CIVITIVECCHIA - A BETTER START

This morning had several starts to it – the last one being about 5:00 am.  Sleep was frequent and interrupted and since we went to bed around 4:00 in the afternoon, it is no wonder we were awake at various times during the night and early morning.

Breakfast was provided with our hotel stay and when we arrived in the restaurant, we were overwhelmed with the variety and presentation!  There were several varieties of juice and many sweets, cereals, toast, eggs, ham, cheese and bacon.  It was lovely and delicious.  Hey Eileen, there was even blood orange juice which I had to try and it was delicious.

We met a couple from Utah in the breakfast room who will be on the ship also.  Chances of finding them again will not be easy with 4000 other guests.  Interestingly enough, he had just retired from Delta Airlines and she from the schools.  We had enough to talk about at the table.  

We also found that we were lucky to have booked a cab from the airport as we considered coming by train. Susan and Stan were coming by train and encountered a train strike!  That would have been miserable after our long flight to get to the train station only to find out that the trains weren’t running.

We have a cab booked from the hotel to the ship at 10:00 and chances are, our breakfast mates will be on the same ride to the ship.

The  van/cab was absolutely packed with the driver we were 9 and the luggage was jammed in the storage space.  We arrived at the port and the embarkation was smooth and uneventful and then we were aboard the Norwegian Epic.

The ship is quite beautiful and very large.  There are 17 decks and our stateroom is on Deck 11.  I think the largest ship I have been on up until now was only 12 decks.