Join us for a nine-day cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Lines' ship NCL Pearl, starting at Trieste and ending at Athens, sailing down the Adriatic Sea. After five years of not cruising because of Covid and cancer we at last manage to catch up with entertainer friends Tomas and Maris!
Each day is shown on its own separate entry, reached by clicking/tapping the seven photos below. A link on each page will bring you back here.
It's Tuesday 27 August 2024. The ship anchors off Mykonos and the sore leg that has been plaguing me all week is inflamed and angry (angry? It's livid!) and we decide reluctantly not to go ashore. Seldom have we spent so many days on a ship with so few days' outings but we have to fly home tomorrow and then it will be off to the doctor's for me to have it looked at.
At least we have a good view of the town from where we are anchored. NCL Pearl is sending people ashore via tender boat and with other ships sending their boats to the more central pier, it would leave us having to walk that bit further to get into town.
Sadly the prospect of a drink sitting outside Zorbas bar will have to wait for a future visit. But there's an opportunity for the sketchpad to come out again, though the scene with the many white flat-roofed buildings presents its own challenges. There's the row of "mop-haired" windmills and the slope that goes up past Zorbas into the shopping streets. And further towards the left, off the side of this view, the beach area with its line of other bars, at one of which I learned my Greek word for "thank you". And there's the street where my mate walked in the middle of the road oblivious to the delivery van behind him trying to get past... Illnesses and injuries willing, we'll be back!
Then a last night for this cruise with Tom and Maris, lots of hugs and kisses as we say goodbye. The bar staff shouted out their goodbyes too - we had become known to them as "the coffee couple" due to our daily visits to the Starbucks counter in the atrium!
And so the cruise ends on Wednesday 28 August as we board a coach at Piraeus, the port for Athens and are taken to the airport. The photo shows us with Tom and Maris one night as we had a meal together.
The journey to the airport is easy and efficient but as we get our boarding passes we are told that our second flight from Munich to Manchester is overbooked and we are on standby and not guaranteed to be on it. "Once you get there, go to the gate as soon as possible and they will be able to tell you if they can give you seats." Otherwise it will be a case of waiting for a later flight.
So we get to Munich and bearing in mind the nightmare of the outward journey when we found ourselves having gone the wrong way and had to go through security a second time, we asked for and followed directions which involved going on a train between terminals. Thankfully we were in the right place. Despite breakfast having been at the UK equivalent of 4:00am we had to dash past all of the main food outlets to get to the departure gate where we were subject to the added stress of the chap's computer taking forever to log him in. Then with relief we were allocated seats. I would be on the emergency door row and Fran seated behind me.
By now there wasn't time to go back to the food outlets but there was a W H Smiths nearby so feasting on a tub of Pringles, we got on the plane where I was told that because I used a walking stick I couldn't sit on the emergency door row and ended up sitting next to Fran instead. This meant someone else came along thinking I'd nicked their seat of course but the stewardess had stayed nearby to sort this out and there was another single passenger willing to move so the other couple got to sit together as well.
Monday 26 August 2024. By the time we are getting up the NCL Pearl is already in the lagoon at Santorini.
The cliffs go up 900 feet (274.3 metres) and below sea level drop a further 1300 feet (396.2 metres). Only ships with an extra long anchor chain can safely stabilise their position without drifting. It is said to have been a single island, obliterated by volcanic action some 3,600 years ago (give or take a week or two) that destroyed the centre of the island leaving a caldera surrounded by the surviving islands of today. The main landing point where tender boats will take you is called Thira with the village of Oia being the one famous for its sunsets and fabulous views.
Thira is also a very picturesque village, reached by a cable car from sea level or by walking up a zig-zagging path, or by donkey up the same path. For those familiar with Clovelly in the UK where there are similar options (minus the cable car) it should be noted that Thira is approximately the same as walking up Clovelly's hillside around 3.5 times... Consequently the queues for the cable car can be long - 45 minutes is common when it is busy and today there are another 3 cruise ships in the lagoon so we decide against going up. If you want to see more photos then see my article from our visit in September 2016.
So we spend some time on our balcony with books and drinks and just have a chilling out day until it's time to go and enjoy the music of our friends, Tomas and Maris.
I had a pair of gold simulated crocodile skin shoes that I sometimes wore on stage, but I had to admire the shoes Maris was sporting this particular night!
It had gone dark by the time the ship left the lagoon and I snatched a photograph of Thira by night, seemingly suspended high in the air above us.
Sunday 25 August 2024. We are in Corfu for the day and have booked an excursion out into the beautiful Greek countryside with a meal and spectacular views.
