Category: Europe Cruise

Day eight found us in Livornia, Italy, about 50 miles or so from Florence. Because we had to be off the ship by 745 we ordered room service for breakfast. Mary had a sandwich and some fruit and other things. I had a Danish. This excursion was a Princess arranged one. Our string of luck continued. One of the pieces of my GoPro camera was laying on the table. It was the door that hide the power connectors. It wasn’t a big deal. I just had to make sure it didn’t get wet. Nonetheless, another day and something fell apart. So, after eating breakfast we made our way downstairs. This time we had to go to the Wheelhouse Bar. From there we were ushered our way down the dock area where we were pointed towards one of those big tour buses again. This time there was no confusion because there was a spot for me on the bus. This driver seemed to have a little more knowledge on the lift. He actually rode the lift with me up and down. So I loaded on the bus and tied down. It was a full bus. Mary had to share the empty seat next to her. As I mentioned above, the port was about 50 miles from Florence. Along with the driver was a tour guide. It was a lady sat at the front of the bus and talked for the entire trip up to Florence. Even Mary said she could not understand her. I did not try to hear her. The bus ride was uneventful. We passed miles of the Italian countryside. We did go through many small towns. We saw a lot of corn, cotton and vineyards. There wasn’t much traffic on the way out. It’s interesting how their highways – autostrada. – are. There are two lanes for each direction. There is no shoulder to speak of. If you go off the road you are literally off the road. I couldn’t see anyone’s speedometer but the ranges in speed were all over the map. There were some cars that seemed to be going 30 mph and others going 90 mph. And I don’t think that as much of an exaggeration. They do obey the slower traffic stays to the right rule. The other thing that is interesting is that the motorbikes in and out of traffic. They actually go directly between cars at high rates of speed. I find it somewhat amazing that there are not accidents every 2 miles. In town it is even crazier. Those roundabouts have cars going in every direction. Just part of the experience.

Eventually, we pulled into Florence. You would not know that based on the signs. Everywhere it said Firenze, which must mean Florence in Italian. All along the trip the tour guide was talking about the various museums and plazas. She gave us a map and was talking about the map. We couldn’t understand it so we were kind of guessing. she pointed out of the highlights. Eventually, we stopped at a corner which was basically unpassable by cars beyond that point. We were instructed that this was our pickup point – in five hours. This being an ancient part of the city, there were cobblestones everywhere which made the going terrible. I should mention to you that the weather was drizzling. I was afraid we were going to get rained on. Thankfully, that did not happen. The clouds broke up maybe an hour or so later. We were instructed to follow the tour guide to a store on the opposite side of the Plaza. I have the map in the room and I will put the name of it in later. So we bounced our way about a quarter of a mile in the drizzling rain to the leather store. There’s something to do with the Princess recommended store where we should be able to get discounts. The leather in the store was amazing. Beautiful leather coats. Leather gloves. Leather purses and wallets and belts – anything you can imagine leather. All that very night. Unfortunately the prices were also nice – in a not good way. The average coat was around €400 which is pretty close to $500. If I was interested in a leather coat, I would consider it. There was some gold demonstration going on in the other room and it took us a while to get down there because we needed to find the ramps. By time we got there demonstration was over. We did go over and look at the gold anyway. They had some really nice pieces. We spent about 10 minutes wandering around that store before going back out to the Plaza.

Thankfully, the street names are on the corner of every building. We worked our way down one long incredibly narrow street until we ran into another Plaza. We actually went up the ramp of a building – I don’t know what the name of it is – to get out of the way of traffic. At the top of this ramp was what appeared to be the front of the church. All the doors were locked except for one which Mary went into. I couldn’t get in there. I sat outside for 10 or more minutes wondering what she was up to. She came out and said it’s amazing in there. She showed me some of the pictures. Then she decided to go back in and take a video. All kinds of religious artifacts. She was gone again for another 10 minutes. When she came back out we plotted our next strategy. We didn’t really have anything in mind so we went to the next biggest building on the map. From the Plaza we needed to go to the upper left corner and take that street straight back to yet another Plaza. This Plaza had hundreds of people and it. They were all standing outside of this one Museum. I need to put the name of the museum here. Initially I didn’t think we should go in the museum simply because it was a museum. That didn’t stop Mary. We went up to the entrance and we waited in line. We were in line for about 10 minutes before one of the museum guides walked over and ushered us forward. She handed us a pair of tickets and told us where to go to lock up our bags. We were getting into the museum for nothing. Mary had said that people on the bus had actually ordered their tickets online because they were afraid they would not get in. The line was not that long and we got in for free. After we put our bags in a locker we took the elevator up to the second floor. This was a huge room with huge murals along all the walls with smaller murals all along the ceiling. Supposedly, Leonardo da Vinci was to paint the murals on the wall. He started the project but never finished. Another painter finished it after da Vinci abandoned it. I will have to look this up but the murals were in relationship to some battle. The room had to be 200 feet long by 100 feet wide. The murals themselves at the be 40 or 50 feet across. This was all done in the 1500s. So the building and the murals were more than 400 years old. After leaving that room we went up to the third-floor. On this floor there was an apartment that was built in the building. It was a big room – maybe 40 x 40. Again with pictures on all the walls and the ceiling. These pictures though were all gods and goddesses. They all tell a story. I just don’t know what the story is. Mary took pictures of the explanation so I might add detail here later. There were countless marble sculptures in the room too. Adjacent to this room was an outdoor area, which I couldn’t get out to because of stairs. We have pictures of it but it was an open air room, again probably 40 x 40. It had incredible views of the city. Mary took a bunch of pictures here too. There were a couple of other rooms with the various items in them. Nothing worth mentioning though that I remember. We were probably inside the museum for about an hour maybe an hour and a half. We wandered around the first floor which really was part of the museum but it was open to everyone. There were huge sculptures. I’m not exactly sure what was being depicted but this one sculpture have to be 30 feet tall. It looks like a David, but it wasn’t. Again, we scored on the bathroom. The museum had a nice disabled bathroom. So we wandered our way back to the room that had the lockers. We picked up our bags and did the bathroom thing. It was now early afternoon and we were getting hungry. Across the Plaza from this museum was a restaurant – among several in a row. We just took the first one we saw. One of the waiters or hosts opened the table for us. We sat outside. We were literally shoulder to shoulder with other customers. If you reached across you could take his water without them knowing – that’s how close. We looked at the menu. I went straight to the wine. I ordered a glass of white dry. I later learned their dry white was Chardonnay grapes. We ordered bruschetta and we each ordered a pizza. They were very similar but mine had artichokes. I forgot how much I like artichokes. So it took a while – not that I care. It was a perfect people watching spot. It was getting hot out and we were under a tentlike thing. What was interesting is the customers were kept cool by misted water. It was a great idea. We’ll have to think of something like this for our Florida backyard. So about 15 or 20 minutes later – I had drank half my wine – the bruschetta came. It was very good. I won’t lie and say it was the best I’ve ever had, but it was very good. I asked the waiter for a dry red wine. He came back with a class of Cabernet of some sort. It was pretty good. Probably another 10 or 15 minutes, maybe more, the pizzas came. They were very good. They are super thin. They were superhot. As with the bruschetta, they were very good, but not the best I’ve ever had. They were pretty big, but both Mary and I plowed through them. I don’t know if it’s just Italy or Europe in general but you have to ask for your check. When I realized he was not going to give us the check we had to ask for it. Not a big deal, obviously. I don’t remember the exact price but I believe it was €50 which included a tip. It was really warm out by now. It was also getting closer to the pickup time. We decided to work our way back towards the pickup spot. We knew that with the cobbled streets and traffic and any other stops we wanted to make, it could take an hour or more to get back. So we worked our way back from the one Plaza to the other. We walked pass an ice cream store, so of course we had to stop. Mary had a cone of vanilla I believe. I had a small dish of mint. Now we were really full, but happy. From that Plaza we made our way back to the Plaza where we initially came in. We decided Mary would push me to the corner near the pick up spot while she worked her way back to the leather store to go to the bathroom. I parked myself in the shade. I watched the people. It took Mary about 15 minutes to walk across the back. By now it was pickup time. We still had about two city blocks to walk to the actual pickup spot. We worked our way down there. As it turns out, there was a wine shop right across the street from the pickup spot. We were a few minutes early and I asked Mary to go in there and buy me a bottle of wine. I wanted something from the region – Tuscany. She went in the store while I sat across the street. She was gone for several minutes before she came out holding a glass with wine. She walked across the street and asked me to drink this glass. It was a very good red. She said it was a wine we couldn’t get in the United States. She also said that they had a bottle of wine from the winery owned by Sting the musician. It, too, was a red. Mary asked if she should buy both and I hesitantly said yes. I now have five bottles of wine I wasn’t sure how is was going to drink because of ship policy. I was not that concerned. We would figure it out – like everything. By this time the bus had arrived. They started loading us up. It was a long and we’re on our way back. We drove almost straight back. I don’t remember anything specific about the ride back except that it was a repeat of the way out. The traffic might’ve been a bit heavier. The ship was set to leave at 530. The bus pulled in at 510. We made our way off the bus. We tipped the driver but not the tour guide. Because we had not bought our city magnets Mary bought them in the terminal before we got back on the ship.

