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Europe Trip Day 6

Day 6 of the trip brought us to our first port-of-call- Malta. Malta is an island country located south of Italy and north of Tunisia. This country actually has a large strip of good beaches and is thus a popular holiday destination for British package tours. We docked in the capitol city of Valletta, an old medieval fortress city with an excellent protected harbour. Malta has an interesting history involving the famous Knights of Malta and the Crusades but you will have to read about it elsewhere. A favorite memory of mine from this trip comes from Valletta and is seen in the photo above. It's some of the local cats waiting for their dinner to come in! So cute!

We Interrupt This Program

Boy am I pissed! After 19 years of business including the last 5 years with me, the Mouse is closing down Pleasure Island. September 27th is the final night and after that who knows. Disney says guest surveys say more shops and restaurants are needed! No one believes that. Everyone I see out there is in disbelief and everyone is asking where am I going to go on Saturday nights? I'm working on that and hope to have an answer for everyone soon. In the meanwhile there is at least one petition going around that has over 6000 signatures on it, there are Facebook and MySpace entries for "Save Pleasure Island" and there even is an internet radio station devoted to the subject. The masses are organizing!

Europe Trip Day 5

Our first full day on the ship was actually a "day at sea" which meant it was a good opportunity to explore the ship. People always ask me which cruise line is the best and my standard answer is that of the mainstream cruise lines, they're all about the same. In other words, Royal Caribbean = Carnival = Norwegian = Princess. But I'm a growing fan of Norwegian (NCL) and their Freestyle Cruising concept. The ship was awesome and one of my favorite locales was the Bliss Ultra Lounge located on Deck 7 aft. This place is a dance club at night but also serves as a bowling alley both day and night. It proved to be a popular place. And I loved the waitress outfits: by day black flare leg pants with slits at the bottom worn with a black miniskirt over the pants; by night only the miniskirts with tall black boots. :)

Europe Trip Day 3 & 4

Day 3 means Barcelona and what a great city it is. Madrid is the more-famous Spanish city and it is a great city too. But where Madrid is old and stately, Barcelona is hip and happening. The pictures in the article were taken on Barcelona's famous pedestrian street, La Rambla (Catalan) / Las Ramblas (Spanish). There are newsstands and outdoor restaurants to enjoy, but what makes it fun are the numerous people trying to make a buck (actually, a Euro) or two posing as something. My favorite is the guy on the commode. Yes, these are real people, not statutes. So Barcelona was a day of rambling around, shopping along the Passage de Gracia and getting excited about the upcoming cruise.

Day 4 was boarding day. I'm a fan of public transportation and the route from the hotel out by the airport to our ship was as follows: 1) Hotel shuttle from hotel to airport train station. 2) RENFE airport train (shown) from airport to Barcelona Sants Station. 3) Metro from Sants to the Columbus statue. 4) Port bus from Columbus statue to the ship. Quite easy.

Europe Trip - Day 1 & 2

Over the next week or so I'll tell a bit about my latest adventures in Europe. It was a great trip that flew by way too fast. Day 1 was spent riding airplanes while Day 2 was spent in Paris and ended in Barcelona.

During the November trip I flew Virgin Atlantic to London. Virgin is supposed to be the young, hip airline but I wasn't overly impressed. This trip was booked on Delta and I have to give them high marks for their international coach service. Sure it's as cramped as any other economy section but they won me over with the entertainment system. Like most airlines they have "seat back video" installed. The difference is the shear volume of choices that are included for FREE. There were at least 10 television show episodes to watch, at least 20 movie choices in a variety of languages, about 20 airline music channels and dozens of CD's to listen to. (Including a techno channel called Hot Dance that had at least 10 dance/techno albums to choose from!)

We left another beautiful day in Orlando for a rainy connection in Atlanta. Fortunately there were no delays and we were soon on our way to Paris. Avoiding jet lag east bound requires that you get at least 3 hours of sleep and I was able to accomplish that goal on the overnight flight. Morning brought cloudy skies over the eastern Atlantic and western France but about 30 minutes before landing we suddenly went into the clear. There was a great view of the City of Lights as we began the descent into Charles DeGaulle Airport.

Our luggage was checked through to Barcelona and I booked the trip with an all-day layover. This allowed for a trip into the city which we accomplished via the RER train which runs from the basement of the airport directly into Paris. First stop of course was the Tour Eifel (Eifel Tower). The beautiful morning allowed for awesome views in all directions of the city. Then there was the long walk to the Arc de Triomphe, lunch along the Champs Elysses, a bus to the department store Printemps and then the long trek back out to the airport. (BTW, the shopping quality out at the airport was quite poor. No telling how much money is lost by not having better options.) The evening ended with an Air France connecting flight down to Barcelona. The flying time is not much more than an hour and including great view of the still-snowy Pyrenees mountains, the valley that includes the tiny country of Andorra (where I had visited a few years ago by car) and the approach into Barcelona along the Costa Brava sea coast.

Overall we didn't really enjoy Paris but it probably had more to do with being tired from the overnight flight than anything else. But the Weather Channel had predicted a rainy day there before we left Florida so to end up with a nice day made the stopover worthwhile.

My Ship Came In

I forgot to mention that my hotel window faced directly west and gave me a great view of the Hudson River with New Jersey behind it. Norwegian Cruise Line's dock was also directly west and Friday Norwegian Spirit was docked there all day. Well what pulls in to dock on Saturday morning? It's none other than Norwegian Gem, the very ship I am cruising on next month out of Barcelona! What a coincidence.

My review of the NCL Cruise Guide shows the ship just had come in from a 7-night cruise to Florida and the Bahamas and was headed out that night for a 15-night transatlantic cruise to Barcelona. I'll be boarding her on May 18th!