hear they are quite a dime a dozen in Europe. For some reason, they put two crew members/escorts on one bus, so I got to hang out with one of the videographers. Man, even when they get to go on fun tours, they still have to work hard and film! I just take pictures with various strangers 
Lunch was fantastic. They took us to what was called the “Hotel Macarena”. Yes, we did the dance of the same name by the hotel and it was on film. So somewhere, there is a Princess DVD of me doing the Macarena – albeit very poorly! During lunch, we were treated to a Flamenco show. I never realized how much stomping there is in a Flamenco show. They seem so mad! It reminded me a lot like “stepping” from high school. The only downside of this day was I didn’t get to spend any time in the port of Cadiz, so maybe if I don’t get a tour, I will go out and explore.
Alghero (Sardinia) – April 29 – Didn’t get a tour today, which was a bummer. Also, because it’s a tendering port (i.e. the ship anchors and we have to take a boat ashore), I have to wait until all the passengers get off before I can leave the ship. Because things were behind schedule, I didn’t get off the ship until close to 1, and since we had to be back at 4, it didn’t leave too much time. But, I tried to make the best of it. The town was very nice once we got off the tender. To get myself acquainted, I took this little train around the city just to see everything there was. I saw a lot people riding bikes and I think this would be a fantastic place to take a bike for the day. I will have to consider that, since the ship does rent bikes to crew.
After I took a tour of the city, I sought out Internet, even though it was mostly a bust. I couldn’t find any dedicated internet cafes, and since it was France, I didn’t really know how to ask for them. I just gave up and went to the one place I knew would have internet – McDonald’s. I really hate going to McDonald’s, but when it’s the only place that has usable wifi, you have to make do. The internet speed wasn’t great (and I’m not even sure if I was actually on the right network – I was on someone’s wifi). After sitting there for a while, I started to get hungry; because I didn’t want to move, I really had no choice but to eat at McDonald’s. With my broken French, I managed to order a salad with sliced meat and some Coke (although it took a couple tries). I really think the Coke was American (i.e. not sweetened with sugar) so that made it worse – boo.
All in all this day wasn’t so great. Wish I would have gotten a tour. Didn’t have much time out, didn’t really find that great of Internet, and I broke down and bought McD’s. Next time I think I’ll just rent a bike (unless I get a tour).
Civitavecchia – April 30 – While I really wanted to go into Rome that day, I had to do various things on the ship, and so by the time I got out, it wasn’t worth it. It’s about an hour and a half to get to Rome, and since I wasn’t familiar with the train station, I didn’t feel like chancing it. So, I just walked around the town (which took me forever to learn how to pronounce – Si va cha veck ee ah, by the way) to see what I could find. I ran into some new crew members, one of which was also from Florida. We all sat at a café, ordered pizza, and bonded over the fact we were eating a meal off the ship. Afterwards, the other Floridian and I wandered around to find Internet. We found one place, but it smelled weird, there were people everywhere, and the prices weren’t so great. We remembered there was a place closer to ship, so we went there. While there were many computers there, there was only one space for you to plug in your own laptop. The nice Floridian gave it up to me since she was going back to the ship anyway to take a nap.
I sat down at the one and only internet terminal (which you also had to plug in) and I got to Interneting. Oh my gosh, the speed was so incredibly fast, I couldn’t believe it! I was getting 1 Megabit down for speed, which is really good. It’s probably nothing to all of you folks with your readily available high-speed internet, but to me and my internet misadventures it was wonderful. The chair for the internet was extremely uncomfortable, but I didn’t care. I wanted to stay there forever, and I almost did. Bless you high-speed and it was only 1.50 euros an hour – not a bad price. So far on all of my adventures, this has been the best internet I’ve found. If I could, I would always come back to this port and use this wonderful internet. But, it’s really the port to see Rome, and I can’t justify turning down Rome for internet, no matter how fast it may be. Also, there’s only one spot, so if someone sits down or hogs it (much like I did), you’re really screwed.
Florence/Pisa (Livorno) – May 1 – Okay, enough internet talk. I managed to snag a Tuscany tour this day, so I was once again excited. At first I was disappointed that I wasn’t going to either Florence or Pisa on my tour. But then, when I read the description closely, I noticed I was going to Volterra. Fans of Twilight should recognize how cool that is – it’s the home of where the vampire royalty live (and an important place in the second book). For those of you who aren’t fans, though, it’s still pretty cool. I really like Volterra and wish we could have spent more time. They gave us a tour and let us wander on our own, but there was so much to do there’s no way I could do it all. Or maybe I just thought it was so exciting because I read about in Twilight first. Either way, it was neat. At first, I didn’t see much Twilight stuff around, so I figured Volterra downplayed the whole thing – but I was dead wrong. While wandering on my own, I went into the Tourist office, and they had New Moon stuff everywhere. Then, they gave me a map of all the places they talk about in the New Moon book. It was a Twilight fan’s dream come true. I only wish I had one of my Twilight friends there to squeal with. None of the passengers seemed nearly as excited as I was.
In between our next stop, we went to a nice little farm (which really looked like a garden to me) for lunch. It actually turned to be a combination lunch and wine tasting (which surprised the passengers, too). I’m not much of a wino, and there was so much wine, and so much was wasted on me. But they also served us lots of different types of food to try with the wine, including a lasagna that was the best. It was soft, chewy, and extremely cheesy. Of course Italy would make the best lasagna, right? I also tried a sweet balsamic vinaigrette and my eyes are now open to the possibility of balsamic vinaigrette beyond what they give you at the restaurant table. I almost bought some, but it was so expensive, so I decided to leave it as a pleasant memory.
After that, we headed to San Gimignano which is on a really big hill. I had a bit of trouble walking up the hill, so I can only imagine how the passengers were struggling. If you want a workout, you should definitely go here (or San Fransisco). They let us on our own for an hour here and so I went and explored more. They had two interesting museums – Museum of Torture and Museum of the Death Penalty. It was so bizarre I just had to go. And let me just say, it was very graphic and hard on the stomach at times. I never realized there were so many different ways to kill or torture someone, but there are. It was hard being in there, but it was a part of the history, and it’s also something they would never have in America. I saw mothers take their kids in as though it was no big deal. It was an interesting experience to me how unaffected these young children were. After the museum(s), I went shopping for a bit, but the prices were high and it was just a little too touristy. I think I liked Volterra better. I tried to get gelato, but there just wasn’t enough time, so I made my way back. I’ll be in Italy plenty of times, with many opportunities to get gelato, so I wasn’t too upset.
On our way back, I asked our Italian tour guide various Italian phrases. I’ve forgotten most of them, but I do remember a lot of them sounded like Spanish, so maybe if I just talk in Spanish, they might be able to make out what I’m saying.
——————-
And that wraps up part one for my ports of my second cruise. Never knew I could talk so much about the internet, eh? It may seem silly to you, but remember that internet is hard to come by on the ship, so we do what we can when we’re in port. I’ll talk about the next few ports in a later entry. Hope you all enjoy these wrap-ups, even if they are a little bit delayed.
