Oasis Of the Seas 9-16 June (Med cruise)

[Traveler 2,097]

Time arrived , another half YOLO cruise will start soon , YOLO since we booked it only at April. This is the 5^th time we are doing the same cruise (Two times on Symphony, one time on  Harmony and one time on Liberty) but there are always something new to do in each one of the Med ports

Here is our plans :

Day -1 – Barcelona/ Brussels  - our flight is planned via brussels as it was the cheapest option , the only issue is  that it comes with a very long stopover, the plan is to try and take an earlier fight from brussels , if not we will take the train to the city and eat fresh fries and maybe some famous Belgium chocolates.

Day 1 – Barcelona.

Day 2 – Palma de Mallorca, we have some excursion planned to the north part of the island.

Day 3 -  Marseilles , take the buss to the city and walkaround  until I will  need to catch a conference call , work related (the things I am doing to be able and cruise more).

Day 4 - Florence/Pisa (La Spezia) – I might have something special for this port , a trip to Milan airport to retrieve what I left there yesterday , more about it later.

Day 5 –Rome (Civitavecchia) – I booked a train trip to Rome , directly with the railway company , ¼ of the price the ship offers , to be on the safe side we are planning to catch the 4 PM train back  which should bring us 3 hours before all aboard.

Day 6-  Naples (Capri) – No plans yet , we might take the bicycle tour if the weather will be nice or  rent a car or just go off the ship and tour the city.

Day 7 – be sad the cruise is over maybe overcome it with the Chef table.
Day 8 – catch a 9:30 am flight back home (yes , we are walking over the edge this) time  , still trying to see if I can find a direct flight in a decent price , if not it will be a very early day for us.

 

As you can see we are traveling a day before the cruise and leaving on the same day coming back , I wanted to add at least one more day in Barcelona but I just could not make it happened, this time  its really hard to navigate between work and vacation.
So, why I consider to drive to Milan during the cruise ? , very simple , I was on a business trip few days ago, making sure I will be back on time for the cruise (meaning running away one day earlier than usual). I went to the airport , passed check in , security and border control enough time ahead to seat and relax in the airline lounge. I was drifted away working , trying to complete some tasks so I will have less things on my mind during the vacation when I heard the call for boarding. I packed very quickly, boarded the aircraft, went to my seat  then  reaching for my cellphone just to realize its gone, TA, TA , TA (dramatic music please) , my worst nightmare (naa , not really , my rea nightmare  is to be late boarding RCL cruise ship 😊). Quickly I went to the front of the aircraft (was not upgraded this time  , poor me) to notify the flight attended about the crises , she escorted me back to the gate , passing some un happy security people , were one of the ground team went to try and find my cellphone in the lounge. After five minutes I asked if I can go by myself , apparently it was Ok , went to the lounge just to hear that they did found it , but they were supper efficient and sent it to the lost and found …. , yes this is the first time they were really efficient. Now I had two options, one go out and fetch the cellphone from the lost and found , but it means I will need to do security and boarder control again, in other words I will loose my flight, which can risk the cruise … I had chosen   the other option , leave my communication center , my camera , my VPN  authentication device , my two phone numbers (the local one and the roaming T Mobile which is very useful for cruises) , my restaurant guide , my taxi  and many other things , amazing how much of our lives is relying on one device.
I did run back to the aircraft as they were waiting just for me. So here I was seating at  my chair doing plans how to recover from the situation in the day or two I still had before the cruise. We landed at early morning and after a short taxi ride I was back home , finding that beside the cellphone I left behind also my keys … ops, lucky for me I have spare keys, what a ride .
 

To be continued , need to pack 😊

For now , here is some last minute Caprese salad   I prepared today to get ready for the trip

 

 

 

 

[Lovetocruise2002 9,799]

Awesome!  Another @Traveler blog.  More to hold me over the next few weeks!  Following along as usual. 🙂

[WannaCruise 840]

Looks like an amazing cruise!  And nothing beats Oasis class.  Safe travels!

[WAAAYTOOO 10,306]

Caprese...yeah !!!

[Traveler 2,097]

So , Just finish to pack and now the phase of thinking what I missed to pack and what I could packed less 🙂 

Packing for a cruise includes one more problematic phase for me , ironing the T shirts , its just takes too much time.  

I think someone gave me the bad eye 🙂 after all the issues with the cellphone , I came back home from a family early dinner to find my refrigerator stop working ,  I am sure our son would love it as an excuse to only order takeaway from his favorite restaurants ,using his favorite credit card , his mothers. lucky for me I found out its just a bad outlet so quick switch fixed the issue.
Oh regarding the lost cell phone , the good thing is that I got it from the company I work for , the bad thing was that I had to go to work after the nightly flight to find a solution . the com team at my company were very helpful , they manged to block my phone , activate two new SIM with my numbers and supply me a new device. All I need to do now is to retrieve my old phone to give it back, as said , now I have what to do in the first Italian port , although I might give it up for now and collect it on my next flight. 

Well , 3 more our and we will need to catch a ride to the airport , time to try and sleep for an hour or two .

 

[Traveler 2,097]

Well , we are in the airport , so far could not changed my flight to an earlier one as the line for ticketing are way too long , we will try our luck in the connection.

