{"id":42631,"date":"2016-09-16T23:54:45","date_gmt":"2016-09-17T03:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42631"},"modified":"2020-07-23T23:55:14","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T03:55:14","slug":"thoughts-on-europe-and-cruising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42631","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Europe and cruising"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Admittedly, I thought I\u2019d be way worse off coming back from Europe after basically a two-week vacation.\u00a0 Sure, the 22-hour trek that saw two layovers in New York and Detroit before getting back to Atlanta was pretty tiring, but I didn\u2019t have that much difficulty in not <\/em>using my recovery day, and instead returning to work immediately the next day.\u00a0 Frankly, after two weeks unpaid, it seemed like the smart thing to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

So Europe.\u00a0 So cruise.\u00a0 Long story short is that the vacation was pretty good, and I had a good time traversing various cities in Italy, and my first cruise ever was pretty enjoyable overall.\u00a0 Maybe not as much relaxation as I\u2019d hoped to have gotten, but I was able to sleep in for a few mornings, and those were quite pleasant.\u00a0 Alternatively, there were a lot of mornings that were on the schedules of either shore excursions or travel deadlines, leading to some jam-packed agendas at times too.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the things learned about planning a destination vacation as such, is that in the future, shelling out a little bit of cash in order to have some travel insurance might not be such a bad idea.\u00a0 Mythical gf and I got a pretty decent flight to Europe, but it was pockmarked with several layovers both to-and-from the states, and in the months approaching our trip, there were at least more than one deal that showed up with fewer layovers at a comparable price that made us come to the conclusion that perhaps there is some merit to timing.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Or we could have just taken Turkish Airlines, whom in light of their newness in Atlanta combined with how much they needed to build trust after the incidents in Istanbul, probably would have been on their best behavior at a cheaper cost.\u00a0 Que sera, sera.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, with long layovers in New York and Paris, we saw opportunities for enjoyment instead of dread at airports, and in both cities, we capitalized on leaving the respective airports and going out into the cities for some food and train-riding.\u00a0 Neither really changed much from adding to the accumulating hours of not actually getting to rest, but it\u2019s safe to say we made the best of our time instead of sitting miserably in airport terminals.<\/span><\/p>\n

**<\/span><\/p>\n

British Airways succeeded in getting on my shit list going to Europe through terribly inaccurate information, leading to some unnecessary and very avoidable anxiety.\u00a0 Long story short, imagine not knowing if your luggage was going to be at your final destination in another country, and if it wasn\u2019t, knowing that short of the use of a fucking helicopter, there was no way to get it delivered to you once recovered.\u00a0 Fortunately, the worse case scenario did not come to fruition, but my formal complaint with them has been documented and is in discussion now.<\/span><\/p>\n

So Italy; despite the fact that we spent two total overnights in Milan<\/strong>, I can\u2019t really say that we actually were in Milan.\u00a0 We were there for a night before the cruise and the night prior to our flight back to the States, and we arrived at times in which we didn\u2019t actually get out into the city, save for one walk through downtown Milan on the way to a hotel.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure Milan is a beautiful city, and there\u2019s a Google Map full of markers of restaurants that I\u2019d loved to have been able to have tried, but it was not simply in the cards, that we would actually get to see much of Milan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trains, throughout Italy, and pretty much the rest of Europe, are an admirable form of long-distance travel.\u00a0\u00a0 Sure, they\u2019re a little bit slower than airplanes, but in most cases, they\u2019re also a substantial reduction in cost to their airborne counterparts, while being way more efficient than automobiles.\u00a0 However, one niggling detail about the process that grew grating with each transfer or rushed instance, was that it\u2019s obnoxious how the platform for your trains aren\u2019t really ever announced until like, ten minutes prior to the departure of said trains.\u00a0 Like, our train scheduled to leave at 9:05 a.m., the platform isn\u2019t announced until 8:56 a.m., and when it is, it\u2019s platform 3, while we\u2019re waiting at the big board of arrivals\/departures, which sits at platform 21.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no such thing as leisurely getting on a train.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not so bad once your body cools down from the sub-par air conditioning and you\u2019re on your way to your destination.<\/span><\/p>\n

Venice, <\/em><\/strong>was a place that I definitely wished some more time was spent, but between checking in to our cruise, and the early train out upon our return meant that what little time we spent in the land of waterways and gondolas, was all we had.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it was still really cool to be there, as short as it was.\u00a0 It\u2019s a city that\u2019s entirely possible to walk throughout all of it in a day if your feet and stamina are good, with genuinely unique architecture and atmosphere that is distinctly individual.\u00a0 Like, you can visit cities like New York, Paris and Milan and they all feel like the same kind of metropolitan city environments, but if you stand in Venice, looking at Spanish tile roofed buildings, a waterway instead of an asphalt street, with a gondolier boating by, you know exactly where you are.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Venice is crawling with tourists, and it was the first of many places where my general morale would get chipped away by the thousands of rude tourists with no spatial awareness who just have to bump into me, my backpack, or be waving their selfie-sticks around like a fucking fencer.\u00a0 This would be a common occurrence throughout the entire vacation, where at my most exasperated, I\u2019d wish for a future vacation that\u2019s secluded and devoid of fellow tourists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Admittedly, the cruising experience is something that I think benefits those who have accumulated experience and have done it before.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t imagine it would be as simple as just walking up a ramp, and bam, the cruise begins, but I also didn\u2019t imagine that the check-in process was a multi-hour affair full of lines, security checkpoints, more lines and more checks.\u00a0 By the time we set foot on the ship, it was a surreal moment of realizing that we had our freedom again.<\/span><\/p>\n

