mom2mybugs

I thought the impossible burger at our local place was great, but my vegetarian daughter didn't like it... It tasted too much like meat lol. Jane

We haven't asked for vegan but our 16 year old has had a ton of success asking for curries and vegetarian options. She has had a fair amount of variety! Jane

Majesty was a great ship and id love to do a trip out of new Orleans! Jane

Just FYI...on the Europe cruise I'm on, there have been speedos/thongs/brief bikini bottoms/girls as old as 10 no tops. Plenty of pretty revealing bikinis and several loosened straps when laying on stomachs (but no actual topless frontal sunning or walking around). I found on my last Caribbean cruise in March several things or the really small cut in the back that doesn't really cover. Jane

Our decorations on this vision cruise were already up on day one when we got there! They look great and I'm so glad we did them... We always find our door lol! Jane

We feel like that even not solo. 12 days of heavy meals and the whole presentation was just too much. The food has been awesome but we just found we'd rather relax and read for an hour and eat at windjammer for an hour instead of 2 hours at mdr. Jane

Have a great trip! Jane

I didn't get to Venice but Florence in a day is tough. You will have a hard time seeing the inside of the duomo, the baptistry, climbing up to see views, going to the uffizi, etc. Rome has a ton of things! You could totally, as kristiZ said, spend all your time there. Jane

Day? The days become a blur on these long cruises lol...DAY 8 was mykenos and Jeff's bday! Happy 51! I love having at least an ocean view for the mornings. The rest of the time isn't as important! Here is sunrise from our window. The seas apparently were so Rocky on the last sailing that they cancelled the next day of Santorini. They were passing out sea sickness medicine for free at the meeting point for our outing to Delos so we were worried. It was a pretty rough boat ride, but we were fine. My daughter is looking at archeology in college (uh-oh for career opportunities but yeah on the cool factor) and we are all history nerds so we were looking forward to seeing Delos... The mythical birthplace of Apollo and Artemis and a holy site for centuries. It was very cool. We were able to see ruins in the museum ranging as far back as 6BC. Antony Gormley is a sculptor from England originally who has done a lot of human forms. They have put his Sculptures (and 5 new ones) on the island in different spots to "bring life to the island". I'm not sure I like them or not. The first one I saw too me two minutes to realize I wasn't looking at a naked man standing there lol! The most famous image from Delos are the famous lions. We saw the real ones inside the museum, but the copies outside show how they were positioned across from a huge lake (which was drained to prevent malaria). After Delos we headed to mykenos and the old port (the ships dock at new port and they run a water bus system to get to the main stuff in mykenos). We had been really looking forward to mykenos as we thought it would be less touristy and crowded than Santorini. We were actually pretty disappointed in it. We must not have found the pretty street areas and we didn't plan on the beach (which I hear are really nice). It was beautiful from a distance and we did find a good Cafe and one or two residential streets. There are feral cats everywhere! Some friendly, some not. They were even all over Delos. At both mykenos she especially Santorini we were able to get great pics of vision! We really weren't wowed by the shopping and the streets. We wished we had brought suits and just hung at the time public beach! We headed back pretty early to the ship to enjoy some sun time and get ready for Giovanni's! Giovanni's, as usual, did not disappoint at all!!!! For the first time we bought a bottle of wine... Which killed me since we have the drink pkg but we wanted a good bottle for Jeff's bday and there were only 2 reds available by the glass, which I think is silly at a specialty restaurant. Here are some food porn pics. It was white night! This is the first time I actually bought a white dress. I was all set to dance at the 80s hour and the pool deck party... After the wine, the huge dinner, the 645 meeting point...we were exhausted and asleep by 1030! Sigh. Last night I was up to 3 and nothing happening. Lol... Next time! And that is Mykenos! I'm going to nap in my deck chair, go to izumi sushi class (and do the bad evil leave my chair for an hour and hope it's there), and practice thriller another time (class 3!) We have no dinner plans...I don't know how people do udp. Partly it's because we are eating at cafes during the day but we are just stuffed! We like the mdr idea but after an all day port, windjammer calls our name! This is out of order but here is our dinner view last night that I will leave you with!

I totally agree! We had a great group this time and the 4 hours flew (it was a very long chefs table!). Jane

I will try and remember to check my tickets. It was very pricy compared to some but so worth it for us to see so much! We feel we missed out on a lot in Florence but Rome was amazing! Thanks so much for the complements! I enjoy sharing with all of you! I've done an awful job with scoping, but the blog I'm hoping will be a nice memory for me as well! Tomorrow is a sea day and sometime around sushi making and thriller practice I will blog about mykenos and Santorini!! Jane

I'm not sure I ever thought to do this! I will totally add it! Jane

I thought about you on Jeff's bday... Look what they made him!!!

