We arrived in Kusadasi at 6am. We were out on our balcony when we heard the call to prayer echo over the water. It was so cool. It was the first time I have visited a country where the majority of people are Muslim. We booked a tour to visit Ephesus and the Terrace Houses. I was a little disappointed that our excursion would not … Continue reading Mediterranean Cruise: Kusadasi, Turkey

Everyone talks about Santorini. It’s the exotic place to go in the summer and you see all kinds of celebrities there. It’s absolutely beautiful. We decided to go on an excursion in Santorini. Our tour took us to a winery and to the towns of Oia and Fira and included a ticket to the cable car down to the port. These islands were formed through … Continue reading Mediterranean Cruise: Santorini, Greece

Our next stop was Olympia, Greece. I’ve never thought much about where they used to hold the first Olympics, but it was a really interesting archeological site to visit. We first had to take a train to get there from the port. There were a few people who yelled at us to take the bus, but we read that they charge three times the amount … Continue reading Mediterranean Cruise: Olympia, Greece

Corfu is not a huge island, but getting around it would have been difficult if we did not buy tickets to the hop on hop off city tour bus. In November the tour bus only follows one of the two routes it does during the regular tourist season, but it was sufficient for us. The first stop we checked out was the Vlacherna monastery. There … Continue reading Mediterranean cruise: Corfu, Greece

I am skipping one of the ports: Naples. We got off the boat only to eat pizza for lunch. We were not a fan of Naples. The port area was full of trash, smelled terrible, and as you walked into the city it did not get any better. There were so many people and we were almost run over quite a few times by both … Continue reading Mediterranean Cruise: Taormina, Sicily, Italy

Our next port included Lucca and Pisa. You could also choose to go to Florence, but we wanted to check out some new towns (even though we loved Florence). We were going to take the trains on our own, but Jef found a tour that would take us by bus that we thought would be easier and get us inside the towns faster. We were … Continue reading Mediterranean Cruise: Lucca and Pisa

Jef wanted to take a European cruise for his birthday this year. He found the itinerary he wanted through NCL. It was a 12 day cruise with no sea days. We stopped in a port every single day. The cruise boarded in Rome, so we left a day early to ensure that we would not miss the boat. I’m really happy that we gave ourselves … Continue reading Mediterranean Cruise: Rome and St. Tropez

We arrived at 6am in Ketchikan and we had to take a shuttle into the city for our excursion. It’s the only one that was not cancelled! On the way, the driver told us that they have precipitation there 234 days a year. They get 12 feet of rain on average. We were there on a beautiful sunny day. Our excursion? A trip on the … Continue reading Alaskan Cruise: Ketchikan

I was really excited about our excursion in Juneau: a helicopter ride to a glacier and then getting out and walking on it. We got up early to meet the tour and there were three other people that were waiting with us. The morning was foggy, which made us nervous. Then they had us wait in the van instead of bringing us directly to the … Continue reading Alaskan Cruise: Juneau

We got a call right before we were ready to disembark at Skagway that our excursion was cancelled. We were supposed to drive into the Yukon with numerous stops to see the beauty of the area as well as some wildlife. It was a six hour excursion. We had a lot of time on our hands and we were up early, so we decided to … Continue reading Alaskan Cruise: Skagway