Deliverygirlnz's travelogues: Days 41, 42, 43. 19-21st May - Corfu to Croatia…. a birthday on the sea!!

Day 41 19th May -flight day

Up at 5:45 am today as we have the taxi ordered for 7 am. Trying to be incredibly quiet when you’re on the top floor and have to carry all the heavy luggage down three flights of very narrow steep stairs wasn’t easy but also aware of waking people, so I think we did alright! Taxi to the airport – €15 at the right price this time! And into the airport to wait. Couple of hours and another full flight – all our flights have been full actually. For some crazy reason even though Corfu and Split are basically above and below each other across the ocean, you have to fly – there are no direct flights or ferries so we flew 2 3/4 hours to Frankfurt where we had a connecting flight Frankfurt to Split– we were flying Lufthansa but they code shared it out to Euro wings. Our flight was almost 30 minutes late taking off from split which ate into the time to get to the next boarding gate once we landed, which was bloody miles away.

Frankfurt, for anyone who has been will know it is absolutely huge and we were in area B when we got off our flight and had to get to area A – very hard to find signage. Thank goodness Graeme saw it after awhile as it’s quite a convoluted terminal. We had to run/walk hard out for 15 minutes, on travellators, as they were calling the last boarding as we got off our first flight! Way too little time.

Would advise anyone with a transit in Frankfurt airport to have at least 2 hours in between flights because no info given by flight attendants and there are no one staff in the terminal, to tell you where to go.

Anyway we made it just with a few minutes to spare and into another packed plane. Lufthansa coachshare it out to Croatian airlines and we were in the very back row in front of the toilets and the window seat was so cramped I could hardly fit in, either height or width wise. Luckily it was only 1 1/2 hours to Split and then we were off.

I have booked a private transfer from the airport as it’s 45 minutes into the city – lots of drivers standing there with people‘s names but alas not ours. We waited for about 20 minutes and still no driver so I went to the information desk with the paperwork. The girl there was showing her co-worker photos on her phone and really did not want to help, gored me until I got a bit pissy and called out to her. I explained I didn’t have a phone and could she please ring the company – she told me to wait a while went back to showing her friend the photos until I called out to her again?! She was reluctant but did help in the end – really quite rude though. When she was waiting for a phone call back from the company the driver finally turned up. He said the traffic has been heavy but given that all the other drivers were there they obviously hadn’t left on time. Anyway got out to the van and got chatting and he and the other lady with him were quite funny.

Got to drop off spot in Split where it becomes a pedestrian street, then the guy walked us up to our accommodation. This was where beyond travel suggest to use before their cruises and is titled luxury rooms. Four very very steep flights of stairs carrying heavy suitcases and into a dingy hallway with some rooms off them. Definitely not luxury and very small, over the markets and by a rowdy pub but right next to the Diocletian palace so central at least. It was okay but there wasn’t anyone on site from the afternoon on and no milk for a hot drink which was a pain as we are really thirsty. Showers and into bed as it’s been a long day - not a bad one, just lots of rushing, squashing into small seats and waiting😏! All part of travel hey.

Day 42…20th May

We woke this morning after a bit of a restless sleep and got ourselves tidied up ready to go out for breakfast. They give you a voucher to go across the road into the Diocletian palace where there is a cafe called Luxor. We got a choice of one of three breakfasts which was nice and then we decided to go walking after checking our at 11 am. Pick up for the cruise is it 2:30 pm so we did our usual and walked, walk, walked! We ended up walking a long staircase of steps we came across and got to the top of the city where there was surprisingly, a lovely area with a couple of cafes overlooking the harbour in the city. We decided to get a beer and just sit there and enjoy it before our walk back down into the town. We found a convenience store selling beer and jagermeister! So we got a small bottle of that and some Coke today with my ouzo.

Wandered back to our accommodation and met the guy who helped us, take the bags down to the port which was only a short walk. We had walked around this morning and seen where our boat was we are on the MS Prestige– which was built in 2014. There are so many ships docked in the harbour both big and small.

We met our lovely tour director Matija and he said that they’re only 20 people rather than the 38 it could take. So that will be nice for everyone he said – the low number explains why when the price went down by $1700 in May, they wouldn’t give any of us a price match. We got talking to English couple later on, who have had the same experience and Beyond Travel Croatia wouldn’t price match their drop either and they only just booked few weeks before. Very frustrating for everyone affected and makes you a little salty! But what can you do….

This cruise is very different nationality wise, than our last similar cruise where it was nearly all Australians, a couple of Kiwi, Americans and Canadians. However this cruise has a lot of Scandinavians and Germans, about 6 british and us. So there is quite a divide in terms of speaking different languages and not understanding each other which is a bit of a pity. I expect we will all tend to gravitate towards people we can talk to, early on. Usually with these cruises, they have a target audience from certain countries but this one seems to be well mixed and all nice people.

We had our briefing with Matija the cruise director, who is Croatian – he has come straight off another cruise so is getting to know the ship. We had the one included dinner tonight which was pretty nice – I saw how small the kitchen was that the lady is cooking and so she is doing a good job for 20 people. We got to know the boat and into our cabins- we had requested a forward cabin as last time we have been in the back and the engines were really noisy when they started them up.

Luckily we got cabin number 3, which is much longer than the standard– I had studied the ship plans a number of times but of course it was only a request. The other across the way is empty I think and the biggest plus – we have a double bed this time instead of two singles!!

Everyone fell into bed as quite tired after a big day and tons of walking – another 17,000 steps today

Aah,that’s a Big NO!! He wanted to buy it hahaha

Day 43–21st of May – my birthday! Split - Sibernik (“Shib-er-Nik”)

We both woke at 1:30am this morning so Graeme sing me happy birthday and then we went back to sleep! Breakfast is from 8 to 930 so we went up and had that – it has dawned a lovely sunny day which is great after all the monster storms that have been going through Europe.

We had a sailing period this morning and then at lunchtime they stopped and anchored so we could jump in and go for a swim – 15°C it was nippy! However I’m not going to get this opportunity again so I got in – twice :-) :-) .

Time for lunch and they served us a three course meal – all small portions which is good much like the Italians with a salad starter, then pasta with shrimps, then fish and mash. The fish was so fresh! Then out came a chocolate cake with a ginormous sparkler in it, that Graeme had arranged it with the cruise director for my birthday! They all sang happy birthday and then we got to share it all together – very nice :-)

Then we had a little free time before our walking tour as we had docked in Sibrenik pronounced “Shib-er-nik” . The town was built in the 1100s and had withstood strong against invasions – most recently in the Balkan war – between the Bosnians and Serbia. The tour guide showed us a church with bullet holes in the door. And yet it is so peaceful now :-).

After that we hopped in a bus and were taken to the Krka National park which was about 20 minutes away – they have a huge rains and flooding so a lot of the waterfalls there were closed but we were able to go in to see one and the waterfalls were almost going over the tops of the dam wall - it was like the Huka falls at home in NZ. Was nice to walk around, just had to watch as there were mosquitoes around there. I haven’t been bitten since I had Danni so that is 27 years and last night I went to get changed and found I had about 6 or 7 mosquito?? bites all over my stomach and on my shoulder plus one on my boob for good measure hahah! so they must have found me sweet again!

After some rest time, we went with Mike and Janet an English couple we have met on board from Manchester, out for dinner – we walked along the waterfront and picked a lovely place and sit and just talked and ate and drank. Was very nice, then we wandered back to the ship which was only about 100 m away and into bed.