ashlynn1021

Hey Everyone! Sorry for the delayed post, things have gotten a bit hectic between getting ready for this trip and me finishing up things at work before I leave. Anyways, happy to report that more than just my mom is packed now, my dad and I are now pretty much packed as well, unfortunately we ended up taking one more case than planned (I am going to plead the 5th on what the planned number was). Anyways, here are all the shore excursions we have planned for on the cruise (all booked through the cruise, we don’t normally do this but given foreign countries we did this just to be safe): Note: I should clarify that we booked most of these last year and did have a family meeting going through them after everything that happened in February, at that time we changed one and held on to the rest after both my parents read descriptions and agreed, I am trying to take no responsibility if things go wrong here 😆. There is one port we are still concerned about (Santorini, more on that below, but nothing else was available). Day 3: Chania Chania Old Town Walk When in doubt about what we wanted to do, we tended to pick walking tours (or tours involving food or wine, more of those later). We will see how these go with my mom but for the time being we are going to be optimistic. Unfortunately, this is our first port so if it is a flop, it will be down hill from there on the excursion front for my mom. Also unfortunately, this one doesn’t list a distance and just says “extensive walking on cobblestone streets”. Wish us luck with that. (Not sure if I said this before but she was told she should walk and get exercise but she just needs to be careful not to overdo it.) Day 4: Mykonos Mykonos Exploration with Farmhouse Wine Tasting This was one of the ports added late. When we finally got around to booking a tour here, we saw wine and said that’s the one (pretty much all the thought that went into this). Anyways, this one has a small walking element but lists it specifically at 1400 yards over cobblestones and very specifically 3 steps. That should be fine if it is accurate. Will report back on all of these. Day 5: Ephesus My mom and I are not planning to get off here, we understand the Virgin Mary sight is rather strenuous and my mom was not interested. I am staying on board with her to keep her company. My dad finally booked a tour today! He booked the Exclusive Small-Group Best of Ephesus tour, I will make him report back on how that goes. We did a "small group" tour through Celebrity last year when we were on the Apex in Belfast... it didn't go well, Celebrity overbooked it so the small group ended up being a completely full, full sized coach bus. They should have split us up but they didn't. We fought for onboard credits in the retreat which was a whole other ordeal I don't need to get into here. Hopefully this one goes better for my dad's sake. Day 7: Limassol My Mall Yes, we booked a transfer to a shopping mall on our Europe trip. And yes, I did it to make my mom happy. Also, nothing else really interested us there and I was not pushing another walking tour. Day 8: Rhodes Medieval Rhodes Walking Tour Yes, another walking tour, this one says 2 miles over uneven surfaces. The whole tour is 3.5 hours so that time with that distance once again should be fine. Once again, wish us luck. Day 9: Santorini Pyrgos Village with Mezes and Wine Once again, the wine stole our interest. This one will truly be a play it by ear situation for my mom as it is 1 mile over steep surfaces with 30-40 steps. We are nervous about the steep but we also know that is the reality in Santorini so there wasn’t really an alternative. We just need to think positive “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” vibes. Day 10: Athens Ancient Athens, Plaka, and Shopping This was a last minute change. Originally we were doing a longer tour that went into the Acropolis. This was an easy one for us to change to make it easier on my mom by instead getting more of a panoramic view of it. This one still says one mile of walking with some steps but didn’t sound nearly as strenuous as what we originally booked. Day 12: Naples Sorrento with Pizza and Gelato This time, the pizza stole our interest (see a theme here?). Anyways, this one says 600 feet and 5-10 steps. All of that sounds doable. I should note we have been to Pompeii before and done tours there before so there was no need for us to do that again this time. Anyways, we fly out tomorrow night so it is getting very real now! I go into the office one last time for a bit tomorrow (don't feel too bad, my commute is only 1.8 miles from my house 🙃) and then have to head home a bit early as my parents are getting picked up by our transportation company at about 3:30pm and my house is about 30 minutes away from them, and a lot closer to the airport so I am getting picked up second. We went out for Mexican food on Sunday since we know we won’t be getting that for the next few weeks so enjoy the pictures of some wonderful Arizona Mexican Food: Thanks again and TTYL! Ashley

