Day 9 - Mediterranean Cruise - at Sea

Day 9 - Mediterranean Cruise - at Sea

We were sailing from Civitavecchia, Italy to Valencia, Spain and just water as far as you could see.

Oh yeah, it was Friday.  I'd lost track of things, days of the week, etc.  And because I wasn't able to get my laptop onto the internet package the sisters & I had bought, I went and found out how to get online for just a day.  My job needed me to figure something out or they'd NEVER let me go on a cruise again. :)

Job security, I guess!

But ever since this trip, I'm having to iron out all the issues and make some my client's systems email and text automatically if their systems get into any sort of jam that needs our immediate attention. 

This is actually a panoramic picture so it looks stupid, yet kind of cool!

Not a terrible plan at all!  But if I want to go on the next one in 1.5 years, I better get it done!  OR my boss said that I have to take the entire staff with me.  And not on THEIR dime. Well, THERE is incentive!!!  I'll have it done by next week!!!  Well, no chance of that, but I have 1.5 years to get it all fixed up and working right.

 ANYWAY!

GASP!!!  It's the jerk blue jacket guy from the ping pong story!

Look! Don't look! 

After breakfast, it was chilly out so Ruth Ann and I took the elevator downstairs and walked the length of the ship indoors to go back to our room.  Ken and Teresa always took the stairs. NOT for me!!

This was the first day we even walked through the casino!

Eh - I'm not a gambler.  But it looked exciting!

On the Bahamas cruise in 2019, the sisters and myself had gotten a tour below deck of the galley and then a complimentary meal at one of the fancy restaurants. :) So we signed up for a behind the scenes tour of the ship.

For the tour, we got special lanyards to prove we could be below deck and followed our guide.  While waiting for the rest of the group, he asked us if we could place his accent because he could tell we were from the U.S. from ours.  Wha..???  WE have an accent?!  I never noticed.

But we couldn't place his!

He was surprised that we couldn't and said, "I'm from Madagascar!!"  like OF COURSE!

hmm.  To be honest, he was the first person we ever met from Madagascar.  Not that the accent was going to help us anyway.

So he took us behind the stage of the super show that we saw earlier in the week.  A few of the performers were back there and gave little speeches about how they tried out for the part, how often they practice, etc.  Pretty fascinating!

Oh and no pictures were allowed, so this is all verbal.

One teen girl and her mom were on the tour too and the girl acted like she was NOT feeling well.  The stage dressing rooms are in deck 3ish in the very hull of the ship.  So we heard and felt every splash and crash from outside.  I wasn't feeling so hot either but thought, "I can DO this!"

The poor girl was sitting down on any available chairs or the floor during the little talks.  And since it's an international cruise, the tour guide had to tell everything in 5 different languages.  So if he spoke a lot in English, he also spoke a lot in French, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian.  Perhaps another.

After we got out of the dressing rooms, we went to the top of the auditorium to the sound system and Ken geeked out on all the equipment and had lots of questions for the man in charge of it.

While here, a young pregnant couple left the group.  I guess the wife wasn't feeling so great. I don't blame ya mama!  I sat on a step while another woman told of how she was hired and the jobs she did around the ship.  She was some sort of activity director, think, Julie from the Love Boat.  She told about how many times they have time free and most days after work, there are parties in the staff quarters.  Uh ya!  We heard you!!  

There was partying going on in the wee hours of the evenings and it sounded like right outside our door, but it was one floor down.  Apparently the staff quarters are on deck 4 and we'd just confirmed it with her.  Our room was on deck 5.

Back to the tour!  Our tour guide led us down even further into the bowels of the ship to the laundry room on deck 2. in. the. hull. of. the. ship.

It was really rocking and there was a stench that did NOT smell like laundry, dirty or clean.  Our guide said that when the sea is pretty rocky like today, you just smell that.  The laundry staff are used to it.

The teen turned a distinct color of green and she and her mom bowed out of the tour and got escorted back to the guest floors.

I hung onto a washing machine to keep my balance and my breakfast and listening to the guide talk in the 5 extra languages, when suddenly, 

NOPE.  I said I had to leave too!  The same guy led me back to the 5th floor and I found my way back to our cabin, laying down and just shutting my eyes.

About 10 minutes later, Teresa knocked on my door feeling a little green in the gills too.  She laid down on Ruth Ann's bed.

After a bit, I was feeling a little better and found a place to write a couple postcards out for family.

Just then Ruth Ann and the rest of the group walked past me!  Ken had gone off to find Teresa.  They were headed to the Shanghai restaurant for some free sushi samples and drinks!  Ruth Ann and I were the only ones from us four who had some.

At some point towards the end of the week, Ruth Ann broke our cabin safe!  Yes, I'm blaming you Ruth Ann!  Well, it wouldn't open and our passports and money were inside!  YIKES!  We were going to need those!

