Post #6: Rome; Wasn't built in one, and can't be seen in one either.

Planning for Rome was somewhat more problematic than the other ports in that we dock in Civitavecchia, which is about an hour (depending on transportation mode) away. So we went back to the Cruise Critic forums to see what others have done.

We made our first major decision by deciding we would spend the night in Rome instead of going back and forth twice (we are in port from 7:00am one morning until 7:00pm the next evening), so that meant finding a hotel for one night…yup, back to TripAdvisor.

I emailed several places that were in our budget range, had good ratings, and were centrally located…FULL, all of them. (Did you know that according to TripAdvisor there are 1,152 hotels in Rome and 414 B&B’s…amazing!) I’m starting to get a little nervous now, so its back to Cruise Critic. One poster said they had had a great experience with a small place near the Coliseum, so I emailed them. Voila (oops, wrong country), they had a room, and it actually fit our budget. Very cool. Relief. One more thing off the ‘To Do’ list.

The name of the place is the Nicolas Inn. http://www.nicolasinn.com/ They have been SO helpful. We had already booked our room by the time Rich and Lynn decided to go on the cruise, and although the Nicolas Inn was full by then they recommended a place close by that had a vacancy. They have been great in telling me where to go (oops, I mean telling me how to ‘get around’), have recommended a wonderful looking restaurant and even made reservations for us. I am looking forward to finally getting to meet Francois & Melissa in person!!! (Oh, and according to TripAdvisor they are the #4 B&B in Rome…not too shabby!)

So now that we have a room, how are we going to get to it, and when there, how do we best fill our very limited time?

“Frugal” and “Adventurous” Meet on the Train.

No, that is not the name of a cheap screen play, it just sort of represents how we finally decided to take the train from Civitavecchi to Rome. The train is quite inexpensive (as opposed to a private car with a driver which we are doing enough of already), and…well, by now you know how I feel about buses (maybe it was those days of taking Greyhounds as a kid…no wait, THAT was fun). Plus it just seemed like a nice adventurous thing do to. And the Termini train station in Rome is only a 10 min. walk from the Nicolas Inn. (To see the kind of information one can find on internet, check out this site; http://www.europeportreviews.com/Rome2.htm. ) If we get lost now...no, let's not go there.

Now, how do we actually SEE what we want to see…back to ==>

Angel Tours http://www.angeltoursrome.com/en/index.html popped up multiple times in our searching on Cruise Critic as a good tour company. So, after several delightful emails back and forth with Angel Ruth, I booked the four of us on three tours that dovetail quite nicely with our ‘travel’ agenda. ("Look for the yellow umbrellas.")

So here is how we plan to fill our 36 hours in Civitavecchia/Rome;
1) Get off the ship ASAP and 'book it' to the train station (take the shuttle from the ship to the gate of the port then a 10 min walk to the station.) ~8:15am train
2) Buy our tickets (get them validated!) and hop the train to Rome (remember Termini station, as there are several)
3) Walk to our respective hotels and check-in (or at least drop off our bags)
4) Take the metro to the Vatican for a 12:30pm ‘Angels’ tour (3 hours)
5) Have lunch (Where? Dunno…as long as they have wine it doesn’t much matter...so I guess that rules out Mickey D's)
6) Go back to the hotel to relax a little (oh, maybe 10 minutes)…and get a gelato.
7) Meet Angel Tours at the Spanish Steps for a 6:00pm Heart of Rome tour.
8) Dinner at 8:45 Taverna De' Mercanti, http://utenti.lycos.it/iaschi/
9) Take a cab to the Trevi Fountain to see it at night…more gelato? Or wine?
10) Somehow get back to the hotel…whenever (but surely LATE)
11) Early breakfast, check out and leave bags at hotel(s)
12) 9:00am tour of the Coliseum and Forum with Angel Tours again.
13) Browse, shop, grab a bite (oh no, not more wine and gelato!), pick up our bags, and then catch the train back to the ship.

Sure hope this isn’t one of the 3 formal nights on the ship, as I’m exhausted just thinking about all this! ;-)

Post #5: Planning what to see, and how to see it.

