Day 14 - At Sea

We hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Yesterday was our last time at sea. For the most part it was a pretty low key and relaxing day.

Our day started around 8:30... we got ready, ate breakfast and headed to the pool to grab some seats for the afternoon. A lot of the seating near the pool was removed in preparation for the party at night, but fortunately we were able to snag a couple seats. We layed by the pool for the majority of the afternoon until about 3:00, when we headed inside to get our luggage together. Once 4:45 rolled around we headed into the theatre for the final show of our trip. The show today was a husband and wife that were previously part of Cirque Du Soleil, they did a great job and was a lot of fun to watch. After the show we finished getting ready for the night!

Around 7:45 we made our way out to the pool deck where the party was held. The pool deck was outfitted with video screens, lights, stage and several bbq grills. The food was great... fish, chicken, ribs, potatoes, pasta etc... The overall party was great and a lot of fun. As I said in the previous post I thought I might have an idea of who they were bringing on, but unfortunately I was wrong. For entertainment they had a local Chicago DJ... as well as the ships entertainment group and Bebe Winans. They held a photo contest, where you upload your photos throughout the two weeks... out of over 10,000 photos and 400 people that uploaded one of my photos was nominated, but unfortunately it didn't win. After the party we grabbed a quick bite to eat at the 24hr restaurant, and headed to bed for the night.

Although it's sad the trip is over, we're looking forward to getting home and back to the real world. We're excited to see everyone, especially our little Riley! I didn't think we'd be able to, but we've gone 15 days without a phone call... so we're looking forward to hearing her little voice!

As I'm writing this it's just after 9am on Sunday morning and we're waiting for our "color" to get called, which will be around 10am. We're the last flight out and have a little time to kill, so there giving us a bus tour around Barcelona and a final lunch.

See you all very soon!

Day 13 - Malta

Well today was our last and final stop, which was in Valletta, Malta. Malta is a small island that sits a little ways off the coast of Sicily.

We arrived in Malta at 7am and again we opted out of any tours and decided to take the city on our own. Malta was nice because unlike many of the other ports we were able to just get off the boat and walk into the town without taking any kind of public transportation. We weren't really sure what Malta had to offer so we basically headed into town and walked down a couple of their "shopping" streets. The shopping was a pretty equal mix of your bargaining street vendors and your everyday kind of shops. In fact during our walk we passed a Claire's store that Jennifer said she had bought items for. The town was a really nice town, Malta along with Santorini were the only two during our trip that I said I could easily spend more time in! Although Malta didn't have the extensive history that the other places on our trip had... there were a lot of old buildings and Church's that were fun to see.

After a couple hours of shopping we decided to take the longer route back to the ship. This route brought us all the way through the town leaving us down by the water. From there we walked along the coast back to the ship. The water in Malta was very blue and very clear... actually a few people from our cruise spent the day scuba diving!

We got back on the ship around 2:45, grabbed lunch and ate on the back deck of the ship overlooking Malta. We were all given "Trip of a Lifetime" shirts and everyone had to meet on the pool deck of the ship at 4:30 for a group photo. While we were waiting on the deck for them to get the photo ready, we were also pulling away from Malta. Back on land they had a band playing music then canons were fired 8 times for our departure! After the photo was taken we headed back to the room to get ready for the night.

We ate dinner in the ships cafe tonight. They cafe is made up of pretty much any kind of food you would want with chefs standing by making things to your liking. Both of us surprisingly got caesar salads and pasta.. both very good, we also treated ourselves to some ice cream after dinner.

We had a pretty full night ahead of us, as there was some good shows tonight. We began our night at 8:30 in the theatre to see the group "The Cat's Pajama's" (http://www.vocalmeow.com/). This group was previously on "America's Got Talent" and "America's Next Great Band." Basically the group consists of four guys, from Madison, WI, that sing and make music completely from their mouths, no instruments used... they were really good, I'm sure you'll see them on the show next season!

Next we moved on to the lounge on the top deck of the ship where Bebe Winans, a famous gospel singer hosted a karaoke competition... (http://www.bebewinans.net/)! The lounge was packed, but thankfully we were able to get a good seat. There was a mix of people that could sing and people that couldn't... Bebe made the contest pretty funny. Also in attendance was the "Boss" and Gayle, and actually Gayle hit the floor and sang! After they crowned a winner, who was actually really good, we headed to bed to rest for the big 4th!

When we got to our room we found an invitation on our bed inviting us to what their calling the biggest floating 4th of July party in the world! Throughout the trip I've had a guess as to who they may be bringing on board... I'll let you know tomorrow if I was right. Either way it will be a good time!

Hope everyone is doing good and has a great 4th of July! Just another day or so then we're back in the US... looking forward to seeing everyone!

