Today we are in Civitavecchia on the Norwegian Jewel. We had considered a train ride to explore other nearby areas of Italy outside of Rome. However, the Italian rail workers decided to strike today; disrupting many cruise ship guests plans. There are 7 ships in port today.
Plan B — we mailed a wedding gift through Post Italiane (no small feat) and are going to catch up the blog as internet cafes are plentiful and inexpensive.
Hello from Dubronvik, Croatia! We are in an internet cafe with a computer with a Croatian?? keyboard — it has some letters and symbols in different places than we are used to them being.
We are currently sailing on the Norwegian Jewel between Istanbul and Barcelona — arriving in Barcelona on June 24.
A few friends have emailed, wondering why our blog is not up to date. We have been writing and posting, but on Cruise Critic.com under boards and Holland America Line as it is faster to post from on the ship to that site. Today we hope to trasfer some of those posts to this site, so the posting date will be different than when actually written.
Traveling has been a great experience; we´ve met many interesting people and have learned a great deal about Europe. To date, the Black Sea has been the most intriguing, especially Sochi, Russia; Yalta, Ukraine; and Varna, Bulgaria.
Here´s wishing dad a very special Father´s Day!
After settling into our cabin, we set out to explore the 2,379-passenger Norwegian Jewel. What a difference from the Prinsendam, which had 793 guests. The Jewel is 93,000 tons, is 965 feet long, and has 1,111 crew members. It took us several hours to explore the ship and to find the area to make dinner reservations for our first night.
After unpacking, we set out walking near the cruise terminal to see more of Istanbul. Close by, we found ourselves in an area known as “Istanbul Modern” – with a series of outdoor cafes where a mostly 20-30ish crowd sat on sofas or beanbags while surfing the internet, drinking tea, playing backgammon and smoking hookahs – a water pipe device for smoking. While we did not join in, everyone was friendly and invited us into several of the cafes.
Back toward the ship, we stopped in an internet café to the left of the port area. Internet access is inexpensive, but the best deal was Ozzy’s calling card. For 5 euros, the card was good for 89 minutes of calls to the US from Turkey. There is a large bank of phones all around to use, and several small stores selling water, sodas and other supplies. Since today was my father’s birthday, I was thrilled to have a nice long chat. Jeff also enjoyed calling his mother and brother. (and we still have lots of minutes left on the card.)
Back on board, we changed and headed to our 9:15 reservation in Tangos, the Spanish Tex/Mex restaurant. The shrimp fajitas were terrific, and it was nice change from the more formal dinners on the Prinsendam.
The ship docked in Istanbul for the night, not leaving until 2 pm tomorrow. After dinner, we head up to an upper deck to view the Borporus by night. What a beautiful, exotic site!
Wow! We are off of the ms Prinsendam — having cut the umbilical cord after 39 days. It went by so quickly and yet, living in Seattle seems so long ago.
Once the Prinsendam was cleared with immigration, we were one of the first off of the ship, hand carrying (and rolling) our own luggage off around 8:15 am. We headed to the official taxi line and confirmed the published fare of 28 Euros. The driver said it would take about 45 minutes to the airport – our flight was scheduled for 10:53 am
Athens was crowed and it was a long drive from the port to the airport– about 1 hour and 15 minutes – and we finally arrived about 9:30. Luckily, the Turkish Airlines check-in had no line, and the same was true for security. It took us a minute to understand the customer service agent’s question “what corridor do you want?” Finally, we got that he was asking if we wanted “aisle or window,” and were thrilled when we were able to get aisle seat across from each other in the emergency exit row. We were even more impressed that the flight attendants delivered a full lunch and beverage service to a completely full plane on the1-hour flight.
Once into Istanbul, we followed the signs to buy a Visa ($20 US dollars) and very straightforward. It is important to do this before going into the custom line or you will be sent to get a Visa and then start over at the back of the line. With the Visa applied in your passport, however, customs was a breeze.
After collecting our bags, we jumped into a taxi to the port. This is where the trip got interesting. As the driver pulled out of the airport, we quickly reached for our seat belts. The next half hour was like being on a NASCAR speedway: our driver had great control of the car as he weaved in and out of traffic and decelerated from 60 to zero 2 seconds before the intersection. We were in awe, while silently praying at the same time.
We have given the driver directions to the port printed from the NCL website. (Having purchased the cruise only 4 days ago, we had no documents.) NCL listed two ports, and the one the driver took us to was not correct. Luckily, he was willing to pull over, go to the police officer and ask directions. The ports are very close, but there is much traffic and congestion to get the last few blocks.
Finally, we arrived at the correct port. Embarkation for the Jewel took about 20 minutes, and soon, we were into ocean-view cabin #5074. We found it spacious and cool (a welcome relief from the heat.)