Live from the Emerald Princess 10/08/07

[1 cruise]

Nice to hear from you all, JETS....I looked at the bridge cam...it does look very calm and quiet, wow it is a beautiful site to see! Lucky you, I am with you all in spirt, just thinking about the things to come, next year, hard to wait, but willing to do so, just to see what you are all seeing in person........

 

Have a great time exploring and let us all know how things are in Naples.......

 

Thanks again for all your input from this live thread.....how exciting!

 

Alexis :D

[Shogun]

Hi There,

 

Thank you for info on crew, while on the Grand we had a Romanian waiter she was great, its sad how little we know of there part of the world.

 

 

Have a great cruise.

 

 

yours Shogun

[loveJake]

Could you please post more about your cabin? We are in C752 in December, so I believe your location, except for the deck, would be similar to our cabin. Thank you and have a nice trip with smooth sailing.

[sailaway5]

We are also in an aft cabin. Was the aft area a good place to watch the Venice sailaway? I have read you get the best view on port side, but it gets very crowded. I think someone said the aft balcony might also be good. Just curious if the the aft balcony cabin would provide us those spectacular views.

 

Looking forward to hearing about anything you want to share!!

 

Happy cruising.

[Mrs2cats]

We were on Emerald in September for Grand Med cruise and spoke to a few folks who had lost their cases. Some got theirs after a couple of days into the cruise. One couple never did get theirs back but made the mistake of packing one case for the lady and one for the gentleman. We mix both cases with both of our clothes then at least you can manage for a while. By the way the folks who didn't get their luggage at all flew from New Zealand and changed airports a few times before reaching Venice. They had insured with Princess and got a lot of help from them. They were give 500$ immediately and then 50$ per day for his clothes to be replaced. The trouble was that the ship shop didn't stock a lot of men's stuff and when they left the ship they couldn't find any underwear shops at all. We got our luggage there all right but on our return to the UK the luggage didn't turn up on the carousel. Apparently it left Barcelona airport and ended up in Warsaw, Poland. Fortunately it was delivered to us 2 days after our return but I was anxious for a while.

[skwir]

If anyone on the Emerald run in my friends Jerry & Julie H or Gladys C tell them Marc said to e-mail.

[JanMD]

Marc,

the internet station downstairs are very, very crowded. My parents are on and they used their europen cell phone to call this evening.

She said maybe tomorrow it might not be as crowded.

She was on the computer this morning and there were 30 plus people lined up to use them.

 

Jan from Maryland

[AliceS]

Let's hope the internet opens up a bit soon. Can't wait to hear about the trip.

[Sunviking]

Hello from somewhere out of Naples,

 

We sailed a lirrle while ago and just finished dinner.

 

Someone asked about tours in Venice. They did offer some for people the first day. Someone else asked about the thermal suite. They are charging $160 per couple for this cruise but aren't sure if the price will change.

 

We are in a suite and the balcony is great. The view leaving Venice was wonderful. Our suite is on the starboard side.

 

Yesterday after starting as a calm day we encountered some squalls with winds of 54 knots. The ship rode very well we thought. After the last thunderstorm passed we had the most beautiful rainbow right off our stern.

 

Last night was the Captain's party. It was way too crowded in the Atrium. We went up to Adagio which is lovely and then dined at Sabbatinis. The menu there is a little different from what we remembered and I liked it better. They no longer try to serve you everything on the menu which is a big plus in my book.

 

This morning after we arrived in Naples we took the Elite tour of the Amalfi Coast. We thoroughly enjoyed it. We had a small group, a great guide and plenty of time to wander on our own. We had a great lunch at Le Sireneuse Hotel in Positano.

 

Now we are off to Rome. We have areally early wake up call so I'll write more tomorrow.

 

Ann

[mhugcat]

Hi SunViking, Glad to hear all is going well.

 

As you are in a suite do you get complementary use of the thermal spa.

 

Enjoy the rest of your cruise.

[Cosmic Rays]

Good to hear your 'live' experiences as you prepare to cross the Atlantic to Ft Lauderdale. We look forward to sailing on her in January. Please look after her!!

 

Colin:) :)

[Debathome]

I am on the Emerald in March, unfortunately our ports are in the Caribbean and not Europe :(

It is great of you to post from the ship. We are all interested in anything and everything. Have a wonderful cruise!

[mycruz]

Ann,

 

Thanks for your post, I'm very excited to hear that the ship is finally headed to FLL after spending the spring and summer in the Med. We are booked for on of the first sailings out of FLL also in a suite. I was wondering if you know whether or not the Sanctuary is a perk that is offered to suite passengers or is a fee charged as well? My hope is that it is complimentary for suite passengers. Also, any inside info on the Sanctuary if you have used the facility would be great.

