Blogs from Mediterranean, Oceans and Seas - page 2

Today is full day at sea as the ship heads for Naples. It is a blessed chance to relax, recharge batteries, and to play catch-up on the accursed blog. Yet another beautiful day. Now in the open sea, the ship is rolling somewhat. We eat at the Pinnacle Grill, the boat's premium restaurant, for lunch. It is very good. The server recommends the hamburger, weirdly enough, so I shrug my shoulders and order it. It is absolutely huge, at least a pound of meat, delicious but extremely messy. So I find myself sitting in a fancy restaurant with white linen everything and the server wearing white gloves, and here I am with my mouth forced open as wide as possible and juices running down my face into my beard. We have signed up for a wine ... read more

Night 11 – The Chef’s Table Last night I had the pleasure in eating at ‘The Chef’s Table’, an experience offer by Carnival Cruises. This is offered each night, but only for about 14 people at a time. It was superb. We were met in the lobby by Chef Plato. The experience began in a small part of the galley, set up with a place for us all for champagne and tasting experiences. These included local olives with and without local parmesan cheese, then for a real taste sensation, the Chef wound delicate strands of fairy floss around an olive on a skewer, the resultant taste was as interesting for the texture as well as the taste. He then gave us a tiny morsel in a black spoon that was a combination of a few things ... read more

Day 4 Today we were supposed to go to Turkey, but it seems that the US State Dept didn’t think it was a good idea….. so we have a day at sea. After a bit a sleep in and a shower and a search for a hair dryer (which for the viewers at home, was found in the desk drawer after I came back from brunch.) This trip is all about pushing myself to do things the me of five years ago wouldn’t. So I have decided to try new foods as well as the other more obvious ground breaking moves. Having ordered a side order of ‘cheese grits’ to accompany my Eggs Benedict, I now have the knowledge to confidently say that ‘cheese grits’ are not to my taste and I will not be ordering ... read more

As far as the ship is concerned, today is Janet’s birthday, because her “real birthday” is going to be a busy day for us, so we told them it was today instead! In the morning there were balloons in the hall taped to our door, with a sign congratulating her. Of course she had her birthday cake in the dining room back on May 10thwith Joyce’s birthday. But our steward (Manuel) thinks it is her birthday today. This is the final “sea day” of our itinerary and happily we have very good weather today, but let’s start back at the beginning. We moved into the Greek Time Zone during the night, so we lost another hour’s sleep. We got up and made a hasty trip to the laundromat to get our final clothes cleaning accomplished before ... read more

As many of you know, this was our first cruise, and we weren't sure that it wouldn't be our last.... The experience did not begin well. The Istanbul leg of the cruise was cancelled due to fears of terrorism, and Bill had to work hard to get our tickets from Istanbul to Athens paid for by the cruise company (Costa). We found the website to be nearly useless, and could get little or no information about the ship and our cruise on-line, The day before departure, we tried to find out where the ship was docked and how to get there, with no success. I used a cruise-tracking website to find our ship in Athens, so we had a vague idea of where to go. We took a bus from the airport to the terminal area, ... read more