A self confessed Cruiseaholic…… with barely enough funds to support his passion!
Transfer to the port of Civitavecchia was by car and driver. It took about 45 minutes and we have arrived an hour ahead of schedule because the embarkation doesn’t start until 1.00pm. So for the time being its just a case of sitting it out and waiting.
Civitavecchia Cruise Terminal
Civitavecchia Cruise Terminal Empty Check in desks
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Gate 10 Terminal 4 Heathrow
View from my seat 30F on Alitalia Airbus 321
We are finally on our way. We had a good and uneventful drive to the airport and were quickly through the check-in and security. Our flight got away on time and I had a window seat which gave me a good view over the clouds and there is beautiful clear blue sky above, much more preferable to the cloudy, rainy Heathrow we left behind a few hours ago.
Looking out over the clouds
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I have just remembered to have a look to see what ships will be in port with us on our upcoming cruise on the Costa Pacifica.
| Port | Date | Ships in Port |
| Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy | 12 April 2013 | Costa Pacifica Depart: 6:00:00 PM |
| MSC Splendida 9:00 AM – 7:30 PM | ||
| Savona (Genoa), Italy | 13 April 2013 | Costa Pacifica 9:00:00 AM – 4:30 PM |
| Marseilles, France | 14 April 2013 | Seabourn Spirit 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM |
| MSC Splendida 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM | ||
| Barcelona, Spain | 15 April 2013 | MSC Splendida 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM |
| Costa Pacifica 9:00:00 AM – 5:00 PM | ||
| Mallorca, Palma de Mallorca, Spain | 16 April 2013 | Costa Pacifica 8:00:00 AM – 1:30 PM |
| Cagliari, Italy | 17 April 2013 | Costa Pacifica 12:00:00 PM – 5:00 PM |
| Palermo, Sicily, Italy | 18 April 2013 | Costa Pacifica 8:30:00 AM – 2:00 PM |
| MSC Splendida 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM | ||
| Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy | 19 April 2013 | Costa Pacifica Arrive: 8:00 PM |
| MSC Splendida 9:00 AM – 7:30 PM | ||
| Aurora 7:00 AM – 7:00 PM | ||
| Ryndam 7:00 AM – 8:00 PM | ||
| Eurodam 7:00 AM – 4:00 PM |
Today, NCL’s newest ship was floated out of the shed at the Meyer Werft ship yard in Germany. There are a couple significant things about today’s float out, firstly at 146,600-tonnes she is the largest cruise ship to ever be built in Germany and secondly she is the first to be floated out bow first.
Not long now until we do our one night cruise on her from Rotterdam.
Sadly I have just learnt that there has been an itinerary change to our Celebrity Eclipse Christmas cruise. St. Thomas has been substituted with Labadee which means that Christmas day is now going to be a sea day and Boxing day will be at the revised port.
I am not too surprised that this has happened given the amount of ships that were due to be in St. Thomas on Christmas day but do admit to being disappointed at the decision to go to Labadee. We were last there in November 2010 and were not too impressed with the beaches, I know there has been a lot of work done since and hopefully it will all be for the good.
| DAY | DATE | PORT | ARRIVE | DEPART | |
| Sat | Dec | 14 | Fort Lauderdale, USA | 4:30pm | |
| Sun | Dec | 15 | At Sea | ||
| Mon | Dec | 16 | At Sea | ||
| Tue | Dec | 17 | Oranjestad, Aruba | 8:00am | 8:00pm |
| Wed | Dec | 18 | Willemstad, Curacao | 7:00am | 5:00pm |
| Thur | Dec | 19 | At Sea | ||
| Fri | Dec | 20 | St. George’s, Grenada | 8:00am | 5:00pm |
| Sat | Dec | 21 | Bridgetown, Barbados | 8:00am | 5:00pm |
| Sun | Dec | 22 | Castries, St. Lucia | 8:00am | 5:00pm |
| Mon | Dec | 23 | St. Johns, Antigua | 8:00am | 5:00pm |
| Tue | Dec | 24 | Philipsburg, St. Maarten | 8:00am | 5:00pm |
| Wed | Dec | 25 | At Sea | ||
| Thur | Dec | 26 | Labadee, Haiti | 8:00am | 5:00pm |
| Fri | Dec | 27 | At Sea | ||
| Sat | Dec | 28 | Fort Lauderdale, USA | 7:00am | |
Labadee November 2010 – Just above the Zip line landing area
Labadee November 2010 viewed from the ship
The time is fast approaching when the Norwegian Breakaway will leave the shed at the Meyer-Werft shipyard in Papenburg. Final preparations to the hull art are nearly complete and she is starting to look like the artists renderings. Looking at the photo, I wonder how many will call her the “Peter Max”?