Overall, Florence was nice. It started out a bit shaky with the lousy weather and cobblestones everywhere. In the end though it turned out to be an adventure. We saw a lot of good architecture. The museum was cool. We took a ton of pictures of the scenery. We had excellent food and wine. We brought home wine. The trips on the bus were uneventful. I would say that someday, given the chance, we could come back to Florence. We probably could spend two full days in any one of those plazas.

Back on the ship we came to the room. We took some time to chill out. Mary downloaded her pictures. I watched a couple of movies. Mary decided to do some laundry. Actually, she ended up doing it all. While she was doing the laundry I watched movies. Around 7 o’clock or so, we agreed to go down to the seventh floor to look for pictures. I took my GoPro camera in hopes that they could fix the broken door. We worked our way down there and Mary picked up pictures as we went. She must’ve had 30 pictures in the pile. We made our way up to the counter where we asked the guy about the camera. He quickly fixed it because it has happened to him in the past. He showed Mary how it was done so in case it happens again. He also disabled the button on top of the camera which would turn it on by accident. I’m hoping this will not use up the battery too quickly., I managed to somehow turn it on in the bus in the morning so it was out of juice by time I actually wanted to use it. That is how you learn – by mistake. After he fixed my camera, he took about 20 minutes to scan in all of Mary’s pictures. From there we walked our way up to six. Wanted to stop at the main desk and ask a couple of questions. Along the way, down in the foyer on the fifth floor were Irish dancers. We stopped for a few minutes and watched the Irish dancers. In my mind I thought it was kind of strange – we are in a Mediterranean cruise off the coast of Italy but yet the entertainment is Irish – again, strange but true. At the counter we asked about the wine policy and found that we were okay. We can take the wine to the dining room and they will charge us $15 for corkage. The wine that we bought was not that expensive so in the end I’ll probably be saving money. Mary also asked about my tuxedo jacket. The one they gave me at the start of the cruise is too small. The hope is that they will provide a jacket that is the right size for me. With that information, we went down to five. Because we had not eaten, we stopped at the little café where Mary gets her tea. I asked for a toasted tuna sandwich. I also got some pasta. Mary had a toasted ham and cheese. With this we walk around the corner and found the table. We ate it all. There were a few people that we have met on the ship that wandered by and we said hello to. We have been on the ship for about eight days and there are a lot of faces that now say hi too. After a quick little dinner, we went back upstairs. I continued watching movies while Mary went down and got the laundry. Another almost big disaster was Mary left her phone in the laundry room. Thankfully one of the maintenance men returned to the sixth floor versus stealing it. She had to track down her phone, but she did get it back. We had another big day ahead of us so we were not long before bed. Another successful day.

Sunday, August 25, 2019

I am three days behind in this log. The reason I am behind us because we have been busy. My last entry had to do with Barcelona. Since then we have done Marseille, France, Florence, Italy and today was Rome. As I write this we are eight days into our 28 trip. We have done so much in eight days it’s hard to envision another 20 days. Nonetheless, that’s what we’re doing. Right now though we get a break for a few days. Tomorrow we are on the island of Sardinia and I can’t get off the ship. Mary said she might go into town. We’ll have to see what it’s like when we get there tomorrow. After that we have a day at sea. Admittedly, I could use these two days down. I was thinking about it this morning as I lay there staring at the ceiling – some things never change – we are doing the cities and countries that such a pace that we’re only seeing maybe 2% of the given city or country. Based on what I learned from Seville and Barcelona I would say that Spain is a very nice country I know these two cities were really nice. Of course like all big cities I’m sure they have their downsides, but we didn’t see them. Based on my experience with Marseille, I would say that France is pretty nice. I’m smart enough to know that one experience in one city does make up for the country. I guess I will cover this little bit more as I get into each day. I will say that right now because I’m three days behind I have already forgotten certain details that either Mary and I caught in pictures.

Let’s go back to the day after Barcelona – the day we went into Marseille. By now you’ve read the story about the broken shower chair. Of course her string of luck continued. We were  getting ready to go off the ship onto Marseille when we hooked up the SmartDrive. It would not work. All the lights were there and it be but it would not drive the chair. We didn’t have a lot of time to deal with it so left it behind. Nonetheless, I was not happy – two days in a row was something going wrong right off the bat. I tried not to let it sour the whole day. Because it took a few minutes to play with the SmartDrive we are running behind. Not that it mattered because we meeting are driver at 9 o’clock downstairs. We went upstairs and Mary had a little breakfast. I don’t remember what I had but I don’t think it was much. We did our thing to get off the ship. As we worked our way through the terminal to the parking lot we saw a lady holding a sign with my name on it. This was our driver. We later learned that her name was Cecile. We also learned out later that she is a 49-year-old woman who grew up in Marseille. She was very animated. She was a nice lady as we would learn. After we did our introductions we walked out to the parking lot where she had the lift equipped van. She loaded me up into the van and tied me down. We were off on a six hour adventure with her. The boat actually docked in Marseille. Unlike Seville where we had to travel two hours to get there. She weaved the way up and around through the town until we got to Notre Dame de la Guarda – a fairly small church out on a very high hill that overlooks the city of Marseille. Like all churches it had very interesting architecture, stained-glass windows and various bits of history. What was notable about this church  was that people go there after having near death experiences. They go there to thank God for surviving their particular accident. This was symbolized in several different ways, but most notably there were long strings hanging from the ceiling. On each of the strings were model boats or model airplanes, for the most part. Each one of the boats and/or airplanes signified a specific near death experience. People donated money to the church to keep it running. There were also other ways of this acknowledgment of near death experience was symbolized. There were plaques on the wall with dates, for example. Considering the churches we’ve been in, this one was tiny. As I mentioned, the church was on a hill overlooking the city we got incredible pictures of this similar to what we saw in Barcelona. We could see forever.

From there we loaded up and continued driving. We weaved our way up to wine country, specifically Cassis wine country. It has a specific appellation for the area. It took us about an hour to get there – all along the way, Cecile was telling us about this and that. She had a lot of history. We saw a lot of French countryside. We went by countless wineries. There were several small towns were passed. They all seemed very similar – small with roads that were just wide enough for the car. Mary took a zillion pictures on the way. We wound our way up until she finally pulled into the driveway of the winery called Ferme Blanc – which means white farm. We unloaded and went into the tasting room. It was really just a small room inside a huge old barn. We were introduced to sales guy. Of course I don’t remember his name, if he told us, but he was a young guy – spoke decent English. Over the next 20 minutes or so, Mary and I sampled two different whites, one red, one rose and one sparkling wine. Because it was not from the Champagne region they could not call their sparkling wine champagne, but it was the same thing. They were all very good. French wines have that flat earthy taste that I like. Even Mary liked them all. Then we had to decide if you wanted to buy any. I did some debating because I wasn’t sure what the ship policy was. Eventually, we bought three bottles – a white, the rose, and the red. Mary also bought some olive oil. There were two different kinds of which I don’t know what the difference was. We bought both anyway. We were saying our goodbyes when we found out that barn had a bathroom that I could use. That is one of the strange things that we run into every so often – there are brand-new buildings built in modern cities that do not have bathrooms that are assessible, yet we pull into a winery that’s been around for 300 years, go into a 200-year-old barn and find a bathroom that is spacious as the one we have at home. Strange but true.

