Not Possible

Our first stop for the cruise was in Bari, Italy. We weren’t getting into port until almost lunchtime though, so we had a pretty relaxing morning. I decided I wanted to try out the group stretching on the Lido deck, so I headed up there before we were going to meet for breakfast. My family ended up getting to breakfast a bit early and sneakily took some pictures of me stretching!

We had a tasty breakfast (mine involved hashbrowns, cheese, fruit, juice, croissants and a freshly made doughnut) and headed off the ship to check out Bari. We decided to take a cab into the old city, since we weren’t sure how far of a walk it would be. It turns out it would have been VERY far! We managed to all fit into one cab, with me suspended above a space between two captain’s seats. The driver dropped us off in Piazza San Nicola, which I joked must be a tribute to St. Nicholas (or Santa Claus). It turns out that I was right. As we walked around, we saw tons of lights being set up for a festival of St. Nicholas, too.

After some wandering and taking enough pictures of churches to last a lifetime, we stopped at a restaurant, one of the few places open in early afternoon, for some real Italian pizza. After our snack, we wandered down to the water before heading back to pick up a cab.

We found a cab similar to what we took down and asked the driver to take the seven of us back. He argued back and forth with us that no cab could take seven people and when we explained to him that we had arrived together, he said it was “Not possible!” Um, actually it was. Finally, him and a buddy decided they would give us a deal on two cabs and we got back to the ship in time to soak in the hot tub before dinner.

Water, Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Drink

Today was the day! We were getting on our Mediterranean cruise! I stayed back and packed up while the others took Brian, Esther and Betty Jean on a walk to St. Mark’s Square, since they hadn’t had a chance to see it yet. I was on vacation and wanted to sleep in! I also had the surprise of being treated to more buttery croissants when they returned.

Then, we were ready to head towards the cruise ship terminal. We locked up the apartments and headed to the vaporetto station with our suitcases. We were learning that you had to fend for yourself here and had been working on the art of making human walls to stop people from cutting in line. This definitely almost happened while trying to board the boat. They even stopped letting on suitcases halfway through our group because the boat was so busy, but all seven of us managed to rush on, while the attempted line-jumpers had to wait for the next one.

We got off at the final stop, Piazzale Roma, and attempted to find the train to the cruise ship terminal. It seemed like a great idea that there was a train to get us out there. After walking in a few circles, we finally found it. We got settled on the train and quickly discovered that we would only be sitting for about three minutes. Then, we were up again to get off! We thought it would be a quick walk to the terminal because we could easily see it from the platform, but then we had to keep walking . . . and walking . . . and walking. We were at the FAR terminal. We were pretty much ready to pack it in with sore backs and no energy when we finally arrived.

We were able to get rid of our suitcases (finally!) and headed in to register and get our cruise cards. Unfortunately, the ship got in late due to some weather in Dubrovnik and we ended up in line quite a bit longer than expected. We were able to snag some water and juice while waiting though and one gentleman waiting near us took it upon himself to walk up and down the line offering people cups and water.

Finally, we got moving and after going through security, boarded the ship and headed to the lunch buffet! We found lots of great things and once we were stuffed, we went down to the rooms to check them out and get changed into bathing suits for some hot tub time!

We left port around 5:00pm and travelled down the Grand Canal and into the lagoon. It was a little nerve-wracking to see our massive ship try to navigate between the markers showing deep water. We watched from our rooms at the back of the ship and then rushed to get ready for dinner, since we were the first sitting.

We had heard rumours that tap water wouldn’t be automatically ready at the dinner tables (and even available at all), as we had experienced on all of the other cruises we had been on. After sitting down and taking a look at the menus, the drink server arrived to take our orders . . . and the rumours were right! They wouldn’t let us have water, unless it came in a bottle and was of the fizzy or mineral variety! We were pretty surprised by all of this and my mom, being my mom, wasn’t going to let the issue drop. We had heard that Americans got free water tickets for dinner, since it was something they were “used to with dinner.” My mom marched down to Guest Relations and explained the situation and how Canadians drink water with dinner too! She did it . . . she got us our water! It still came in a bottle, but at least we weren’t going to have to lug down tap water in our own water bottles from the buffet.

After a long and drawn out dinner, we headed off to our various activities for the night. Tanya and Stephanie tried to check out the candy store, Brian went to casino and mom, Esther, Betty Jean and I headed off to the show. Our first day on the ship definitely started out as an interesting one!