Home – Lois and Clark Explorers

Not going to lie, walking around these cute towns is torture in this heat. Our last day we opted for renting a boat and visiting different towns and beaches. I love being on the water. The water here is so blue and beautiful. It was a little choppy but not enough to stop us. We had to rent 2 boats so we put all the kids in one and adults in the other. Two of the kids were 18 so technically there were adults on the boat with them.

We went to Porto Venere. It was a really cute town with a castle at the top of the hill. Believe it or not I made it to the top and then walked back down. After boarding our boats again, we stopped in a little cove and almost everyone jumped inn and swam a bit. Then the boat driver/owner bought everyone ice cream from the ice cream boat. Only the kids wanted ice cream. We went to another cove and again most everyone (literally meaning everyone but me) dove in and enjoyed the water. Such a fun day! We had to reboard the cruise ship early so we didn’t have much time for more. After boarding the ship we went to dinner int he main dining room, went to a Broadway Cabaret show which was fun. Then Leeman wanted us all to meet at the craps table. He insisted I throw the dice and apparently I made a lot of people happy. I actually throw 3 snake eyes–that’s two ones. It was nerve wracking when everyone at the table is wanting you to roll something good.

That pretty much sums up the day. Tomorrow we disembark and spend one day in Rome and then home the next day. Major photo dump coming soon.

We woke up refreshed and ready to go. Today we had to take a tender into port. The water was a little more choppy and getting into the tender was a little bouncy to say the least. It was also another scorcher of a day. We walked around and did some shopping with everyone then they left on a ferry to go to another area to go to a beach. We did not want to go to a beach because we are doing it tomorrow so we thought we would just go to Castle Brown. According to internet research it was a short walk-9 minutes, with a slight incline. I don’t know what an extreme incline is to them but this slight incline was pretty much straight up. I found a nice shady spot and told John to enjoy. I was ok living vicariously through John.

We hung out a bit and had a gelato but, there was no place to sit in the shade. It was super crowded, super hot, and super expensive shopping. We decided to head back to the ship. The water had gotten a little rougher and like an idiot I decided to sit up on top of the tender–thinking the fresh air would be good. Needless to say, there was fresh air but the tender moved so much more on top. And the guy driving our tender was moving so slow. I am usually fine if i am moving swiftly through the water but that wasn’t happening. Although I have a patch, I was getting a little motion sickness. We made it to the ship and I went and took a 2 hour nap. I went to the buffet with John but couldn’t find anything appealing. Ended up with a hamburger and fries but couldn’t eat much. By this time everyone else was coming back. We watched Christy’s tender come in but they were inside so we didn’t see them in it.

At 6:00 the Ventriloquist was performing in the Reflections Lounge so we went to see that. The girls joined us and then we left to get dinner. After dinner we went back to the Reflections Lounge with Loen and Bazlo and played the Musical Murder Mystery. It was a lot of fun and we didn’t win but then you had to know the name of songs and I am the worst person for that. Luckily there were a lot of oldies and John actually knew a lot of them. I decided to go back to the room and work on the blog and then get a good nights rest while John went to the theatre to listen to a pianist.

Tomorrow is our last stop. We will be in Florence and then the next day we disembark in Rome or near there.

We did not go to Amalfi, we stayed in Vietri sul Mare which is where the port is. Anyone who has seen a picture of the Amalfi Coast knows the towns are built on the sides of the mountains so it is very steep. We took a taxi to the top and then walked down. The town was really cute and there were lots of shops.

After some shopping we headed down to eat and go to the beach. This beach had sand which was so much better than the rocks. We had to rent 2 umbrellas and 4 chairs–no option on that. I did not wear a bathing suit so I just relaxed on the chair under an umbrella. Then we went across the street and got some pizza. And that was our day in Vietri sul Mare. We took a cab back to port and had dinner in the dining room again. I was exhausted and went to bed really early,

A day at sea means sleeping in and lounging around. We didn’t get up until 8:30. Went to the buffet for breakfast and then I went to our room for a bit and John went to the gym. Then we hung out by the pool for a while. John and I went to the theatre to see Karen Grainger. She has such an incredible voice. We had lunch at the buffet–all the shrimp you can eat. Christy and I did a scavenger hunt with the kids. That was a lot of fun. We came in second out of 2 teams.

After the scavenger hunt we went to dinner in the main dining room. They had lobster and beef wellington, roasted duck l’orange. Tonight was a special night as the guests cheered on their wait staff. They paraded throughout the restaurant as we waved our napkins. Our main waitress grabbed Sefina to parade with her. Amalia and Minki joined in. It was a lot of fun. We also played Deal No Deal and John won $5. in the casino. After dinner we played one spin and lost it all. Oh well. Leeman also bought us all a round at roulette and again we lost. Enough gambling for me and John we don’t like playing with money that way. We ended the night in the theatre watching a violinist. He was quite amazing.