Tuesday October 17, 2023
Hi Folks! We took the ultimate gamble and flew to Europe via standby on the day our cruise started! Are we crazy or what? And watching those standby seats slowly dwindle down the last few days was even more stressful. But I’m happy to report we made it! But we did have to fly west to go east. We went Charlotte to Chicago to Rome. We didn’t get first class but we came close!
Our flight arrived in Rome around 7 AM. Our shuttle to the port picked us up around 9:30 AM and we were on the ship by 11 AM. All in all it went well and luckily nothing happened that threw off our plans but it could have been a crazy scenario otherwise!
We are really looking forward to the ports on this cruise. We love the old medieval cities with their walled forts and cobblestone streets. Valletta in Malta and Kotor in Montenegro are both supposed to be breathtaking.
Of course we’ve been up for almost 24 hours with just a little sleep on the plane so we’re pretty exhausted. But we had a nice lunch and dinner and are surprisingly at the 9:30 PM show where the female cruise director and the ship’s singers and dancers will be singing. We didn’t want to miss that!
Our “first impressions” of Oceania is that the ship is gorgeous but that the room is on the smaller size and the bathroom is very small, even for cruise ship standards! And based on the lunch and dinner, they have a little ways to go to fulfill their tagline of the “finest cuisine at sea”. But then again Regent Seven Seas spoiled us!
I’m tired so I won’t write a lot and will let the pictures do the talking. We do get free wifi but not sure how strong it is so we’ll see how many pictures I can even post!
Happy Tuesday all!
The Wandering Italian 