Day 3- Rome then embarcation

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Day three: Vatican City tour then transfer to the ship. I had made arrangements with Angel Tours of Rome to have a private 4 hour tour of the Vatican museums, including the Sistine chapel, and St. Peters. They were then going to provide a driver to take us to the ship. I thought the driver was picking us up a the hotel, but when I went to prepay 3 days before we left the US, I was told that we had to get to the Vatican ourselves, unless we wanted to pay more. No problem. Our HOHO ticket was for 24 hours, so we would catch the 8:30am bus and get there by our 9:30 meeting time. We got up, had a nice breakfast. Locked up our luggage, made arrangements for a late checkout so we could leave our stuff and JoAnne's stuff in our room. We boarded the bus, and enjoyed a morning ride seeing the sites until we got to our stop. Castel d'Angelo, built as Hadrian's mausoleum, has been used as a castle and a fortress and is now used as office space for the Vatican. It was featured in Dan Browns book, The Di Vinci Code.

We arrived at the St. Peters Square with time to spare, took few photos, then asked, "so where do we meet up with the guide?" I looked around and didn't find an obvious spot. I went to the information booth. They had not heard of Angel Tours, but said most tours start at the entrance to the Vatican Museums. So we took the hike (it felt like miles) and found the entrance, but there was no sign of a meet-up spot for our guide. I started to panic. This was a huge mess-up on my part. I am usually so organized. How could I not know where we were supposed to meet? I had downloaded all the emails regarding our trip onto my ipod, so I could leave all the paperwork back in the hotel room. But all of the emails were now "partially downloaded" so I had no information that was useful. We asked other guides, but being the good competitors they were, they were of no help finding our guide, but offered their services instead. I decided it was time to find an internet cafe. It took a bit of asking around, but we finally found one and were able to log on to the website and find that Angel Tours has a standard meeting place, and we had walked right past it when we got off the bus! Argh! We wrote down the address and phone number and off we went to see if there was someone still waiting for us. We finally found the place and it is a souvenir shop, not the HQ for Angel Tours. The shopkeeper said it is just a meeting place and they had left over an hour earlier. We found a phone booth, and were able to get through to them and explain our mix up. They got ahold of our guide and said she was on her way. I was highly stressed and upset with myself by then. JoAnne and Rick tried to console me saying things happen, but it didn't help. By the time she got to us, it was 11:00. The lines to get in were at least another hour and she had another tour at 1:30. So, no tour for us. She said we would get our money back. We gave her a token 5 euro tip for being so nice. I told her we would contact them again next time we were in Rome, now that I know where to meet her! She told us a little bit of history of St. Peters while waiting to find out where the driver was going to meet us that was taking us to the ship. In the end, we decided to head back to the hotel and meet him there. Since we had seen Trevi fountain the night before, but JoAnne hadn't, we took the 110 Open bus to a stop close to the fountain and headed there so she could toss in her coin. We got back to the hotel, washed up and checked out and waited for the driver. He showed up a little late, about 1:15 and off we went to Civitavecchia to meet the ship. Our driver spoke no English and drove his minivan like a formula one race car: fast! And he must have gotten 10 phone calls. I was a nervous wreck!

We made it to the port without incident, amazingly. The ship was there waiting for us! I was so happy to see her! We lugged our suitcases to where we had to drop them off, gave them right to a Celebrity employee, and then went back to check in. Since embarkation started at about noon and we got there at about 3, there was almost no line and we checked right in. They gave us champagne on the gangway, but had to drink it before we could get on the elevator to find our cabin. Not a relaxed drink, that's for sure. So we gulped it down and got on the elevator to deck 8. We were in 8007, an oceanview at the front of the ship. I had read it was bigger than most cabins in the same catagory and had a loveseat that turned into a bed, so we decided to save money and JoAnne would share the cabin with us.

We found our cabin and our luggage was already there! Wow! I have never had that happen before. The cabin was relatively huge and there was plenty of room for the three of us. Our cabin steward was wonderful. He introduced himself right away and had a pen and paper in hand asking us if there was anything we needed. We asked for extra pillows (Rick sleeps with a minimum of 4) and a foam top for the bed JoAnne would be using. We also asked him to empty the mini bar and take the tray and wine glasses away and just leave the ice bucket and pitcher with glasses. We left to go have lunch (standard buffet fare), tour the ship and take photos. We also had to find the maitre'd because they had somehow put JoAnne at a different table from Rick and I for dinner. He put us at a table by ourselves for that night, but said he would find a large table for us to join for the rest of the trip. Rick went back to the cabin to take a nap (this became a daily routine for him) and JoAnne and I went on a tour of the spa and continued checking out the ship. We got back to the cabin, to get our life vests for the muster drill and made our way to our meeting point, the theater. We had to wear our life vests there. I didn't like that. Most lines now let you carry it to the meeting point, then put it on. But wait, there's more! So after we had our usual safety lecture in the theater, we had to march out to our muster station on deck and have another roll call there! Dinner came after muster drill, as we signed up for first seating (6:30).

Dinner was shrimp cocktail (good) and a mushroom pastry (yum) for appetizer, salad with a thai ginger dressing, consume (yummy), and prime rib with twice baked potato, string beans and yorkshire pudding. The meat was a little tough, but tasted good. I didn't like the yorkshire pudding. The green beans were cooked nicely, not mushy. Rick had the same but had tomato soup with goat cheese (good). JoAnne had duck confit appetizer (good) Caesar salad (good) and veal picatta, which she said was tasty. We all had creme brulee for dessert. To die for! This has to be one of the best I have ever had. We shared cream puffs with vanilla ice cream and a chocolate sauce, but the puffs with ice cream were frozen together and they weren't thawed enough, so they were just ok. We had a bottle of Zinfendel for dinner. Since I planned on doing the Reidel tasting later in the cruise, I asked if I could drink out of Reidel glassware with my meal, and that is what I had for the rest of the trip.

After dinner, we checked out the shops and then JoAnne and I grabbed our bathing suits and went to the spa and enjoyed the thalassotherapy pool. For $99 we could use it the whole two weeks we were on the ship. It was a wonderful way to relax each day. Our feet were so sore from walking around Rome, this heavy duty whirlpool really felt great.

When we got back to the cabin we found JoAnne's bed had a second mattress put on top which made it very comfortable for her to sleep in. The room had plenty of drawer space and the shower was a normal sized shower with a cloth curtain. The only drawback to three in the cabin was the closet was a little small and we packed it pretty full. Sea day tomorrow, so we plan to sleep in.

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Photos

A statue on the bridge crossing the Tiber River
Castel d'Angelo is in the background.

Galaxy Cabin 8007
With the extra bed open. Lots of room for three adults.

St. Peters Square
This is as much as we got to see. :(