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Bravo! Orchestra! Review with pictures of Med Cruise April 18-29, 2018.


kathleen21
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Well, it has been about month since we arrived home from this fabulous vacation. I’ve shared our pictures with family and friends, and now I am looking forward to writing this review -since that way I get to “talk” about our trip some more!

I booked the Orchestra 12 day Mediterranean Cruise from Genoa last June, and have been stalking these boards reading and planning. Some of the reviews made me reconsider being our choice, but I decided that we are pretty low maintenance and would keep manage our expectations. The short version, for those that don’t want to read the following novel [emoji851] is that we had a wonderful time on the Orchestra and would go again in a heartbeat.

We had an inside cabin, Fantastica experience, which adds a different perspective from a YC or Aurea cabin. I hope to add some more detail to the few Orchestra reviews that have been done lately.

A little background info – Ray and I are from California and celebrated our 35th anniversary (in Corfu!) on this cruise. I have grown up with the Rick Steves philosophy of travelling as a “temporary local” and I wanted our cruise in Europe to reflect that. I was hoping that by using MSC we would have that European flavor we were looking for. I guess it isn’t great for their business, but I liked that none of the Americans I talked to had ever heard of MSC! I hate waiting around and would rather walk to anywhere we want go. We are also mostly of a DIY mindset, so I planned our own adventures in almost all the ports. Like many CC folks I love that planning and might have created a 50 page pdf of ideas/details that I brought along… remember that – because lesson #1 was read your notes! I am also including some information about prices as we go, because I find it interesting and I want to remember. If anyone wants more details, just ask. I did keep a written journal and tried to track costs as we went.

Our trip includes a before cruise adventure in Rome and the Cinque Terre. And meeting a special guest during our day in London after the cruise. I was able to make our 12 day cruise into a 17 day adventure. Woohoo! Here on Cruise Critic I like to read detail in other people’s reviews. It really helps me in the planning, and in the waiting stage of cruising. So I think with all the pre-cruise adventures in Rome! and Cinque Terre! that this review will be long. So sit down and make some espresso. [emoji846]Or wait a few weeks and skin to the end for a summary. [emoji6]

Teaser photo-

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PreCruise Day -4

 

I booked our flight on Norwegian Air LAX to Rome, which included an 8 hour layover in Copenhagen. (Kind of an extra port for free, right?) We allowed 3 hours to arrive early at LAX, which is a good thing since they are doing a lot of construction on the international terminal – so getting on the plane involved extra lines and a bus ride across the tarmac before we actually got on the plane. All of that ate up an hour of our Copenhagen time… But whatever, we are on vacation!

We landed there at 1pm, with 7 hours before our next flight. What is very nice about Copenhagen is that the metro can take you to the city in less than 20 minutes. Our bags were checked through to Rome, so since we didn’t stumble over any lockers on the way to the Metro, 64acfdd1d00b035eb0e97e073229c995.jpg9360db8260f3c889fb9410ac2e7da8dc.jpg231921e0fc75d8deaf531f44131442ca.jpgwe just kept our carry-on bags with us and headed out to explore.

Details from the Visit Copenhagen website.

“If you want to go to central stations like Kongens Nytorv or Nørreport, you should get on the metro. The metro is located right above terminal 3.

 

All the trains go in the same direction from the airport (M2 to Vanløse Station), so you do not have to worry about getting on the wrong train. The trains run with 4-6 minutes intervals during the day and evening. During the night the train runs every 15-20 minutes. It will take you 13 minutes to get to Norreport Station (hub in city centre) from the airport.

 

Tickets can be bought at the metro station and at the DSB ticket sales counter in terminal 3. Please note that the machines only accept coins and all major credit cards, not notes.”

 

There was a person stationed near the ticket machines to help people purchase the right tickets.

 

*NOTE – I had ordered Danish Kronor (and Euros and GBP) before the trip from my bank, thinking it would be helpful to have local money. Nope. Didn’t need it all. Everyone in Denmark seemed to use a credit card for every purchase, no matter how small. Same in London at the end or our cruise also. Actually, only the smaller shops in Greece, and any street market vendor, wanted cash. I have a no fee international credit card, and it was easy to find an ATM when we needed one – so that is one less worry for next time.

 

 

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The person next to us on the train helped us plan at a route around the center of the city. I love it when local people want to help and give you advice! The first thing on our agenda was coffee and food. By now it was about 2pm local time, and the hard roll and colored water they gave us for breakfast on the plane was long gone. We walked around the Nyhavn harbor area, found a much needed macchiato, and decided to pay the price to sit at a restaurant on the harbor and people watch as we ate Danish open face sandwiches.

