Another Sea Day

Friday - Today is a sea day. Our next stop is Naples, IT. Today’s event is a get together with our group of mostly RVers for hors d’oeuvres and give aways. This trip was put together by three RV YouTube brands. Finding our Someday (FOS), Less Junk More Journey (LJMJ), and Driven to Venture. And, they got some donations to give away as door prizes.

After a morning, informal meetup for coffee and a light breakfast, I headed to the solarium. It was much more crowded than before but, then again, yesterday’s numbers was a pretty low bar. While there, we went through the edge of a rain storm. The rain on the glass roof was a relaxing sound. And the unlimited Coke Zero is a nice perk, at least to me. 

Around 11, the solarium was getting warm so we headed indoors and sat at Giovanni’s Wine Bar. These locations are very comfortable and even though we weren’t purchasing anything, we were more than welcome to enjoy the quiet,comfy seats.

After lunch/brunch in the main dining room, we went to the theater in the stern for a technical demonstration of the different technologies used for their shows.

The group had a get together before dinner where there was a Q&A session, hors d’oeuvres, and door prizes. They also mentioned that they were thinking of next year doing a repositioning cruise from Vancouver, BC, to Hawaii. But it’s just in the thinking phase. 

Over the PA system, the cruise director mentioned that around 10pm, we would be passing an active volcano on the port side. Our room is on the port side so we should be looking around for something. 

We passed San Vincenzo right at 10:00pm and it is an active volcano. Google has images from just four days ago showing lava spurting out on the northern slope. Once we were north of the island, we were able to see the orange lava spurts. And that the clouds that looked like they were from the top was also from the vent. The pictures are just from the iPhone camera in night mode. I had to manually set it to do a 10 second exposure. I didn’t even realize that it was an option. 

Mykonos, Greece

Thursday - After yesterday’s long “excursion-ing” day, I’m all for some quiet time. I met with a small number from our group at 6:30 for coffee at the nice shop in the stern where we’ve been meeting most mornings. Some coffee, light breakfast, and good conversation. 

I then headed to the solarium at the front of the ship to enjoy the hot tub. I was almost the only one there. Most people were probably getting ready to go ashore as we just docked at Mykonos, Greece. After our stay on Santorini Island, I’m good to spend most of the day on board. 

The classic white-painted buildings are nice but not as picturesque as Oia, our last stop on yesterday’s bus tour.  This may be a lot less touristy as yesterday’s stop. So we might venture into the port area a little later. The deadline for re-boarding is 4pm, so not as much time as yesterday. One change was actually docking instead of tendering. Much more convenient.

On port days, the North Star, a spherical capsule at the end of an arm, is only allowed to go up and down. While the ship is underway, they can move it horizontally over the sides of the ship. So on port days, the attraction is free. 

We got a nice view of the port area of Mykonos as well as a nice view of the ship. We would need to take a water taxi to get to the old city. 

Tomorrow is a sea day as we head back towards Italy. Our next stop is Naples and Pompeii. 

The afternoon was spent working on blog posts, catching up on email, and other things that need Internet. This is the seating area for that coffee place I mentioned at the beginning of this post. It is also a theater in the evening. 

On this cruise, I had not picked up the Internet package but relying on Saily, an eSIM provider. Much more cost effective but it only works while we are in a port. And, is data only. No associated phone number. For voice calls or texts, I have a Google Voice number. So I can write this post while we are here but tomorrow is a sea day, so that post gets written in notepad then cut-and-paste into Blogger when we get to the next port. In this case, that will be Naples, IT. Only a couple more days…

Santorini, Greece

Wednesday - An early morning today. A small group met for coffee at 6:30 when we discovered that the coffee place didn’t open until 7. At 7:30, we wandered down to deck 2 to get loaded on tenders for the short ride into Santorini. No boat docks.

This place is very photogenic. All of the buildings are painted white as electricity didn’t arrive until 1967 and the white kept the buildings cooler. The blue trim was mandated by the government for uniform appearance. And is the color of the Greek flag.

We took a cable car to the top of the cliff. The other options were walking and donkeys. The €10 for the cable car seemed like a bargain. 

This picture was the start of the tour. The first stop was at a black sand beach (next picture), where we had a mid-morning snack. I had the grilled sardines just because I wanted to try something different. 

We had about 1½ hours of free time at the beach. 

The next stop was Megalochori or huge village in Greek. Cobblestone streets and lots of hills. We visited a historic cave dwelling. 

We then went to Oia, where the stereotypical photos of Santorini are taken. It was extremely crowded and the prices were steep. Lots of people taking selfies. 

Our stop here was only about an hour as the tour guides thought that the group would enjoy more free time in the reasonably priced location at the top of the tram. 

We were told that real estate prices were completely out of hand here. Some hotel rooms have been known to go for over €10k per night!

We had a very late lunch back in Fira, the village at the top of the tram. 

Sea Day

Tuesday - Just before we returned to the ship, we stopped at a cathedral. B this time, most of the group, including me were pretty tired. The ship time changed at 2am to the time zone of our next stop. We didn’t actually change time zones at that point but more for convenience. There was a meetup this morning with pastries and coffee followed by a group photo. About half of the group showed up initially and we guessed that the other half didn’t get the time zone memo. 

I had eggs Benedict and wedge salad for breakfast. The menu was both breakfast and lunch, which was nice. And the bacon was actually crispy, unlike the bacon in Italy. I guess the cruise company caters to Americans. Well, sort of. The couple at the next table complained about everything they brought out to them. Their toast wasn’t freshly toasted, the hash browns were a patty, and the eggs weren’t cooked perfectly. Almost everything was not satisfactory, to them. They were Americans.

Afterwards, I checked out the Solarium up on deck 14 at the front of the ship. Very nice and quiet. At least initially. The hot tubs were pretty empty and the view was nice. 

After about an hour, it started to feel more crowded and warm. I turned in my towel and headed back to the room. Our balcony is facing north as we are headed almost due east towards the southern Greek islands. It was nice to be out of the sun for a bit.

We had lunch at the Solarium Bistro. A much smaller selection than the regular buffet but a fraction of the people and no kids. I just had a hot dog, some fries, a small caprese salad, and a bit of penne with a white sauce.

We walked three laps around the running track on deck 15 but it was a zoo as people were watching the belly flop contest while drinking and smoking like there’s no tomorrow. So many more people seem to smoke in Europe. Or at least smoke where there are a lot of other people around.

Tomorrow, we will be in Santorini, one of the iconic locations in Greece. The first time I ever heard of this location was in the movie Tomb Raider. The white buildings all built along a cliff in the initial scene with the earthquake.