Chris and I officially started our honeymoon when we woke in the hotel Sunday morning. The plan all along was to order amazing room service (we never order room service!) and take our time getting ready before heading to the hotel. Well, room service wasn’t operating by the time we needed to leave, and being that Salt Lake is snooze city on Sundays, we just went home and had cereal. Totally exciting. We dropped off what we needed to, loaded our bags, said goodbye to Mom and Bill and headed to the airport, where we found a bit of drama. The computer couldn’t find our reservation, so we had to wait in the beasty Delta line for a surly agent to tell us our reservation was messed up. We had a long wait while they figured it out and once we finally had tickets in hand we happily skipped off. Only then did we realize we weren’t sitting by each other. We weren’t even in the same row. We went to our gate and I tried to butter up the agent with the ‘we just got married yesterday and would really like to sit together’ speech. It got me nowhere. He suggested I ask people when we got on, so we gave that a go. There was a group spread over a couple rows near us so I asked the guy sitting next to me if he would switch, honeymoon, blah blah. In his nasty New Jersey accent he said no way, he was too fat for a middle seat. Indeed you are, sir. Chris’ seat mates had some serious scowl on, so we were out of luck. I managed to get my book from Chris and spent the rest of the fight pretty crabby. I’ve never liked Delta.
We arrived in Newark with a 2 hour layover and figured we’d have pretty of time for a nice dinner. Except that Newark is poop. We had exit, take the tram, and go through security again. By the time we found our gate we had a short 40 minutes and opted for a quick meal. Thankfully our second flight was on Continental, where not only did we sit together, but we got blankets, pillows, earphones, full meals, and were treated like adults. This was an 8 hour flight arriving at 9 am in Barcelona. In an effort to fight the jet lag we each popped an Ambien and settled into a lovely sleep. The 8 hours flew (heh) by and before long we were off the plane, refreshed and excited to start the day. We grabbed a taxi to our cruise ship, dropped off our bags and checked in. We ran into a honeymooning couple that I had been corresponding with in arranging private tours.
They flew from Florida and looked like total crap. You could tell they were going to sleep the day away. But not us!
Outside we grabbed another taxi and headed off the La Sagrada Familia, this crazy looking church by Gaudi still under construction. I’ve never seen anything like it. Chris and I walked the grounds for a bit and decided to find ourselves some lunch. The local streets had very few eateries beyond those obviously catering to the hoards of tourists that visit the site. We found a local grocery store and opted to get some salami, cheeses, wine, beer and a fresh baguette. We took it all back to the park by La Sagrada and had an amazing lunch. We ate, people watched, and proclaimed our love for picnicking. After we decided we had come all this way, might as well pay the admission and see the inside. It was all
very interesting. It’s amazing how different the old stuff is from the new stuff. We spent plenty of time inside, wandered through the museum and then caught a taxi back to the ship.
At the port we zipped right on and caught a quick nap before heading up to the buffet for the first of many unnecessary meals. We made it up to the top deck for the sail away party and met the other members of our private tours we arranged before arriving. After a drink or two we changed and met one of the couples from our tour for dinner at my time dining. My time dining is a new concept Royal Caribbean is trying out. Instead of being sat at the traditional seating times 6:30 or 9, you make a reservation the night before and show up whenever you want. We really enjoyed the flexibility and were able to eat alone when we felt like it and met some fun people when we were feeling social.
The next morning we woke up in Cannes, France, but not that we’d know it. We opted to save money and get an inside cabin. While it was lovely, with no window you couldn’t tell if it was night or day. It made waking up in the morning difficult. I had planned for Cannes to be a mellow day, as I expected we’d be tired and overwhelmed still from the wedding and travel. We took our time getting off, departing at around 10:30. Before it got too warm we decided to do some walk
ing and see some scenic points. We ended up at a fort or castle type thingy that had a wonderful view and shade to sit in. It had warmed up by then and we were fine with just sitting. A school group showed up to eat their lunch in the same area. We were amused that their lunches consisted of a chunk of baguette with butter and the occasional slice of meat. No lunchables here! Oh to be French. This reminded us that we were hungry as well, so off we went to find lunch. We found ourselves in the tourist district and settled for paninis at a tiny café. We had the local beer and thoroughly enjoyed our tasty paninis. Yum. We walked the area a little more and then walked to the local beach. It wasn’t the best beach, but it was close and the water was cool. We lathered up the sunscreen and stayed for a couple hours, venturing into the water when it became scorching. With many more hours to burn we opted to walk more of the city. We then tripped across the high end shopping parts, which was entertaining but we were in no position to spend money there. We considered an early dinner, but we didn’t find anything that caught our eye. Chris grabbed a quiche to go and we sat at café when I enjoyed an amazing nutella crepe. There’s som
e sort of rule about going to France and having a crepe I had to obey. Having had our fill of Cannes we walked back to the ship. We had a lovely day and found Cannes to be beautiful, but we didn’t feel like we fit in there. It’s all about money and show there, and that’s not really our style. We took a nap, waved goodbye to France, and amused ourselves the rest of the evening.
Wednesday found us in Livorno, Italy. We had an early morning tour, so we were up and moving earlier than I would have preferred. We met the 3 other couples in our group outside and loaded into the spacious Mercedes van for our private tour. Our driver had broken English, so you couldn’t hear what he was saying unless you were right next to him. We were content to just watch the countryside go by as he drove us to our destination, Cinque Terre.