From there we loaded up and continued up and down the road until we ended up in a small town on the seaside which I don’t remember the name of right now. Mary thinks it starts with an “O”. I’ll have to look on the map later. Anyway, this was a very popular spot. We eventually found a parking spot near the water. We walked up to the water’s edge. From this you could see various aspects of the small town. It had a bridge of some sort that one along the waterway. There was a good size beach with a couple hundred people laying on the sand or wading in the surf. We took a lot of pictures and listened to the history that Cecile provided. It was an interesting place from a landscape perspective because way up high there was an ancient fort, I guess you call it, that was used to protect the town. To the left of that probably a half mile as the crow flies was what they call Charlemagne’s crown. It is a rock formation that literally looks like the crown. Mary’s pictures capture this pretty well. After lounging around near the beach for a short while we walked up to the little plaza area. Earlier in the day there had been a farmers market and all the people that were selling their wares were now loading them up back into their trucks. This made for a very chaotic area, but on the other side was this little hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Apparently, Cecile had been there before. We found a table sitting just outside the door. We looked at the menu and tried to decide what we wanted. The first thing I looked for was wine. I’m in France so you got to drink the wine. Instead of by the glass they had a menu that said something along the lines of Blanc – 12 cc, ¼ L, ½ L, or L. It makes sense in hindsight, but the quarter meant a quarter of a bottle. This equated to about two good-sized glasses. So I ordered 1/4L Blanc. In hindsight we should have had crepes like Cecile did. In France eat French food. No, we ate salad and pizza. Actually, Mary had a salad and we shared the pizza. It was a four cheese pizza so at least it had French cheese. Maybe that counts. Anyway, the food was really good. We sat there for a bit while I finished my wine. By now it was early afternoon. We had about an hour or so back to the ship. Cecile suggested that we go through the national forest to see those sites and work our way back down to the ship. We agreed.

The straps she used in her van to tie my chair down would eventually loosen up and I would fall backwards. This is not a big deal because I wasn’t going to fly out the back but it was uncomfortable. It seemed the longer we went the more frequently it happened. This, and the fact that we were kind of bumping up against the time the ship would leave, made me think that we should skip the forest and head back into town. In the end, we did drive through the forest. We just didn’t stop. As we drove back through town we went through several areas that had stores. Mary was on the hunt again for sweetener – Stevia. We stopped at a couple places – surprisingly called casinos, but were actually small grocery stores. We didn’t have any luck. Mary was also looking for some of her face cream. Thinking that it might be cheaper in France because it’s a French product. No luck here either. The stops and the fact that there was a lot of traffic, maybe it was a good move to skip that last stop. We made our way back to the parking lot outside of the ship. There we had to say our goodbyes. Cecile was a great tour guide. We spent almost 6 hours with her. We saw a lot of Marseille and the surrounding area. Obviously, the personal guide is the way to go. And as expected, it is more expensive. We learn something new every time travel.

It was almost 5 o’clock in the afternoon. We made it back to the room. As soon as we opened the door I saw the SmartDrive laying on the floor and I remembered this morning’s feelings. I asked Mary to open my last bottle of Heineken. I chugged that down. We then set up the computers trying to find a telephone number for  the company that makes the drive. Mary found a number from the Nashville area and she called it. I was somewhat surprised that a guy picked up the phone and within about 15 minutes we knew the answer – unfortunately it was not good news. Apparently the circuit board in the drive has failed. There’s nothing to do with us sitting in France. He did commit to trying to see if he could find a dealer in Southampton and arrange a swap of some sort when we are in Southhampton. I don’t think it is likely, but there is some hope. It would be great if it worked out. The sad thing is that I’ve only had the drive for about six months and have used it ten hours total.  I can’t imagine I have more than 10 miles on it. I was not happy with the answer but had no choice.

With that behind us we chilled out for a while. Eventually, we went downstairs for dinner. I don’t remember if I mentioned this, but the previous night I ordered a bottle of white wine. I finished it off tonight. A French white. It was pretty good. I know that I had gazpacho as an appetizer that was really good. I don’t remember what I had is my second appetizer. I was hungry so I wanted a second something. For my entrée I had spicy shrimp. I don’t number what Mary had but I am sure it was in the beef family. Part of my unhappy morning was the fact that I woke up and found that 100 of my Internet minutes were missing. On the ship we are given 250 minutes as part of our platinum membership. I was down to about 150, but I woke up and looked I was down to 40. I wasn’t happy about this. So while we were looking for the latest pictures, we stopped at the Internet café. We asked the guy who runs it to take a look at my logs. He gave me back my hundred minutes. I thanked him and we were on our way. Internet minutes are like gold around here. I remember now that it was a formal night. I didn’t feel like getting into tux pants, etc. I left my jeans on, but wore a white shirt with a tie. Mary looked good in her black sequin outfit. That’s one thing about formal nights on the ship – there are some guys that think their T-shirt is formal. At the other end of the spectrum is the guy with the real tux – fitted for him. Thinking about it, I would say that there were even number at both ends. I kind of was in the middle. Jeans with a tie. I know that’s not formal but I just wasn’t in the mood. And actually Mary suggested that so I took advantage of it. It had been a long day and had another couple big days coming up so we went to bed. That’s the story for day seven.

It’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon today on Thursday (Day 6). We are sitting on the 14th floor. We just got back from Barcelona tour. Another day and another adventure. We knew we had to be downstairs for the tour by 9 o’clock. Mary got up about 730 or so. She got me up around 8 o’clock. I try to do all my stuff on my own. Of course I had to shave. And now the shower chair is broken we had to wash my hair. Not a big deal because I was done by 830 or so. Mary finished her stuff up and we were out the door by 845. We had to get Mary breakfast. Over our history the one thing that has to happen before we go out is Mary needs to eat. I’m sure it has to do with her sugar level and the fact that you takes her medicine in the morning. We packed everything we needed into our backpacks and headed out the door. The 14th floor was busy with other people getting breakfast. Everyone had the same idea – load up before all day journeys. I had a piece of brown bread just to put something in my stomach. Mary had eggs and bacon. She had a couple cups of tea. We are watching the clock pretty closely because we to be in the Explorers Lounge by 915. When we arrived down there at 917 everyone was already gone except for one Princess cruises lady. She directed us to the elevators after giving us our fancy little yellow stickers with the tour number. We made it off the ship and through the court building down to the ground in about 15 minutes. We were directed to a specific bus so we went down to that bus only to find out it did not have a lift. I’m rarely surprised when this happens any more. We walked back towards the ports building to find a princes person. They realize the mistake and then huddled around each other for about 15 minutes trying to figure out how they were to let me off the tour.
As it turns out, the first bus had a lift and it but there was already a guy in the disabled spot. They managed to talk him into sitting in a normal chair and putting his scooter downstairs. This freed up the spot for me to get into. It was one of those huge tour buses where the lift lifted you up about 10 feet in the air to get inside of the bus. I was never a fan of these buses. But the fact that they had a lift at all is a good thing. So the driver loaded me in the bus. We sat there for a few minutes before he loaded everyone else and then came tie me down. At first I didn’t think he was going to tie me down. I would not of been happy but if that was my only choice. So it took about 10 or 15 minutes to get the straps figured out. I’m not complaining because I’m sure he doesn’t do it every day. And every chair is different. When he was finally done I was secure. The tour lady was very helpful. As soon as the bus started moving she started into her speech. I couldn’t make out much of it so I basically ignored it. We drove for about 30 minutes to the seaside spot near the Barcelona Casino. It was a cool spot because you can see several of the buildings in the background while sitting on the shore so you could see I’m assuming the Mediterranean Sea. Before we left I was able to download the GoPro app onto my phone. I did some basic set up of the camera just enough to get it going. There are more features than I will be able to figure out, but I wanted to start playing with it. As it turns out it takes some really cool videos, time-lapse and still pictures. We hung out in this seaside area for about 45 minutes. We walked to the end of the pier. We wanted to take a selfie so Mary walked up to two women were sitting on the edge of the pier. Only Mary would find the only person in Barcelona who spoke English. As it turns out this lady was from Sweden on vacation. Mary had a nice discussion with her. We asked her how she liked Barcelona. Mary asked what was good to see in Stockholm. We had a good 10 minute conversation with the girl. She took some nice pictures of us too. After that we made our way back down the pier towards the bus. We were loaded back onto the bus and then we traveled for probably an hour. We went through several areas of the city and saw several things. We wandered through some of the better parts of town and probably because he had no choice went into some less nice parts of town. Mary got a bunch of pictures. I was able to use my GoPro on the bus obviously. We saw old churches and old buildings along with new modern building for the most part it is a very modern and clean city. It seems to be a very tourist friendly city.
Our next stop was somewhere near the Barcelona national museum. it was high on a hill so there were views of the entire city below. Spent about 45 minutes there. We took several pictures of the city below us. I played with my camera and got various pictures. Mary took several pictures too. We talked to the tour lady where to find a disabled bathroom. I think she went a bit out of her way, but she did find us a bathroom inside the museum. We did the cath and then headed back out towards the bus. Remember above where I said I don’t like buses? This time on the lift I damn near fell over backwards out of it. The bus was on a slight angle and I was facing the bus. This combination made me flipped backwards and the only thing that saved me for my retard bars. These are the bars in the back of the chair that stopped me from tipping backwards. Thankfully, they held while Mary rushed in the bus and pulled me forward. It was flipping scary. I hung for about three minutes on my back wheels 10 foot off the ground praying that I wouldn’t fall off. I was confident that the bars would hold, but you never know. So after that mini near disaster, I was happy to be back in the bus and tied back down. We had talked about having us drop us off in town and we would work our way back to the ship by taxi. The tour lady had to contact of people with disabled ready cars. When we saw where they were going to drop us and the fact that we are probably still a mile or so from the actual town center decided not to go. If we were actually in town and we had the taxi back, that would’ve been fine but this wasn’t the case. The bus pulled up to the port building and we got off. We gave both the driver and the tour lady tips. The both did a very nice job.
Back on the ground we went through the port building of course on the way back to the ship they have souvenir shop. That’s okay because were not able to go in town so we souvenirs. We picked up some magnets for both us and our mothers. I bought a wine stopper that says Barcelona on it. I also bought a little bottle of sangria in the shape of a bull. After I drink the sangria, I can keep the bull as a memento. We made it back to the ship and headed towards the room. We both needed a break. I pounded a Monster to get some liquid in my system. We were only in the room for about 10 or 15 minutes before we decided to come up to 14. So, Barcelona? I would say that Barcelona falls into the category of the city could visit again to learn more about. Just the three hours of
the tour showed us a lot but most of his was from the bus. There were several things I saw from the bus that I would interested in looking at up close. The two stops that we did were nice. I’m sure that the lady giving the tour had a lot of information that would’ve helped those that could hear and/or understand her. I’m not complaining because we did see Barcelona. We can add it to our list of cities that would like to visit again sometime. I learned later reading the Princess Plate, the church, La Sagrada Familia has been under construction since 1882. It’s still a few years from completion. The hill I mention is called Montjuic Hill. We also drove by the main area/stadium from the 1992? Olympics. Mary’s pictures tell a visual journey.
Now we are sitting up on 14. It is 90° even in the shade. The occasional wind helps keep it cool. I’m writing this update, checking email and publishing the earlier part of this log. Mary is across from me working on her pictures that she downloaded from her camera. She said she took about 200 more today. I had to Heineken bottles left from my pocket the other day. Mary brought one of them up for me. We will sit up here for another hour or so. As I write this the ship is leaving Barcelona. I’m capturing it on the GoPro because my photographer (Mary) is sound asleep in the bed. This tourist stuff is tiring.

