Mediteranean Cruise - Day 1 travel

So our vacation started really early on Saturday morning, we had to leave our house by 3:30 AM to get to the airport and check in by 4:30 AM.  It didn't help that David and I were trying to finish up a few things before we left and didn't get to bed until after midnight.  Also, Michael started running a fever and was not his normal self on Friday.  I was worried and wasn't sure whether to take him in or hope it would run its course quickly.  I stocked up on Tylenol and decided to hope for the best.  So we headed for the airport, all of our bags in hands.

 

As you can see Michael wasn't feeling too good and to top it off we had to check in the medicine because it was over 3 oz. and I forgot to give him some before I did that.

 

AJ, on the other hand, was up before I went to wake him at 3:15 AM.  He was so excited that he had a hard time going to sleep the night before.  He was wide awake and ready to go.  As you can see he took out the Uno cards to play while we waited for our airplane.

 

Once we landed in Ciampano (about an hour from Rome) we had to make our way into Rome, I didn't have this pre-planned and as many of you know that is not like me.  I had a rough idea of how to get us to the ship, but nothing definite. Here we are waiting for our bus to take us into Rome.  The boys liked to make a luggage cave.

 

Here is Michael after the medicine kicking in a little bit - a little more like himself.

 

On the bus and ready to head into Rome

 

AJ sitting with Daddy

 

So it took a little extra time to get into town because we were stuck behind this horse and buggy for a little while.  Cracks me up, right in the middle of a city on a really busy road.  It was also pretty funny because our bus driver was a crazy driver and was really upset when somebody took his parking spot in front of the Rome Termini.  I don't understand Italian, but I am sure it wasn't nice words he was saying.  Then we had to buy train tickets to get us to where our boat was.  The Termini is HUGE and so many people around, they say Rome is the biggest pick pocket place in the world.   So after we bought our tickets, we literally ran to the gate which was all the way on the other side to try and catch the 10:12 train and we missed it by 4 minutes.  So we had to wait an hour until the next one showed.

 

Then onto the train for about an hour and twenty minute ride to where the boat was docked.

 

Michael looking guilty of something, not sure what it was though.  :-)  And then once we got there, we had to take a taxi to the boat because you are not allowed to walk up to it.  So after a car drive, plane, bus, train and taxi we finally made it to the ship!

 

Here we are getting ready to board!!

 

The boys thought the room was soooo cool!!  They had bunk beds they slept in right above our beds.

 

What is really funny is on that warning right there it said not to let children sleep on the bunks, but David and I weren't about to try and fit up there on them and the boys had way too much fun up there!!

 

After that we headed for lunch and the boys' eyes were wide with all of the food there.  And as you can see Michael still wasn't feeling good, he didn't even finish his pretzel, which if you know him that is not normal at all.

 

Here we had to do our emergency drill.  Michael fell asleep while we were in the first part of the meeting in the theatre so David just carried him, he was starting to get hot again.

 

AJ with his life jacket all ready for the drill!

 

The boys on the front of the boat as we head out of port.

 

So I normally don't take pictures of food, but the funny story behind this, once David took off the head he put it in AJ's face and they boys were totally freaked out.  We had a good laugh about it, especially since they love bugs, snakes, etc.  But they sure didn't like the looks of it.

 

After dinner we wandered up to the top deck to check out the sunset.  A great way to finish the day.

 

Here you can see another cruise boat on the right side of the picture heading in the opposite direction.  It was  truly beautiful sunset!!

 

The top of our boat with the sun almost gone and so were we.  We were all pretty tired.  AJ and I didn't get a nap on the plane (mostly because AJ was so excited that every time I started to fall asleep he wanted me to look at something) and we headed for bed, happy and ready to start our adventures!!