Day 12 - At Sea

Today was again a much needed day at sea, and we took advantage and slept in! We woke up around 10:30 and headed upstairs for breakfast. Once we were done eating we made our way out to the pool to claim our seats for the day. Once we were situated I headed back to the volleyball court to play in a couple games.

Around 2pm I was done playing and joined Jennifer by the pool. After laying by the pool for a while Jennifer was feeling ambitious and wanted to try her luck on the rock climbing wall at the back of the ship, so we headed back there. The line for the easy side was backed up so one of the crew members convinced her to try out the medium part of the wall.. so after some encouragement from crowd she caved in and gave it a try. To my surprise and I think to hers to, she flew up the wall and rang the bell at the top!!

After the wall we headed to the room to get ready for the night. Once we were ready we made our way into the main atrium of the ship and did a little internet surfing and relaxed until our dinner reservations at 7:15. Dinner this time was at the ships Mexican restaurant, which we've only had appetizers at so far. We ordered a meal that was big enough for two people which was a steak/chicken fajita type meal, which was good. After dinner we headed out to the back of the ship to an outdoor patio where my department from work got together to hang out.

At about 10:30 we headed to the other end of the ship to their lounge where we played some shuffleboard, darts and pool while we waited for the ships version of the newlywed game to start. The game was funny, but made it even better that friends of ours were participants in the show!

Bed was the next stop for the night.. as we wanted to rest up for our final stop in Malta!

Day 11 - Santorini

Today was a full day. We weren't arriving in Santorini until 3pm... so we had some time to relax before hand.

One of the busiest places on the ship surprisingly is the laundry room and to our benefit the laundry is free... so I thought I'd take some time and wash some clothes. My "laundry" alarm went off at 6am, so I headed down to start the wash. Luckily for me I came at just the right time when there was a washer open. When I was done with my laundry, around 8, I headed back to bed. I woke back up around 10:30to find that Jennifer had snuck out to go to the pool. Once I was ready I headed out to the pool where we layed in the sun until 2:30.

When the boat began to approach Santorini the view was pretty crazy. Santorini is an island surrounded by many other islands... so there was a lot to see pulling in. Santorini is the only stop on our trip that we weren't able to pull right up to the shore to dock. The boat stopped around 1/4 mile from shore where we boarded smaller boats to take into the port.

Our boat assignment was #4 out of probably 15-20 boats... so we were able to get to shore pretty quickly which was nice. Santorini sits on a cliff high above the water and there's three ways to get up! 1) Take the cable car 2) Walk, or 3) Ride a donkey... we chose to ride a donkey. Once we mounted our selected donkeys the trek up started, which took around 10 minutes. The walkway up is almost completely covered with donkey poop, which is why we chose not to walk... but the walkway also had an outside edge that the donkey's like to walk next to which had a very steep / far drop on the other side, so it was a little scary!

Once we reached the top the view was amazing! It was now about 4:30, so we had to make the most of our time here. The majority of our time was spent walking and shopping throughout the town, and around 7:45 we stopped to eat dinner. We found a really nice restaurant where we sat on the roof that overlooked they entire bay where our boat sat. Before coming on this trip I read that Santorini has one of the best sunsets, so being the romantic that I am I wanted to be sure we had a good seat for it! The restaurant had mainly seafood or Italian food, so we ordered Italian, Jennifer got a penne pasta with a tomato/vodka sauce and I did the spaghetti with tomato sauce... both were very, very good! Right at about 8:30 the sun began to set and everything that I read and heard about this sunset was true.. it was perfect!

As 9 o'clock rolled around we began to plan our decent back down to the ship. Our original plan was to take the cable car down.. but on our walk over everyone was saying it was an hour wait. With that said we made our way back to our trusty old donkeys for a lift back down the mountain.

We got back on the ship around 9:45 stopped in our room to freshen up and made our way back out to the theatre to see Second City (comedy group from Chicago) perform. After the show we hung out with some people by to pool for a bit then headed off to bed for a good night sleep!

Our time here is quickly coming to an end.. one more stop and two days at sea then we're headed back to Chicago! We're having a blast.. but I think we'll both be ready to come home!

Day 10 - Istanbul

You would think because we had the party the night before and stayed out late that we would just kick back in the morning and sleep in a little... well that's not the case, we had a tour at 8am! In fact we signed up for the longest tour possible for this day, which lasts 7 hours. The alarm went off at 6:30, so we got ready, grabbed some breakfast and headed into the theatre where we meet for tours. After sitting for a few they called our tour, so us along with several hundred others made our way out to the buses waiting for us outside. What we've realized so far this trip is depending on the tour guide you get paired with, it could either be a really good tour or the opposite. Luckily for us we got a great tour guide which lead to a great tour!