Hi Everyone, As promised, here is a post about our pre-cruise plans in Rome. Just some back story, we have done Rome as a port of call at least 3 times before that I can remember (and I think we went there on one cruise before my memories as well). Those times were all as a port of call and not an embarkation/disembarkation port. Two of the three times I remember we did private tours with Driver in Rome that picked us up in Civitavecchia and drove us into Rome to see the sights. Those were in 2004 and 2008 so no clue if that was the same Driver in Rome company you can find when you Google it now. In 2004 we went to the Colosseum (at my insistence because of the Lizzie McGuire movie that came out the year before 🤣) and hit most of the major highlights and in 2008 I think we mainly went shopping (pretty sure our tour guide got annoyed at us for not wanting to do anything). Both those times were with my grandparents and my grandmother had just started using a wheelchair occasionally around the time of that 2004 trip. The third time was in 2014 with just me and my parents and we did a shore excursion that was a walking tour that started at either the Spanish steps or the Trevi Fountain (I don’t remember but I know it went to both) and ended at the Vatican, covering all the sights in between (except the Colosseum) including a stop for pizza. It was listed as strenuous (something we couldn’t do anymore with my mom but were more than capable of back then). It was a fantastic tour that I would recommend if it was still offered but looking at Royal Caribbean’s site, I don’t see it listed granted I don’t have access to a specific sailing with Rome as a port of call. Now to our current plans! We land in Rome late in the evening of the 1st so we have the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th to explore Rome. Since we have seen most of the major sites before, we are focusing on the things we wanted to see again as well as some more fun experiences. We are staying at the Doubletree by Hilton Rome Monti which we chose based on a combination of TripAdvisor reviews and location. We have never stayed there before obviously so I will report back how it is. I booked tours each of the three days on Viator, leaving some time each day as free time ie shopping time that my mom insisted on having. I used a combination of Viator and TripAdvisor reviews when booking tours. One of the days we are doing a private guided golf cart tour, another day we are doing a small group guided Vatican tour (every time we have done the Vatican in the past has been self guided so this was something my dad really wanted to do). We are also doing a pasta cooking class one day as well as a food tour one evening. We did a food tour in Amsterdam last year and it was our favorite tour we did so hoping for the same success again. The food walking tour this time also goes through Rome’s Jewish Ghetto so a bit of Jewish history as a consolation prize for not going to Israel I guess. I will share the tour operators if people ask but none of this is a review yet so I don’t want to recommend any of our choices yet as we might be getting this all wrong 😆. Finally, for transportation, we are using Stefano’s Rome Cabs booked through Viator based on reviews on TripAdvisor as well as on all the cruise board sites. They are picking us up from the airport and taking us to our hotel, taking us from our hotel to the cruise, the cruise to our post cruise hotel, and then taking us from our post cruise hotel to the airport. Speaking of our post cruise hotel, we are staying at the Cardo Roma, Autograph Collection since it is just one night. This is a little closer to the airport than staying in the center of Rome and our flight is very early the next day. This was a last minute change (we were originally staying at the Hilton at the Airport but then heard some pretty bad reviews). Hopefully it was the right change, at least the hotel is very newly renovated and just reopened, so much so that it doesn't have any new TripAdvisor reviews. In another post I will talk about the cruise excursions we have booked and I plan to post a packing status update soon. I just took out my suitcases today so no progress as of yet but my mom has started putting stuff in her suitcase so at least she is going on this cruise 🙃. Warning: we haven’t exactly mastered the art of packing light so please don’t judge too much. We also got Euros from our bank this week and started all of our obligatory pre-cruise prep of stopping the mail, printing out baggage tags, etc. Thanks again! TTYL! - Ashley

Yes, picking out excursions was one of the toughest things since my mom can walk but needs to be careful about the amount of distance she walks. Many of the tours either didn't list any distance or were very vague about the distance (must be able to walk over uneven surfaces etc). Anyways, will definitely be putting that to the test and if things don't go well the tours might end up being father/daughter towards the end, although hopefully not. Anyways, wish us luck and I will definitely report back!

