Review Royal Princess 08-24-2007 Final

[Suzy Q]

Valletta, Malta—You must be on deck as you sail into this harbor. Very scenic. We meet our guide and set off. We visit the Blue Grotto, Hagar Qin, the Hypogeum (on UNESCO world heritage historical list) fishing village Marsaxlokk, Mdina St. John’s cathedral, stop at a small shop called, what else, the Maltese Falcon, drive and walk around Valletta. Very nice day and we enjoyed this stop.

Santorini—As we anchor, we see there is also another ship her today and there will be a third joining us this afternoon. Cable cars up to Fira. We catch a cab out to Oia as the buses apparently aren’t running yet. 15 euros for taxi and we split with another couple. Spectacular views everywhere. Whitewashed buildings sprinkled along the rim of the caldera. Oia is charming. Unfortunately, with three ships in at one time, it is very crowded. I think we miss some of the ambience because of this.

Canakkale—The Captain announces at around 8AM we will not be docking here, as the winds are too strong. 25 knots and later he says they are at 40 knots=46mph. We sail for Istanbul.

Istanbul—We dock at 7PM several hours early. We walk around a bit but very little open. The next AM we are met by our guide, Lale. We drive to the old part of the city. We visit the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace (this is a favorite), the Grand Bazaar, the Cisterns and then we stop to buy some Turkish Delights. We do make a stop at a rug dealer, but it becomes quickly apparent this is a lengthy process. This is a great city to visit.

Athens-- We disembark and check into the Grande Bretagne hotel. We have Starwood points for this. The hotel is beautiful and our guide says it is the best in Athens. We do a city tour in the afternoon and the next day we drive to the Peloponnesian area.

Overall a great trip. If questions, I’ll try to answer them.

[2forTravelin]

Thanks for the good info.

Could you please advise what tour company you found for Valletta? I'm having a difficult time with this port.

Thanks -

cindy

[Suzy Q]

cindy--Try Vince DeBono

He is great.

info@guideinmalta.com