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The food was delicious, and it was fun talking to the couple at the next table about local tipping practices. They say that workers are paid a fair wage, that includes benefits and taxes, and essentially that overtipping will break the system. OK then. We spent 354 DKK on lunch, using our 300 cash, and charging the rest. There wasn’t even a spot on the bill to add a tip! So that was easy.

 

We then walked all around, following our locally planned itinerary to the main shopping street,

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climbed the round tower (50 DKK)

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and beat the rain as we headed back to the airport for our 8PM boarding. It was cool/cold and windy today and I’m glad we looked ahead at the weather before we left home and packed warm clothes in our carry ons. We bought sandwiches at Pret a Manger in the airport (170DKK) since our 3 hour flight on Norwegian didn’t include food. Took a nap, and woke up in Rome!

 

 

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definitely following along and looking forward to more. we are DIYers too and visiting the Greek Isles in September

 

I tried to keep accurate notes about getting from the ship into the city, and I will post that information. Gonna take a few days to get that far in this review, though- I have so many things to say:D

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Thank you to everyone that has responded. It’s more fun to do a review when it feels like a conversation and not a presentation

 

Ok. Back to business. When we last left off we were on the plane from Copenhagen to Rome. This plane was not nearly as fancy as Norwegians Dreamliner that we took to get to Europe, but it did the job. We ate our sandwiches, took a nap, and landed on time at 11:15pm.

 

Rome! We stumbled out of the plane looking groggy – prime meat for the local taxi drivers all vying for our business at the airport exit. At 1130 pm the public transportation choice was a bus. I knew we wouldn’t have it in us to deal with that, so I had budgeted for a taxi. I had assumed we would walk into a taxi stand and pay 50E to get to our hotel in the center of Rome. We ended up being surrounded by people who wanted us to take their taxi service. I knew we should probably keep walking to the taxi line, but it just seemed like too much effort. We chose a friendly, English speaking guy and followed him to an airport counter. We paid 20E each (charged it, didn’t need my cash here either [emoji57]and waited 15 minutes for him to round up 2 other couples. It took 1.5 hours from the time we paid until we got out at our hotel near Termini station. Could have been faster I guess. But we did get a night time tour of Rome that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. We are not people that are usually out exploring at 1am. (We must have been tired, because we didn’t take any pictures during the drive. I found theses on Shutterstock.com. They portray the feeling of the city at night, with the orange lighting and lit up monuments.)

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There were tons of people hanging out. Tricky sideways parking along the crowded streets!

 

8e27c3b361654bf4ead3067d12fac756.jpgThe drive actually turned out to be an introduction to the city, and the college students we were sitting next to had interesting stories to tell.

 

At 1AM we arrived at hotel – the Morrison executive rooms. Thanks to Tripadvisor I knew to look for the small bronze plaque on the side of the stairs. And I knew it would be up several flights. Later we found that there is a tiny elevator down the hall. The room felt like a Roman apartment. It’s located in a quiet area near Termini station and across from the British Embassy. There was a kettle, some wrapped pastries, a fancy bathroom and a hard double bed with flat pillows that was somehow so comfortable! It really felt like days since we could stretch out to sleep. We were in bed, finally, at 2AM.

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PreCruise Day -3

 

I woke up at 0800. Too excited to sleep! We’re in Rome! Our hotel included a “continental breakfast” at a Bar around the corner. It was coffee or tea, orange juice, and whatever pastry the man at the counter picked out for us.

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Thought for sure we would be hungry in an hour. Not. That tasty snack lasted us for 4 hours of walking! Our main goal for the day was to make it to St Peters square to hear the Pope give his blessing at 1230. I knew for sure that was the time, so I didn’t even look it up in the travel novel I wrote. You know where this is going, right? But that is in a couple of hours. At 1000 we figured we had plenty of time to walk a couple of miles through the city.

 

This is where we had some problems. The maps.me app I downloaded on to the Kindle fire (that I bought just for this trip) didn’t fully work. So we could plan a walking route to the Vatican, but it didn’t track you as you moved along the route. And all the streets changed names constantly. Plus, the paper map the hotel gave us was missing many details.

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I hadn’t wanted to pay the mobile phone companies prices to get international service, but after 10 minutes of this my husband got frustrated and tried to activate it anyway and pay for the day. But that didn’t work. Finally we ended up following the signs to one landmark after the other, asking people for directions as needed. This worked so well! We didn’t get lost the rest of the day!

 

Since we still had over 2 hours to get there, we enjoyed our walk down this main street, stopping at shops and churches along the way.

St. Paul’s Within the Walls Episcopal Church

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McDonald’s- we needed bathrooms and were still thinking about free WiFi. Too hard to log on though.

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To the Trevi fountain-

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And finally to the St. Peter’s square and the Vatican.