Hi Again! Ok so some discussion about the plans for this cruise: The Ship: This is technically our 3rd cruise on Odyssey of the Seas. We did a back to back on her in December for Christmas and NYE just a few months ago so it will feel a bit like coming home as many of the crew mentioned they would still be on for this sailing. My mom and I really like Quantum class, in particular the Coastal Kitchen on it as well as just how classy the whole ship feels for lack of a better descriptor. My dad prefers Oasis class but we out-voted him, and also the two of them will get their Oasis fix with Wonder in August (once again without me haha). The Cabins: My parents are back in a GS, basically the same cabin they had in December just 2 floors lower. Ironically, they both hate the GS on Quantum class but by the time they figured that out it was far too late to change it and prices had been jacked way up. We never have used Royal Up either as we don't love surprises so my parents agreed they will keep what they have and just prepare better for it this time. Hopefully once on board I can post about the downfalls of that category with some pictures, and maybe some pointers to make it work better. Granted, I know we have no right to complain as this category is often booked with 3 or 4 guests and it will just have my parents in it. I am in a J4. I was in a J3 in December. The JS categories have different bathroom, closet and sofa layouts on this ship so I have some thorough pictures from December that I can use to compare once on board. I think there are pluses and minuses to both from past experience and I am one person so really I could make whatever work, I only ended up with this cabin because it was only $213 more than a balcony at the time we booked this with the 150% single supplement. Dining: We booked a 5 night dining package. The other nights we will probably end up at Coastal Kitchen. We are not Windjammer/buffet people so warning in advance you probably won't see much of that in this live blog. Flights: We are flying on British Airways through London Heathrow with a 5 hour layover. We will spend those 5 hours crossings our fingers and toes that our bags don't end up lost in Heathrow. Thankfully we all have Apple airtags in our cases which have proven themselves very handy. We did this flight through London instead of Dallas so we would land in the evening instead of in the morning. Last year we landed at 7am in Amsterdam for a British Isles cruise and my mom said never again, so heres to also crossing our fingers that this flight works out better for us adjusting to the time zone. Pre-cruise: I will detail this more later but we have 3 full days in Rome pre cruise, hopefully after a good night sleep after landing later in the evening. Post cruise: Given the day of the week this cruise ends (a Friday), and the fact that I, unlike my parents, still work full time, we are only staying one night outside of Rome post cruise and have a pretty early flight the next day home. We would have flown home the same day if we could but it is just not that logistically possible with the distance between Civitavecchia and FCO and how early all the flight options are. We are also taking British Airways through Heathrow with the same 5 hour layover on the way home. Once again, wish us luck. And I guess just some backstory on Europe for us: This is my 8th European Cruise. The closest cruise to this one that we did was on the original Pacific Princess aka the Love Boat in 1997. I was just shy of 4 years old so I obviously don't remember a thing. I do know that cruise left from Venice and went to some of these ports but not all of them. All of that to say, most of these ports are going to be fairly new experiences for us (hence why you will see us primarily doing ship tours when I cover that sometime in the future). Also, my mom gets nervous about missing the ship and would have us back on board with many hours to spare if we didn't do ship tours so this is the best solution for us when we do cruises in Europe. I know it means we will just get a sampling of the "Greatest Hits" in each port but I will take it all things considered. Anyways, I will probably mainly be posting on weekends leading up to the trip given my work schedule. In the future posts, I will try to cover what we booked in terms of pre-cruise tours as well as our shore excursions. Also, will probably cover a little of the dreaded packing process when I finally decide to start that. Thanks again and TTYL!

Pre Cruise is the the Doubletree By Hilton Rome Monti and Post Cruise is the Cardo Roma, Autograph Collection (a Marriott property, more outside of Rome and closer to FCO since that will just be one night). Anyways, going to do a more thorough post with our plans later on, that was why I didn't say at first.

We have a different hotel for pre and post cruise, pre cruise we have 3 full days in Rome but I will put more details on that later. Anyways, we haven't stayed at either of the hotels before so I will make sure to share my thoughts on them after as well.