This trip (I’m not sure I can call it a vacation…as a vacation implies relaxing, and I don't know when we are EVER going to get to relax.) spans 22 days; 2 traveling, 3 in Venice, 3 in Barcelona, and 14 on the ship. Of the 14 on the ship only 3 are at sea, so that means we will have 17 total days for sightseeing (and 3 for relaxing? See what I mean?!?).

When you are going to a region of the world with such fantastic history and wonderful cultures, it doesn’t seem right to get up each morning and say, “gee, I wonder what we should do today?” So at least some basic planning was required, even if it just meant giving each day some simple structure that would allow flexibility and/or spontaneity (whimsy comes to mind as well).

As our itinerary in post #1 shows, besides Venice and Barcelona we will be hitting seven different ports. That meant ‘getting to know’ nine ports in enough detail so that when we got home and someone asks, “Did you see such-and-such while you were there?”, we wouldn’t have to say, “gee, we didn’t even know that was there!”
One of the easiest things to do is simply look at the tours the ship offers in each port and take the one that looks the most comprehensive. You know you aren’t going to be able to see all there is that tourists feel compelled to see, but you might as well see as much as you can!

But, if you have been on cruises, and have been on those 'big bus' tours, you know that they can become a little ‘cattlecar-ish’ and at times you spend more time milling around as a large group instead of actually seeing the sights. So before actually checking what the ship had to offer we went back to the old trusty Cruise Critic boards and started doing research on private tours, guides, and/or drivers in each port.

Just as we were starting this process, friends Rich and Lynn from Lake Wildwood decided they liked the sound of our cruise and asked they ‘minded’ if they could join us. “Heck No!”, the more the merrier. That then gave us four heads for planning instead of just two.

Several people on our cruise (and posters on our ‘Roll Call’ list) shared the results of their searching, and before we knew it the four of us had joined in with another group of four and locked in with well known and respected tour guides in Naples and Florence. And then another group of four came forward and we formed a group of 12 for Ephesus.

Being on a roll we then set up just the four of us with a driver in Athens, and then we signed up with another guide/driver in Nice/Villefranche, and picked up two other couples from the Roll Call. Of course the advantage of a guide/driver (and a small group) is that you can rely on him/her to take you to main tourist sights (less ‘thinking’ as far as I’m concerned), and you can do it quicker and with much more flexibility (“Shall we stop here for lunch?” “Do they have Chianti?” “Yes” “Well SURE then!!!”).

So, all that is left to plan is Venice, Dubrovnik and Barcelona…oh, and Rome. Rome will be the next blog.

Oh, and no ship excursions have been schedule so far…but for Barcelona that is still an option.

Post #4: Water and Air...Done. Now the Land part.

The cruise and air are now booked, but we didn’t have a clue where to stay in either Venice or Barcelona. So this is where both

AND

REALLY came in handy. We did extensive searches on both sites seeking out reviews on various properties, and after much ‘hair pulling’ finally made our decisions.

Venice was the most difficult as we had expectations, and didn't want to 'settle' just out of budget considerations. The choices ranged from highly recommended bed and breakfast places (off the ‘mainstream’…pun intended) to stately old (almost impersonal) hotels with panoramic canal views.

We had some email dialogue with several properties, and after seeing our budget increase dramatically each time we discussed the options we decided that what we really wanted was a room right on the Grand Canal, and we were NOT going to let the price of the room sway us from that goal.

Below are a couple of picture from the balcony of 'our' mini-suite that I ‘borrowed’ from a former guest of the hotel we selected as posted on TripAdvisor (I’ll tell you what Hotel it is when we get there) .

The panoramic Grand Canal at night and the Gondola Station below in the morning:

No, we are not very excited!!! LOL...however, we will have to work at least another year before retiring just to pay for those three nights!!!

In Barcelona we didn’t have many pre-established opinions as we knew nothing about it. But based on trip reports in Cruise Critic we quickly came to realize that being in the vicinity of (the always ‘happening’) Las Ramblas would put us right in the heart of 24 hour-a-day activity (which sounded like a good thing!).

