stargazingjess

Have you given any thought to doing it yourself? When you get off the boat in Civi you can walk down and hop on a train to Termini (main station in Rome), under 20E per person. The Colosseum is a short hop away on the Blue Line (literally, you exit the station and BAM Colosseum!). You can buy tickets at the Forum entrance and then bypass the long line at the Colosseum since you already have tickets.

Then you can hop back on the Metro, transfer at Termini, and take the Red Line to Spagna Station. That will drop you off right at the Steps. From there you can walk west and hit Trevi, the Pantheon, and Piazza Navona before crossing the Ponte Sant'Angelo to see the Castel Sant'Angelo and then the Vatican. Spend the afternoon there and then hop a train at the Roma San Pietro station to get back to Civi.

It's nice because it's way cheaper than a tour and you get to do it how you want. The only thing you need to make sure of is that you pick a train that will get you back on time!

I guess my experience was a bit different - we did the Deserted Island Beach / Snorkel excursion a few days ago. We had to wait around for a long time at the ship, as apparently the bus for those of us who pre-booked transportation did not show up. Then it started raining and we had to stand out in that. Finally they found us a few taxi suburbans to transport us to Port Lucaya.

Once we got to P.L., we had to wait in a giant line to pay for the excursion. So much waiting! You would think they could just charge the credit card you used to reserve the trip, but no, you had to re-present the card or pay in cash. There was one group of people who had gotten there before us - they said they got put on the boat and were waiting there for an hour before the rest of us got on.

The boat is not a catamaran as described - it is a pontoon boat. That was quite disappointing to us as we were expecting to be able to chill out on the netting in the front.

On the boat they did have lots of drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic (the bahama mamas were yummy!). After the snorkel portion, they had watermelon, pineapple, and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies (YUM) waiting on board. Then they took us to a beach. The one we went to was just down the shore from Dan Marino's house. It was not only covered in seaweed, but there was garbage everywhere as well.

The picnic lunch was yummy - BBQ chicken, corn salad, johnny bread, and more watermelon, pineapple, cookies, and drinks.

They made the fresh conch salad, but the ceviche stuff they put it in apparently had habanero peppers in it. I didn't eat it because I can't handle spicy food, and everyone around me was saying how hot it was. I would have liked it if we could have added our own peppers to make the spice level to our individual tastes.

At the end of the trip, everyone was concerned about the time, and it seemed like they weren't. When we were finally allowed back on the boat, they made us walk through the water and get completely wet again, instead of dropping the front walkway (which is the way we got onto the beach). This made me pretty angry as I had spent time laying in the sun to dry off so I wouldn't have to worry about sitting in wet clothes on the taxi ride back to the ship.

All in all I would give them a 5/10. The food was good and the guides were friendly, but I don't believe we got what was advertised (the boat, dirty beach, lots of waiting cutting into the actual amount of time we were supposed to get).

Secret recipe revealed — start cookin’!

· 1/2 cup half and half ·

So all we really need is quarter and quarter, right?

I took this when we were arriving in San Juan this past April on the Triumph - I blew it up to an 8x10 and framed it :D That's the fort in the picture.

I would suggest for anyone that likes fantasy type books - "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman. It's wonderful!!

Or you can do what I plan on doing and bring some Greek Literature. Yay for Homer and Virgil! ;)