The Inaugural Vista's Official Trippingpara Mayhem in the Mediterranean Review

[trippingpara]

I am loving your review and the pictures are awesome. **We want more, we want more**

 

Thank you so much. Don't you worry your pretty little head off, there is plenty more coming!! I believe that I have 19 more days to cover!! This review is going to end up looking like War and Peace!

[trippingpara]

Wonderful review and ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC PHOTOS!!

 

I have seen some great photos on CC but these are without a doubt the best I have ever seen!! Your colours are so vivid and lighting is superb!!

 

Absolutely Brilliant!!

 

If you have not guessed already...I really like your photos:p;):D

 

WOW! Thank you so much my Bajan friend. I am honored that you like my photos. I take photos for me and my family, but is truly rewarding to hear others say how much they enjoy them.

[trippingpara]

Yea!!!!! I just finished a review and I was like wonder what Trip has been up to? Hopefully a vista review and lo and behold my prayers are answered!!!! I'm excited for this review [emoji119][emoji41][emoji106][emoji38]

 

LOL, glad you're excited about reading it. Most people pray that I go away, it's awfully nice to see that there's at least one person that prays I come around every now and then! Many thanks.

[sweethart9510]

P.s. I know I sound like a broken record but the pictures are absolutely amazing. I need to look into getting one of those "send a kid to Harvard" cameras [emoji23]

[trippingpara]

Bled Lake and Bled Castle. This is what most people think of when they think of Slovenia. Aside from "where the heck is Slovenia?" This famous region is where we now focused our attention. It is roughly an hour north of Ljubljana not too far from the gorgeous Julian Alps. Bled Lake is mainly famous for its postcard perfect church on a small island in the middle of the lake. A pilgrimage church dedicated to the Assumption of Mary dominates Bled Island. Perched high above the lake sits Bled Castle. An old medieval castle built around 1000 AD and is considered to be the oldest Slovenian castle. Enough of my yapping. There really are no words that can properly describe the sheer beauty of Bled Lake and Castle. I'll let the photos do the talking now.

 

On the road again...this time heading out of Ljubljana towards the picturesque Bled Lake

 

Bled Island with its perfect little church

 

Bled Castle

 

Inside the entrance to Bled Castle

 

A Slovenia burger. This was colossal!! By far, the biggest burger we have ever seen. Apparently, this is a standard size meal in Slovenia.

 

The view of Bled Lake and Bled Castle from our burger joint

 

 

Even my photos aren't doing this place any justice. Lady Trip and I just keep walking around with a dumbfounded look on our face. We are just in awe of the sheer beauty around us. We spent about another hour and a half here. We bought a couple bottles of local wine from the castle's wine cellar and purchased an iron heart ornament from the castle forge. After visiting the castle, we headed back down the mountain and stopped at a local fast food place lakeside. The restaurant was called Blejcan. It was a small fast food place that specialized in fresh burgers. I wish Vid would have warned us about this place. We unknowingly ordered a burger each. We could have easily shared a burger. The bun alone was the size of my head. Look at some photos of me...I have a BIG head!! Needless to say, neither of us finished the burgers. But they were delicious! Unfortunately, I'm going to limit the number of photos that I post here as there are just so many and there is still a lot more areas of Slovenia to cover. Don't worry, I took close to 8,000 photos. I have plenty more to share!

 

 

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[karen kne]

ABSOLUTELY STUNNING PHOTOS

 

Loving the trippie... cant wait for more:D

[trippingpara]

From Bled Lake we continued northward into the Julian Alps to see the Martuljek mountain group, the Kranjska Gora and the Vrsic Mountain Pass. Or at least we were hoping to see the Vrsic Pass. It is the highest pass in the Julian Alps and was recently closed due to heavy snowfall. There had been a large snow storm the previous week and Vid feared that the pass would still be closed. It was. Bummer, but Vid being the great guide that he is, found a suitable replacement pass for us to cross. Not quite as high as the Vrsic Pass but it will do. As we drove in the Alps, we stopped at a couple of mountainside villages. They were so quaint and cute. Did I just say that? Everywhere we placed our eyes looked like a postcard. I think I burned through a 64 GB memory card just on this portion of the tour alone. Do you have any idea how many pictures can fit on a 64 GB card?? A LOT!!!! I shoot in what is called a RAW format which creates giant picture files that take up a lot of room on a memory card, but 64 GB still holds a ton of photos!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Edited May 22, 2016 by trippingpara

[trippingpara]

Here are a few photos from some of the little mountainside villages in the Julian Alps.