Norwegian Breakaway’s hull art nears completion at the Meyer-Werft shipyard in Papenburg. Photo courtesy of Norwegian Cruise Line
Having booked our transatlantic flights earlier this week due to the 330 day window opening for flights within our required dates, my thoughts soon turned to booking the over night accommodation in Fort Lauderdale. I had spent many hours researching different alternatives and eventually decided upon the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina.
Photos from http://www.fortlauderdalemarinahotel.com
It is close to Port Everglades and has rooms facing the Intracoastal Waterway so we will hopefully be able to watch the ships coming in on the day of our departure.
We have also taken advantage of the hotels cruise package which includes in the price
Now that we are well into the new year my thoughts are turning towards our cruise in April on the Costa Pacifica. The balance having been paid in early December which incidentally is the earliest we have ever been asked to settle the balance, a staggering 136 days in advance! Consequently I am now finding myself thinking about the ship and looking into potential things to do when we are in port.
Perhaps I should just say a little bit about the ship, Costa Pacifica was handed over to Costa Crociere in 29 May 2009. She has or had until last year 4 sister ships, the Costa Serena launched in 2007, Costa Favolosa launched in 2011, Costa Fascinosa in 2012 and finally the ill fated Costa Concordia launched in 2006.
| Tonnage: | 114,500 GT 87,300 NT |
| Length: | 290.2 m (952 ft) |
| Beam: | 36 m (118 ft) |
| Draught: | 8.2 m (27 ft) |
| Depth: | 19.77 m (64.9 ft) |
| Decks: | 14 passenger decks |
Fortunately for us, we have already been on one of the sister ships, the Costa Serena back in 2010 so will be very familiar with the layout of the decks and this will hopefully make finding our way around much easier. In total the Costa Pacifica has 1,504 staterooms; 521 with private balconies and 91 spa staterooms; 58 suites with private balconies and 12 spa suites.
We have cabins on deck 6 (Tropical) in the BC grade (Classic Outside with Balcony) right next door to each other which have 219.5 sq ft of space and will look something like the photo below.
A recent acquisition for my blog has been a proper domain name, so now in the address bar you will notice that it reads www.wansbroughs-cruise-blog.me.uk. I have set up a redirection so there is no need to change your bookmark as it will automatically bring you straight to the new domain.
I have been busy transferring all the files and data to its new location and the good news is that this is now over and everything seems to be in order with nothing lost. I have also made the decision to change to a different WordPress theme which according its makers is supposed to be more tablet friendly, the reason for doing this is because of the ever increasing amount of people now owning a tablet or smart phone and essentially because I believe in the future it will be the way that most people will browse the internet and I want the blog to look good and behave correctly for people using these platforms to view my blog.
I still have a few things that need tweaking but am confident that everything still looks good and works as it should do.
All I need now is a cruise to test it all out.
In 2010 we visited Naples while cruising on the Norwegian Epic and used a company called AP Tours to get us around and visit places such as Pompeii, Vesuvius & Positano. AP Tours made all the arrangements which included booking a guide for us at Pompeii. The guide they chose for our trip round the famous ruins of the ancient town was Pina Paesano. We were absolutely delighted with the service and the tour that Pina provided and so when we knew that we were going back I decided to try and track her down.
Luckily for us Pina has her own website which can be found by following this link (http://www.guidingexpert.it) Here your will find all her contact details.
I promptly sent an e-mail to Pina asking if she would be available to give us another tour and I received a reply confirming her availability. The result of which means Pina will be giving us our second tour of Pompeii on 24 July 2013. We are eagerly looking forward to our second instalment.
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