 

Thanks

[fathercop]

THANKS TO ALL FOR THE LIVE UPDATES! We look forward to sailing on the Emerald in two weeks and can't wait! I hope all of you have a great cruise!

[Nanatravel]

Hi

Going on the Emerald for New Yrs. if you see any sushi pls post it.

Have FUN!

Thanks

 

You will find sushi at Vines in the Atrium. If I recall, it is near the International Cafe. I hope you love this ship as much as we did.

 

Bon Voyage

Nanatravel

[dobie]

I'm on this voyage with Ann as well. If you all don't mind, I'm just going to post what I sent my friends as emails....more about our tours than the ship. Once things calm down a bit I'll be glad to post more about the ship, but I'm like Ann....I'm not checking out cabins or seeking out bar waiters!! So here goes:

 

Can't believe that we are about to leave Rome already. We have been so busy, I haven't even checked my email!!

Got to Venice on Monday, after a bit of a scare. Our flight from Tucson to Atlanta that was to connect to our Venice flight had a 45 minute layover. We landed 20 minutes early so we were very happy!! Until we had to sit on the tarmac and wait for a gate......then had to sit at the gate waiting for someone to open the door. Turned out we actually had to be paged overhead and they gave our tickets away to someone else.....we hurried and were so sweaty when we got there! But all's well that ends well......our van picked us up at the airport as scheduled, we got on the ship right away. The ship is very very beautiful. Right now as I sit here I hear music from the atrium......the piano is playing and there is a gentleman singing like Pavarotti. Incredible.

We had lunch when we arrived, then headed out to Venice. Took the traghetti (or however you spell that) and explored many little alleys and streets. Rog and I and Mom and Tina took a gondola ride....it was fantastic! He took us down all of the little side canals....we never saw another gondolier! We did almost hit another boat when the other boat didn't answer his OOOOOEEEEEE shout as we turned the corner. They exchanged some hand signals over that one.....Then we got a little "displaced" as I like to say (translate: LOST!!!) Got some bad directions from folks and finally made it back to the ship at 9:00. Had dinner at the buffet cause we were too late for the dining room, and hit the sack.

The next morning we headed back into Venice, trying to get to St. Mark's square. However, we slept way too late.....guess the jetlag caught up to us. So we just wandered around a bit and came back to the ship for sailaway.

What a marvelous sailaway!! I didn't realize that we would actually be sailing down the Grand Canal! We sailed past St. Mark's, alongside the traghettis and private boats. We were up high on the forward part of the ship, it was the sailaway of a lifetime!! They were playing Pavarotti on the speaker....it was breathtaking. I'm sure my pictures won't do it justice.

The next day was a sea day, and a good thing, since I slept till quarter to 12!! I couldn't believe it!! They say there was a storm that morning with 60 mile an hour winds....couldn't prove it by me....eyeshades and earplugs work wonders. A word to the wise, however....if you have an oceanview stateroom with a lifeboat hanging below it (obstructed view, they call it, and it was very economical!) be aware that while you are changing your clothes with the curtains open there could possibly be someone working on top of that lifeboat! Keep your eyes open, or your curtains shut.

Yesterday we were in Naples. We had a private driver, Adriano, who was a hoot!! He took us up the Amalfi coast....how wonderful that was! There were breathtaking views everywhere we looked. He stopped wherever he could and we hopped out and took pictures. He took us to a limoncello "factory"...looked like some guys backyard still. It was a really old guy, with an old big dog lying on the steps. By that time in our day it had started to rain and the guy came down with an umbrella to help us up the stairs. After that, of course I had to buy a bottle. We had lunch at a restaurant in Ravello on the top of a hill, on a covered outdoor patio. It hadn't started raining yet. We stopped in Amalfi for a while and wandered around for a bit. I have one thing to say about drivers in Italy....they are all crazy! The 2 lane roads look like one lane, and the one lanes....wellll.....it is so funny how they drive. The scooters pass you on the right and on the left, our driver just cut in front of everybody, and kept saying, don't worry, I'm covering my eyes. We asked him how many points he would get if he hit that taxi, for example......10 points for a taxi....then we started adding point values for hitting pedestrians, we'd subtract points if they were on a cane (too easy)...a nun we decided would be worth 50 points....just as we said that, here we were in the middle of nowhere and a nun appeared at the side of the road! Adriano resisted temptation, however.....we headed off to Pompeii and braved the rain to see the ruins. How fascinating that was! It was also a bit muddy, and then I took the wrong exit out (there was a fork in the road), and I was 10 minutes late getting back to the van.....and Rog had headed out back to look for me....it unfortunately was not a happy adventure but it all turned out well and we arrived back at the ship with an hour to spare. On the way back we sang along with CDs (unfortunately one of us has a really bad voice and that person tends to sing the loudest!) Sat in the Jacuzzi before dinner, and then bed.....till this AM..