 

We loved this sign!

 

 

 

 

 

As you can imagine, skiing is a national past time here in Slovenia.

 

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[trippingpara]

As we came out of the Alps, we then made our way down into the Soca Emerald River Valley to see Lepena, the Boka Waterfall and Svinjak (where the movie Narnia was filmed). Our final stop was an old town from the former Soviet communist era.

 

We briefly crossed into Austria and this is a photo of us crossing back into Slovenia. Thankfully the EU has removed all of the border crossing between signatory nations. Just like crossing state lines here in the U.S.!

 

Note the ruins of a large fort. This was the site of one of the fiercest battles of World War I. The shelling was so heavy that the profiles of the mountaintops were permanently changed. Being in the Marines, I cannot even fathom trying to wage a battle at those attitudes. You can't really tell in the photo but trust me, we are VERY high up!

 

Bovec, a World War I military cemetery of Austro-Hungarian soldiers

 

The Soca Emerald River. I can't imagine where they could have got that name from?? This is where the movie Narnia was filmed

 

The picturesque town of Soca

 

Crossing back into Italy

 

Lady Trip and I were not prepared for the shock and awe attack of beauty that Slovenia unleashed on us. I decided to go there based solely on the fact that we were only a few miles away from the border in Trieste, Italy. I have a solid belief that I will cross any border that is within a 50 mile radius of my body at any time. Thus, the Slovenian border had to be crossed! I, of course, researched the bejesus out of Slovenia but nothing prepared me to actually take it all in with my own eyes. As I sit here now back at home, with our trip all done, I still think Slovenia was one (if not THE) most beautiful place that we visited on this trip. The people were wonderful (quite beautiful too), super friendly, full of laughter and they all went out of their way to show us their incredible country.

 

Holy crap, did I just get all sentimental there? Hold on a second, I need to scratch myself and let out a very loud burb. Ah, that's better. Now I feel manly again!

 

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[trippingpara]

ABSOLUTELY STUNNING PHOTOS

 

Loving the trippie... cant wait for more:D

 

 

Thank you so much, I'm glad that you're enjoying them!

[trippingpara]

Vid dropped us off at our apartment in Trieste. This was our first time using Tours by Locals and we had a wonderful experience. We would highly recommend them and will be using them again in the future! We dropped our bags and souvenirs off at the apartment and rushed back out to see if the Vista had docked yet. Nope. But the Costa Mediterranea was just starting to pull away from the pier so we were hoping that the Vista would be pulling in soon. Since she wasn’t there yet, we decided to stroll around a little bit. Since we had a 5 hour tour booked for the following morning of Trieste, we didn’t need to run around too much since we'd see all the sights then (this turned out to be a bit of a mistake).

 

The Costa Mediterranea is pulling away from the cruise port in Trieste

 

Piazza della Borsa

 

Roman amphitheater ruins, 'Teatro Romano'

 

Piazza della Borsa

 

As we started to make our way back into Piazza del'Unita d'Italia, there she was!! The Vista!!

 

 

 

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[trippingpara]

We rushed down to the water's edge to get some better shots of our new home sailing in. Okay, let me rephrase that...I ran over to the water's edge for some better shots. Lady Trip just shook her head and slowly made her way over. She learned a long time ago not to try and stick with me when I have my camera in hand. She just keeps walking and knows that I'll catch up to her. If I need her to stop, I'll shout out to her.

 

 

 

 

I was like a little kid on Christmas Eve night. I could see all of the presents under the tree but I wasn't allowed to touch any of them. It was torture! But at least she was here. I've followed her build since they laid the first piece and now she was moored right in front me. It was hard to believe. There were hundreds and hundreds of people standing around taking photos and pointing at her. Many of them were like me, passengers anxious to get their first sight of her. But a surprising amount were locals that brought their families out to watch her come in.

 

After standing around and taking too many photos to count and several videos as well, we went back to the piazza for some dinner (and of course, more photos!)

 

 

 

 

Next up...tour of Trieste and EMBARKATION!!!!

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Edited May 22, 2016 by trippingpara

[MelodyBL]

 

Next up...tour of Trieste and EMBARKATION!!!!

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What? This isn't done yet? Hasn't it been a week? :D

[jbhcw]

Wonderful review and awesome pics!! You brought back memories of flying to Ireland from Boston....my family is Irish and many live in Boston...we've flown several times from Boston to Shannon via Aer Lingus..and it is tradition we have an Irish coffee at 8 am when we land:D: made with Jamison's of course!

