Today Christine celebrated her 23rd birthday. We met Christina and Dom for breakfast. Once the boat anchored, we visited Villefranche with Christina and Miguel. We had to tender to shore again using lifeboats. It was a gorgeous port surrounded by tree covered mountains and beautiful homes looking over the harbor. The buildings were colorful and the water was turquoise. We considered leaving the port, but taking the train to Monaco or Nice would have taken too long plus Miguel and Christina had to be back at 2 for work and also Miguel couldn't leave the port because of passport regulation [View Full Entry]

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Today we woke up at 6:30 to get ready for another tour. Our ship was not able to dock in Livorno as early as planned, so the people going on excursions all had to be dismissed late. This caused quite the commotion and confusion. Everything took place about one hour late, but we were given an extra hour at the port since our next port of call isn't too far away. Our tour took us to Pisa. We went to Miracle Square (Piazza dei Miracoli), a medieval square that contains Pisa's Leaning Tower (bell tower), Cathedral, Baptistery, and Churchyard. After a [View Full Entry]

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This morning we woke up (and got up!) at 5:30 am. Our boat was at the Civitavecchia port and we were taking a tour to Rome. The bus drive was a little over an hour long since Civitavecchia is 70km from Rome. We had a tour director named Valaria and a shore excursion person from our ship named Rondovan ( originating in Croatia). When we got to Rome we also got a tour guide who was our Rome expert named Isabella. Our first stop was to St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. We walked around, prayed, and went down into the [View Full Entry]

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We had to get into the lifeboats today.................to be taken to the shore of Corsica because our ship was too large for the shallow waters surrounding the island. This process is called "tendering". They let about 6 life boats down and transported people to and from the boat to the port. We weren't sure what we were going to do at Ajaccio, Corsica. It is known for water and beach activities so we considered going parasailing. However, there were not any places that we could walk to where we could. Instead we walked around. We saw a statue of Napoleon Bonaparte [View Full Entry]

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We were able to fall asleep right away and straight through until lunchtime. We got ready and ate lunch (Kim had chicken parm - Her favorite!). Then we went up to the top to deck to listen to our Ipods, watched the water/coastline, and recorded what we have been taking pictures of. We then had dinner and tried to fix our hair that was demolished by the wind. We went to the early show. It was the magician and the Cat's Pajamas. As soon as the show ended, we ran up to the Spinnaker Lounge to get seats for the Second [View Full Entry]

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When we got back from seeing the Rock of Gibraltar, we had a maximum of 2 hours and 45 minutes to sleep however it took us a good hour to actually fall asleep. Christine had nightmares and we both woke up very tired. We had a tour scheduled through NCL to see the Caves of Nerja (about an hour east along the coast from Malaga. These caves were discovered in 1959 by local children looking for bats. It has the largest stalagmites in the known world. Prior too seeing the caves, our tour brought us to the Balcon de Europa (Balcony [View Full Entry]

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Today the ship is in Cadiz, Spain. We got up and got ready to go with Christina and Dom(inique) to explore the city. We walked around trying to find the Catedral Nueva. We found it, and there was a ceremony in progress. We also got to hear the big pipe organ play. It was a pretty place. We continued walking and came upon an information station. Dom got a map that listed 4 themed walking tours. We chose the Castles and Bastions walking tour. This tour took us along the coast, through beautiful landscaped gardens, and ended at a beach that [View Full Entry]

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Happy Birthday to Kim's little sister Lisa! She is 19 today! Due to our late night, we slept in a little (8:30 instead of 6:30). This visit to Lisbon, Portugal is longer than when we went to Ponta Delgada, so we had some time to spare. When we got off the ship, we went thought the customs building and got some maps to try to find our way out to the Mosteiro dos Jeronimos. We walked past the cab drivers calling out "City Center?" to us and said no thank you. Then we tried to read the maps and figure out [View Full Entry]

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Since we couldn't fall asleep until approximately 4am, we slept until about 2pm. We got up and went to a late lunch. Christine made friends with the guys who make pasta - Carlito and Rolido. We eat pasta a lot here since we are both plain eaters who LOVE carbs. So now Christine can chat with the pasta men while they cook her food for her. After we ate, we went on every floor of the ship looking for the least crowded laundry room. There are 3 washers and 3 dryers on floors 5, 9, and 10. They were all crowded, [View Full Entry]

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Today we got up at 7am, got breakfast and got ready to go on land. We arrived at the Ponta Delgada Port in the Açores on Sal Miguel Island (Green Island) at about 8am. We got off the ship with a main mission of finding an Internet cafe. We asked people at the information booth and a police officer, and walked by it a couple of times before finding it. Once there, we updated our blog and uploaded some pictures to it. Since we ran out of time while uploading, we do not know what got posted. We will figure that [View Full Entry]

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