The coach has some climbing to do before we reach our destination for lunch and passes through one village where the road between the buildings on either side is so narrow that it is traffic light controlled as two vehicles approaching head-on would have no room to pass.
This is the Golden Fox, a hotel, villa and studio complex as well as a restaurant. We are set four to a table and sit with an American couple, Terry and his wife.
The views are just wonderful and we are sitting outside on a terrace whilst a succession of waiters bring dish after dish of starters - far too much to eat as a full meal for which we have already made our choices!
The waiters cheerily take away dishes still loaded with food, though we have made valiant efforts. It is the Greek way and so more dishes arrive with the main course - equally as tasty and equally as plentiful as the starters had been. I'm banned alcohol these days but an ice-cold coke went down very well and Miss Franny and our fellow diners each got an attractive cut glass carafe of wine to wind their tonsils around.
We forego desserts in preferance for having a tub of ice cream later. At the end of the terrace behind me was a lower level terrace with a swimming pool.
Most of our fellow coach passengers were taking photos of the views from the terrace and chatting. I made sure I thanked the staff in the bar area and kitchen and we went around the buildings to an ice cream outlet in a side bar. Here we are, sitting on a bench by the road at the back of the restaurant / hotel.
Our guide for the day, dressed in a typical Greek-style long white dress chatting with some of our group. We got back onto the coach and our next stop was at a souvenir shop and bar. We had a quick look in the shop but then repaired to the bar where another coke for me and another glass of wine for Fran kept us cool and we found a table outside with some shelter from the sun.
The coach then returned us to the port, where we and the passengers from two or three other ships were battling to elbow paths through the security gates and x-ray machines before the walk along the pier to NCL Pearl.
We have joined so many ships here at this same pier in the past. Ocean Village and Thomson/Tui/Marella Celebration, Spirit, Dream and Majesty to name just a few. This current cruise was our 28th cruise. We'd love to notch that score up some more!
The fourth in a series of articles looking at ships we have seen either at home or whilst on holiday.
MSC Musica, photographed in 2009 from one of Venice's water buses. We were low down on the water and she is towering above us! Built in 2006 by Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, France, she had capacity to carry over 2,500 passengers with a crew of just over 1,000. She was the first of her class - the Musica Class - to be followed by Magnifica, Orchestra and Poesia. Refurbished in November 2019, she has 13 decks and can cruise at an average of 23 knots.
The MS Regatta, was also built at the Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire in 1998 as an R-class cruise ship for Renaissance Cruises. The second of her class she was imaginatively named R-Two. Renaissance Cruises were an American-owned company and finances affected by the Gulf War were finally disastrously run down after the 911 terrorist attack and the company went bankrupt, the ship being sold to Cruiseinvest and sailing as Insignia after a full year of being laid up. In 2003 she transferred to Oceania Cruises and was renamed as Regatta under which name and owner she still sails. A relatively small ship, for these days, she carries upto 824 passengers with 386 crew.
The ro-ro car and passenger ferry Metamauco, built in 1998 by the family-owned Cantiere Navale Visentini shipyard in Italy and operating in the Venetian Lagoon by Actv. This firm, the Company of the Venetian Transport Consortium runs all forms of public transport around the Venetian Lagoon and islands, including ferries, waterbuses, wheeled buses and trams.
Actv waterbus (vaporetto) Actv 87 on the main southern route from Venice towards the cruise port.
Two Blue Star ferries seen in Rhodes in 2010. Blue Star 1 on the left was built in the Netherlands in 2000 and carried upto 1600 passengers and 640 vehicles. In 2007 she had 15 new cabins added on an extension to deck 9. From 2021 she completed a two-year charter with Irish Ferries sailing between Pembroke and Rosslare. She kept her name throughout this charter and in 2023 returned to Blue Star and currently sails between Piraeus and Chania.
On the right is Blue Star's Diagoras, built in 1990 as the New Tosa in Japan for the Osaka-Kōchi route. She was bought after nine years on that route by Greek company, Dodekanisos Seaways, who shortly afterwards sold her on to DANE Sea line who renamed her Lindos. After some conversion work, she sailed between islands in the Dodecanese group in 2001 and was renamed again as Diagoras. DANE Sea line went bankrupt in 2004 and she spent the next two years laid up in Piraeus before Blue Star bought her in 2006. She operated on a variety of routes mainly in the Dodecanese group until being sold to a Moroccan company, Africa Morocco Link, in 2016, operating between Spain and Morocco. She was bought back by Blue Star in 2018 for whom she still sails.