Considering we had gone the span of the last 72 hours with maybe like 12 hours of sleep, once all the on-board safety checks were completed, our luggage secured and dinner eaten, with said freedom we did the one thing we wanted more than anything: actually sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Dubrovnik<\/strong>, was the first stop on the cruise.\u00a0 Admittedly, Croatia was a place that I never gave any thought of visiting in my entire life.\u00a0 Whenever I thought of Croatia, I thought of either former Chicago Bulls forward Toni Kukoc<\/a>, or how the name sounds like \u201cCroatoan<\/a>\u201d the word carved into the tree during the mysterious disappearance of the Roanoke colony in the 1500s.\u00a0 But, Dubrovnik is the city in which much of Game of Thrones<\/em> is filmed in, and with a specific GoT tour planned, it was one of the places that I was looking forward to immensely.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aside from the GoT nerding out while in Dubrovnik, seeing shit like Kings Landing<\/a> and the House of the Undying<\/a> I would have to say that the city itself was an extremely pleasant surprise.\u00a0 It\u2019s a beautiful coastal city full of some very foreign (to me) looking architecture, and gives me the feeling I aspire to feel on foreign travel, that I\u2019m actually in another country.\u00a0 The views are great, wandering around in what little time we had was enjoyable, and their weak currency made it very favorable to capitalize on dirt-cheap but fantastic local seafood.<\/span><\/p>\n

I never would have guessed Dubrovnik to be this great, and by the time we were herded back onto the ship, it was agreed that Dubrovnik was the kind of place where several days could easily be spent and enjoyed.<\/span><\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

One of the destinations on the cruise that drew a little apprehension from mythical gf and I, was that of the scheduled stop in Kusadasi<\/strong>, Turkey.\u00a0 Sure, Kusadasi is a considerable distance from both Istanbul and Izmir, two cities hit in terrorist attacks, but Turkey itself was still a country ravaged by civil unrest, with most notably the failed coup which resulted in turncoats getting publicly beaten to death among other consequences.<\/span><\/p>\n

Initially, I would have preferred if Royal Caribbean withdrew from Turkey, as competing cruise lines like Norwegian and Viking already had, and given us some money back, or cobbled together an extra day in Croatia or Greece alternatively.\u00a0 But neither came to fruition, we soldered on to Turkey, and the answer became very obvious once the tour began: Royal Caribbean owns a large portion of the Turkish port businesses.\u00a0 Pulling out of Turkey not only hurts Turkish economy, but their own bottom line.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the end, everything was fine.\u00a0 At no point did we ever feel unsafe on the tour through Ephesus or when we had our own time to wander around Kusadasi bazaars.\u00a0 Ancient Ephesus was an interesting walk through back in time, and haggling with shopkeepers in Kusadasi was a fun experience, especially when you can laugh in peoples\u2019 faces and then get something down from 170 Turkish lyra down to like 40 (although I probably still got ripped off).<\/span><\/p>\n

Honestly, Turkey wasn\u2019t so bad, at least in Kusadasi.\u00a0 It\u2019s no secret that their economy is suffering, as they\u2019re a region dependent on tourism, and with current events making people shy away from the country as a whole, they\u2019re feeling the squeeze.\u00a0 But there\u2019s always something admirable and respectable when you wander around a city, and damn near everywhere, are Turkish flags being waved all over the place, from patios, balconies, rooftops and everywhere flags could be adorned.\u00a0 It\u2019s like it\u2019s a city of determined citizens, unafraid to fly their colors in light of civil unrest.<\/span><\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Santorini,<\/strong> Greece, was the third stop on the cruise, and one that mythical gf was looking forward to the most.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t really know much about the place, other than that they were the place where the most beautiful views supposedly were.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t keen on the 6:30 a.m. wakeup necessary to make a 7:00 a.m. arrival time, but it made itself apparent why such measures are taken; because Santorini is a place where an atom bomb full of tourists is dropped on seemingly a regular basis. \u00a0On the day in which we stopped there, supposedly 1-4 other cruise liners were doing similarly, and it was never long anywhere before a tangled mess of humanity would snarl the narrow alleys and walkways of Oia and Fira.<\/span><\/p>\n

As advertised, walking around both Oia and Fira, Santorini really does deliver breathtaking views of cliff-top city views and the Adriatic Sea.\u00a0 One doesn\u2019t have to try very hard to get a picturesque view that would rival that of a postcard, and even the most amateur of photographers could probably get a shot worthy of boasting about.\u00a0 The two wineries visited in Santorini were enjoyable, and I\u2019m not even a wine person, but was still able to find enjoyment in the experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike the excursions in Croatia and Turkey, we were given a pretty generous amount of time in Santorini, from where the last scheduled tour event happened, to when we needed to be back on the ship.\u00a0 But as I\u2019ve learned, no scheduling is coincidental or deliberate, and as is often time the case when it comes to cruising, finer details are left murky, or in this case, simply unspoken.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once freed from the tour group, mythical gf and I attempted to go on a wine tasting, scheduled independently from the cruise line.\u00a0 But apparently, the entire island of Santorini has like, five taxis, and at any given time, all five of them are stuck on the beach areas, and nowhere near Fira, one of the more central towns on the island.\u00a0 Needless to say, one of our five hours were burned, simply waiting in a long line to get a cab, but at least we made it to our tasting.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, with three hours left and back in Fira, we thought we would be able to leisurely enjoy a little bit of time before taking the fun-sounding cable carts back to port where we would leisurely ferry back to the ship and cruise romantically off into the distance.\u00a0 But then we ran into a massive wall of humanity, and upon verification, our fears were confirmed: it was the line for the cable cart.\u00a0 The estimated wait time was nearly two hours, which was pretty much about as much time we had left to get onto the ship.\u00a0 Our options were:<\/span><\/p>\n