Our first stop on the tour was at the Blue Mosque, just a short drive from the boat. The Mosque was built in the early 1600's and is the national Mosque in Turkey. For those that don't know a Mosque is a place of worship for those that follow Islam. After touring this building which is still used as a place of worship we made our way across the street to Hagia Sophia which was originally built as a church then later converted to a Mosque. Pretty interesting to hear and compare the differences.

After these two visits we were able to go back to my favorite place in the world, the Grand Bizarre... which was included on our tour! Actually it wasn't too bad except that Jennifer wanted a wallet that she saw the day before... so with 4400 stores and thousands of people it was almost impossible! You might say why don't you just check the directory for the name of the shop, not possible... no names and absolutely no directory. To my surprise we found the store, and the wallet was purchased. After that we had some time to kill so we went outside to the more "normal" world and relaxed outside at Starbucks to watch people until our meeting time.

At about 1:00 we all met up and bused it over to our final place for the day, the Topkapi Palace Museum. This Palace was constructed starting in 1459 and transformed into a museum in 1924. Our first stop at the palace was the provided lunch. We made our way to the palace restaurant which sat right on the water. We were served a salad, lamb, chicken, rice, fries and dessert. Again to my surprise and probably to everyone else too the food was actually pretty good! After lunch we made our way through the museum portion of the palace where we saw things such as the staff of Moses, Davids sword and an 86 carat diamond! It was pretty amazing to see these pieces in person, it gave us chills! After about an hour in the museum we boarded the buses and headed back to the ship for our 4:30 curfew.

Once back on the ship we headed back to the room took a little nap, ordered a little room service, relaxed and then headed out for the night. We took advantage of the ships steak house again then headed into one of the ships bar/lounges to play the game Liar's Club. The game lasted close to an hour then they started doing karaoke... which we watched for the remainder of the night.

A very busy, but very enjoyable day! Next stop is Santorini, Greece!

Day 9 - Istanbul

Around 1pm today our ship ported in Istanbul, Turkey! Because we docked so late we were able to get a little extra sleep before heading out for the day. Once we rolled out of bed around 10am we did the usuall and headed upstairs to grab breakfast. Once our stomachs were full we got ready for the day and headed out on our own in Istanbul!

Our plan for the day consisted of going to Turkey's "Grand Bazaar" and then to attend our second party that night. After getting a little direction of how to get to the bazaar we jumped on the tram just a couple blocks from the ship. Just a side note... Turkish men smell really good! Well not really, especially when your riding a tram packed full of them... I re-named the tram the BO train! Anyways after about 10 minutes we arrived at what has become one of my new favorite places... again not really, it's actually one of my new LEAST favorite places! The Grand Bazaar consists of 4400 shops with owners that want your money! 4400 shops may sound like a lot but they actually repeat pretty much every two or three shops... all carrying the same items. So after spending close to two hours at the bazaar it was time to head back to the ship and get ready for that's night event.

After the tram ride and walk back to the ship we got in around 4:30, relaxed a bit and began getting ready for the night. Once 6:30 rolled around we headed out to the buses waiting to take us to the event.

The event took place at the Cıragan Palace about a five minute drive from the ship. This was our second of the three "big" events that we're having. They completely reserved the "palace" side of this now hotel, sitting right on the Bosphorus, which is the water chanel dividing Europe and Asia. When the bus pulled in there was a Turkish band performing and some other misc entertainment! We got out and watched a bit of the entertainment and headed down the red carpet, up the stairs and into the palace! Walking through the doors there were a line of waiters on either side... one side with red/white wine and the other with fresh watermelon juice with a big slice of watermelon in the glass. We grabbed our watermelon juice and began touring the rooms of the palace where in each room they had different entertainment reflecting the times of the palace.

Once 8:15 rolled around they opened the doors to the outside portion of the event, again this part sat right on the water! Pictures will better describe it, but they had a DJ, dance floor that lit up, lights everywhere and about ten video screens displaying video from the several cameras they had. We started by finding a seat then made our way through the Turkish buffet... which was actually pretty good! After relaxing for a bit the big "O" gave a little talk and then the performances began! Dancers began to flood out from everywhere and line up on the stage they had that ran the length of the waterway! Fire dancers made their way out next and then towards the end fireworks began firing off over the water! The fireworks were amazing.. imagine a grand finale going on for 10-15 minutes, we were so close ashes were falling over us. Once the fireworks stopped the DJ started and so did the dancing. We left the event around midnight and headed back to the ship! Oh yeah mom.. we were able to get a picture with your favorite doctor, in fact we actually talked with him for a couple minutes... nice guy!

Well that wraps up our first day in Istanbul... Hope everyone is doing good, talk to you tomorrow!

