Northrup Family European Adventure

The first thing I learned is that it's easy to get off the boat early when it returns to home port. We said our goodbyes at our favorite spot on the ship for breakfast, the stern. I won't bore you with the usual my-plane-was-delayed stories. But suffice it to say we didn't get to sleep in Lisbon until Midnight. Tomorrow we fly to Boston and home. Yay!!

You might think that "sea days" might be boring; not with my grandkids. The day started out with a two hour, behind the scenes tour of the ship. Here's the bridge.  This ship has an interesting feature on the bridge. It has an overhang on both sides to view the side of the ship for docking. That section even has a glass floor to allow total vision of that side of the ship. There's a matching overhang on the starboard side. This picture shows that overhang and our French tour guide, Baptiste. From the bridge we went to the engine room. I was shocked to learn that the power for the ships engines came from 2 gas turbines, not diesel engines. Here's a screen they use to monitor the ships air-conditioning. It actually shows they only have 3 working chiller with one being off-line. The Engine room has about 20 similar screens. From the Engine Room we toured the Kitchen. We noticed that they post a picture of each meal on the menu to have a consistent offering. After the...

Scott rented a van in port and we drove to Mount Olympus to see the site of the early Olympics. We were the first off the boat in hopes of beating the crowds. And although it was extremely hot, we did beat the crowds. Although it also helped that we were the only cruise ship in port today. Here's one of the entrances to the ancient stadium. In it's day it held 45000 people. Just for fun the family did a foot race. I didn't run because it was just too darn hot.  From there we stopped for an authentic Greek lunch and went on to Klio's Bee Farm. Klio is a marketing genius. She and her family offer free treats and the opportunity to buy her honey and honey products. Here she is showing a bee hive and how the honey is extracted.

We took an excursion to Athens and the Parthenon. It was very hot and we dressed for that. Even though it was a week-day morning, the traffic was awful.  When we finally got to the Parthenon, we were greeted by thousands of new friends.. and after we got through the ticket line, we met more new friends. I swear, I will never visit a major site again in peak season. The best part of our day was Brian's preparation as a tour guide. Our regular guide was impressed enough to let him share her mic. But all in all, it was an experience I would not have missed. We came back to a great dinner with lots of shared memories. And a beautiful sunset.

Mykonos was much easier to see. It was just a short water taxi ride from the ship.  The town was easy to stroll around and there was a convenient, albeit crowded beach right there. Just for fun, I dipped my feet in the water. From there we proceeded to the obligatory shopping in some picturesque streets. I am amazed at how they even paint the mortar between the flagstones white. After shopping we returned to the ship for a little R&R. As a family, our evening dinners together give us all chance to share stories of our daily adventures. The waiters do their best to cater to our needs and entertain us. Here's Katya and Molly playing with a rose the waiter made from a napkin. This prompted the need for an all-cousins photo.  

Today was our first experience with a shore excursion in a crowded environment. Santorini is a beautiful Greek island with a harbor in the center of an extinct volcano. But what happens if all the cruise ships converge on it? It will take an hour to go from your ship to the dock. While on the tender en route to the dock, it can get as little choppy. We noticed that tourists would rather have barf bags than maps. Who could blame them?  All the little towns on Santorini are on top of the island. That makes getting from the dock to town a bit of an uphill climb.. Your choices are these stairs, a cable car (which usually has a long wait on busy days), a donkey or taking the tender to a further dock where you can catch a bus. We opted for the latter. It sounds smart on surface until you realize that you to wait over an hour for that special tender. We finally grabbed our bus and headed for the ancient archeological site of Akrotiri. Some recently unearthed sections of this site are over...