Day four or five depending upon if you count Southampton. (Southampton, at sea, at sea, Cadiz, at sea)

Let’s just say this day did not start out great. As mentioned previously, we got this fancy doing portable shower chair. Throughout its short history we have had trouble with it. I actually thought this time he had it fixed but that turned out to be not the case. This time, unfortunately, I ended up on the floor. And so did Mary. Mary transferred me into the chair and we’re working our way towards the bathroom. The transition from the main room to the bathroom has a home that you need to get over and at the top of that home is an aluminum transition. You really have to talk to get me up that little Kellen over that transition. Well, the aluminum of the chair was not strong enough to handle that so the one leg bent. When the one leg bent it through my balance off and I ended up falling into the side of the cabinet. Mary fell on top of me so we were both on the floor. Thankfully neither of us was hurt but there was no way she was getting me off the floor by herself. Not only did the leg abound, but the socket that it fits into was torn in half. It would probably be strong enough if you are going on a flat floor, but trying to get over that transition was just too much for. So now how do we get off the floor? Mary called the general number and explain the situation. I don’t think they understood at first so she had a call back and explained it again a little differently. This time I got their attention and the guy came to the door pretty quickly. It was not a medical emergency. The first guy called a couple of the guys and all of a sudden there were three people here. They lifted me up and threw me on the bed and disappeared. That’s what we wanted. It is the first time in probably 20+ years that I’ve been on the floor. Thankfully I still bounce pretty well. That was the start of our day. We will have to deal with the shower chair company when we get back.

After that fiasco, Mary got me up and we were ready to go by about 1030 or so. Mary wanted to go play bingo at 1130 so we headed that way first. We picked up the pictures at the picture lounge and then went to play bingo I guess there were three games and Mary didn’t win anything. That’s okay I guess. It’s the first time in several cruises since she’s played bingo. After bingo, we went to the dining room on five for English pub lunch. We both had fish and chips. I had a beer called Gem Ale I’ve deftly had better, but it was a new experience. The food was good. They had some type of bread pudding for dessert which was bizarre at best. Of course, we got into a conversation with people were sitting next to so we were there for a while. More people from England. Talking about health insurance – yada yada yada. After leaving them decided to go to a presentation on the camera called GoPro 7. It’s a pretty fancy video camera for capturing moments. We sat through that presentation about 45 minutes. It’s an interesting camera. I want to see how much it costs here on the ship. I might take the dive although I’m not sure. After the presentation on the camera we made it back up to the room. Mary closed her eyes for a few minutes while I start working on this log. By this time it was already time for the 330 bingo. I decided to stay back and work on this log. I ended up taking a micro nap though. We had some intentions of going outside today but based on things we did the fact that it was cool in the wind we decided to stay in. Mary did some investigating after the 330 bingo and found the sanctuary and gym. We have plenty of days to explore these more. On the Princess homepage it says it’s 86 out there but that doesn’t account for the wind off the sea. The lady we talked to at lunch that might be able to see dolphins so that’ll be something to look for I guess. Mary came back from bingo – she didn’t win – and she is sitting beside working on something right now. We’re going to get cleaned up and go to dinner.

We went down to the dining room. On the way there, there was one picture stop. We got our picture taken in our smart casual clothing. From there we went down to five to the dining room. We were seated in the same aisle that we sat all dinners so far. They pulled the bottle of wine that I did not finish the night before. We each had a glass of that. For an appetizer I had a salmon and crawfish dish. It was an actual crawfish on my plate but I didn’t know how to do it. Later, a lady seated across from me actually ate her crawfish. I saw her take it apart the way you should I just didn’t know this. For my entrée I had an Indian inspired dish. It was spicy shrimp. They serve with the yogurt sauce to calm down the heat. It was actually very good. Mary had salad and the chicken dish. She seemed to like it. I know mine was good. She had ice cream for dessert. I had some type of tart that was named decadent Drambuie a but I didn’t taste any Drambuie in it. We did run into some people that we talked a while. From there we walked down to the fixture place to discuss the go Pro camera. We wanted to go to the comedy show, but it was too busy. Instead, we walked back up to the casino. We wandered around there for a little while before I sat down and played some roulette. I only went for about four rounds. I made $15 and decided to get out of there. Walked over to the poker table but there was nobody there to play. We talked to the casino manager for a while to learn his history. Mary put some money in a slot machine. She did not make any money. We decided that at 930 we would go back to the camera place to buy the go Pro. We spent about a half hour with the lady. She said it all up for us. We spent time trying to figure out which attachment wanted. I ended up getting the jaw device. After playing with it today it seems like the right device. By time we were done with the demo it was about 11 o’clock. We need to go to bed. That was the end of day five. Going forward I’m going to go assumption that Southhampton was day one.