After spending what we are in Venice we reigned in the budget a bit, and found a ‘nice’ place right on Las Ramblas. The intriguing thing about this hotel (name to come later) is the that we will have a balcony on which we can sit and watch Barcelona ‘party on’. (Of course one complaint of this location we have ‘heard’ is the noise from the partying in the street. So I guess we have two choices…party with them or…ear plugs!) They also have a 24 hour 'Continental' buffet (just what we will need after getting off a cruise!)

OK, the before and after hotels were now set. Next comes planning the tours in each port.

Post #3: Getting to and from the cruise.

Today, Wed, Thur, Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tue, Fly day.

Once we selected our cabin and booked the cruise, we then had to arrange our flights from SFO to Venice, and then from Barcelona back to SFO. But when flying internationally one is subject to the 330 day rule. That means you cannot book your air reservations until there are only 330 days remaining to the day you fly…and that is the LAST day you fly, not the first day.

When using Frequent Flyer miles you are also subject to availability…and that was complicated somewhat since we really wanted to fly Business Class (Hey, we’re going to Europe for the 1st time, let’s try to do it right!)

We knew we wanted to arrive in Venice (one of our dream locations) at least two days before the cruise started, and we wanted to stay at least a day after the cruise ended in Barcelona. So after multiple calls to United and several possible itineraries, we finally came up with one that met our goals…the key being able to fly non-stop both ways between SFO and Frankfurt…on a 747…for free! Short hops on Lufthansa going (Frankfurt to Venice) and Swiss Air (Barcelona to Geneva) and Lufthansa (Geneva to Franfurt) returning didn’t really matter as long as the LONG leg was taken care of. Then it was time for seat selection.

If you haven’t used seatguru.com then you are missing out. It is very cool! We went into each airline's website, determined plane type for our flights, and then went to the schematics on seatguru and picked several ‘optimal’ seat locations before calling the airlines and confirming seating. Below is the link to United's 747 we will fly on. Move your cursor over the seats! Fun stuff. (And we got the seats we wanted in the Upper Level…sweet!)

http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Airlines_Boeing_747-400.php

With the cruise and air booked we then needed to start researching pre- and post-cruise hotels.

Post #2: Trip Planning...many resources

A major resource in trip planning for us was;

http://www.cruisecritic.com/

We were able to research information about different cruise lines, different ships, and various itineraries and ports before finally picking the best one for us and booking it.

Once we picked the Celebrity Millennium, we then spent a lot of time in this forum learning more about the ship; http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=28

Based on comments/observations in the Celebrity forum we singled out a cabin that had a larger deck than others in the same class; http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=267209&highlight=8045 In this picture our cabin is the one at the top (with the angled deck) just left of center. We understand that if ask our room attendant he/she will get a lounge chair for us to put on the deck (it wouldn't fit on the smaller decks).




To learn more about the ports we were going to be visiting we used this forum; http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=234

Once we booked the cruise we then set a 'Roll Call' for our specific cruise so we could get to know in advance people we would be sailing with; http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=334171

Another great resource is; http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g187870-Venice_Veneto-Hotels.html This was invaluable in finding hotels in Venice, Rome (one night) and Barcelona.

Steve

Post #1: We board the ship two weeks from today.

We thought starting a blog for the cruise might be a good way of providing 'immediate feedback' to friends and family, so I created this site today and am attempting my first post. We'll see how this works....

We have had this cruise booked for approx. 17 mos., and now we are getting scary close. We have done a lot of planning and preparing, but it seems like there is still so much more to do.

We fly out on Sept. 19th, stay in Venice 3 nights pre-cruise, do the cruise (14 day Celebrity Millennium), spend 3 nights post-cruise in Barcelona, then fly home.

The cruise will hit the following ports;

Dubrovnik, Croatia
Athens, Greece
Ephesus, Turkey
Naples, Italy
Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy
Florence, Italy
Villafranche (Nice), France
Barcelona, Spain

This will be our first trip to Europe, and we are very excited! We are using 'miles' to fly over and back, and had enough saved up to be able to fly Business Class on a 747 (another first for us).

If at any time you would like to email us, just click on Webmaster on our website; http://calberry.org/

More later,

Steve