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Published: September 30th 2010
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Stamsted Express
On our way to the airport. We are moving at some amount of knots per hour to the town of Bari, Italy on our way to cruise around several of the Greek Islands.
Here’s how that happened. We are blaming it all on Rich (gotta find someone to blame so we can use the typical strategy of women … justification)).
Rich was invited to Spain to golf with some of his business colleagues. No wives invited. I just happened to be in London when his trip was coming up. Ah ha! Kim and I thought it would be a grand idea for us to do our own little city escape. We looked at several options: hotel on the beach on some island off the coast of Spain, hotel somewhere on the Almafi (Italy) Coast, and a cruise anywhere that was sailing during the time Rich was to be in Spain. We settled on going to Spain (gee that sounds lame). We picked Spain as our best choice, decided to sleep and think about it one more night. In the morning Kim checked her airline discount agencies (I guess airlines have agreements with cruise companies and vice versa and staff get discounted airfares and cruises). Where the
Costa Embarkment
We're on our way! day before, nothing, Thursday there it was … perfect timing, great price, book it Dano!
We scrambled for flights to Venice … actually spent all of one day getting everything in order, reservations, etc. Friday we printed out pages of information, did copious amounts of laundry (in her mini washer/dryer), ran errands, got the house in order, paid bills, and on and on and on. Sunday was packing and cooking and staying up until our cab came at 3:30 a.m.
Left the flat, no traffic at that time of night. About 15 minutes later we’re at the Liverpool train station (in London, not the City of Liverpool), hit McDonalds and boarded the Stamsted Express … a 45 minute train ride to Stamsted Airport. We thought, no sweat, who’s going to be at the airport at 5:00 a.m. us and a zillion other people, that’s all. Queue in lines. Massive rules for check-in baggage. They get ya with checked bags. VERY expensive. But one must have clothes and stuff, right? Backs checked, another train ride to the correct terminal, stand in another line, watch all the Europeans step right in front of you cutting in line, check in at the
gate, out to the airplane, and there we go.
Ryan Air, an Irish airline. A unique experience. Bare bones flying at its best; every five minutes one of the flight attendants got on the intercom selling something: lotto tickets, food, drinks, phone cards, duty free goods, charity contributions, newspapers and smokeless cigarettes … probably lots more I forgot. Each was a separate service. Those guys were hauling up and down the aisle. Try to sleep? Not! Oh yeah, and no pockets in the back of the seat in front of you, the seats did not recline, and deplaning is every human for themselves. I have drawn the line at that one. When I think it’s my turn, I’m in the aisle and then hold my position for Kim to get in front of me. I’m over getting pushed and shoved around. It may be a European/Asian cultural thing, so for our bad American behavior, there’s one back at ya.
We got all our bags, found out what bus to take to the Piazzale Roma, where we would get a shuttle to the boat. Timing is everything, and so far, we’re golden. The bus ride was about 50 minutes,
Mid Ship Atrium
It's a long way down. and when we arrived at the Piazza, a shuttle bus from the cruise line was waiting. Short trip to the port, check-in, and then up to a terminal where we wait around for another hour before we could embark the ship. Met a couple from Buffalo - funny people. Another line, security check and we’re on this huge ship looking for our room. It’s a nice room with a balcony.
After we settled in, we went up to the pool deck to watch Venice go by as we departed from the port on our way to Bari and points south. Dinner with a bunch of nice English speaking passengers, watched a funny ventriloquist in the theater later that night (where the ship was introduced to Harold, a elder gentleman picked from the audience to participate in a funny sketch - gosh, he was soooo funny). Then bed. We’d been up for many, many hours.
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