Sunday, 12/02/07 Our 7:30 AM scheduled departure from Newark was delayed almost 4 hours due to cargo loading problems, snow and de-icing. It was a good thing our original flight was changed to this earlier one, so we would have enough time to catch our connecting flight in Houston. It was here I met all of my fellow travel agent partners. There were 13 of us in all from New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Arizona, Colorado, California and Texas. The Continental flights worked well for going to Quito. A 3 ½ hour flight to Houston plus a 4 hour 20 min [View Full Entry]

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Today is our last full day on board Jewel of the Seas. We spent a late night in Vortex until 3:30 AM spending fun time with the bar staff. We played some team trivia and attended a lecture about the Jewel of the Seas operations, presented by Captain Thor and his staff, including his 2nd in command, the only female Staff Captain in the cruise line industry. We also had to pack today in preparation for our long travel day tomorrow. We had a nice dinner, said our goodbyes to our wonderful dining room staff and headed off to the theater [View Full Entry]

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We woke up to a beautiful sunrise this morning as the ship glided into Cobh harbor. The town looked pretty in the morning light and we laughed as we passed a bunch of young guys up on the hill, swaying arm in arm, singing at the top of their lungs, trying to get the attention of the ship’s passengers. We enjoyed our breakfast on the verandah in the cool, fresh air. It was shaping up to be a lovely day. We disembarked and quickly found our private driver guide for the day, Kevin, from Butler’s Buses. After greetings all around, we [View Full Entry]

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We woke up to a rainy morning, but Captain Thor reported that the day would clear up by afternoon, during his daily weather report from the bridge. We hopped on the first ship shuttle bus into the center of town, and the driver was nice enough to drop us off at O’Connell Street and the River Thames, where we planned on joining the first double-decker hop-on hop-off bus tour of the day. The bus ticket office was closed when we first arrived, so we had a cup of coffee at the McDonald’s next door. We got a kick out of the [View Full Entry]

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We all slept in this morning, to rest after the past 3 busy days of touring and our late night in the Vortex. We rendezvoused at the Solarium Bar and enjoyed the bottles of champagne that Tom had. He received one from a stewardess on board our American Airlines flight from JFK to London, and the other he won at the murder mystery dinner theater a couple of nights ago. Carlos put them on ice for us and we sat around drinking mimosas. From there, we decided to try our hand at miniature golf up on Deck 13. Unfortunately, we didn’t [View Full Entry]

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We had an early 07:00 AM start today. We met in the ship’s theater, for our assigned bus number for the Beaches of Normandy excursion. We usually do not use the ship’s shore excursions, but I had difficulty in finding an available private guide who could meet us in LeHavre and supply us transportation to the D-Day Beaches area. Most companies wanted us to make our own way to Bayreuth, located about 2 hours from LeHavre by car, or 3 ½ hours by train. Things were quite organized, and the groups on each bus were kept to a maximum of 40 [View Full Entry]

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We woke up to another rainy day with temperatures in the mid 60s. We rendezvoused at the Seattle’s Best Coffee Bar in the ship’s centrum and headed towards the shuttle bus that would take us from Zeebrugge pier, where the ship docked, to the train station for the 15 min train ride to Brugges. The port would not allow the shuttle bus to leave prior to 9:00 AM, which meant we would miss the train at 9:05 AM. We joined forces with Teri and Larry, another couple traveling on the ship, and caught two vans to Brugges for about $7.00 USD [View Full Entry]

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We woke up to our first rainy day on the cruise. Captain Thor reported the day would bring cloudy skies with periods of rain. So, we put on our rain gear and headed into the brand new cruise ship terminal. I went to the information desk and signed us up for the free tour at Gassan Diamonds in the center of Amsterdam. We had to wait a few minutes, but they sent us two passenger vans to transport our group to their factory. There was quite a bit of traffic at 9:00 AM due to Amsterdam’s narrow streets and the rainy [View Full Entry]

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Everyone slept in this morning after our full day and late night the day before. We spent the afternoon taking it easy by the pool or Solarium bar, with one team trivia session added in. We also tried out a game of pool on the specially designed gyroscope pool tables, that keep the tabletop straight, in spite of any ship movement. It was also a good day to catch up on email. While the computers in the ship’s internet café were quite slow, the wireless access area in the Safari Club was better, if you brought your own laptop. Tonight was [View Full Entry]

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We were already docked at the Hamburg cruise ship terminal when we woke up. It was another beautiful, sunny day, but cooler in the upper 50’s. Billy and I stopped up at the Windjammer Café for breakfast, where Susanna trapped his thumbs under a full glass of orange juice, so she could feed him. We hopped on the $5.00 USD cruise ship shuttle that dropped us off in front of the main town square. Our intent was to catch the double-decker bus tour in English, to tour the city. However, we found out that out of the bus tours that run [View Full Entry]

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