Today we stopped in the port of Livorno, Italy. We had two plans for today, either go to Lucca, a small walled city about an hour away by train, or go into Pisa, which we have done three previous times while visiting Livorno. Unfortunately, we were both tired, and I have developed a little bit of a cold. I have no idea how that happened, we have been getting plenty of rest (not), have been in really warm and dry […]

Today we are in Toulon, France. The weather for the last couple of days has not been  as good as had been forecasted for the first few days of the cruise that we had seen before we had left from Rome. It has been both cloudier and cooler than was in the forecasts, certainly not as warm as we had wanted. This morning was no different, the forecast for today was for partly cloudy skies, a high of about 65 […]

Today, we are in Barcelona, Spain. Stephanie had set our wake up time for 5:30 AM, but I was awake at 5:15 AM, thinking that was the time we had set to wake up this morning and that something had gone wrong with the automated call. Stephanie quickly reminded me that it was set for 5:30 AM, but since I was up, I went ahead and showered, and let Stephanie sleep a little longer. Once we were both ready, we […]

Today was our first sea day, and the first day in a week that we could really relax. Of course, we slept in after getting up early just about every morning so far on the trip. I got up and went to the coffee bar for a cappuccino and two yogurt parfaits. Stephanie slept in while I worked on trying to catch up on the posts for this trip. I am still fighting a little bit of a head cold, […]

It was a pretty lazy sea day for us on board the Royal Princess today. Of course, we slept in once again, still trying to catch up on our sleep from being on the go for all of the days in Rome, and the four consecutive port days on the ship. I went and picked us up two yogurt parfaits from the International Cafe, and I also got a Cappuccino. I carried these back to the room and did a […]

Today s our third sea day since leaving Barcelona as we head toward the Azores. Tomorrow we will arrive in the Azores in Ponta Delgada. Of course, we took the opportunity to sleep in once again. Unfortunately, Stephanie has caught the same head cold that I had, just about three days later. She did not sleep well, the congestion dried out her throat, and made breathing difficult, so she really needed the extra sleep this morning. The weather was mostly […]

Today we stop in the port of Ponta Delgada, Azores. We did not set a wake up call because we were not planning on heading out that early today. We have a list of things to see in the town, but since we will be here for a full day, from 8:00 AM until 4:30 PM, we did not need to get an early start. The ship was easing into the small harbor when we woke up at about 7:45 […]

The skies were cloudy and rainy when we woke up this morning. It looked foggy, but that was due to all of the rain. Since the weather was bad, we were not in any hurry to get up and get going. I went to the International Cafe and got us two breakfast sandwiches and a coffee to take back to the room for breakfast. The sandwiches are not as healthy as the yogurt parfaits we sometime get, but much tastier. […]

We had a pretty rough ride last night. As was predicted by the Captain, the seas were much higher last night than yesterday. It was not extremely windy, but the ground swell from Nicole was about 15-18 feet, and coming from about 45 degrees off the bow of the ship. At least they were not entirely from the side, which makes the ship roll from side to side a lot. Both Stephanie and I were awakened several times during the […]

The seas were much better today than yesterday. Even though there were still some large swells, there was hardly any wind, so the ride was much better, and it was easier to walk around on the open decks. We did not sleep in quite as long today, we are gaining some hours as we adjust to Eastern Time as we cross the Atlantic Ocean. We will change by an hour once again tonight, and will then only be two hours […]