Rome!! Well, actually Civitavecchia. Our private driver Salvatore picked us up at 8 AM and we headed off to Rome. It was a whirlwind day. We went to the Colosseum, saw St Peter's Square, went inside a beautiful church where the wedding party was just arriving, saw the Spanish Steps, the Forum, and on and on. We had lunch at a wonderful little neighborhood trattoria where they had the food all lined up behind a glass case. You just point at what you want and put it on your tray. Rog and I split a plate of prosciutto, lettuce, and mozarrella, and a bowl of pasta. They had wonderful fresh rolls with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I had a glass of wine, Rog had a Coke, and the whole meal was 13 Euros (of course, the way the Euro is going, that could be $26 US!!! I haven't checked today!!!). We went to the Vatican Museum, there was a mixup regarding our guide that had to do with standing in the rain, it was resolved and somehow one of the drivers pulled some strings and got us in at the head of the line. Our guide had left, but we still saw the museum and the Sistine Chapel. What an experience. In Arizona we think that something 100 years old is ancient. To be here and see these truly marvelous works of art, sculpure, tapestries....amazing! Oh, I forgot, we did go to the Trevi Fountain and threw our coins over our left shoulders....ensuring our return to Rome! It was a big day, and next time we're in Rome we can go a little slower and explore.

Tomorrow we are off to Cannes. Again, we have a private driver to take us to the French Riviera, Monaco and Monte Carlo. We're being picked up at 9 AM.

Sorry this is so long, I'll try to get to the Internet more often, this is my first time here and boy is it slow!!!!!

 

forgot to tell all of you that we are on the Emerald Princess. Today we were in Cannes....pronounced like a beer CAN!! Again had a private tour for 8 of us. Our driver picked us up this AM in her van (the lovely Sabrina). Sabrina speaks French, Italian, Spanish, and English and was cute as a button. She took us up the French Riviera to Nice, which is pronounced NieceA!!! and to a bunch of towns that all ended in de provence or de something or other. We stopped in Eze, which is a charming town way on the top of a big hill. Everything was carved out of the mountainside, gorgeous brickwork, plants, cobblestone paths....and views that were incredible. I took many many pictures (so what else is new??), and the vistas along the French Riviera are so gorgeous......so many yachts in the water, cruse ships docked in Cannes, Monaco, Marseilles, and someplace else I don't remember because my brain is tired. Mountains off to the sides, houses and apartments built into the sides of the mountains, their balconies gorgeous with plants and ivy and even trees!! Wrought iron railings and multicolored shutters.....truly what you think France is like. Every town we went through I asked Sabrina....what is the main industry in this town? Of course the answer was tourism each time. We went to Monaco, and went to the palace to see the changing of the guard. "See" is a bit of a euphamism...picture a bunch of grey haired tourists, many with white scalps gleaming in the sunlight, holding their digital cameras overhead, kind of like in the olden days when folks went to concerts, lit matches, and swayed. Same thing, only the sun was shining, the matches were cameras, and everyone had a lot less hair. Regardless, it was still interesting....they had drums and bugles, and guns, and lots of thigh slapping and high marching. Went into the cathedral where Princess Grace got married...gorgeous. There is a really beautiful garden in Monaco as well, and a section of it is a cactus garden! And here I am, from Arizona, taking pictures of the cactus as though I had never seen one before. Well, I hadn't....not in Monaco anyway. After Monaco we went to Nice because we wanted to go to a supermarket. We didn't want to pay big bucks and eat in a restaurant, we just wanted something small. So Sabrina took us to the local "Wal Mart type" supermarket. I am blanking on the name, it begins with a C....Anyway, we go inside and it is a mall with this giant supermarket inside. We had lunch at a small place on the side of the mall...had some paninis and a dessert and water. One of the folks in our group was trying to get the "meal deal"...included the dessert, drink, and sandwich, and the gal behind the counter didn't understand what she wanted at all. Our gal kept speaking in English, the gal behind the counter kept shouting in French, and then she started throwing things. It was pretty funny, actually....by the time everybody understood everyone everybody was happy. Rog and I just pointed at what we wanted, smiled a lot, and kept saying "Merci"!!!! We bought a few bottles of French wine....4 and 5 Euros apiece!!! One of the groups onboard that I have been corresponding with is having a wine tasting next week, so we'll see what they taste like! We then headed back to the ship. Sabrina took us to old town Nice, which looked very beautiful, but there was some concern over whether we would make it back to the ship on time if we stopped. As it turned out, we had time to spare, but who knew? We did pass a group of demonstrators, led by the police, marching in the street......we thought at first it was a union demonstration, and it was, but it was also an AIDS prevention demonstration, several other things that I didn't understand because the signs were in French, and I was sitting in the back of the van and Sabrina was in front! Interesting, though.......We also saw a bunch of beaches. The one here in Cannes is sand, but all the way up the French Riviera they are rock, which surprised me. A lot of the women were topless, but, unfortunately for the guys in our group, we didn't stop. We all know that they've never seen a pair of strange breasts that they didn't love!! (Hey, they should do what I do for a living...they'd never want to see another one!!) We returned to the ship via the same red carpet that was out when we arrived. We had to tender in from the ship, and when we disembarked from the tender the whole walkway from the tenders had red carpet on it. Red carpet, Cannes film festival, get it??? All right, enough for today. Tomorrow is Barcelona....my mom is doing a ship's tour of the city on a bus and Rog and I are going to do the HOHO bus, so think maybe we'll sleep in a little since we're not on a schedule. I am off to the Jacuzzi....believe it or not last night we went in the Jacuzzi and in the pool by the spa and it was wonderful. This ship has at least 4 pools....the one by the spa has not been discovered by many people, so whenever we are there we make pacts with the other passengers there not to tell anybody about it! It even has a "swim against the current" feature in the pool that you can turn on and you just stay swimming in one place...pretty nifty. Down side is that it is not covered (nor are any of the pools on this ship), which is a pretty stupid design on Princess' part. When there is inclement weather, what do you do with 3,000 people? With an indoor pool, a bunch can hang out there. OK, I said enough and now I MEAN it!! Enough!!