As you can see that I skipped yesterday’s entry. It turned out to be a very busy day from the get-go. Mary got up about 630. I got up about 715. The goal was to get up, eat breakfast and get off the ship by 830. We went upstairs for breakfast. I had toast and a muffin. I also had some juice. Mary had eggs and bacon. We wanted to get some food in our system because we knew it was going to be a long day. We were done with breakfast on time but it took us about 15 minutes get off the ship. We went to where we thought we could disembark but we needed to go to a different floor midship. Once off the ship we had to walk about a quarter of a mile or more to the actual port entrance. It was a beautiful morning. It had to be near 80° and sunny. You could tell though it was going to be hot. Just outside the Port Authority building was our driver holding a card with our name on it. His name was Manuel. He spoke very little English beyond Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan. He was very personable. Over the course of the three hours we rode with him – 90 minutes there in 90 minutes back Mary was able to get a lot of information out of them. She has an app on her phone which translates English to Spanish. S one example, with this she was able to determine that he runs marathons – seven of them in the last seven years. He averages about four hours per marathon. Mary is able to get information out of anyone in almost every situation. He loaded me up in his van. It was the type of van where I am loaded up in the back. I was not able to see out of the windows very well but I didn’t need to see much. I was able to see the Spanish countryside which is filled with fields of things like cotton and grape vines. We went for quite a while before we ran into the city called Seville. Actually in Spanish at Sevilla. The driver got turned around somewhere and he was trying to find our tour guide so we saw several parts of the city that we would not normally seen.  There seem to be several parks and public areas. There were a lot of people on the streets that appeared to be tourists. Many horse-drawn carriages held up traffic. The traffic also had lots of those roundabouts. On the way into town traffic was pretty quiet. In order to get into the historic parts of the city we had to go down to one lane streets that didn’t look passable until we were through them. All along the sides were cars and motorbikes parked one on top of the other. What was left of the lane, not much of, he slowly wedged his way down the street until we got to what I guess you would call the center. There, standing on the corner, was a lady who turned out to be our tour guide. I guess we met her about 1130. We piled out of the van. We made arrangements with the driver to have him come pick us up at 230. I’m not sure where he went for the next three hours.

Rachel, our tour guide, must of been in her late 30s or early 40s. We did learn that she has two kids – nine and 13 and that she’s married. She lived right in the area we were touring. To say she was talkative  is an understatement. Without exaggeration – and this is not a negative thing – she talked nonstop. Initially, she offered to carry our bags. Mary and I both carrier bookbags that have the essentials for the day in them. We didn’t expect her to carry oir bags all day. I carried mine on my lap and Mary carried her is on her back. She asked us what we wanted to get accomplished. Did we want to see the monuments? Did we want to shop? What would we want to do during the day. Mary and I really didn’t have any preconceived ideas so we said let’s see the monuments. Neither of us were big on shopping. In this area of the city where we were they have several historic monuments all in one area. We were dropped off outside of the Real Alaczar, which is one of the palaces for the Spanish royal family. Apparently they still use it occasionally. The lines to get in there were long so we decided to walk down the street probably a half mile or more to the Cathedral of Seville. This was a huge building built mostly in the 11^th century if I remember correctly. We’ve done cathedrals before and this is by far the largest one. If I heard our tour guide correctly Notre Dame Cathedral would fit inside of this one. The ceilings had to be 300 feet or higher. There were countless smaller stained-glass windows. I guess they had to be smaller because of the way the roof was designed to carry the weight there was not enough room for windows. All along the base were I guess call them rooms owned by prominent Spanish families in history. Very famous people of Spanish history are entombed in these rooms. As I understand it, these rich families donated money which help build the church. With their donations they were able to carve out a space in the base for their family burial or tomb areas. Rachel pointed out several of the more popular ones. Probably the most popular one was Christopher Columbus. She went into the long history of it that basically only part of Christopher Columbus is actually in his tomb. It had to do was something about how he died and it took several years to get what was left of his remains to Seville. His son is buried in the floor of the Cathedral. This is little roped off area that is his burial area. After our guide pointed this out I realize that there were several of these little square areas but they weren’t open off. As it turns out, there are all kinds of these burial areas throughout the floor the just walk on. Obviously there was a ton of history on this building. We were in there for about 90 minutes and I would say that Rachel had a story about almost everything we looked at. The building was so huge you could probably spend an entire day and only see half of it. There was a ton of history and several little side rooms that contained even more history. For example, we saw these huge tapestries. There was one of the map that had to be 50’ x 50’. It was a map but it wasn’t understandable until you were told that it was upside down. Then all of a sudden it makes sense. Throughout the entire day Rachel would point out things that you would never thought of if she hadn’t brought it up. In many rooms she would stop and say look at the ceiling. And the ceilings were amazing. The artwork that they contained was probably missed by 95% of the people that walk through the room. Despite it being a ancient, dark and not necessarily clean building it was something to see. The architecture of the building shows the technology of the time. All of the history that is buried at building literally is a whole other story.

From there we walked the quarter of a mile or whatever back up to the Royal Palace. The lines were still long but Rachel had prearranged a priority entrance for us. We stood in line for about 15 minutes before she came back and said that she had it all figured out we went straight to the head of the line. Some of those people will probably in line for an hour or more. By now it was in the 90’s and sunny, but not too humid. We scooted right to the front. Much like the Cathedral, the Royal Palace was filled with architecture and history. We went to one area which was the main Palace which is actually three different palaces connected together. I don’t remember the exact dates but it was like the first one was built in 1000, the second one in 1300 and the one in 1500. The first and third were very Gothic architecture. The second one was very Arabian influenced. I’m not sure Arabian is the right term. It was influenced by the Muslims which might be more North African. Either way, it was very interesting to see the very different architectures all in one building. The various kings who built these separate palaces were influenced by the people of their time. We made short journeys into each of these palaces. Again, we were filled with the history. More importantly, again, were the details. There had to be without exaggeration 1 million ceramic tiles on the walls. Each one was hand done in the 14^th century. Rachel went into some of the mechanics of what it took to create ceramic tiles back then. All of a sudden you had a new perspective and respect for these tiles. The surprising part is there over 700 years old and for the most part they look pretty new. Again the ceilings of the rooms were important. One of the last rooms we stopped in contained the Spanish Royal family crowns. Obviously, they were grand. Before leaving the complex we wandered through several garden areas. If it wasn’t for the thousands of tourists wandering around these would be very peaceful areas. A lot of water and trees and open skies. I can envision being a royal person wandering through these gardens.

We were running a bit short on time by now. It was nearly 1 o’clock. We were supposed to be picked up at 230. Rachel, our tour guide, and prearranged a place for us to go to lunch. It was a good 20 minute walk from where we were. Most of the streets were pretty good but there were some cobbled ones that made the going tough. Even Rachel pushed for a while. My smart drive helped in certain areas. With all these avenues we did make it up to the restaurant. Along the way Mary stopped at a currency exchange and exchanged American dollars for euros. I think the exchange rate was $1.16 per euro. I don’t remember the name of the restaurant now but Mary got a picture. In my mind it was a true Spanish restaurant. From the entrance there was a long while way back to the room there were about six or seven tables. There were families on three of these tables. Keep in mind this was Tuesday afternoon. The looked a little odd that there were families having lunch at 2 o’clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday but that might be a Spanish thing. Rachel talked with the waiter to make sure that he understood that we needed to be in and out in an hour. We were given menus which were in Spanish for the most part. Under the Spanish explanation were cryptic English versions which helped us understand what they were but didn’t really tell us completely. So we kind of guessed. Mary had some kind of him which turned out to be what I would call pork shank. It was very good because I had a piece. I had some type of fish toast. I’m pretty sure was tuna, but either way was very good. It could be my place because it had a two page wine list and the most expensive wine on there was 3 ½ euros or about four dollars.. I had some type of white wine that was very good. Of course I don’t remember the name of it now but it was good. While we were having lunch, Rachel went to the grocery store for Mary to try to find her some of her sweetener. She was successful. She returned in about 30 minutes and by then we were nearly done. We paid our bill after figuring out how much to tip and the total came to €35. That’s probably an average amount of money for lunch for us. We walked out of that building and went two doors down to a another shop that was selling various souvenir kind of things. Rachel was suggesting that we buy hand fans which were nice. But neither Mary nor I were thrilled with that. We ended up buying tiny little plates for our mothers. We did buy a little plate for our souls and Mary did buy a fan for herself. That was our souvenir shopping that took about a half hour or so now we were really up against the time. We quickly walked – or as quickly as we could go – up a few blocks to where the driver was waiting for us.

Could not have asked for a better tour guide. Rachel was amazing. It boggles the mind about how much history she knew. She literally knew the history of just about everything. She made the tour very enjoyable. She asked us what we wanted and she accomplished it well. We gave her a tip. We exchange goodbye hugs and she was off. We did get a picture with her before Manuel loaded me up into the van. The trip back in the van was pretty quiet. Mary and I were tired. She napped for most of the trip. The traffic was a little bit heavier but nothing to be concerned about. We pulled back into Cadiz a little after 4 o’clock. I was very mildly concerned that I’ve misjudged the time. Part of me wondered if the ship left at 430 instead of 530. I was thankful to see the ship sitting there as we pulled up to the port.  Mary got several pictures of a bridge the driver called the Little Golden gate Bridge. I don’t know it’s exact length but it had to be a couple of miles of suspension bridge. It looks very modern so it hasn’t been there very long. It is probably the highlight of Cadiz. We didn’t spend any time in the city itself. By time we got back to the port the ship was leaving within the hour. Manuel pulled up to the spot where he picked us up. He pulled me out of the van. He helped us to the door. Mary gave him a tip. We got his card. We set our goodbyes and he was on his way. We had to go through security at the port building. From there we walked back to the ship. I guess it was about 5 o’clock by time we got back to the ship. It was an amazing excursion. I don’t remember exactly what I paid for it but it was worth every nickel. The history and the architecture and just the experience of a whole different city and country was worth it. Manuel and Rachel made it successful. If our future excursions are even half as good will be successful.

