Day 8 – Wednesday
Got up around 7 or so, and as is usual practice by now we went to the deck to get breakfast… The breakfast menu on this cruise is great… bagels and lox, all kinds of normal breakfast stuff, and lots of unusual breakfast items that make it different enough every day to keep it interesting… Anyway, we got on the bus to Ephesus, and arrived 30 minutes later or so… I was expecting the worst, since our guide from yesterday told us that it would be blistering hot and much worse than the yesterday… but when we got out of the bus, it really wasn’t that bad, especially in the shade… The other nice thing was that the bus drove to the top of the hill, instead of us having to climb yet another hill to see the tour…
Day 7 – Tuesday
Started the day (as has become usual…) with a nice breakfast, and then got ready to go on the excursion of the day, to Rhodes. Which by the way is properly pronounced Rhodos, according to our guide of the day, who spent about 5 minutes explaining that once we got on the bus and on the way to Lindos, the site of the Acropolis… It was about a half hour ride or so, which wasn’t that bad, other than the fact that it got a bit tiresome listening to our guide mangle english grammar… At least he was informative and somewhat entertaining, but it’s really hard to listen to someone getting the right words in the wrong position in sentences over and over again… Anyway, we got there and when we got off the bus, bam… Much, much, much hotter than the day before or any other day before for that matter… I think that the driver at one point said 111 degrees, and it was also as humid as any of the previous days… what a wonderful way to start the day…
Day 6 – Monday
Got up at usual time (7am) for breakfast with Ann… Went back to the cabin and relaxed a bit before a meeting with Phil C around 10:30 or so… after a good conversation and meeting with Phil, Ann and I met and she wanted to go to the beach at Crete, which was only a half mile or so from the dock… Have to mention that this was the first day that we actually docked and walked off of the ship instead of boarding a tender every time to get to shore… and apparently from now on we will be docked every day… :)
Day 5 – Sunday
Got up in the morning and had a short breakfast meeting with a few of the Cooper guys… Ann had breakfast in the room… One of the great things on this ship is that not only do you never pay for anything (other than the cigar that got, although the Remy Martin cognac that I got with it was no charge…) but you can get it with room service any time during the day… And another thing that surprised me… When we stayed at the Athens Hilton, I checked the cleaning rates for shirts and slacks, and shirts were 12 euro and slacks were 15 euro (which is around $18 and $23 or so) which didn’t surprise me since most hotels jack up the profit margins on things like that… On the Regent, not only were the prices lower than in Lancaster ($3.
Day 4 – Saturday
Started off Saturday morning with a nice breakfast at the ship’s top deck restaurant, La Veranda. I had a Cooper meeting to go to, and we were going to go to Delos in the morning, but right after we got back from breakfast and as I was ready to go to the meeting, the captain came over the intercom and proceeded to tell us that the morning excursions were going to be delayed since the sea was very choppy and they had to move the boat to an area that was more suitable for the boats to take us ashore.
Day Three – Friday
Decent night sleep, and then up for breakfast at the hotel… After which my lovely wife informed me that even though she took almost an hour to choose and try on sandals the day before, the pair that she bought for her daughter were:
Too Small Two Different Sizes Now I’m not really sure how either (or both) of these could be missed, but whatever… Then I was informed that we had to go back and return them, meaning another 3 mile walk on a morning that I was hoping to do nothing before going to the ship.
Day Two – Thursday
We had decided to meet up with Mike and Robin in the morning to get some breakfast, and then do a bus tour of Athens. The tour sounded (and turned out to be…) like a great idea, since you could get on and off as many times as you liked, and it took us to the Acropolis and also out to the Port of Piraus. The Acropolis was a long hike up to the top (where the Parthanon was…) and it was around 100 degrees, but seeing structures that are around 2500-3000 years old was worth it… Actually, the heat wasn’t that bad, since the humidity is pretty low… in the shade it is almost always tolerable even in the middle of the day… However, on the top of the Acropolis hill, there isn’t any shade, so it was just wicked hot… It was more impressive seeing the structures than I thought it would be… I’ve seen them in books, on Discovery, History Channel, etc.
Day One – Wednesday
(Ok, it really started on Tuesday, so call it Day .5 and then Day One…)
Everything started out great. Harrisburg International Airport is absolutely my favorite place to fly out of. In fact, I have (lately) and always will do everything I can to use it as a starting point for any air travel. Arrived at 10:50, and by 11:05 had our check-on bags processed, boarding passes in hand, and processed through security.
I never get around to writing much of anything, so I decided that I might as well blog about the cruise that Ann and I will be going on to the Greek Isles, courtesy of Cooper Tire.
We will be leaving on August 2nd, and returning on the 12th (or something like that… I never seem to remember the details…) Hopefully I will be able to put down at least some of what we get to see and do over the next few days… And hopefully if you are reading this you will find it at least somewhat interesting… And if not, don’t read any more…