Au revoir everyone......see you after Barcelona!!

 

 

For you CC folks, our tour the first day was with DriveAmalfi, Rome was with Romecabs, and today was with medtour.com. In Rome, to make up for the mixup with our guide, our driver bought our van a bottle of chianti, and then when we returned to Civitavecchia the owner of the company was waiting for us. He had presents for all of us.....individual bottles of wine, olive oil, liquors....all in nice little wine bags. Romecabs went above and beyond what we expected...what happened was not their fault, they made it right and we saw the Vatican and the Sistine chapel, and they gave us presents besides! Needless to say, we upped our tips!!

 

I am off to the Jacuzzi, and shall check in later on in the trip. We are still anchored, it is about 6:15, and I honestly have no idea what time we are supposed to leave. This trip is so busy it is like a blur!! I'm sure that on the sea days we'll have more time to post.

[Bestbubba]

Hi Dobie! What a fantastic post, it was just like being there with you! Steve read it as well and we are SO jealous! Beats work huh?? Give our love to all the Jets and please try and post again...

 

Enjoy every moment:)

 

Sue

[fathercop]

DOBIE - Thanks so much. I felt like I was right there with you! And in 14 days, I look forward to hearing the piano in the atrium and that fabulous voice you described. It may not be the Med., but S. Carib. will do for now! Thanks, again!

[fathercop]

SUE - Too funny! We must have posted at the same time and both you and I were thinking the same thing! A credit to DOBIE'S descriptions. Sounds like he is having a great time.

[galelynn]

Dobie thanks for the post, I found that it was very informative. Have 1 question for you, What was the price of the private tours that you took and do you have emails or information on how to contact this guides? Thanks

 

Lynn Emerald Princess transatlantic 10/03/08

[edste]

Hi

Dobie thanks for the wonderful post and colorful descriptions. we're also on the 10/3 cruise and we can't wait. looking forward to reading your next post. Edna

[Texcruise]

Dobie.......FABULOUS!!! Enjoy every minute!

Gail and Rich

[Sunviking]

We haven't posted for a couple of days because we've been too tired. Our day in Rome was lovely. We took the Elite tour there and had a great day. There was basically no wait to get into the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. We were happy we dodn't have to stand in the trmendous line outside St. Peter's. Linch was in a lovely hotel on the Via Veneto followed by the Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum.

 

Yesterday we were in Cannes. One of our friends had arranged a private tour to Eze, Nice, St. Paul de Vence and Antibes. I can't speak for the others but for me the best things were the stop at the big market in Nice and the visit to St. Paul de Vence. I would have been happy in just those 2 places. The scenery along the Corniche roads are magnificent.

 

Today in Barcelona we took the tour to Montserrat. The road up the mountain is not for people who don't like heights. When we went up it was foggy and the views were kind of eerie looking down into the fog covered valleys and gotges. Just as we arrived at the monastery and basilica the sun came out and we had a spectacular day.

 

Tomorrow is a sea day and we're looking forward to a break. We need a vacation from our vacation.

 

Food continues to be good and the service has been excellent.

 

More later.

 

Ann

[AliceS]

Dobie and Ann,

Thank you for the posts. We love it. I will keep questions until you return, but like Gail, I want into on the private tours. Next year for us!

[barante]

I am eagerly waiting for your reports, both during the voyage and afterward. We'll be on next year's sailing from Venice to Fort Lauderdale.