Back on the ship, in the room, I cashed in my certificate for five bottles of beer. Before the crew to say took advantage of this special. About 15 minutes later I had five cold bottles of Heineken. I opened one and drank it all almost immediately. Mary lined up the second one. It took longer to drink this one. We went out onto our balcony and sat there while the ship pulled away. We were out there maybe an hour. We set out there until the ship was gone for about a half hour. While we were still docked a larger crucial point by us. We were amazed at its size. Out on the balcony it was beautiful. The sun was high but the wind off the water kept it nice and cool. The beer helped too. After about an hour we decided to get cleaned up and go to dinner.

We headed down to the dining room. I ordered that special Cabernet that was offered at the wine tasting for 50%. Pine Ridge Estates I think it’s called. For an appetizer I had seafood antipasta. From an entrée I had a shrimp and scallop dish that was very good too. Mary had Caesar salad and pot roast. We both had tiramisu for dessert. It was a nice dinner. We were seated in the same area as we have been seated every night. We ended up talking to the same couple we talked to the previous night – Bob and Barbara I think they’re named. After dinner we walked up to the casino. There was a guy sitting there waiting to play poker so we joined him. We ended up playing for the next 2 ½ hours or so. I think I made about $35. Mary lost some. It was good to play. There are a couple of players that were obviously new to it. There was one guy who said he was new to it but he played pretty well so I’m not so sure all knew he was. Anyway that was pretty much it. By this time we were pretty tired. What manner way upstairs and went to bed. It had been a long and successful day. Day four complete. 24 more to go.

Monday, August 19, 2019

Day three. Got up about 8:00. Mary got up, showered and dressed before getting me up. We fought with the shower chair today. We made it through, but we had to reconfigure the chair so it will work going forward. Mary went for breakfast on 14 while I stayed in and did little. We were out the door near 11:00. Our first stop was the casino to see if anyone was playing poker. There wasn’t. We sat there for a bit before going to seven to pick up pictures taken so far. There were about 25 pictures. Some turned out nice. From there we went down to five so Mary could get tea. She got me an iced coffee too. We sat there listening to the string duo do songs like Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters. It was surprisingly good. We were sitting outside the pizza parlor and the smells called me. I decided we should get pizza so we did. Mary had pepperoni. I had shrimp and mussel. Both were good. After that we decided to try our luck at the blackjack tournament. It cost $20. You play seven hands and you count what you have left. The first $20 I had nothing left. Mary had ten left. We decided to try again. This time I ended up with 23 so I made the qualifying round – so far. Qualifying goes until 2:30. If I still qualify there is a final round in a few nights. While there Mary bought scratch offs – won nothing. We entered the lottery which goes tonight. We got to try any angle to make a buck, I guess. On the way back to the cabin we stopped by the Future Cruise desk. Nothing solid yet, but we are thinking Asia somewhere next time. Back in the cabin I wrote this while Mary napped.

It’s now 3:30. We just came back from a wine tasting event. We had three whites and three reds. I’m always on the look out for a great white wine. Reds are easy as I know that I like French reds – old wines. I like sauvignon blanc for whites, but finding a great white eludes me. The cabernet we had today was really good – Pine Estates or something similar. I really like these tastings because I can taste things I wouldn’t normally buy. We are back in the room. After napping for two hours – we both zonked – we headed for dinner. We went to the dining room. We were given a pager because there we so many people ahead of us. It was about 45 minutes later when we were seated. The waiter found my wine bottle from last night. I had beef satay and red snapper. For dessert I had brie and gouda. My food was good. I ordered a glass of port that was really good. Mary had potato soup and pork chop. Both were good. /for dessert she had fruit and a bowl of honey yogurt. Mary said it was all good. We were seated with a couple from North Carolina. Of course, I couldn’t hear much. Mary talked with them. They are doing the same two trips we are doing, but they did some five day thing before this trip.

We went to the casino. There were no poker players. We sat there for twenty minutes. We put some money in a slot machine and lost. Despite our nap we were ready for bed. Tomorrow will be busy so to bed we go.

Sunday, August 18, 2019

Day two already. It is an At-Sea day. We are rocking and rolling – literally – along the west coast of France. We lost an hour last night because we changed time zones. We went to bed about 10:30. We slept pretty well. We might have slipped into comas. We woke up a little before 9:00. I got to use my new shower chair. Despite the rolling ship, the shower went well. Mary then showered while I worked on posting yesterday’s log. We have internet access but it is slow. I cannot complain considering where I am. I’m not able to upload pictures though. Oh well.

Mary went up to 14 to get some breakfast. I am trying to stay on my normal eating regimen – little/no breakfast, small lunch and normal dinner. I drank some Monster.

It is now 5:30 in the afternoon. I stayed in all day to this point. Mary has been in and out a few times to get tea. She slept for a few hours earlier. I napped twice. We are playing catch up I guess. We watched two silly movies. For some reason the play back frequently stopped and I’d have to resume the movie – not a big deal, but annoying. The ship is still rolling pretty good. We have to get ready to go to dinner. It is formal night, so I have to wear my rent-a-tux. Mary’s phone works for texting and voice. Mine isn’t. Who knows.

It is now 11:00pm. We are back from the evening’s events. We got dressed up. Mary looked good in her new blue dress. I wore tux pants, blue work shirt, blue tie and I carried the black tux jacket. The jacket is too small. I did wear it for the first picture set. The common areas were really busy with people. They were doing the champagne fountain. We had our picture taken with the Princess mascot bear – I didn’t know they had a mascot. We went to the dining room, there was a 30 minute wait so we went to get pictures. Our first of probably fifty sessions. From there we went back to the dining room. We were seated at the same table we sat at last night. I ordered a bottle of wine. It was a Burgundy that was really good. Mary had half a glass. I drank maybe half of it so I’ll have half for tomorrow. I had cheese and crab quiche, a shrimp dish and a chocolate dessert. Mary had soup, Cornish game hen and a tart of some sort. It was all good. There was a British couple next to us. They were funny and chatty. Of course, I only understood a third of the conversations. He was a retired banker and she was a retired nurse. They had extensive travel stories. It was a nice visit.

We finished the night by going to four more picture sessions. I threw $100 into a slot machine. Mary only lost $10. It was time for bed. We stopped for tea and cookies before heading back to the cabin. It was definitely a quiet day. We need them because we’re going to be pretty busy coming up.

Saturday, August 17, 2019

I’m typing this from our room on the ship. We made it! Mary is zonked out on the bed. I should be resting too, but I’m not tired right now. It has been a whirlwind eighteen hours. We got up Friday like normal, but we knew it wasn’t going to be a normal day. We think we’re ready and of course there are always things that get put off until the last minute. Some things have to wait. Mary got cash (after we agreed how much to take). We divided it and split it up among our bags so if one went missing only some of the money would be lost. She also picked up our prescriptions. On Friday morning we got in the van, after Mary put her car in a neighbor’s garage, and drove into Belleview. Mary had two boxes that needed shipping back. From there we went to Cal’s for a full breakfast. We weren’t sure when we would next eat so we loaded up. From there it was back home. Mary made arrangements with a guy in Del Webb to drive us to Tampa. She called him several times but it went to voice mail. By 12:30 we were pretty antsy. I looked up long-term parking at Tampa International. Worst case, we would drive and leave the car in parking. I started searching for another number for him. I found the Summerfield white pages. There was a Danny Kelly that lived in De Webb. Mary called the number and our guy picked up. He was ready to come over. He explained his cellphone does not work in his house. Huge sigh of relief. He showed up about 1:45. We did our last-minute-last-minute things and got in the van.