Also in Rhodes in 2010 we came across the Delphin Voyager. Now this is a ship of many names. Built in Tokyo, Japan as Orient Venus for Japan Cruise Line in 1990, she spent fifteen years sailing in the Japanese cruise marketplace. In 2005 she was sold to First Cruise Line in 2005 and became Cruise One (how do they think of these names?) Chartered in 2007 to German company Delphin Kreuzfahrten as Delphin Voyager as seen above. The company became insolvent just six months after we saw her and she was taken to Perama a few miles from Piraeus in Greece until she was chartered for a five-month period in early 2011 to Hainan Cruises in China. She became the Hainan Express for that period to May 2011.
Then followed a charter to Quail/Happy Cruises under the name Happy Dolphin. She wasn't happy for long as Quail/Happy Cruises quickly went bankrupt in the same year. Another charter in 2012 took her to Turkey for the summer season crusing from Izmir under the name Aegean Paradise. In 2016 she was sold to a company and spent some time as a floating casino off Indonesia. She is apprarently still cruising as Aegean Paradise and 16 minutes ago as I now write, she was heading for Penang in Malaysia.
Costa Victoria pictured in Piraeus, Greece, in April 2010 with what appears to be a very determined Miss Franny walking along in her "danger flag" pants, keeping an eye on the workmen standing on a floating pontoon or raft doing something important to the side of the ship. I think the circles with the cross in them are safe targets for tugboats rather than "drill here" markings, but who knows... She was built in 1995 at Bremen in Germany, the first of two Victoria-class ships. The second was earmarked to become Costa Olympia but instead was sold to Norwegian Cruise Line, becoming Norwegian Sky. Meanwhile Costa Victoria started cruising with Costa Cruises in 1996, Costa's last new ship before the firm was taken over by Carnival Corporation in 1997.
Refits were undertaken in 2004 and 2013 to add balconies and remodel staterooms and public rooms to look "more Italian". In March 2020 a woman who had disembarked in Crete was found to be COVID positive and 726 passengers were subjected to quarantine. Her last scheduled stop of that cruise in Venice was cancelled and passengers eventually left the ship in Civitavechhia, Italy, after their quarantine period. She never carried passengers again. Three months later in June 2020 she was sold to an Italian firm for possible conversion to worker accomodation for shipyard workers in Genoa, but this never came to pass either. She was transferred to a subsidiary company and sent to Piombino from where she was towed to Aliağa, Turkey, for shipbreaking which took place in 2021.
A row of four ferries seen in Piraeus, Greece in 2010, belonging to the firm G.A. Ferries. On the left and laid up at the time is the Marina or to give it its full name,: Anthi Marina. She had been built as one of three ships for Townsend Thorensen and was originally the Spirit of Free Enterprise. One of her sister ships was the ill-fated Herald of Free Enterprise that capsized in the English Channel off Zeebrugge in 1987. Following this P&O bought out the company and all three ships were renamed, with Spirit... becoming Pride of Kent. In 1991 she was cut in half and an extension of 102 feet (31 metres) fitted into the centre of the ship.
In 1998 she became P&OSL Kent with the merger of P&O and Stena Line. This was shortened to P O Kent following the buyout of Stena Line's shares. She was sold to G.A. Ferries in 2003 and named Anthi Marina for whom she operated until being laid up in 2009 and was eventually scrapped in 2012.
Second in line is the Romilda with a similar background. Built in 1974 as Free Enterprise VIII and renamed in 1987 as Pride of Canterbury, she was transferred to G.A. Ferries in 1993, the second of their ferries to be named Romilda. She was sold to be scrapped in Turkey in 2011.
Third in line is the Rodanthi, built in 1974 in Japan for the Shin Higashi Nippon Ferry. She was bought by G.A. Ferries in 1989, chartered to CoTuNav (Tunisia Ferries) in 1995 then returned to Greece later the same year being laid up in Piraeus in 2009 and eventually scrapped in 2012
Finally, nearest the camera, we have Daliana another ship built for the Japanese domestic market as Ferry Pearl in 1970. She was bought by G.A. Ferries in 1988 and laid up with the others in 2009 - there were financial problems behind the laying up of ships. She was sold for scrapping in 2011.
A series of articles describing our cruise on the Ocean Village Two. The itinerary for this cruise was Heraklion, Crete > Day at Sea > Dubrovnik, Croatia > Venice, Italy > Korčula, Croatia > Corfu, Greece > Zakinthos, Greece > Heraklion, Crete.
Join us in our adventures, trials and mishaps. Each article can be accessed by clicking or tapping the photographs below. A link at the end of each article will bring you back to this index page.