 

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It is so crowded already. We arrived here at 1213. Seventeen minutes early, right? Wrong. The square was filled with people, and the Pope was visible on several large TV screens saying his blessing. Because it started at 1200! Whoops. Almost immediately, he was done – and all those thousands of people turned towards us and started walking.

 

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Yikes! Quick, honey, let’s go! We had spent time here the last time we were in Rome, there was no way I was going to deal with those crowds. Guess we will be watching the Pope on youtube.

 

Instead, we turned quickly around and made our way to the Trastevere area, looking for lunch.

 

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By this time we both wanted to sit down in a restaurant for a full meal. And a drink! It was a Sunday afternoon so every restaurant was busy, and we were hungry so all the menus looked good. We settled here, where I order the ‘menu of the day’ and my first Aperol spritz.

 

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The food was fine, the drink was refreshing and we were ready to carry on. After all, this trip we only had one full day in Rome, and we were determined to make the most of it!

 

 

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Lunch restaurant-

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Next on the agenda was following Rick Steves walking tour of Trastevere. In my pre-cruise planning excitement I had listened to it already (of course). Ray was game because we had used the Rick Steves Colusseum audio tour on our last trip and that was quite enjoyable. This time it was more challenging. I don’t know if it was our jet lagged brains, but some of the walking directions for this audio tour were challenging to follow. Plus there were people and traffic to watch out for. We persevered and explored, finding great photo opportunities and exploring churches and plazas along the way.

 

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The history was interesting. We went into the churches of St Cecilia and Santa Maria of Trastevere, and followed many picturesque winding lanes.

 

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So much beauty! So many photo opps!

 

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At the end though we were tired and getting cranky. Time for coffee and pastries! Like true Romans, we sat on the plaza steps and watched the world go by while we had our snack.

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Using the Kindle Fire and maps.me app we planned a route to Capotoline Hill and then to Termini station. We had an early (ish) train to catch in the morning, and wanted to know the walking time. I did a great job of navigating if I do say so myself. [emoji12]The sun broke through the clouds, the coffee and sweets took effect, and we just had a great time exploring.

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We walked up the 124 marble steps to the church of St Maria of Aracelie, where I lit candles for my Italian grandparents. There is a wooden figure of the infant Jesus in a chapel there that is said to have performed miracles. I know it sounds strange, but I felt a power in that room. Ray just thought it was creepy…

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So there are so many more pictures I could post, but this review has to move along! I know this wasn’t a true “port day” for us, but it kinda felt like it. To give you an idea of timing- we left our hotel about 0930, saw all that stuff, and now it was 5 pm.

 

We headed back to the hotel, stopping at a grocery store to spend 2E on 4 big bottles of water – compared to the usual 1-2E for a small bottle. I know there are drinking fountains all over the city, but my husband was leery of the centuries old pipes. Whatever. Not worth arguing over, right?

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We dropped our bags off and took only a few minutes to rest before heading out to dinner. Our hotel had recommended a family Italian place around the corner. We both got pizza this time. I even had my first anchovies on a pizza when I ordered the “Napoli”! That extra salty flavor made for a tasty pizza. Of course the restaurant itself was charming. With all that, it was almost midnight before bedtime.

 

To give you an idea about costs: every place we ate was mid-range. The food was good, not extraordinary. (That would come in Cinque Terre) Not the cheapest or most expensive on the block. Lunch was 28E, coffee and pastries 6E, dinner was a deal – 2 pizzas and wine for 20E. Plus we saw our desk clerk from the hotel eating there, so I guess they really do like the place! Or get free food[emoji6]

 

Next up, cinque terre!

 

 

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Lol I don’t know which is my fav...the pic of the nun on a cell phone or the cannoli [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

 

I was trying to be so subtle when I took that picture. It cracked me up! Now if we could be eating the cannoli at the same time...

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Loving this review. Pictures brought back many great memories of our time in Rome. Looking forward to the rest of the review.

 

Thank you. I did one review a year ago, and I’m trying to remember all the posting tips I learned then! The spacing between the pictures seems different on all my devices.:o

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Thank you for your review

 

 

Regarding credit cards and cash in Europe, you can pay with credit card almost everywhere. I went to Norway some years ago without any cash at all and I didn't need it. In Denmark there were even discussions on abolishing cash, to also enforce tax payment (not that they are great tax evaders anyway)... In european countries were they have no Euros, and are full of tourists, they will always let you pay with cards so that they don't lose any income

 

 

 

In southern Europe you can pay with credit cards almost everywhere also. No great need to have cash, or big amounts of it anyway. Maybe for some places like street markets, or remote businesses like beach bars, small kiosks, ice cream parlors etc...

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