Hi everyone, this is Pastor Linda. There has been much conjecture about the author of our blog. Rich wrote most of the narrative with a few additions from my perspective. My job was to write the narrative for the pictures and be the technical person for downloading. We found text to be easy to download but pictures were a bit of a problem on the ship because our sattelite connection to the internet was to say "slow" would not be descriptive enough. Most times when I tried to download pictures it would cut me off half way through and I'd loose [View Full Entry]

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Our final tour day dawned partly cloudy and pleasant. We joined our guide Mary and took off for Corinth and Mycenae on our final day of touring. After traversing the heavy downtown Athens traffic, it took us about an hour to reach the Corinth Canal. Four miles long and only about 75 feet wide, this canal sits below rising cliffs of several hundred feet with sheet walls—a little confining for the vessels as they make the crossing from the Aegean Sea to the Ionian Sea, saving a couple of hundred of miles in time to get around the bottom of Greece. [View Full Entry]

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The Pacific Princess docked by 6:00 AM in Piraeus, Greece. This is a teeming, modern port filled with cruise ships, ferries and a wide variety of vessels. It’s a very modern port with nice passenger terminal facilities. After a final breakfast and a time of waiting for our check out, there was a bit of sadness in our group as we departed from the ship which had been our home for nearly two weeks. Out Athens tour company representative was right on time and met our group and helped us to load our luggage into the bus for a short trip [View Full Entry]

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When the Pacific Princess departed from Patmos, the weather began to change and the ship experienced a few rain showers. But, the next morning arriving in Santorini, the weather had improved under warm and partly cloudy skies. Santorini sits on top of the caldera left from a major volcano which erupted more than 2500 years ago. Its white washed buildings and blue roofs are often used in promotions for Greece because of its scenic beauty. The ship anchored in the harbor not far from two islands which appeared with the past 300 years. Arriving ashore the choice was to ride the [View Full Entry]

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Everyone was eager to explore the ancient city of Ephesus as the Pacific Princess arrived in Kusadasi, Turkey. Surprisingly, this port city is a clean modern seaside resort currently undergoing a boom in tourism, including many Brits and Irish folks who are buying condos in the area. We docked next the new Cunard Lines Queen Victoria-an impressive large vessel. The dock area is a nice shopping mall offering of all things—a Starbuck’s Coffee store. We didn’t have time to see if they offered the infamous Turkish coffee. Our guide was right on time and we beat many of t [View Full Entry]

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The Pacific Princess sailed into the harbor of the small Greek island of Patmos under mostly sunny and pleasant skies. This was the first port where the ship did not dock and tenders were used to get into the small village of Scala, the commerce center for the island. Patmos is a small island about 18 miles long and only has about 3,000 year round residents. During the summer months its population grows to about 10,000. It’s most famous feature is that it was the place where John the Evangelist was exiled by the Roman emperor in the year 90. John [View Full Entry]

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After three hectic days in Egypt and Israel, a day cruising the Mediterranean was a welcome respite. Unfortunately about a third of our group seems to be experiencing the 24 hour gastroenteritis bug which seems to be going around the ship. If reported to the clinic on board everyone with these symptoms is quarantined in their staterooms for 24 hours, so most choose not to report their symptoms. The weather is cooling down some and a chilly wind arose in the afternoon because we are now heading in a northerly direction. Those who were stuck in their staterooms could watch BBC [View Full Entry]

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It was another warm and sunny day as our group arrived in Haifa. Israel’s largest port. Another busy port, we docked across from several very modern looking Israel navy vessels at the base of the hills that make up Haifa. Our guide was there to meet us promptly at 8:00 AM, and it looked as though we would be off to a quick start. However, our bus could not leave the port area because someone had not paid some kind of exit fee, or some such kind of bureaucratic nonsense—a delay of about 45 minutes. When we did get underway we [View Full Entry]

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The Pacific Princess pulled into Ashdod, Israel on a bright and warm morning. The port is an industrial center and our dock included things like a new railcar for Jerusalem’s soon to be light rail line and about a million containers. Everyone in the group had signed up for the shore excursion to Jerusalem and all 30 of us assembled on the dock eager to begin a day of discovery. (We had a young couple from England join our group - Kit and Reeta Singh - they are traveling alone and wanted to join a Christian group for the experience so [View Full Entry]

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The entire group, with one exception, joined in a tour of Cairo and the Pyramids at Giza along with the Sphinx. The day dawned warm and partly cloudy and everyone was excited to see one of the great wonders of the World. Unfortunately, our 10:00 AM arrival ended up being 10:45 as Princess decided to bring boxes, freight and several local folks onboard before clearing the vessel for passenger disembarkation. Little did we realize this delay would have major consequence as our tour ended. Our guide was named Waleed and he was a nice young Egyptian man who spoke excellent English. [View Full Entry]

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