More than a year ago, My wife, sister, and brother-in-law decided the time had come to take a European cruise. Going to the Mediterranean sea has always been a bucket list Item for me and in around 71 days my dreams of sailing across those blue Mediterranean waters will come true. My wife has always been the planner when we go on vacation. I think that might be why our trips to Disney World have been so magical. She knows the fine line between enough planning and coordination and enough free time from the schedule to keep the trip fun. We have been working diligently to get some plans for each port of call. We will probably only do this one time so we are going to do our best to get it right.
For the most part, Our family loves to sail on Princess Cruise lines. They have a definite mixture of affordability and Luxury that you want in a cruise line. However, when we started seeking a cruise for our Mediterranean adventure, We really couldn't find an itinerary with Princess that satisfied us. I am absolutely certain that we would have been happy with our familiarity with the cruse line and the number of cruses we have taken with Princess has earned us a number of perks. Since the likelihood of wandering to the Mediterranean again was remote at best, We decided that itinerary was a priority. We chose to take an NCL cruise for the wonderful Itinerary it offered. Our ship is the Norwegian Star and we leave from Barcelona Spain and we end in Venice Italy. Our itinerary includes Monte Carlo, Florence/Pisa, Rome, Naples, Santorini, Athens and Zadar Croatia. That's a lot of places packed into a 10 day period. We wanted something that visited many ports to give us as wide a Mediterranean experience as possible. I might say that our vacation is very heavy with Italian ports but I have a feeling, between the food and the sights, I'm going to love Italy.
After picking our cruise, our next decision was what to do about the terminus ports. How could we go to such amazing places and not take a day to see part of Barcelona and Venice? We had to plan a couple extra days into the vacation to see those two amazing cities. My wife and my sister are both very good at seeking out hidden gems for places to stay. My wife found a two bedroom apartment on Trip Adviser near the Sagrada Familia. Looking out our apartment and seeing this beautiful Icon of Barcelona will be amazing. My sister found a two bedroom apartment in Venice near the grand canal on Airbnb. Both places look amazing. the apartment in Barcelona looks more modern while the place in Venice looks a bit more Classical in nature. So we have a place to put our heads when we get there and a full day in each city when we arrive and before we leave. I relish the chance to see both cities. Barcelona has intrigued me since I saw Jose Andre's "Made in Spain" Jose is a Spanish Chef and watching him has peeked my interest in Catalonia food also Who hasn't wanted to roam the streets and canals of beautiful Venice.
Now that we had our accommodations sorted out for our extended stays in both cities. We turned our eye to planning what we would do at each port. This was much more difficult than we expected. For starters, The tours offered by NCL were expensive enough that the 25 dollars per port credit we were giving as part of the incentive to go with NCL really didn't make that much of a dent in the cost of the excursions. Naturally my wife, Being the true expedition planner that she is, found a number of private excursion that cost less and looked more interesting that the ones offered by NCL. My only concern about booking private tours is that we need to get back to the ship before she sails to the next port. The ship might wait for someone booked on an NCL tour but maybe not so much for people that book private adventures. The risk we run is minor, however, simply because the tour agencies wouldn't stay in business long if they didn't get people back to the ship on time.
One of the many differences between Princess and NCL is the way each cruise line handles their main dining rooms. With Princess passengers can opt for the Freestyle dining or the more traditional seating. Freestyle allows passengers to eat where they want on the ship when they want to eat on the ship. The only down side to that approach is you still need to make advance dining reservations even in the ships main dining halls. With Princess' traditional dining you have the same seating time, the same table and the same wait staff every evening. I enjoyed the chance to get to know the wait staff for our seating. I still remember some of the staff from my first cruise. We saw one of our waiters, Yorden, on a subsequent cruise managing the dining room. Our Associate water, Edwin, was promoted to waiter soon after our trip. With some effort, I could probably come up with the name of everyone who has taken care of us on each cruise that we have taken. On NCL, I don't think we will get the luxury of the same wait staff and table each time we go down to dinner. But we have the freedom of eating in either of the main dining rooms or going to a signature restaurant on the ship. We have book the Chrurrascria on board the Norwegian Star for one of our sea days. We hope to get reservations at the Teppenyaki restaurant as well but those reservations are not yet open. We hear that there are not many tables in the Teppenyaki restaurant so it might be difficult for us to obtain a seat, but hope springs eternal.
Now, The time has come to contemplate checking into the cruise. All cruise lines require passengers to check in some number of days before departure. This include date of birth, email address, passport numbers, emergency contacts just to name a few of the things the Cruise line wants to know. Our Check in date is in late May so we have quite a while to get that done, but I am not one to wait around for such things when I can get them done early. It's fun to just get another step in the process completed. I think it makes the Cruise feel closer.
So we are almost ready. We have a few Dinners to plan and a few shore excursions to decide upon. It really won't be much longer when we board the Delta Airlines Aircraft that will carry us across the Atlantic to Barcelona from where we set sail. We are excited about seeing some of the oldest cities in the western world and touch stones that were laid down before Christ was born. We have seen pictures of the Acropolis and the Colosseum. We know what the Leaning Tower of Pisa looks like. Now, We are going to see these things. We are going to eat Italian food in Italy. We are going to admire Goudi's great work of the Sagrada Familia. We are going float down the canals of Venice and see the ruins of Pompeii. I can't wait to go.
