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Port Intensive and Picture Intensive Trip Report for Jewel's E Mediterranean cruise

PhilNDebbieAtSea
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DrivesLikeMario

DrivesLikeMario

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Enjoying the review. Glad you got a better deal than Rome in Limo was offering. I've not had the best experience with them either.

 

After many emails back and forth with Jany, we were told we would be able to go to the Uffizi Museum in Florence (a big deal to me!). Once our driver showed up on the day, he refused to take us. He was supposed to have our tickets already purchased and he didn't. When I verified the route for the day with him, he said that "Americans like to shop and eat, not go to the museum". After showing him the email itinerary, he still wouldn't take us and made it look like I was being a jerk for insisting on it. Not all Americans like to spend hours at a long drawn-out lunch and shopping! Since the others in the group didn't care where they went and because the driver was making a stink out of sticking to the itinerary, I felt I had to give in. It was so disappointing though.

 

Another time, their idea of an airport transfer was pretty scary. So, they are not my favorite company and you probably did better with the new company you found in the end.

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PhilNDebbieAtSea

PhilNDebbieAtSea

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Enjoying the review. Glad you got a better deal than Rome in Limo was offering. I've not had the best experience with them either.

 

 

 

After many emails back and forth with Jany, we were told we would be able to go to the Uffizi Museum in Florence (a big deal to me!). Once our driver showed up on the day, he refused to take us. He was supposed to have our tickets already purchased and he didn't. When I verified the route for the day with him, he said that "Americans like to shop and eat, not go to the museum". After showing him the email itinerary, he still wouldn't take us and made it look like I was being a jerk for insisting on it. Not all Americans like to spend hours at a long drawn-out lunch and shopping! Since the others in the group didn't care where they went and because the driver was making a stink out of sticking to the itinerary, I felt I had to give in. It was so disappointing though.

 

 

 

Another time, their idea of an airport transfer was pretty scary. So, they are not my favorite company and you probably did better with the new company you found in the end.

 

 

 

Omg! That’s awful! I don’t blame you for being upset. They have such high ratings, I was also surprised how they acted. You never know!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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PhilNDebbieAtSea

PhilNDebbieAtSea

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Fabrizio arranged where we would have lunch. It was the BEST pizza of the trip – which is saying a lot since the pizza everywhere was SO good. So yummy!!! Too funny, we saw an American couple a few tables over who were confused and b*tching about ordering, etc., and we realized that was us the first day. Now, we were ordering like pros and knew all the ins and outs. We saw the cruise line’s tour come in and go inside for lunch – they had a set menu and a buffet. The people at the table next to us in the MDR were in that tour.

 

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Frank wanted me to take a picture of his water and we realized that I should have gotten pictures all across Europe of the different waters he has had on this trip… Guess we will have to go back!

 

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It may not look so great, but it was amazingly delicious. I dream of this pizza now.

 

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PhilNDebbieAtSea

PhilNDebbieAtSea

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We were on to Pompeii. We used a guide from Fabrizio and she was very good. When she asked us if we wanted to go to the bathroom or get a water before we started because it would be a 2-hour walking tour and no bathroom, we almost fainted. I asked M if she wanted to back out because of her foot, but she said no. We could have gone in ourselves and just looked around, but it did help having a guide to let us know where to go and explain at what we were looking. It wasn't too long at all. It was very interesting, and I even had chills at times. Unbelievable sights!

 

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PhilNDebbieAtSea

PhilNDebbieAtSea

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Lol, the guide (I can’t remember her name) told us the acoustics in the arena were amazing and they hold concerts there. She made us (and by “us” I mean me because I thought M or F would go too but they did not) go to the center and clap our hands and say loudly: Hello Pompeii! She was right! Acoustics were great! Here is me taking a picture of M taking a picture of me making a fool of myself.

 

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Speaking of guides, we were glad we had a guide to explain things to us and show us where to go. You can do this without a guide, of course. It was funny, though, how many people came up to our guides here and in Valencia to ask them questions. They always politely answered, but one of the guides did say to us that he or she (can’t remember which one!) feels guilty because they are supposed to be with us! I think people didn’t mind asking them because they were with a small group and might have hesitated if the guide were with a big group.

 

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PhilNDebbieAtSea

PhilNDebbieAtSea

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It started to rain just as we got back into the van. Perfect timing!!! We were quiet on the way back as we were so tired. M asked to stop at the Hard Rock,but Fabrizio balked at that and said it was in a totally different area. Luckily, because she realized later that there was no Hard Rock and what she saw online was a different restaurant altogether.

 

Goodbye to Fabrizio – his brother, Valentino, is to pick us up tomorrow. There was nothing that appealed to us in the MDR menu AGAIN so we went to the Windjammer. Wow! It was an amazing meal in there – anything you could think of, they had it. They even had rice pudding, waffles, all kinds of seafood, and turkey. We have never gone to the WJ for dinner like we did on this trip and we were pretty impressed. It was also nice to finish dinner early, not have to get all gussied up, and have some time in the evening to relax. Well, not tonight because we had to pack… But there was extra time to relax then there would have been without!

 

Another beautiful nighttime sailaway. Another wow, we also had an unbelievable and gorgeous thunderstorm with lightening at sea. It was long and beautiful! Ship was rocking. I was so happy – you could not have made for a better ending for me. Poor Phil, he got locked out of the room when he went to fill up my cup with soda. I was on the balcony and did not hear him knocking, ringing the bell, or calling on the room phone. Finally, one of the stewards was in the hall and called our steward, Ishkandar, to come let Phil in. The steward called Ishkandar and told him that the FBI was here for him. LOL!

 

Naples storm

 

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PhilNDebbieAtSea

PhilNDebbieAtSea

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Re the drink package, we were happy we got it. Although, I did not personally meet my “quota” every day, Phil found it handy to get 2 beers using both our cards when he was building up his bucket for the room at night. As I said before, we really enjoy the convenience of having it paid off and me being able to get any drink I want to try and not caring if I didn’t like it – I could just get another. I’m not a big drinker and probably have not had a drink since the cruise…

 

Although we had prepaid our tips, P&F stopped by the MDR to see the waiters because we would not see them for their extra tips. They also stopped by the concierge lounge to express our thanks in words and euros. Actually, not everyone got euros as we started to run out (yeah!) and some had to get dollars. LOL, not the $1 bills Phil had earlier. 😊

 

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