It depends on the ship...on freedom, it was in the main dining room in a little middle area. On vision, it was in a little room off the mdr. I can't remember on adventure lol! We loved it ! For the person who asked about beer, someone told me they did get a beer flight, but on the smaller ships you are likely (as Joe said) not getting any major great pairings. I will tell you the food and wine pairings I have had have been the best on any royal ship. It's a great experience to do at least once! I just did my review of our experience in my Europe love blog on this site. Jane

It was truly amazing! Wear shoes that have good traction.... Some of the surfaces get super slippery! Jane

My skin is gonna age badly but being in the sun on sea days is mental therapy for me. I am in my happy place! Although yesterday even got too hot for me lol! Jane

I'm about half way through reading!!! Love reading your blogs Sabrina!!! Thanks for taking the time!!! Jane

I agree...we have done chefs table 3 times and this was the first time we repeated a menu. I would actually like it if they would make it individual... Let the chefs pick their own menu and run with it. Jane

Today...DAY 7...dream day of the trip again because today was Athens. The port is very close (unlike the Italy ports) so that was nice. The Acropolis was very crowded on the stairs but we were given lots of time to look (it did take over 20 mins to get down though because of all the people). A few weeks ago they actually closed it because the temps were over 105. Today was in the 90s but we brought lots of water! The ruins are so enormous that it helps to see people next to them for scale. After the Acropolis we were given free time to wander the narrow streets of places. I find that I enjoy going to the local restaurants but that we get bored pretty quick shopping. Anyway we found a great Cafe and ate outside! We wandered placa and then finished up at Hadrian's arch. It was cool to see the Acropolis through the arch! We were back on the ship by 3 and have been laying around in the AC pondering naps. After last night, I'm not inclined to run around using my drink pkg lol! No dinner plans for tonight...we will look to see what's up in the main dining room and then likely hit windjammer. No big shows tonight so we will likely go to bed early. Tomorrow is Mykenos... We have to meet at 645 for our excursion to ancient Delos! Jane

So yesterday was pretty quiet with the sea day until chefs table. Chefs table on vision is in its own separate little room off the main dining room. It was a nice location... Windows to look outside and you could actually hear people and converse! We started off in the that with a fantastic drink L'aristocrat. It's st Germaine and Champaign like I've been drinking but also had mint and ?. I have lots of food porn pics, but suffice to say the food and wine was very very good. The dessert was disappointing... It wasn't really the traditional world dessert... They served it on a plate and it was good but not the same. By then i had had waaaay too much wine anyway to really eat it. Overall we really enjoyed it, and the sommelier picked excellent wine pairings. Unfortunately the pacing was really weird... The wines were poured significantly before the food came... And the chef was very very uncomfortable talking to us. Even though it was the same menu we'd had before, it was good to see the different pairings and the subtle flavor differences. Jane

Yes muster was in both! Ugh! Jane

Ok... May be no Scopes... Pool deck and voom... Actually voom anywhere... Is weak. I can get online, I can check email, I can upload pics here but I can't download my next Disney emoji blitz level (arrrrghhhh) and I can't get pericope to find the internet. Today's schedule is sunbake, thriller class, sunbake and then chefs table. We will try and hit love and marriage at 1030 if I can stagger from the food and ? coma, but we will miss the theater show tonight, which is ok because it's just a Celine Dion impersonator and I think I've seen her before too. Just FYI... Most announcements have been in English and Spanish. Definitely all the staff speaks English (except the poor Russian drink waitress) and it's been easy to communicate. They are running the love and marriage in English but offering it at the same time in Spanish in the some enchanted evening lounge. Deck chairs at 10... Mostly taken on the sky deck but not occupied. Of course, I still haven't seen Jeff lol.... They pushed us ahead 1 hour today to match with Greek time and will push the clock back on our way back. That made last night tiring but will be awesome when they give it back! Happy weekend everyone!!! Jane

Today's office view!! It's our 2nd sea day! So yesterday the sea day was wonderful. Spent the day in the solarium being annoyed by the group of 10 who kept those chairs all day even though they had maybe 3 or 4 there at a time. Sigh... Anyway decided to do the sky deck today... Less stress! And I think a little more breeze, though they opened the roof and that made a huge difference at 1130am. I did do the first thriller class. I really like Steve Davis and I'm not really a cruise director person who notices. But Steve is everywhere (he was the main singer at the centrum rock and roll party last night) and he just really seems friendly. So anyway I will be back at 1 for class number 2. Here was the party from 1 deck above... We didn't get seats on the main floor because we went to the theater show first. We had izumi at 630. They have Madison several options and she went with the vegetable tempura and the veggie roll, and loved both. Jeff and I ate the firecracker spring roll, champagne lobster and California rolls and the hot rocks with tenderloin and seafood. It was really good. I found the service to be just ok... It wasn't bad but he didn't really explain anything, and we had to ask for more water and drinks. The $35 per person worked because Madison didn't eat much... Otherwise we'd have gone over. As was I think we spent 5. I needed Jeff to go make a pizza run at 1am lol...I was hungry... But the food really was excellent. Forgot to take pics of the rolls (as usual) but here are other pics After izumi, as I said, we went to the theater for the Lomax brothers...4 hands, 2 brothers, 1 piano. It was a fun show and we enjoyed it. I'm pretty sure I have seen them before but not sure when or which ship! After that we raced to centrum for the rock and roll party and then called it a night... Til I sent Jeff to grab me park Cafe pizza! Jane

I really haven't found the crowds to be horrible. There wasn't a line outside the uffizi... Well the line outside the duomo was bad but still overall we haven't felt like sardines yet. Jane

We actually had no time to eat in Rome... Except at the "group"restaurant. I didn't even get pizza lol. But the Florence meal will go down as the best lasagna ever! We now are on sea days heading for Greece! Jane