South America

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We are leaving for South America this week! Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay to be exact. How did this trip come about? On July 4th last year we booked this trip after we received an email about discounted 2023 cruises. Kamie’s goal is to step foot on as many continents as possible and South America had been on our radar for years. We booked an 8-night, 9-day cruise with Costa Cruises. Costa Cruise Lines is owned by the Carnival Corporation and it’s their Italian line of ships which caters to Europeans (mainly Italians) not Americans. This cruise will be different than anything we’ve experienced previously. Basically, we’ve read that anywhere from 3 to 15 percent of the passengers will speak English, most will speak Italian, and everything on the ship is listed or spoken in five languages – Italian, French, German, Spanish, and English. Most cruisers on this voyage should be from Europe or Australia. Having said that… this SEEMS like a decent ship and we think we’ll sail along fine… but some of the reviews have us wondering what we might be encountering for nine days…. karaoke is in Italian, dinner menu offerings include pan-fried octopus or Mediterranean-style mackerel, and apparently speedos and butt floss swimsuits reign supreme. Fun~Fun We will probably be intrigued and/or amused by the differences because seriously… if we wanted everything to be “Americanized” all the time then why leave the USA?! We are looking forward to the ports (three in Brazil, one in Uruguay, and Buenos Aires in Argentina). I'm going to be searching all over Rio for Dominic Torettto and the gang but I'm pretty sure that will be fruitless. Kamie has been walking around the house singing the Copacabana song. We are ready for a vacation. This trip should be a delight to describe each day if nothing more!

My next post will be in a couple of days from Miami...

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