Sunset Trails
It may sound extravagant that we choose to take a 16 night cruise to Barcelona vs. flying to start our extended European visit. However, when home free, we must pay to live somewhere and the trans-Atlantic cruise takes care of our room and board for two plus weeks.
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SLIDE SHOW, 7 PHOTOS
We recently took our first trans-Atlantic cruise from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to Rome. The 15 days were very enjoyable and relaxing. One can approach such a trip as a non-stop 24 hour a day feed trough, or one can approach it as a health club. I chose the latter, but still think I may have added some pounds. I exercised an hour every single day we were not in a seaport. While at the various ports we did a lot of exercising as well, like climbing to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar. Other time was spent relaxing on the balcony of our cabin. More photos will be added later, but here is one of the blue, blue ocean. During the days out to sea, air pollution was not at all apparent.
Ship Sunset
Infinity Cruise Ship
I feel as if we are WAY behind in our reservation efforts. We now have booked a cruise going and returning from Europe, but no car nor a single night’s lodging reservations. Twenty-eight places have been selected, most for a one week stay, but no reservations have been completed. Many people with this home free lifestyle pick one or two places and live there for months at a time, but we are trying to visit many places (28) for a week at a time. Scotland seems to be the least expensive area and not too surprisingly, Venice is by far the most expensive. More about this in the Budget section under the Plan tab.
There was no need to return to the same port as we left from, but that is the way it worked out. We liked the departure date which allowed for more time in Great Britain. Here is the itinerary of the return cruise, booked through http://www.repositioningcruise.com/index.cfm
ITINERARY
DAY DATE PORT ARRIVE DEPART
Mon Oct 13 London (Harwich), England 5:00pm
Tue Oct 14 At Sea
Wed Oct 15 At Sea
Thu Oct 16 Lisbon, Portugal 7:00am 4:00pm
Fri Oct 17 At Sea
Sat Oct 18 At Sea
Sun Oct 19 At Sea
Mon Oct 20 At Sea
Tue Oct 21 At Sea
Wed Oct 22 King’s Wharf, Bermuda 3:00pm
Thu Oct 23 King’s Wharf, Bermuda 4:00pm
Fri Oct 24 At Sea
Sat Oct 25 At Sea
Sun Oct 26 Nassau, Bahamas 7:00am 5:00pm
Mon Oct 27 Fort Lauderdale, FL 6:00am
Celebrity Silhouette Ship
We took the first big step in our travel adventures by booking a cruise from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Rome. This is a repositioning cruise. In the winter a cruise from Florida to the Bahamas or Aruba is very popular, not so in the summer. Therefore the boat is repositioned to a better location, in this case the Mediterranean Sea. We will need to book another cruise back to the States in the fall, likely from London to Boston or New York. An advantage of a cruise vs. flying is no jet lag, since the boat adjusts the time one hour every day. Also, since we are homeless, or home free, we have no place to hurry back to, plus we get fine room and board for 15 nights. There are also rules regarding how long you can be in the mainland of Europe, called the Schengen Agreement (90 days), so the additional time at sea is not taking away from our time in Europe. We booked a room with a balcony and are hopeful it will be warm enough to use for more than tossing our cookies.
Booked room with Balcony
You can zoom out on the map to see the ports of call for this cruise.[codepeople-post-map]
The next task is to start booking places to stay in Europe through VRBO.com, which stands for Vacation Rentals by Owner. One can type VRBO Rome in the Google search bar and find many places available for rent from the owner. We are doing this since we plan on staying our maximum allowed 90 days in the countries of Italy, Spain, France and Portugal. We then head to the UK and Ireland for 40 days, as they are not Schengen countries, eventually cruising back to Boston.
This is just a plan so far. I remember our last cruise 15 years ago, we said never again. Part of the deal was the rocking boat made one feel a bit queasy for two weeks straight, which is no way to spend a vacation. We have high hopes of exercising every day and relaxing on the ship. We will see. No European accommodations are yet booked.
Here is the itinerary:
| Day | Date | Port or Activity | Arrive | Depart |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sun | Apr 20 | Fort Lauderdale, FL | 5:00pm | |
| Mon | Apr 21 | At Sea | ||
| Tue | Apr 22 | At Sea | ||
| Wed | Apr 23 | At Sea | ||
| Thu | Apr 24 | At Sea | ||
| Fri | Apr 25 | At Sea | ||
| Sat | Apr 26 | At Sea | ||
| Sun | Apr 27 | At Sea | ||
| Mon | Apr 28 | Funchal, Madeira, Portugal | 9:00am | 6:00pm |
| Tue | Apr 29 | At Sea | ||
| Wed | Apr 30 | Gibraltar, UK Territory | 7:00am | 4:00pm |
| Thu | May 1 | At Sea | ||
| Fri | May 2 | Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy | 7:00am | 4:00pm |
| Sat | May 3 | Messina, Sicily, Italy | 10:00am | 8:00pm |
| Sun | May 4 | Naples / Capri (Sorrento), Italy | 7:00am | 6:30pm |
| Mon | May 5 | Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy | 5:00am | |