Pre-cruise Rome

August 1st, Daniel left by car at about 5am and started driving with most of our bags and one from the Levy family. We weren't flying out until around 5pm on Ryan Air, which now has a strict 15 kilo limit on each bag. Except for a bit of traffic around Milan, Daniel made good time, arriving before we did. The trip is about 1100 kilometers but Daniel makes better time when there aren't fights and throwing up going on in the back seat!

These are from our first night. We are obviously very tired and took these pictures at a fountain near the hotel.







Here's the hotel I found. It was tough to get two connecting rooms, for only two nights, in August in Rome. Hotels kept recommending other hotels and finally I found this;

http://www.hotelbritannia.it/en/index.htm

It was charming and the service was great. The reception set up our taxis at reasonable prices and the breakfast was good. We were also very central. The only drawback is that the rooms were tiny and we did hear a lot of garbage trucks in the early morning, easily fixed by closing the windows at night. It wasn't super delux but for the short time we were there, it was fine.

Here are the kids in the lobby;





The next day, our only one in Rome, we opted to take the open top tourist bus. This has been a great option in London and Barcelona. Daniel had to work in the morning and getting around big cities with three little kids isn't too easy and these, albeit tourist rip-off buses work great in this situation.

The kids in front of the Vatican;

Embarkation Day!

August 3rd was departure day and we had no other real plans for the day. We actually had a little extra time to kill as the ship wouldn't officially let us on until 2:30pm so we stopped to take a few photos at the Trevi fountin with the kids. We were not alone! Even getting these pictures involved getting through the huge trongs of tourists.





Turns out that they were able to let us get on earlier and have lunch onboard. I was very annoyed as all the information I gave them on the internet didn't appear so we had to redo the whole registration. Finally, we walked towards the ship.





Here are more detailed pictures of our ship on another site;
http://www.travelserver.net/travelpage/aspgallery/view_ad.asp?Ad_ID=2512

I was worried that the rooms would be too small, since they're usually smaller than those in hotels. It was but it wasn't too cramped and yes, we took two rooms that connected. Very few family suites are available on all cruise ships and many accomodate four, not five. We had a nice big window, which of course was completely closed and safe for the kids. We could control the temperature but not the fan, which blew quite hard.



The girls checking out their room.



All ships have to hold an evacuation drill before leaving the first port. We were all required to don our lifevests and head to our designated rescue boat. The children were also required to wear a plastic wrist band the whole cruise, designating which lifeboat to where they were assigned.

Davina had to have a special tot lifevest. She looked a little overwhelmed but very cute in it. Taking pictures posed a problem as the reflectors shined back from the flash and we didn't have time nor access to outside to take pictures.



Ronnie was cute in his too.





Talia was pitching a fit over having to wear it at all so I didn't manage a photo. She probably objected more to the color and how it matched her outfit...

The girls dressed in their "matchy-matchy" dresses the first night.







Davina, later chowing down on pizza;



Our first at-sea sunset;

Messina, Sicily

This is who greated us on our arrival in Messina;







The view of the town of Messina itself from the ship;





Béatrice, Sarah and I took an organized tour to Taramina, which meant I had to go with my fellow Frenchmen! But it was beautiful and useful to have explanations.













The city itself;







The ampitheater ruins;

Athens (Piraeus)

We were actually at the port of Piraeus and it was kind of a haul into Athens itself. I shared a cab with a French family going in and took the very-similar to the London Underground metro back. Big mistake! I had to walk ages but hey, good exercise (like I wouldn't be getting enough soon!).

I was glad that the one place I'd been to was one of the first.









Piraeus itself was a madhouse with all the ferries going to the various islands.

Mykonos, Greece

Without waking them, I was able to get these shots in their cabin;





I knew when looking at it, that my pictures would be prettier than it actually was. Kind of strange but I was disappointed, yet it was very photogenic.



























You can see the Galaxy docked in the distance. We had to take a shuttle into the village.





The girls wore their "sort of matchy" outfits that evening. The material of Talia's top matches that of Davina's dress. Cute, without being too much so...













Whoops!!