Day 8 - Ephesus

Today was spent in good old Turkey! It wasn't easy when the alarm went off at 6am this morning... but we needed to get up and get ready for our tour. After grabbing breakfast at the buffet, we headed into the theatre to wait for our tour to be called. We had signed up for the tour that covered the most... this means all day! At about 8:30 we were called to begin heading out to our bus.

The first stop on the tour was at the house of the Virgin Mary! It was about an hour drive from port... but was well worth the drive. When we arrived we all got off the bus and our tour guide began to give us the history of her house. Once the tour guide was done we were released to go through the house and tour the grounds on our own. The house was small, maybe 400 square feet and stone both inside and out. It was really cool to see and kind of weird to be walking through the house knowing the history! After spending about an hour at the house we made our way down to the city of Ephesus. Our guide said the city has been rebuilt 5 times and the one we were about to visit was the first. We pulled up and all piled off the bus... we were brought through the city by our guide while she gave us the history. The city was amazing... dating back to around 600BC she shared with us that it is considered one of the seven wonders of the world! The city was discovered as they began work on the roads in Ephesus... and as funding becomes available they continue to uncover more and more of this city! After about close to three hours, we moved onto our last stop at the Basilica of St John. This church is believed to be built over the burial site of St. John. We spent about 30 minutes at the church at then moved onto the provide lunch.

Lunch was served outside at a train museum in Ephesus. At the beginning of our tour we were told lunch was provided at we'd all be treated to Turkish cuisine... I could hardly wait!!! Actually it didn't end up being too bad. Lunch started with a salad, then these cheese tortilla and then they plopped these leaf wraps on our plate, I could barley look at them, but Jennifer actually gave one a try! The main course was chicken, lamb, rice and veggies... the chicken and rice were good. After lunch we boarded the bus and made our way back to port. We pulled up to the ship about 5:15 headed to our room!

So far there's been a lot of walking on the trip so we figured it was time to spoil ourselves... so we made massage appointments in the spa! Our appointments were at 7:30, but around 6:30 we headed to the spa to take advantage of some of it's other amenities. We started by relaxing in their giant whirlpool which consisted of jets, bubbles and waterfalls! After hanging there for a bit we moved to the heated tile lounge chairs that overlooked the front of the boat and waited to be called for our appointments! Needless to say the massage was great, just what we both needed!

After the spa and getting ready we headed to the atrium and met up with Vern and hung out with him and some others for the rest of the night.

We were able to see a bunch of pics from the engagement party... and we're sorry we missed it, looks like it was a really good time! Hope everyone is doing good... tomorrow is Istanbul... a little shopping and our second party at night!

Day 7 - Athens

Today our time was spent in "Hot" Athens, Greece... but still not as hot as we've been hearing from Chicago! We again chose not to sign up for any tours and to do things on our own.

We began the day like every other and headed over to the never ending breakfast buffet! We left breakfast around 9 o'clock... and began our trek to Athen's version of Chicago's "L" train. We initially thought we'd be able to walk it.. but soon realized it was further than we thought and grabbed a cab. About 5 minutes and 2 euros later we were at the train station. The train ride to the historical sites of Athens took around 30 minutes and two train transfers.

9:45, we arrive at out destination! We first headed over to the Acropolis.. which sat high above the city... so we definitely worked off our breakfast walking up. Up top sat a citadel that over looked the city. Along with the citadel were a few other structures such as a theatre. After spending a couple hours touring this spot we headed back down to the city.

Once down we found a nice little shopping area to spend some time in, but first we had to eat! In the middle of the shopping area we again found a nice little outdoor cafe.. I again did the pizza and Jennifer did a caesar salad, both very good! After lunch we began to tour the shops of Athens.. all which lined these unique brick walkways. Once 3 o'clock hit we headed over to another historical structure, "Temple of Olympian Zeus," which sat right in the middle of the city. A little side note.. Greece had a wild animal that took us a while to get used to... Dogs! Everywhere we looked we'd see a dog whether it was lying on the sidewalk, under a tree or just walking around, it was actually kind of sad. Anyways we toured the Temple of Olympian Zeus for about a half hour.. then began our trek back to the train.

On our hike back to the train we passed through the shopping area and ran into Gayle shopping around... so we stopped and chatted with her for a couple minutes. For those that don't know, Gayle is the "O's" best friend.

After the train, bus ride and walk back.. we arrived at the ship around 5:15 and headed to our room for a nap! After 2 hours of a much deserved nap.. we got ready and headed out to the ships Italian restaurant. The restaurant was good.. again I got a caesar salad and cheese tortellini and Jennifer got the penne pasta.. both very good! After dinner we headed to the theatre for their nightly show... which this time was a jazz singer / trumpet player / tap dancer. We hung around for a bit after the show but headed to bed early to rest up for our day in Turkey!

Hope April and Joe's engagement party went well! We miss everyone and hope everyone is doing good!