Hi All! A little about myself since I haven't posted on here in a very very long time, I am Ashley, a 30 year old from Arizona who has been cruising mostly with my parents (and grandparents before they passed) but sometimes solo, with friends, and with groups since I was 9 months old. I have mostly done Royal Caribbean but I have also done some Celebrity and Princess as well as one each of Holland America, NCL, and Carnival (we don't talk about those, there is a reason it was one each). Anyways, all that to say I am very loyal to Royal with nearly 80 Royal Caribbean cruises under my belt. When I am not cruising, I am a full time software engineer to pay for my cruising habit. And now for some history on this cruise.... my parents and I first booked this itinerary for October of 2021 in the summer of 2020. Heck, we also booked cruises in June of 2020 when our May cruise was canceled, August when June was cancelled, November when August was cancelled, so on so forth, you get the idea. Fast forward to summer of 2021 and well over 40 FCCs later, the restart was finally happening and the final payment due date for this cruise was quickly approaching. There we still a lot of unknowns about Israel and what the covid requirements would be to go there and as that was the main reason we booked that cruise (more on that later...), and after a family meeting we cancelled it and I spent 2 weeks in October on the Symphony of the Seas with a friend (and my parents ultimately joining for the second cruise after some convincing) instead where I finally earned pinnacle after waiting the entire restart only a little more than 1 cruise away (I promise, I am not a snotty pinnacle, I refuse to wear the pin and prefer to go with the flow instead). With that I had finally made it back on a ship for the first time since January 2020 but I still hadn't made it to holy lands. Fast forward again to February 2023 when my parents were on the Celebrity Beyond celebrating their 40th anniversary without me (to quote Stephanie Tanner: how rude... not, they deserved the vacation without me and they had their neighbors with them to take my place, also I am pretty sure my work would have killed me if I took another cruise at that point). Before they headed out on their cruise, I looked at the itineraries released just a couple months before for Europe in 2024 and found this one, and made the mistake of emailing my parents with the details. It didn't take much convincing that we had to book this cruise. A week later, after a lot of back and forth with them and the future cruises agent on Celebrity Beyond, we finally got this booked and everything confirmed. Note to my future self and really everyone reading this: never book Royal on Celebrity, while we have successfully booked Celebrity on Royal before with no issues, this was a nightmare to say the least, the on-board agent had no clue what the different cabin categories were and after pleading with her that Odyssey had J1s, J3s, and J4s and they were all Junior Suites, she was finally able to find more than just the J1s available. With the cruise finally booked, let's talk about why we wanted to do it: Israel. My mom and I are Jewish and my mom has always wanted to go to the holy land but has said she would never do it by land, she just didn't feel comfortable due to some experiences her parents/my grandparents had when they went. And similar to me, she loves cruising. So this seemed like the perfect solution. I had also unfortunately aged out of birthright during Covid as a result of them changing the age policy during that time so this would give me a taste of Israel to see if I wanted to join a volunteer trip or something else in the future. When June 2023 arrived and the flights opened up to book, there wasn't a doubt in our minds that we were going on this cruise. Before booking the flights we had a family meeting and I made one important note to my parents: If this cruise doesn't go to Israel, are you still ok with going for the other ports? They both said yes. My mom has always wanted to go to Santorini since watching Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants so while it was not Israel, there would still be something on her bucket list to cross off. Even though the itinerary at the time didn't have Ephesus, Turkey on it, we knew it was likely this would appear if Israel was removed and my dad wanted to see the House of the Virgin Mary after missing the opportunity to see it while on the Splendour of the Seas in 2000. After that discussion, our flights were booked and we started making hotels and other plans for the trip including booking excursions for every port except Israel since conveniently none were open for Israel and also I knew if we did make it there, we would want to do a private tour so we could cover both the Christian and Jewish heritage there adequately. Once again, let's fast forward this time to November 2023. Unfortunately, we all know what happened on October 7th. The days that followed made it very obvious that this was sadly not like other times Israel had been attacked. They were not getting out of this quickly. We received the not at all surprising email that this itinerary was changing. Out was Israel and in was Turkey, as I unfortunately predicted, along with Mykonos. After yet another family meeting (I think this is at least the 3rd one in this story, sensing a theme here...) we unanimously decided we were still going, barring any crazy world event. It was full steam ahead and I finally decided to start planning the tours for our pre-cruise stay in Rome. We also booked an excursion for Mykonos through the ship and I left my dad to figure out Ephesus himself. I still don't think he has that planned, you can tell who is the planner and who isn't in this family. Now let's fast forward to February 2024. It was Super Bowl Sunday and I had plans to go to the Phoenix Open with my dad in the corporate tents on the 17th hole. Instead, I got woken up by a call at 6am with news that my mom had passed out just before midnight the night before and they were in the ER room at Mayo Hospital. This cruise was far from the first thing on my mind, I wanted to know how my mom was doing, what had happened, if there was anything they needed as the hospital is less than a mile from my house, I can literally see it from my backyard. In the weeks that followed, and what seemed like hundreds of doctors appointments, a couple dental appointments, and a surgery later, we finally brought up this cruise again. Her doctor's gave her the all clear to go, they just warned that we had to be careful, she couldn't over exert herself. Another family meeting and the swapping of tours later to some less strenuous ones, we were once again on track for this cruise to happen. Now finally we have made it to today. We fly out in a little more than 2 weeks on the evening of 4/30. We finally settled on a hotel for our one night post cruise in Rome before flying home so the last thing is planned. As many hurdles as this cruise had and the amount of times we thought this wouldn't happen, we are looking forward to it finally happening, even if it is a little different than originally planned. I am just grateful that we are all still here to enjoy this as a family. I have never done a live blog of a cruise before. Something about this cruise feels different, while I hope this isn't my last big European adventure with my parents, I know there is a chance that will be the case so I really want to remember this and document it. Not only are my parents getting older, I am also getting older and who knows what will come for my future as well. While we have plenty more cruises planned as a family out of the US to the Caribbean as well as the Mexican riviera on the west coast, I don't know that I will have a trip like this as a family once again. I promise my future posts won't be as much of a novel. There was a lot of backstory to cover and I hope I at least made it interesting to read. In the coming days I will start to talk about our plans for both pre-cruise and on the cruise but figured it made sense to start with the back story first. Since I have never done this before, not sure how to end these, I am sure I will figure that out better as I go. So for this one I guess I should say TTYL!