Day 44 – 8th June - Athens->Greek Island cruise

Day 44 – 8th June- Athens->Greek Island cruise

Woke after not such a great sleep last night as our room absolutely stunk of cigarette smoke from next door, smelt like someone had lit up a packet or two in the room?! Air con. is obviously linked, but at least it was only for one night.
Up at 5.50am as we had to be on the bus at 7.30am, ready for our cruise departure. Left Danni’s new suitcase at the hotel as will be hard to fit 3 in the cabin.

Not sure if I said before, but we have had Irish luck with our suitcases. Danni’s was wrecked at the 2nd hotel on the Italy tour, when the porters yanked the handle completely out of her case, then just placed it back in – sheered off! Then yesterday, Graeme’s basically new suitcase was delivered to the cabin with the travel strap broken through completely and the soft handle is ripping out?! We seem to be collecting forms to take to the travel insurance company!

Anyhow, queued up at the Louis lines boarding area at the port which was slow but pretty painless, then onto the ship. Quite old and tired compared to others we have been on, but its ok.
Went to the safety briefing – the life jackets you have to wear are exactly the same style as the ones on the Titanic ??!! Wandered around getting our bearings and found the internet – so to speak…. It is one p.c. on a very slow connection, this services the 750 passengers on board so wont be trying again as it took me about 7-8 mins to send an email. Will have to catch up when we get back to Athens. It is 17 euros for 24 hours use there, but it is wi-fi with the laptop and makes it easy to post photos with the fast connection – got to keep the blogpage going or I will hear from home!

We met our Trafalgar rep on the ship - a French guy named Jerome. He is great and does everything for us with excursions and tender queues off the ship etc. This is wonderful as apparently there are large groups of American teenagers on the boat. Seven groups of 30 or so, who are graduating from school.
We saw they have taken over the top of the ship where the pool and spa is – all trying very hard to be cool! The legal age for buying alcohol is 18 years here so they love it as it is 21 yrs at home I think, there were some pretty drunk kids up there by teatime. The TD said the staff hate it in March and June when they all come on board as they are such a pain wrecking things, making a lot of noise and mess and generally being a pain to the cabin and bar staff!

At 5.30pm we all met in the lounge to await the tenders to get off the boat. Lots of ships in port so waited until about 7.45pm but then off and onto the beautiful island of Mykonos by pre paid buses.
What can you say about this island? Startlingly whitewashed stone houses laid into the hills- they are postcard perfect and the churches have domed roofs rather than flat ones (for water collection) like the houses. The domes are painted either red or blue. As we arrived just before sunset, it was all aglow in a beautiful sunlight.

It is a very small island and not as hilly as we previously thought and really just one small area of shopping. The TD said the prices are a bit dear due to the cruise ships coming in. However, you could sit right on the sea front and sip cocktails for €20 each! There was an eclectic mix of old sea dogs and trendy young tourists everywhere, along with some rather unusual looking transvestites who were individually sitting on stools outside the shops – not sure why??

We had a great wander around taking heaps of photos of this magical place until the sun set and we went back to the pick up point.Take a look at the photo today of the ship and its fare?!!! on the rigging.

Back on aboard and ate again in the restaurant – what can you say about ship dining? Top of the line, silver service with 4-6 courses at every lunch and dinner. You can choose the buffet if you prefer but all the teenagers are all pigging out there, so most others came to the restaurant. This sort of dining puts coach touring food to shame!

Off to bed around 11 pm, with only 1 time out into the hallway to tell a group of 16 or so year olds to quieten down – I love my earplugs! Off to Rhodes tomorrow.