Rachel's Arrival and Embarcation - Day 1 (Sunday)

Rachel's flight was due to arrive @ Heathrow on Saturday morning at like 7:06am. She had a scare in the Portland airport the day before - she almost missed her flight because United had moved the flight up by 30 minutes and she officially missed the check in time. One check in attendant was awful - but the next was an angel who saved her. He walked her luggage to security and then made sure it made it to the plane and sent her on her way to run through security. She made it to San Francisco in one piece - and I talked to her there. I assured her that I would be waiting when she walked out of customs in Heathrow.

I lied.

My alarm was set for 5:45am. I planned to leave at about 6:15. That would get me to the airport at 7:20 or so - plenty of time to get there before she'd get through passport control, baggage collection and customs. I woke up and rolled over, picked up the clock (the face is in the down position during the night to limit the light emission) and the clock read 07:05. My alarm never went off (I later checked and it was never turned to auto! So it's not like I pushed the snooze button). I sat straight up and pulled on clothes. Downstairs I checked her flight - it was a little tiny bit delayed - with a new landing time of 7:16. I ran out the door and drove like the wind. I got to Heathrow at 7:50 - then had to drive for 10 minutes through the traffic of the airport and the full parking garage to find a space.

Rachel was sitting on a bench waiting for me (like I advised if something crazy happened - like her flight was super early). We drove home at normal speed and I pointed things out like Windsor Castle and sheep on the way down the M4. :)

Saturday was mostly spent repacking for the cruise and driving around Swindon. We went to bed at 9:30 or so... Sunday would be an early start.

We left the house by 3:30 am. Parking was stressful - I was nervous that I didn't find the right part of the long term lot. Oh well - we needed to get to the terminal. We got checked in (with bags that were weighed to be 17.5 and 18.7 kg - the limit was 20 kilos) and then we went through security and into the wonderful world of heathrow shopping. :)

We were super tired. It was super early (like 5am) and we had been up for almost 2 hours. Most of the shops were closed. We got some bottled water and sat down in chairs until our flight flashed on the board and we could walk the miles to the EasyJet gate (it is like the UK's version of Southwest - along with RyanAir - and takes the cheap gates far far out). We were happy to get on the plane and sleep for 2 hours before arriving in Rome.

I hired a car to take us to the port (there is not really a cheap & straight-forward way to get there). So when we walked out of customs (after the passport guys did NOT stamp our passports) there was someone with a sign that said Miss Foulgers on it. (I wish that I took a picture and just didn't care about looking dumb).

We sat in the back of a lovely black Mercedes for just over an hour - our driver didn't speak English and drove like a man possessed - super aggressive. He wore a great example of a EuroChic (or EuroTrash) shirt and big sunglasses. If you look closely at the picture, he is going 150 kmph - which is 95 miles per hour. Most of the time he was riding the center line of the freeway (actually a toll road) or whipping between cars. And he sped up faster than this.

We made it to the port, and then after driving around kind of aimlessly, we finally found the right ship. Our luggage got tagged and left in a pile of other bags as we walked into the big tent for checking in to our cruise.

They gave us little credit cards - that were our identification for getting on and off the ship, the key for the stateroom, and was how we would pay for anything on board (the spa, drinks, the spa...). They took our picture in front of a backdrop (this is a recurring theme) and we got on board. We couldn't get into our stateroom for a couple of hours and it was lunchtime, so we went up to the 9th deck to the WindJammer Cafe - where the buffet was nearly always open. We had salad and chicken for lunch. I bought the all-you-can-drink soft drink package so I could get my fill of diet coke without breaking the bank. Soft drinks were not free - I thought that they would be.

After lunch we went down to the 2nd deck to our internal stateroom - we picked it on purpose so it wouldn't have a window to let light in - we wanted to be able to sleep if we wanted - it worked. We met our stateroom attendant (Shobhaker - from India. There was a crew of over 720 on board - from over 70 countries.) who got us some ice for Rachel's foot. He kept the ice bucket stocked everyday and refilled several times a day. Rachel always had ice. It was good.
After a quick rest, we put on shoes (and boot) and went to explore the ship. We had an outline of what was happening on board - what food was available where, what activities were running, where different music was, what the shows were...etc. This was brought to our stateroom every night while we were at dinner. That first afternoon on board there was a big open house where we could learn about everything on the ship - the activities (dance lessons, language lessons, Bingo), the pools, the services in the spa (plus a spa tour), the gym, the bars, the shops on board - everything. Most of the places had a giveaway. When we took the spa tour we got raffle tickets and were told that if we came back at 5:15 we could win free spa services. We actually booked an appointment for the next day - we were getting a sampler of sorts (20 minute hot stone massage, a mini facial, and reflexology (rach would get an extra long massage since her foot couldn't handle the reflexology).

We were there for the raffle, but first we had to go to the Muster Drill. This is when we had to all line up in our life jackets on deck - learning the process for evacuating the ship. It took a long time and we all felt silly standing there in life jackets - standing very close to people that we didn't know. We met a nice couple from America on one side of us, and on the other side was a funny couple from England. We laughed a lot imagining that this was the best 20 minutes of the 2 weeks for the crew. They must love looking at all of the passengers looking so ridiculous.
Once we were done with the muster it was time to get back up to the spa raffle. They had like 15 prizes. I won near the end of the draw - I was supposed to get a mini facial - but it was the fancy La Therapie facial with the real facialist. I changed my appointment (which was for the next day) - I replaced the mini facial in the sampler with a different treatment and added the free facial afterwards. We didn't have any specific shore excursions planned for Portofino, so we just planned to go in after our spa treatments. It always feels great to win anything and I was looking forward to the facial. :)

After the raffle, we went down to deck 4. Our dinner seating was at 6pm in the dining room. While waiting for the dining room to open we took some pictures in the port. The weather was gorgeous - and we like this sign: Welcome to Civitavecchia Harbour The Heart of Italy.

At dinner we had a table for 10, but there ended up just being 6 of us. 4 of the chairs were empty every night. The others with us were 2 couples that have known each other for years working for the USGS, Linda and Bill (from Kansas), and Jim and Nancy (from DC). They had been on many cruises - so they were a great asset for us. We learned a lot about how to cruise (and order multiple desserts - thank you Jim!).

Dinner lasted 2 hours - by the time we got back to our cabin our bags had finally been delivered. :) We were pretty tired - understandably. We did a little more wandering - we found a little coffee "shop" we had seen earlier in the day. They had sweets that looked so so good, but I couldn't figure out if they were free or not. The barista was named Roly (from Peru). He said that if you bought a coffee drink (it was Seattle's Best - set up kind of like a Starbucks) then you get a free pastry. They also sold Ben & Jerry's and you could get free cakes with that too (because you'd need it). But then he said since it was late we could just have it for free without buying a drink. He was our friend. We ate a mudslide cookie - and it was good. :)

Finally it was a reasonable bedtime. We were beat. We had one more thing to do before bed - try out a teeth whitening sample from the spa - we had a few. So we took "before" pictures - here's mine. See how tired I was - in serious need of the massage and facial coming the next morning.

We went to bed set to wake up for our 8am spa appointments. Then we'd take the tenders into Portofino to explore in the afternoon - that was the plan.

Tune in tomorrow for the next installment...will our teeth glow in the dark? will Rachel like her first massage? will our dinner table mates like the clever banter of the Foulger girls? Will Becky find all of that weight she lost?