[Traveler 2,097]

Plan B did not work either , they offer us to take the earlier flight but wanted 500 Euro which is more and less what we paid for the return ticket for both of us , we kindly refuse and went to the lounge yo eat breakfast and decide what to do. We can stay here for 8 hours, catch some sleep (they have private rooms with beds , very comfortable) or to leave our stuff in the lockers and catch a train to the city for some Belgian fries 🙂 only issue is the cold  weather . We will see how it will go (I am voting for team go sleeping 🙂

 

[Jaymac Radio 1,089]

Following @Traveler. Have A Great Trip

[mom2mybugs 1,639]

Oh @Traveler I am so excited to read your love blog!  You do such an awesome job writing about your experiences with such a sense of humor.  I look forward to your trip as it will make me more excited for mine in July!!!!! Jane

[Traveler 2,097]

We did it , just landed in Barcelona, although too late for quick supermarket run but at least no worries about missing the ship due to flight issues 🙂 we'll just one more day.

[Traveler 2,097]

So , how can I describe this day, easy going I guess, 

We started the day very early around 2:30 AM catching a taxi to the airport for our 4:30 am flight, I hate the early morning fights as they kill the night before and most of the day but again that was half price of taken the direct flight the day before. lucky for us the flight was not that full and we had enough space to catch some sleep (although it is flight sleep which is never enough). We arrive around 8:30 AM to Brussels which left us 9:30 hour until the flight to Barcelona . after a quick check we found out it will be too expensive to catch the earlier flight. The weather was quite cold and very windy so we decided no to catch a train  to downtown and spend the rest of the time at the lounge. So we went to sleep in one of the  private rooms they offered after eaten a quick breakfast .  the lounge is very impressive I might say  , many places to reset, many wireless charging points and decent food.

 

And yes this car is from chocolate

 

We also found the massage chairs , my spouse kept re starting the massage session (the lounge was empty so no queues to use the chairs) I think she mostly  loved  the fact it never tried to sell her any products at  the end of the massage session nor try to convince her she must sign for another treatment 🙂 

.

The down side is  that now I need to find out how much the chair cost and if it will fit our apartment. Time went by and we went to catch the next flight (not before we bought some chocolates , hey after all we are in Brussels)  . Two hour later we landed and went to the hotel (the Hilton this time ) , taxi cost around 30 Euros ,  the hotel is nice and the rooms are just big enough.

To make sure  I will have something to report on and to do something else in Barcelona beside sleeping we decide to go to a restaurant , quick check in the app (The fork)  ,we found a near by resto bar which looked nice.
The restaurant was very good , perfect ambient and just good food (which was also cheap with the app 40%) Two first course  (carpaccio and a warm cheese salad) and two main course (Tuna stake and risotto) + two glass of the house wine was around 33 $.

Now its time to catch some sleep for the big embarkation day tomorrow   

[Sweety 1,398]

I love your live blog. Added another to my retirement cruises.

 

[Lovetocruise2002 9,799]

3 hours ago, Traveler said:

The down side is  that now I need to find out how much the chair cost and if it will fit our apartment

^^^ 😂 This happened to us! Not at an airport but while on vacation. The chair is still in our living room.

[hayley_bopp 645]

8 hours ago, Traveler said:

 

And yes this car is from chocolate

Mmmmmmm! 😋

 

8 hours ago, Traveler said:

I think she mostly  loved  the fact it never tried to sell her any products at  the end of the massage session nor try to convince her she must sign for another treatment 🙂 

😅😅

[hayley_bopp 645]

Sooo excited for you to board! Have a great cruise 😁

[Traveler 2,097]

9:48 am we still just eating breakfast , it's so wrong 🙂

I guess this time my spouse idea of getting to the port near noon time is winning. The idea is not to carry the bags with us for too long. I start to be nervous.

Oh and it's our first cruise as diamonds. 

[Sweety 1,398]

17 minutes ago, Traveler said:

9:48 am we still just eating breakfast , it's so wrong 🙂

I guess this time my spouse idea of getting to the port near noon time is winning. The idea is not to carry the bags with us for too long. I start to be nervous.

Oh and it's our first cruise as diamonds. 

Congratulations on being diamond.

[Traveler 2,097]

And here we start another cruise

It look as we have a religious group on the ship this cruise, there is some blockchain convention 🙂 , the group will be here until we get to Rome

[JohnK6404 1,136]

Enjoy the cruise!

[Traveler 2,097]

One of the things that I did not notice  at Port was missing of the expedite boarding that was announced last year. Not sure if it was due to the ship ( for sure is not due to the port as we used it last year at the same port) or maybe due the key program ... Oh well lines were not bad anyway. 

[Traveler 2,097]

The diamond lounge , before it will move to the 4th floor 

[Traveler 2,097]

The Aqua theater looks fine , no real signs for the incident

[WAAAYTOOO 10,306]

I was just wondering earlier today if the Oasis had been having regular Aqua Theater Shows.  I had not heard of anyone sailing on O lately.  Thanks for letting us know.  Are the shows going forward as they have in the past or are they modified ?

[Traveler 2,097]

2 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

I was just wondering earlier today if the Oasis had been having regular Aqua Theater Shows.  I had not heard of anyone sailing on O lately.  Thanks for letting us know.  Are the shows going forward as they have in the past or are they modified ?

I must admit I have not seen it yet even that is just across from my balcony , tommorow we have it scheduled so I will be able to update.

[Auto 231]

Have a great cruise! Love all of those ports!