Danny drove the hour and forty five minutes, most of it in blinding rain, to the airport. It was an uneventful ride, thankfully. He dropped us off and we made our way into the terminal. We went to the American area only to be told we needed to go to British Airways. Over there we got a helpful agent. It took a while, but she changed our seats so we were sitting together. There was a momentary question about the SmartDrive and its battery. Days earlier, I printed a document from the SmartDrive site that showed the device was approved so it could travel with us. So, we were off to the security check. As always, my pat down took twenty minutes. Mary got the serious pat down this time too. Of course, TSA wanted to look through one of our bags. We carry an allen wrench set to fix my chair if it should come up,. This sets off the scanners every time. With that all behind us we had to take a train about half a mile to the international terminal. These are always fun (sarcastic). I have to try to get on the train quickly which does not happen. I get in just as the doors close. Mary quickly locks the wheels. I can’t because I’m loaded down with my bag and the sliding board. So, I just get on and I grab a pole to hang onto because I know the train will jerk to a start. Then thirty seconds later, the opposite needs to happen – unlock and race to the door. This doesn’t happen according to plan either, but I manage to get off the train. From there we head to gate F90. It sounds far away it really wasn’t. We went to the gate and it was after 5:00. I’m glad we got there really early. We needed every minute. After a quick pee stop we were set to get on the plane. The staff was helpful and we were ready to go. The transfer from my chair to aisle chair to plane seat went very smoothly. It took about thirty minutes for everyone else to board. Then we had the twenty minute ride on the tarmac before taking off. We had nice seats. We paid for premium economy. Mary was at the window and I was on the aisle. I got situated because I knew it was going to be a long eight hours. The plane took off without a bump. I was listening to my book while Mary read hers. About an hour into it I switched to my iPad to watch a dumb movie – The Spy Who Dumped Me. Mary fell asleep. Dinner was served about an hour into the movie. The food was actually good. I had beef and Mary had chicken. They came with a funky salad which I passed on. There was a tart thing for dessert. Over all it was pretty good. After dinner Mary went back to sleep. She slept for several hours. I finished one movie then started a second one before I fell asleep. This was about 11:00pm. I slept for about two hours. I slept hard. By this time the plane was making its way up the English Channel. All night it flew up the east coast before turning east after Nova Scotia. A breakfast was served – egg and cheese on toasted bread. Mary liked it. I passed. The plane landed without concern. Same routine only backwards – drive on tarmac, wait for everyone to get off then we got off. Without exaggeration, half the passengers were kids.

Gatwick takes disability services to a whole new level. Same transfers – plane seat to aisle chair to my chair. From there we went on a special carrier that was on the opposite side of the plane from the jetway. This carrier drove us right to baggage claim. It saved a ton of time and miles of walking. Mary found our one checked bag and we were off to customs. We sailed through customs with the help of the disability guy. He then led us to where we found our driver. The whole process was seamless. They did a great job.

We met our driver. I didn’t get her name. Maybe Mary did. We went to her lift equipped van. She loaded us up and were off. The trip from Gatwick to Southampton took about two hours. It was strange having the driver on the right side and having traffic reversed too. On the expressways the traffic flows opposite. We saw a lot of English countryside. We also saw quite a bit of Southampton. It was a bit odd seeing ruins from when England was ruled by Romans in the shadow of a Starbucks sign. We asked the driver to stop at a grocery store to see if they had Monster. The first place didn’t, but the second did. Yeah!

She dropped us at the cruise terminal around 11:30. We gave our bags to a porter to bring them on the ship. We then made our way to the registration area. This, too, was super easy. We got our cruise cards and went to a waiting area. We sat there for thirty minutes. We were early and had to wait for security. Through one last security check we went aboard the Sapphire Princess. We were told that we couldn’t go to our cabin until 1:00. It became obvious few were waiting to go to their cabin, but we waited. I noticed my phone wasn’t working. I thought I had international plan added but I guess not. Using Mary’s phone, we called Verizon and got it fixed – thankfully. I suggested Mary go up to the cabin to see if it was ready. It was so I made my way up to deck 12, room 301. Two of four bags arrived so Mary unpacked them. It was now 1:00. I started writing this update while Mary napped. We were waiting on the two bags we had delivered by LuggageForward. We were a but worried but email said they were delivered. I let Mary sleep until 3:00. We had to go to the mandatory fire drill.

The fire drill was down on seven. We, with a hundred other people in a small area listened to several safety and security topics. It was over in about thirty minutes. We headed back to the room. Still no bags and, we remembered, no rented tux. Not much we could do so I laid down and napped. Somewhere in the next 90 minutes everything we were waiting for showed up. Whew! Mary unpacked that stuff while I slept.

We decided to go to the dining room on five. It was busy, but we were seated quickly. We sat by ourselves – not a shared table. I ordered a Manhattan – it was good. I had chicken broth for the appetizer. For the entrée I had steak and onion pie – apparently an English favorite. All mine was good. Mary had salad and prime rib. She seemed pleased with her selections. I had cheese plate for dessert. Mary had ice cream. It was a good first meal.

The only super small goof of the day was we did not bring a power cable for non-Apple devices. In the grand scheme, we did pretty damn well if that is all we forgot. So, before heading back to bed we bought the needed cable, and got some tea and cookies. These first days are always killers. This was no exception. Nonetheless, it could not have gone much better.

Written Tuesday, August 6, 2019

What follows is a travel log of sorts which will document the back-to-back cruises Mary and I will complete (as this point). The intent of the document is to cover some of the history, preparation, travel, the on-ship happenings, the cities we visit, and whatever else I want to throw in.

We are scheduled to fly from Tampa to London (Gatwick) next Friday night, August 16^th. We will then sail from Southampton to the western Mediterranean and then back to London. We stay on the same ship then travel the Baltic to St. Petersburgh and back to London. From there we fly to JFK, switch planes and fly to Orlando. Counting flying days, it is a thirty-day vacation. It is our longest trip we have done since our Ireland trip in 2008. That trip was 21 days. I’m not a great traveler. In most cases, if not all, I hate the act of traveling. When we are on the ship in Southampton, our bags have arrived, and I have had my first beer, I will be happy. I feel better about this trip probably because I was very close to the details.

Before we leave I want to jot down some of the things that need to be done in preparation for this adventure. In the past, Mary did the planning and set up of the trips. This trip was setup almost exclusively by me. I’m in between gigs so I took it upon myself to manage this trip.

We sailed around the bottom of South America (Santiago, Chile to Buenos Aires, Argentina)  in March of 2018. When we were approaching the start of that trip Princess Cruises called and said they would give us two free cruises (cruise fare only) if we gave up our vacation. After a lot of thought, we said no. They came back and said if we moved to an interior cabin, the South America cruise would be free (they would convert our cruise fare to onboard credit) and we would get a free 14-day cruise. After much thought, we agreed to this arrangement. I have a similar document that details South America trip, if interested. I mention this because the one of these two cruises is the ‘free’ cruise. When on the ship going around South America we visited the Future Cruises office. Mary found these back-to-back cruises so we decided to put a down payment on them. These two cruises will cover a lot of Europe and, as I recently discovered, we set foot on Africa. When we do this we can say we have been on four of seven continents. Mary has a goal of hitting all seven in her life. Technically, this will leave Antarctica, Australia and Asia. That day, sitting in the Future Cruises office, we made plans for our next adventure – 17 months in advance.

Not much happened – related to this trip – until about April of this year. Mary said, more than once, I should look at the excursions available in the various ports. There is only port (Sardinia) that the ship does not dock – it uses tenders to ferry people to shore. When tendering is done, I’m not allowed off the ship due to safety concerns. This meant I should try to find excursions everywhere else. Mary and I have been cruising for almost thirty years (we have 70+ days on ships and this trip will put us over 100 days). There are more excursions that accommodate wheelchairs today than thirty years ago, but they are still limited in my opinion. I will not go into details here, but I found a handful of excursions sponsored by Princess – Barcelona, Florence, Rome, Brussels, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Tallin (Estonia), and Helsinki. They are all bus tour trips. I paid for these so they were set. For ports that Princess did not have excursions, I searched the internet for options. I found third-party tour companies that offered tours in various ports. I exchanged emails, made accommodations and paid for them – Seville (Spain), Marseille, and St. Petersburg. They required passport numbers. Our passports expired in February or somewhere near there so we had to go through the renewal process which took about two months. I did not get the updated numbers until we moved to Florida in May because I sent the new passports to Florida. With the new passports in hand I was able to complete the process and pay for these excursions. As mentioned, I can’t get off on Sardinia. We don’t have anything scheduled for Ceuta (Spanish Morocco) or Gdansk (Poland). We will likely get off the ship and try to find a tour or walk around the town or whatever is near the port. We are scheduled to do more excursions than any previous trips. We have eleven at sea days so we will have several ‘down’ days along the way. It took from start to finish about three months to finalize the excursions but they are now set.