We went and got someone from customer service to come in and he fiddled with it for a good long time trying to get it open. He was from Madagascar and as luck would have it, so was the guy that did our tour that morning!  They didn't know each other.  This guy had a wife and kids back home and he worked for 6 months and sent his money home.  No expenses for him on the ship really. Room and board was free.  Then he'd be home for 1 month, then back on the ship for another 6.  Reading up on how much they make, it's a good deal!  But you are on duty 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

And then another guy came later to replace the safe. They DID get it open enough for us to get our important docs out.  We stuck them into Teresa and Ken's safe.

We saw a few performers in the buffet some days.  Hey!  Isn't that?!!...

Over the week, we visited the Shaker Lounge often.  The views off the back of the ship were so calming and it was a nice quiet place, most of the time.

They were showing a movie that afternoon, Bridget Jones - Mad about the Boy, in the Shaker Lounge, so we got there early so we could stake out the front chairs close to the screen.  Well, the hour before the movie, there was a presentation about a 3 month long cruise that would get to 25 countries!  Ruth Ann and I sat back and initially, Teresa and Ken did too, but it piqued their interest, so they sat down close to it and got to put their name in for a prize.  They won a bottle of champagne!

So Ken hung onto that and we enjoyed it that evening in the grand dining room!

The movie played and oh my goodness, I'd forgotten that her husband, Colin Firth, is dead at the very beginning.  I think I cried through the whole thing.  And a woman laughing at things at the same time as ugly crying is not pretty.

So since we weren't worn out from galivanting all over some foreign city, we actually got dressed up and went to dinner in the grand dining room!

AND got our picture taken professionally by the photography crew!

Back further Ken!

 

Nope - still further!

Back further please! Stand on their table if you have to!

Ooh - do it again, I'm making a face!

There.  That's good.

And a movie for the dancing part!  Ruth Ann and I were the only ones to join into the dance.

Kind of grainy! Sorry!!

End of Day 9!!  Tomorrow is Spain!

Day 8 - Mediterranean Cruise Rome - part 3

 Day 8 - Mediterranean Cruise Rome - part 3

From the Colosseum, we toyed with the idea of taking a taxi to Trevi fountain but the prices were exorbitant being so close to a huge tourist attraction, so we decided to walk.  On a map, it wasn't that far!

Oh in various places, a few guys loitering would say, "Hey!" to Ken and "I like your shoes!"  Did they all train under the same scammer guide book?!  He just kept walking.  And his shoes weren't THAT great...  LOL Just kidding Ken!  You have very nice shoes!  But their lines started becoming really obvious.

Like my lanyard?  I borrowed it from Leon for this trip!  Worked great.

And our journey went on, through tiny cobbled streets and past fascinating buildings.  

Once, we  met someone walking the opposite way saying that that way was closed off, you have to go back a block and around it.  At the time, we weren't sure they were telling the truth, but you have to trust someone and our feet were hurting.

Around every corner there was un farmacia but in this case, they switched it up with a City Pharm!

And we MADE it to the Trevi fountain!  

Wow were there a lot of people there!

If you want to get close to it for a picture, you have to give someone a couple euro but we didn't see anyone and you can always crop people out if you want!

It really is beautiful!

When I told my girls that we were going to visit Trevi fountain, they reminded me that Hilary Duff, aka Lizzie McGuire visited Trevi fountain in the Lizzie McGuire movie!  Oh yeah!!!  

So on the family slideshow version, I have the "Hey Now, This is what dreams are made of" song for the background.

We hadn't had lunch yet and being next to another tourist attraction, we decided to walk a few blocks and find a taxi elsewhere.  Along the way, we found a place to eat!!  Forget carbs!!  We're on VACATION!!  And we were TOTALLY walking it all off.

We also found a book store and I dashed in to find something totally in Italian for me to translate later!

I've gotten all of 5 pages into it and not sure if it's even something that I'll like.

Specchio D'Argento by Olivia Laing.  Published in Nov 2025.  So a totally new one!

Translates to The Silver Mirror and I THINK it's about the dark side of the hidden world of making movies in the 70s.  I might be purchasing a a different Italian book to translate instead but for now, I'm plugging away at it.

We found a taxi!!!

And as always, I'm snapping photos of bricks we'll never see again.

The taxi driver took us back to where the bus dropped us off.

And back at the bus station, we searched for a restroom.  FINALLY found one but thought it wasn't working.  You have to drop euro in to open the door to the general bathroom.  I think we finally waited until someone came out and then slipped in while the door was still open. :)  

Also got some snacks for the ride back to the ship.

And as we were pulling away from the stazione, I saw a pyramid!!!  So I took a quick shot.

Found out later, it was built in 18-23 BC and is a tomb for the magistrate Gaius Cestius.  It's one of Rome's best preserved ancient monuments!

Then the 1.5 hour drive back to the MSC Orchestra!

