Waking up after our sea day, we opened the blinds to find ourselves docked in Naples, along with three other cruise ships. Our plan for the day was to get off the ship and just have a wander, as most of the excursions were to Sorrento (we've been there a couple of times) Capri, Pompeii and Herculaneum, all of which we've "done" but we've never really seen any of Naples. The first part of our wander was pretty disappointing. Main roads, the Piazza del Plebiscito that is on all the tourist guides but which was largely out of bounds as it was being set up for a 3 night concert, and the Galleria Umberto I, an architecturally impressive but retail disappointing "mall".
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| Galleria Umberto I Impressive building, but a bit scabby |
We moved to Via Toledo which is the main shopping drag in Naples. It was a Saturday and the street was heaving, but interesting nonetheless with loads of side streets, cafes, shops, locals, but somewhere to keep you wits about you. We stopped towards the end for a coffee in a very low key street side cafe. The first thing they put on the table was an ashtray (neither of us smoke)! The coffee was great though.
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| There was a wedding going on in the church with the green roof! |
We went in a couple of churches, including one where there was a wedding in full swing, oblivious to the tourists flocking in and out of the church.
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| Typical Napoli street with Napoli and Maradonna flags everywhere |
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| Silent Disco in the Main Plaza |
After dinner and the obligatory show we stopped in the main ship Plaza by the martini bar where a silent disco was in full swing, although with everyone belting out the songs they were hearing in their headphones, it wasn't very silent!
Tomorrow beckons, and out last stop of the trip, Livorno.
As we woke we were pulling into the port of Livorno. Although got old part of the town is supposed to be quite pretty, it's not that big, although it's a massive shipping port. The main purpose of the stop was that it's the closest port to Pisa and Florence, and our excursion for the day was a trip to Pisa
It was about a 40 minute bus ride to Pisa. Our excursion was "Pisa by Trolley". This trend out to be one of those tractor pulled "land trains"! But first we had about an hour to ourselves for the main attraction, the leaning tower of Pisa.
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| The leaning tower of Pisa |
It's a fabulously impressive building (for a bell tower). We didn't have enough time to get tickets to climb up in (20 Euros), but took the obligatory photo of trying to hold it up as were the zillion other tourists in the square. Similarly the huge cathedral adjacent to the tower had a long queue so we didn't make it in there either.
The photo below shows the Baptistry next to the Cathedral, allegedly the biggest baptistry there is - a massive building just to baptise people!
After our time was up we boarded the "trolley" for our tour of Pisa, which was pretty underwhelming I'd say. Several people had said the only thing worth seeing in Pisa is the tower, cathedral and baptistry, and whilst that may be a bit harsh, I'd opine that a land train really isn't the best way to see the city.
Back on board the ship it was time to think about packing and our departure the following morning, but before then it was one last dinner, show and nightcap.
We'd booked a coach transfer to the airport direct with Celebrity - it seemed the sensible option, and we were off the ship just after 9am, and at the airport by not long after 10.30. Unfortunately our flight wasn't scheduled until almost 4pm, so we had some time to kill, so found somewhere to sit for a coffee and a bite to eat.
We met up with my golf buddy and his party in the airport, where they'd found their BA flight to Heathrow cancelled! They'd been told they'd be taken to a hotel overnight, then get a flight to Madrid at 6am the following morning before catching a second flight to Heathrow.
As it tuned out, our easyJet flight to Bristol was delayed by 90 minutes as well, but at least it went that night. Apparently it was all due to air traffic control issues.
We were through our front door by 9.30pm after another long day, but with some fabulous memories from a wonderful trip.
A few thoughts from our cruise:
Good things
- The crew. To a man and woman, they were superb. Friendly, helpful always smiling and nothing was ever too much trouble. We paid for gratuities up front, and believe me, the crew are worth it. We gave an extra tip to out stateroom attendant Putu, who was absolutely bloody brilliant.
- The quality of the food. Whilst I heard some moans over our 10 nights (there's always one or two people who are never satisfied) the choice and quality of what we ate was superb. There were plenty of options for drinks too, and plenty of different venues on board to try them in
- Our meal in the exclusive "Le Voyage" was excellent
- A special shout out to the Cruise Director Alejandro Tortorelli, who was so funny and made us laugh every time he was on stage, or giving a talk or on screen on the videos and live streams he did
I was underwhelmed by
- Having to pay an additional 20% gratuity charge whoever I got a drink about the "Classic" beverage tier having already paid for gratuities up front
- Having to pay $5 for a packet of crisps from your stateroom mini-bar. It just seems bizarre to do that when you can walk into a restaurant and stuff your face any time of the day
- Classic drinks package topping out at $10 per serving with (typically) a 330ml bottle of beer at $9 and a box standard wine at $10. To up to the "Premium" package would cost an extra $80 per person per day and everyone in the stateroom has to have the same package. I might get through some premium spirits (but whether an extra $80 worth a day is doubtful), but Mrs H is not a big drinker. Still, they have you by the short and curlies.
- Same with Wi-Fi. We got basic Wi-Fi in our base cost, but that's so limited you can't send or receive images etc so I paid an extra $96 for the 10 night cruise for the Premium package (for ONE device only. I tested the speed of this Premium service, and the best I could muster at any time was 4.6MBps. That's black to dial up speeds, so they must be raking in the profit on that
- Not having a "proper" balcony. That's our own fault. Should have check the various room types when booking
- Having electronic top to bottom blinds instead of curtains in our stateroom. Useless if you just want a quick peek - you have to open the blinds which are slow and noisier than curtains
Don't forget you can see all our trip photos here
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