While working to finalize excursions, I worked on the flights. Being in Florida is a bit different than Chicago. Going in/out of O’Hare would probably be easy. I was hoping there would be direct flights from Orlando from/to London, but I struck out in both directions. I found Tampa to London (Gatwick) nonstop (British Airways) and selected that. Mary knows a guy who will drive us to Tampa with our van. On the way back, we go from Heathrow to JFK (Virgin Atlantic) to Orlando (Delta). That will be a long day. We will have to figure out how to get home at 11:00 at night from Orlando. We will figure that out later. I had flights nailed down. The next question is what class should we fly. To and from South America we flew business class. It was crazy expensive. I knew we did not want to pay that for these flights. At the other end, we knew we did not want to fly coach or economy. The flight from Tampa to London is about nine hours, not counting boarding, tarmac, landing, deplaning. In reality it could be ten-plus hours on the plane. We agreed to fly the class between business and coach. It is still expensive, but not-out-of-this-world expensive. I think I had the flights nailed in June. Recently, Mary asked “did you pick seats”? That became my next hurdle. I completed this, as much as possible, today. British Airways ‘holds’ some number of Premium Plus seats for nursing mothers. I have two seats booked, but they’re not together right now. The plan is to correct this at the airport. The other seats are set.

Getting from the airport to ship and vice versa is handled by Princess, but they need to know I’m in a chair and I require special travel accommodations – usually a lift-enabled van or bus. One day I called Princess to find out what is needed to ensure the travel from airport to ship was disabled ready. They forwarded a form asking about chair weight, size, etc. I filled it out and sent it back. Then it went into a blackhole for a month or more. I called twice to follow up on it and the response received was it is in process. Just last week, I finally received confirmation that the right transportation was in place. I know to do these things based on previous experience. I often wonder how new travelers know.

When traveling, Mary gives me a sponge bath. I go without a true shower for the duration of the trip. I was facing a month without a true shower. This is not a good idea. Based on a tip from a friend, I researched portable shower chairs. I found one that could be taken apart and stored in one rolling case. It wasn’t cheap, but I’ll use it for this and all future trips. In my mind it will never pay for itself, but if I use it 100 or more times it starts to make sense. I ordered it and it came a few weeks later. Mary put it together and we did two test showers with it. It is not as nice as my day-to-day shower chair, but it will do when traveling.

One day when wandering around the Princess.com website I saw a link for LuggageForward, a service that ships your luggage from the home to the ship. Knowing we were going for 28 days I knew we would have bags – likely several.  I liked the idea of not having to lug several bags from home, to the airport, through customs, to the ship and back again. Of course, everything comes at a price. Mary and I talked this through. We landed on one big bag and the portable shower chair. It was a cost versus convenience decision. We would have paid something to the airlines for the extra bags. As I mentioned, the lugging is unfun (for Mary). We will still take two smaller bags – check one of them, carry on the other. We will load up our backpacks too. We do not travel light – mostly because of my needs – medical supplies, shower chair, etc.

Somewhere in our travels, we started renting a tuxedo for me. They bring it to the ship and pick it up from there. I don’t really have any formal clothes so this makes sense. Plus, it is less we need to carry. Like, LuggageForward, Princess as a weblink to the tux rental company. This was a quick purchase – go to the site, pick out tux style and sizes, provide credit card and done. One more to-do off the list. There isn’t an option like this for Mary. One recent Saturday, we went to Dillards in Ocala. Mary found three dresses and a jacket. Last night, she was trying on new shoes. Her formal dress is complete too.

Over the last month or so, there have been various reasons to call Princess. On one of those calls the agent asked if I selected any extras. I knew what she meant. They have packages like all the soda you can drink for $X or all the alcohol for $X. The packages are cheaper than buying one-by-one on the ship. I reviewed the options. Mary drinks tea so we got her the coffee/tea package for both cruises. I got six bottles of beer for the cabin. I gave serious thought to getting the alcohol package, but it expensive. I drink, but not enough to justify the cost. Most importantly – to Mary – is the Photos package. For a set price, you get all of the pictures the cruise staff takes of us. If I remember correctly, we have 150 or more pictures of us from the South America trip. We get two-five-ten pictures taken a night. I can just see it now – 28 days times ten pictures a day equals a lot of damn pictures. I’m not always happy doing it, but it is important to Mary so I smile pretty.

It seems there is always one more thing. I got my hair cut. Mary got hers done recently too. I updated the credit card companies that we might use the cards in any of eleven countries. It is more a precaution. They are ready if needed. We both need to load up on media. I added music to Mary’s laptop. I updated my music library too. (Listening to Pink Floyd’s Animals album right now.) I found and downloaded three Audible books – two history and one novel. I will set up email addresses on all devices. We get 250 minutes of internet time per cruise on each cruise. That’s about 25 minutes a day. We fire up, connect, download unread email, send new email, and disconnect. Even then we might need more time. The plane seats are equipped with individual screens that will have TV shows, movies and games. Despite this, I will add a few movies or shows from Netflix or Amazon Prime. I will likely watch or listen to 10% of what I will have available, but I like to have options.

This past weekend, my chair back became loose. Mary was able to replace a missing screw, but we wanted the whole chair checked out to double check. I found a local wheelchair/scooter place – Mobility Monkey. I called Saturday. Monday, when I got my hair cut, the barber and wheelchair place are up the street from each other. We stopped at the wheelchair place. Initially, the lady suggested making an appointment, but she changed gears and said she would have some one look at it immediately. Mary transferred me to a folding chair. I hung on for dear life for about twenty minutes while the chair was worked on. Mary put me back just as I was getting really uncomfortable. The work man told us what he did – which wasn’t much because the chair is pretty solid yet. They charged us $25 ad we were out of there. Mary and I both feel better that is off the list.

There are several little things that need to be finalized in regards to the house. Our friend Tom found a garage where we can park Mary’s car while we are gone. Our new friend Elizabeth will handle mail and packages. I will prepay the bills that I can before we go. It just makes it easier.

I’m sure there are other things we have done in preparation, but they don’t come to mind. (Just remembered, we verified our phones have international coverage.) All of the various workstreams discussed above were done in parallel. I didn’t complete A before starting B. I had all the balls in the air at once. We are now eight days from leaving. All the ‘preparation’ tasks are marked complete. As I mention above, I have a new appreciation for what is involved because I was the one doing it. I will update this document as with progress.

Itinerary 

Date	Port	Duration
17-Aug-19	London (Southampton), England	Depart 4:00pm
18-Aug-19	AT SEA
19-Aug-19	AT SEA
20-Aug-19	Seville (Cadiz), Spain	Arrive 7:00am Depart 6:00pm
21-Aug-19	AT SEA
22-Aug-19	Barcelona, Spain	Arrive 8:00am Depart 6:00pm
23-Aug-19	Marseille (Provence), France	Arrive 7:00am Depart 5:00pm
24-Aug-19	Florence/Pisa (Livorno), Italy	Arrive 7:00am Depart 7:00pm
25-Aug-19	Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy	Arrive 7:00am Depart 7:00pm
26-Aug-19	Sardinia (Alghero), Italy	Arrive 8:00am Depart 5:00pm
27-Aug-19	AT SEA
28-Aug-19	Ceuta, Spanish Morocco, Spain	Arrive 7:00am Depart 4:00pm
29-Aug-19	AT SEA
30-Aug-19	AT SEA
31-Aug-19	London (Southampton), England	Arrive 7:00am / Depart 4pm
1-Sep-19	Brussels/Bruges (Zeebrugge), Belgium	Arrive 7:00am Depart 6:00pm
2-Sep-19	AT SEA
3-Sep-19	Copenhagen, Denmark	Arrive 8:00am Depart 5:00pm
4-Sep-19	AT SEA
5-Sep-19	Stockholm, Sweden	Arrive 9:00am Depart 5:00pm
6-Sep-19	Tallinn, Estonia	Arrive 10:00am Depart 5:00pm
7-Sep-19	St. Petersburg, Russia	Arrive 6:30am
8-Sep-19	St. Petersburg, Russia	Depart 6:00pm
9-Sep-19	Helsinki, Finland	Arrive 8:00am Depart 5:00pm
10-Sep-19	AT SEA
11-Sep-19	Gdansk (Gdynia), Poland	Arrive 7:00am Depart 4:00pm
12-Sep-19	AT SEA
13-Sep-19	AT SEA
14-Sep-19	London (Southampton), England	Arrive 7:00am