[mrpayroll]

Just went through all ten pages...All i can say is WOW......:)

[trippingpara]

What? This isn't done yet? Hasn't it been a week? :D

 

Too funny. You saw me on our tour in Trieste together. I think I took a couple hundred photos during that tour! My hard drive is screaming bloody murder at me every time I try to upload more photos!

[trippingpara]

Wonderful review and awesome pics!! You brought back memories of flying to Ireland from Boston....my family is Irish and many live in Boston...we've flown several times from Boston to Shannon via Aer Lingus..and it is tradition we have an Irish coffee at 8 am when we land:D: made with Jamison's of course!

 

Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying it. Is there any other way to celebrate a successful red eye flight to Ireland other than with a proper Irish coffee?

[trippingpara]

Just went through all ten pages...All i can say is WOW......:)

 

I hope that's a good WOW! I'm only at 10 pages? Man, it seems like I've been writing and uploading photos for eons! I take it by your screen name that we're in the same profession.

[chasinraynbowz]

I have subscribed and I can't wait to read the rest!!!! Great review so far!!!

[trippingpara]

I have subscribed and I can't wait to read the rest!!!! Great review so far!!!

 

Thank you so much, glad you like it!

[trippingpara]

________________________________________

Sunday, May 1st – Trieste, Italy

 

I finally got smart last night and changed my alarm to Lola Montez by Volbeat. MUCH friendlier to the senses when it goes off!!! We woke up around 6:30 am and started packing. Today was the day that we get to board the Carnival Vista! At 8:00 am we headed down to the Savoia where we were meeting our tour group. We waited outside in the drizzle for about 15 minutes before we headed into the lobby to see if the group was in there. Don’t ask me why we waited so long before we checked out the lobby! Sure enough, there they were all nice and dry and warm. Turns out our tour guide had also just walked into the lobby looking for us. Great, we’re all here!

 

Unfortunately, today was a rainy and rather cold day. It forced most of our tour to be us just driving around while our guide described what we were looking at. We did make a couple stops at the Cattedrale di San Guisto Martire (cathedral – where you could also see the Castello di San Guisto – the fort next door), as well as Risiera di San Sabba (an old rice factory that was converted into a concentration camp by the Germans), and then we drove through the Universita degli Studi di Trieste where the driver worked in the research facility there. Sitting in the back of the van, I couldn’t always hear the guide so I’m not sure of why we stopped there but there was the heavily damaged bow of the ship sitting there. Just not sure why. We also did a slow drive by of the site where a foibe took place. That’s essentially a massacre that uses a foibe or giant hole in the ground as either the method to kill or just as an open air grave. There are reports that the Germans first used it during World War II but it was mainly the Yugoslavian army that used it right after the war to kill ethnic Italians. Horrible.

 

Gelato!!

 

There she is! Nestled right up in front of the Savoia

 

Cattedrale di San Guisto Martire

 

Risiera di San Sabba - The area roped off with the wreathes was where the crematorium used to be

 

One of the prisoner cells

 

A room of cells

 

Next up...Miramare Castle

 

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Edited May 23, 2016 by trippingpara

[trippingpara]

Our final stop was at the famous Miramare Castle. This castle and its surrounding parks were constructed by Ferdinand Maximilian (of the House of Hapsburg fame) and were completed after his departure to Mexico in 1864. For those of you that do not follow history, Maximilian was appointed as the Emperor of Mexico in 1864 where he was promptly shot and killed in Queretaro in June, 1867. Thus, he never got to actually live in his dream castle. The grounds around the castle are quite beautiful. Too bad it was a rainy day. One of the people that we had the pleasure of touring with was NCTribeFan. She too is doing a review. Check it out here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2356170. It’s really good and has some great pictures!

 

 

 

I'm a woodworker so this bed intrigued me. What workmanship!

 

 

 

Next up....Embarkation

 

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[trippingpara]

Finally, the time came for us to pack up and head back to our apartments and hotel to collect our luggage and make our way to our new home for the next two weeks…the Vista! We grabbed our luggage, checked out and headed on over to the cruise port. There were no porters collecting luggage. You just walked up to a large fenced in area and dropped off your checked luggage. That was easy. We then got into a rather long line and settled in for our wait. Previous to this cruise, we have only sailed out of San Juan where the embarkation process lasts from noon until 8:30 at night. Its fast and easy. We knew that would not be the case here. Four thousand passengers were going to be trying to board all within a 4-hour period. It was going to be packed! Couple that with it was the Vista's first time embarking passengers and Trieste only supports a few embarkations a year (most stops are just port of calls). We knew that it was not going to be a well-oiled machine. We stood in the line for about 20 minutes before it suddenly started moving very fast. They must have opened up another line or two because we were now flying through the line. Whatever it was, we weren’t arguing!