Where we ate in the buffet again and I got the little shrimps in Leon's honor, but they did NOT taste good.  Everything else was great!

End of day 8!  And while looking for some of the pictures for this one, came across several that should have been on the first several posts.  I'll go back and fix those later today, hopefully.

Day 8 - Mediterranean Cruise - Rome Part 2

 Day 8 - Mediterranean Cruise - Rome Part 2

Our guide brought us back to the Colosseum for our Underground Tour!  

Teresa and Ken

Ruth Ann and myself

And because we had bought tickets already and had a guide, we waltzed past all the people waiting in lines. HA!

The outer ring around the place reminded me a lot of the college stadium back home except less vendors selling beer.  You could imagine the ancient Romans walking through excited for whatever show, gladiator, hunting expeditions or ship battles (yes ship battles) were going on that day!

Although it sounds like they averaged one gladiator event a month.

The stairs leading up to various seats.  Our tour didn't go there though.

We stopped here for a minute getting a history lesson and looking both ways at places we could have gone as a Roman.

Straight ahead a cross had been built by an 18th century pope to honor the fallen Christians who were believed to have been killed here.

Then we went back to the outer ring to get to the underground stairs.

Check out all the pocks and dings on the walls!  Either from wars or ornaments being torn off over the last 2000 years.

Down the stairs and now in the underground, this is one of the last intact halls where the gladiators would come to get upstairs to the fight.  The screen played a short video on what it may have looked like for the gladiator and any other entourage that might have accompanied him.  Very well done reenactment! I may need to watch the movie Gladiator now.

Lots of information about the gladiators and the animals they fought. It wasn't just all lions and tigers, there were bears, ostriches and just a ton of other animals involved.  Not all necessarily with gladiators, sometimes just each other and hunting parties.  And there may have been women gladiators but not all historians believe that.

He explained what vestal virgins were and that they were highly revered.  If one of them snuck away and failed to keep their vow of chastity, instead of feeding them to the lions in front of people, they walled them up into the wall with food and water and left them to die.  Yikes!  They thought that the vestal virgins were sacred and their blood should not be shed. 

Below, some ancient prisoner had documented the happenings on a stone.  How's THAT for morale?!

Way down the hall from our guide, there is a wooden elevator, invented by the Romans, to raise a wild animal to the stadium floor.  At the top, it could go in any direction so that the audience and gladiator would never know which direction it would be coming from.  

The wooden structure, of course, was recreated from historic information that was discovered.

Then the real underground, where all the prisoners were kept.  

A lot has degraded but some of the areas are intact.

Below is the water cistern area.  When the Emperor wanted a ship battle, the stadium floor was removed and the underground and basin area was filled with water from these pipes.  Then they brought in scaled down versions of battle ships and the crowds were entertained by ship battles!  Crazy!!  It was difficult to understand during the tour but I read up on it since. 

These halls were where the prison cells all branched off from.

I can't imagine how dark and dank they must have been.

He explained that the animals, like lions, would be kept in the cell on the top and the prisoner would be in the cell immediately below the lion.  The lion's floor was slanted in such a way that the feces and urine of the animal would run down onto the prisoner.  Yech!  If they had any hope to begin with, that would crush it even more.  Oh and the prisoner's cell is just short enough they couldn't stand up.

Or maybe they were all shorter back then.  But I don't think so!

The people above are most likely wondering how we lucked out with a tour like this! HA!

But then we were those people later when we got to explore up there too so maybe they went on the tour earlier. Who knows?!

Then some halls leading down to more information 

in little museums.

And even though I was totally prepared to translate this for everyone, it was already translated on the bottom half. Darn.  My work here is done.

In the drainage area of the Colosseum, they found animal remains of various types of animals used in the fights and hunting fights.  In addition to the exotic animals, they used local domestic animals like bulls, oxen, horses and dogs.  Then local wild ones like bears, wolves and wild boars.

Then we were up in the sun again and got to explore all around the arena.

We had to get pics in front of it and it's been my profile pic on FB for a while now.

The white seats area has been rebuilt a bit and shows how people would sit for a show.  I doubt they had bleacher seats to protect their backs.  I would have died!  Well, not IN the arena, just from the back pain.

Here is another view of that cross from the arena side.

And we thought it was great that the Colosseum is protected by this cat!  It looked pretty regal sitting there like "Get OUT of my home! you common ilk!"

My gang!

Then we went to the upper levels and found another museum with a cross section of the Colosseum.

The stairs we had to climb to get there.

A miniature model of the whole thing!

And check this out!  The stadium was initially built with retractable awnings to protect the viewers from rain, but even with these detailed pictures, no one has truly been able to explain how they did it.

and a final look at one of the seven wonders of the world.

I guess I can knock THAT off my list!

OOF!  There's more to Rome for us, so stay tuned for part 3.