Our Itinirary

     Our itinerary will take us first with a drive to the Crown Plaza in Miami. After a relaxing evening,  we leave the next day at five in the evening on American Airlines to Madrid, Spain. We then transfer to an Iberia flight to Venice, Italy landing at the Marco Polo Airport.  Our hotel is  ten kilometers from the air port.  We will be in Venice for two days at the Bascolo Bellini hotel.  The extra days will give us a chance to see Venice at night and to dine at a fine Italian restaurant.   We plan to take a gondola ride on the Grand Canal, go to St Mark's Basilica and spend time in the square to feed the pigeons! 

    A must on my list is also to visit the market where I want to buy some Venetian masks for my mask collection.  We will be staying near the Santa Lucia railway station.  So we are planning to take a day trip to Verona to see Juliet's Balcony and other sites in Verona.

 On Sunday we will embark on the Sunshine Cruise ship at two in the afternoon.  After spending the evening on the ship we still have the morning to roam around Venice before leaving to our voyage.

     Our first port of call will be Dubrovnik, Croatia where we plan to take the tram up to the mountains as well as walk through the old city walls.  Then we will be at Sea for a day as we sail to Messina.  While on board we plan to the try out all the water slides and the Sky Course.  We will also have lots of time to explore the ship and look at all the renovations that make the ship unique.
    On the morning of June 20th we will arrive at Messina, Sicily where we plan to go to the Taormina and explore the town.  We then sail to Naples where we plan to take a ferry to Sorento and train to Pompeii in the morning the take trip to the Amalphi Coast.  This will be a long day arriving back at the ship by seven in the evening.
     We will have another day at sea on the 22nd and then arrive at Livorno Italy to take a train to Florence. There will be much to see there as we plan to spend the day taking in the masterpieces of Michelangelo.  We will then go to the port of  Civitavecchia and train to Rome where we plan to do the hop on hop off bus to view the ruins of Rome.  Then we hope to go to the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel.  Our next stop will be the island of Sardinia where we plan to check out the windsurfing action as well as some bike hiking.  The following day we will be in Monte Carlo, Monaco.  There will be lots to see including the gardens and casinos.  This will give me a chance to try out my French when we go to a restaurant and do some shopping!
     A welcome visit to the island of Palma de Malorca will allow me to speak Spanish as we explore the beach, restaurants and more shopping.  Our last port of call where we will disembark is Bacelona, Spain.  We plan to be there for a few days as we will stay in the hotel from June 28 to the 30th.  Since I went to Barcelona last year, I plan to show John all the sights: the Ramblas mall, the tapa bars, a flamenco show, the Park Guell, the Sagrada Familia Cathedral, and take a train to the Monserrat monastery.  John wants to visit the nude beaches and go on a catamaran ride.  I'm sure there will be time for that too!

     During our sail many of our stops will be a day long, so we are doing some intense research to maximise the experience with in the time limit.  It will be like "Cliff Notes" take in the sights on a budget of time. Now is the time to do our research and get excursions.  We are on the internet daily getting more excited as the days draw near to our departure.  We can't wait!

50th Anniverary Mediterranian Cruise

     We are ready to embark on our new adventure this summer. We decided that since June will be our fiftieth wedding anniversary, we would take a Mediterranean cruise around Italy ending in Barcelona. After many days of surfing  on the web, John found a perfect cruise that would satisfy our quest for dipping into the Italian peninsula.  He found that the Carnival Cruise Lines was presenting a great deal on the refurbished carnival Sunshine.  He looked into it and found that it would be a great adventure with an element of risk and the potential to explore great ports of call.  The risk comes from the recent problems that Carnival is having with its cruise ships, and the possibilities of risk with a new furbished ship may spark another mystery novel in my wild imagination.
     The ship first set sail in 1995 under the name Destiny.  After seventeen years of service it sailed into dry dock in northern Italy.  For the next forty-nine days it sat in the Fincantieri ship yard near Venice to get a complete face lift and organ transplant! Three thousand people from all over the world came together for this transformation.  One thousand workers and two thousand contractors lived together on a cruise ship docked in an adjacent slip.  They worked day and night to refurbish the ship.  State rooms were remodeled and some were added in module form. The Lido deck added more restaurants remodeling the Italian, Asian, Latin restaurants and added a state of the art steak house.  The show lounge  is one of the biggest changes making it possible for use all day and night with the game shows going on during the day, the shows in the evening, and then the night club  and disco evolving into play until the wee hours of the night.  The show lounge has added huge LED screens for lighting and visual effects that will add excitement to the performances.  We can't wait for this delight!
    Since we are still kids in spirit, we are going to also make use of the sports activities outside.  The ship has a sky course similar to the Tree UMPH three miles east of our home in Florida.  The system has suspended walkways that people maneuver as they cross walking on ropes, logs, nets and slide down on zip lines.  There is no fear of falling since you are tethered to the top line at all times.  This new ship will also have a water park with water slides that snake around the deck measuring three New York City blocks!  A pair of slides called, The Race Track, is fifty feet high and two sliders take off at the same time and slide down parallel slides racing to the finish line.  Now that will be fun and a nice science experiment to find out who wins:  a  one hundred pound female or a one hundred-sixty pound male????
     We selected a state room with a balcony above the Serenity Lounge.  This is an area for adults only with its own pool and spa.    This whole section was lifted onto the ship with the huge crane just like the top layer of a cake.  Our room on the eleventh floor will be quite different from our "honeymoon suite"  three decks below the main deck on the last voyage of the Lurline.  Fifty years ago I got the choice of top or bottom bunk.  I chose the top because I didn't want my lover-husband falling on me in the middle of the night! Thinking about that time now seems like a blur filled with champagne, sea sickness and all... With the passage of time the only remembrance is a black and white photo taken of us winning the costume contest dressed as Anthony and Cleopatra.  We were both look trim and young with stars still shining in our eyes!
   Out next adventure on a ship was the brief week of working on a ship.  We entertained the thought of working on a ship and traveling all over the world.  Since we were in between jobs, we joined the ship as personal trainers in the gym which was right up our alley.  Well, being a worker is not all its cracked out to be, and we decided it was not for us.  The experience did give me an incentive to write a mystery the novel, "Cruise of Deception,"  which launched a new literary career that is still unfolding .  Who knows maybe this will be anew adventure that will spark a fresh idea for another novel!