 

We strolled through the entire line and into another room to find…. another waiting room. But hey, at least we had a seat! That’s a whole lot better than standing in line for hours! We joked and laughed with a bunch of the people around us. That’s what we do. No sense griping and complaining about something we couldn’t change. We expected it to be busy and it was. So no surprise there. It turns out that they were collecting people into large groups in that room. They would then send that group as a whole over to another room where you would actually check in. We had two groups before us and they were pulled in pretty quick order. Great, we next we thought! Well, they must have overwhelmed the other room because we had to wait a while before we did get pulled. They had to fill in those two empty groups that were between us and the door. The Carnival peeps must have known that just filling those seats in would have caused a riot as they then started running around telling all of us that have no fear we were next but they just needed to put people in those seats. They really did look scared. We continued laughing and joking with our neighbors and the time passed by pretty quickly.

 

We did get pulled and sent over to the other room which meant we had to go outside, down the pier and back into another building. I don’t think that cruise pier is really designed to handle such a large crowd. Anyways, we were then divided into decks. There were about 20 tellers for each grouping of decks. I thought this process was going to take a long time but we were only in line for a couple minutes before we were standing in front of a very nice lady checking us in. Of course we had to smile pretty for the camera. She then smiled and handed us our Sign and Sail card and returned our passport and told us that we were in boarding group 15. Which just so happened to be the number that was just announced over the loudspeaker. Sweet! We strolled into the next room where there was immigration and passport control waiting for us. We got our passport stamped and then had to go over to a table and turn our passport in. We were told that we would get them back on the ship. Okay. Not a fan of that but I knew that this trip would require more passport inspection than our traditional Caribbean cruises would. We then walked outside and followed the crowd. Apparently they were as clueless as we were on where to go. We walked into another part of the building and it appeared to be people that had already boarded and were returning to the ship, so we all just jumped that line and boarded the ship. Without dinging in. Whoops!

 

Overall, we weren’t that bothered by the embarkation process. We knew that it wasn’t going to be fast and smooth. Maybe since we expected it, it didn’t bother us. I don’t know but we did hear a whole lot of complaining from people. Apparently there wasn’t a special line for Diamond and Platinum guests until they had already sat in long lines. I’m not going to get into the debate of upper tier expectations. We just turned gold on this cruise so we don’t have any special expectations or demand any special favors from Carnival. Would I be upset if I was in their shoes? Maybe, I don’t know.

 

The one thing that did bum me out was when we boarded. There was nothing. No special fanfare, no hoopla. Now maybe my expectations were like those of the Diamond and Platinum guests. You expect to receive something and you don’t, it doesn’t make you happy. Now, I wasn’t mad about this, just bummed out. We entered on Deck Zero (where I knew there wouldn’t be any hoopla) but I did expect some fun celebrations going on in the Atrium. Nope. Maybe they did some hoopla for the first few passengers but there was nothing by the time we boarded. That seemed to be the case throughout the cruise. There were no special inaugural cruise items for sale in the ship’s stores or anything of that nature. It seemed like we were on any regular cruise on any other ship. I really was expecting a lot of hype of Carnival’s newest ship. Oh well, it certainly wasn’t going to ruin our vacation!!

 

I do apologize but I never thought of getting any pictures during the embarkation process. Sorry. There were a lot of balloons and Carnival decorations up around the cruise port. Along with 4,000 people. Got a mental picture? Good! So do you want to see the ship?? I've seen some complaints in other posts that I haven't posted any pics of the ship yet. Patience my young padawan, patience. Well here are some for starters. I'll post more on each of our 3 sea days.

 

 

 

Lady Trip displaying the shirt that I designed for our cruise. Since we had a listing of the ports on the back, we had to get creative with some masking tape and marker to edit them!

 

 

Looking down onto the Casino Bar

 

 

I loved these little maps by the elevators on each floor

 

Coming up next...more ship photos!

 

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[trippingpara]

Here are some photos of the various stair landings around the Vista

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Juanita56]

WOW. The pictures and review are absolutely amazing. Can't wait for more pictures inside the ship. Going with large group in December and can hardly contain myself.