Our Greek Isles Adventure Begins!
Nate and I recently returned from a 10 day Greek isles cruise onboard the Royal Caribbean Jewel of the Seas.We booked this cruise last October and got an amazing deal way too good to pass up. Balcony cabin at $1600 each with $225 total onboard credit for a 9 night cruise.
I was a bit worried about flight costs but I figured we could just make it happen somehow.
I ended up getting our tickets to Rome with my Delta Amex points! I used Royal’s Air2Sea program for our return on Lufthansa for $440 each! I couldn’t believe it. I was nervous to use the program but figured with that price it was worth a shot.
We flew out 9/16/18 from Denver to Detroit to FCO.
We made a short video and posted it to Instagram letting our friends and family know that we were taking them along on our trip and we’d let them know where when we landed. Our layover in Detroit was the perfect amount of time: only 2 hours...long enough to grab a snack and find our gate which happened to be only 4 gates down from the one we had just gotten off.
I was surprised that the meals provided on that second Delta flight were actually pretty good! Our flight attendant, Lori, had been in her job for 33 years and been all over the world!
There are several options for transport in Rome: cab, train, private transfer just to name a few. I considered the train at first and decided that after being on a plane for hours and traveling with 2 big suitcases, carryon and back pack the savings wasn’t worth the stress for me...so I got quotes from 4 transfer services. Rome in Limo, recommended by Norris, and Cabs 4 Rome, recommended by Claudio were my top 2. I ended up booking with Maurizio from Cabs 4 Rome. I requested 4 transfers: 1) FCO to hotel 2) hotel to Civi port 3) Civi port to hotel and 4) hotel to FCO. He quoted me 340 euro for all 4.
We arrived in Rome at 9am local time. Maurizio was waiting for us at the ground transport pick up area after we picked up our baggage and exited. During our drive to our hotel he told us in broken English that he had been a driver for 32 years!
Let’s just mention the roads and driving for a moment...in all of the Italy and Greece stops that we had...with the small streets everyone had small cars and were not afraid to “run people over”. I really am impressed we didn’t see a ton of cars with bangs and scrapes. It’s like a work of art to drive over there!
As Maurizio drove us to the hotel and we asked curious questions he told us how the quality of living there is very low. We didn’t really understand what he was meaning until later in the trip. More details to come.
Leading up to the cruise I did a ton of research on hotels. In the beginning I was trying to be budget conscious and booked us in not so grand hotels for pre and post cruise. As sail date got closer I decided to splurge as “when in Rome”...and I’m very glad I did. Hotels in Rome are expensive but I encourage you if you are going to consider the experience that you get along with it.
Maurizio dropped us off at the hotel I had booked for pre-cruise: Hotel Nazionale. I prepaid online $221 (after finding promo codes and other discounts) which included wi-fi and breakfast.
I was a bit worried about flight costs but I figured we could just make it happen somehow.
I ended up getting our tickets to Rome with my Delta Amex points! I used Royal’s Air2Sea program for our return on Lufthansa for $440 each! I couldn’t believe it. I was nervous to use the program but figured with that price it was worth a shot.
We flew out 9/16/18 from Denver to Detroit to FCO.
We made a short video and posted it to Instagram letting our friends and family know that we were taking them along on our trip and we’d let them know where when we landed. Our layover in Detroit was the perfect amount of time: only 2 hours...long enough to grab a snack and find our gate which happened to be only 4 gates down from the one we had just gotten off.
I was surprised that the meals provided on that second Delta flight were actually pretty good! Our flight attendant, Lori, had been in her job for 33 years and been all over the world!
There are several options for transport in Rome: cab, train, private transfer just to name a few. I considered the train at first and decided that after being on a plane for hours and traveling with 2 big suitcases, carryon and back pack the savings wasn’t worth the stress for me...so I got quotes from 4 transfer services. Rome in Limo, recommended by Norris, and Cabs 4 Rome, recommended by Claudio were my top 2. I ended up booking with Maurizio from Cabs 4 Rome. I requested 4 transfers: 1) FCO to hotel 2) hotel to Civi port 3) Civi port to hotel and 4) hotel to FCO. He quoted me 340 euro for all 4.
We arrived in Rome at 9am local time. Maurizio was waiting for us at the ground transport pick up area after we picked up our baggage and exited. During our drive to our hotel he told us in broken English that he had been a driver for 32 years!
Let’s just mention the roads and driving for a moment...in all of the Italy and Greece stops that we had...with the small streets everyone had small cars and were not afraid to “run people over”. I really am impressed we didn’t see a ton of cars with bangs and scrapes. It’s like a work of art to drive over there!
As Maurizio drove us to the hotel and we asked curious questions he told us how the quality of living there is very low. We didn’t really understand what he was meaning until later in the trip. More details to come.
Leading up to the cruise I did a ton of research on hotels. In the beginning I was trying to be budget conscious and booked us in not so grand hotels for pre and post cruise. As sail date got closer I decided to splurge as “when in Rome”...and I’m very glad I did. Hotels in Rome are expensive but I encourage you if you are going to consider the experience that you get along with it.
Maurizio dropped us off at the hotel I had booked for pre-cruise: Hotel Nazionale. I prepaid online $221 (after finding promo codes and other discounts) which included wi-fi and breakfast.
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