Cinque Terre is a series of 5 coastal towns connected by trail and rail. They’re amazingly beautiful and frequently by tourists for the views. We were expecting our driver/guide to come along with us, but the reality was that he dropped us off at the first town, gave us the train schedule and a lose guide of what we should do, and would then meet us at the end for the drive back. A little bewildered, the 8 of us set off on our adventure. We walked the 25 minute trail between the first and second city, stopping for photos every few feet. In the second city we had some time before catching the train so we wandered a little and enjoyed some focaccia bread. Mmm. We caught the train to the third city only to unload and notice everyone from the train get on a local bus. We only had 40 minutes and were afraid to take a bus to an unknown location that might not get 
us back in time for the next train. It was confusing and lame. We should have just skipped that town. Freakin Corniglia! Luckily the fourth town was lovely. We enjoyed a beer at the beach, did some shopping and relaxed. Chris got frustrated over not knowing train times, etc. and so we had ourselves a nice fight, in Italy, on our honeymoon. The fifth town was a bust for us. We grabbed a slice of pizza, sat by the ocean and fought out our differences. We eventually met with our driver and were given a scenic ride back. The roads were all sorts of twisty turny and the route that the Tour de Italy rides. It was beautiful.
We talked our driver into a quick stop at the leaning town of Pisa before heading back to the ship. He dropped us off for a quick 15 minutes of pictures. The tower did have some serious lean to it, but the most interesting part was watching hundreds of tourists holding their hands up in the air so their pictures would look like they were holding up the tower. We thought it was interesting and were glad to check it off our lists of things tourists do.
We arrived in Newark with a 2 hour layover and figured we’d have pretty of time for a nice dinner. Except that Newark is poop. We had exit, take the tram, and go through security again. By the time we found our gate we had a short 40 minutes and opted for a quick meal. Thankfully our second flight was on Continental, where not only did we sit together, but we got blankets, pillows, earphones, full meals, and were treated like adults. This was an 8 hour flight arriving at 9 am in Barcelona. In an effort to fight the jet lag we each popped an Ambien and settled into a lovely sleep. The 8 hours flew (heh) by and before long we were off the plane, refreshed and excited to start the day. We grabbed a taxi to our cruise ship, dropped off our bags and checked in. We ran into a honeymooning couple that I had been corresponding with in arranging private tours.
They flew from Florida and looked like total crap. You could tell they were going to sleep the day away. But not us!Outside we grabbed another taxi and headed off the La Sagrada Familia, this crazy looking church by Gaudi still under construction. I’ve never seen anything like it. Chris and I walked the grounds for a bit and decided to find ourselves some lunch. The local streets had very few eateries beyond those obviously catering to the hoards of tourists that visit the site. We found a local grocery store and opted to get some salami, cheeses, wine, beer and a fresh baguette. We took it all back to the park by La Sagrada and had an amazing lunch. We ate, people watched, and proclaimed our love for picnicking. After we decided we had come all this way, might as well pay the admission and see the inside. It was all
very interesting. It’s amazing how different the old stuff is from the new stuff. We spent plenty of time inside, wandered through the museum and then caught a taxi back to the ship.At the port we zipped right on and caught a quick nap before heading up to the buffet for the first of many unnecessary meals. We made it up to the top deck for the sail away party and met the other members of our private tours we arranged before arriving. After a drink or two we changed and met one of the couples from our tour for dinner at my time dining. My time dining is a new concept Royal Caribbean is trying out. Instead of being sat at the traditional seating times 6:30 or 9, you make a reservation the night before and show up whenever you want. We really enjoyed the flexibility and were able to eat alone when we felt like it and met some fun people when we were feeling social.
The next morning we woke up in Cannes, France, but not that we’d know it. We opted to save money and get an inside cabin. While it was lovely, with no window you couldn’t tell if it was night or day. It made waking up in the morning difficult. I had planned for Cannes to be a mellow day, as I expected we’d be tired and overwhelmed still from the wedding and travel. We took our time getting off, departing at around 10:30. Before it got too warm we decided to do some walk
ing and see some scenic points. We ended up at a fort or castle type thingy that had a wonderful view and shade to sit in. It had warmed up by then and we were fine with just sitting. A school group showed up to eat their lunch in the same area. We were amused that their lunches consisted of a chunk of baguette with butter and the occasional slice of meat. No lunchables here! Oh to be French. This reminded us that we were hungry as well, so off we went to find lunch. We found ourselves in the tourist district and settled for paninis at a tiny café. We had the local beer and thoroughly enjoyed our tasty paninis. Yum. We walked the area a little more and then walked to the local beach. It wasn’t the best beach, but it was close and the water was cool. We lathered up the sunscreen and stayed for a couple hours, venturing into the water when it became scorching. With many more hours to burn we opted to walk more of the city. We then tripped across the high end shopping parts, which was entertaining but we were in no position to spend money there. We considered an early dinner, but we didn’t find anything that caught our eye. Chris grabbed a quiche to go and we sat at café when I enjoyed an amazing nutella crepe. There’s som
e sort of rule about going to France and having a crepe I had to obey. Having had our fill of Cannes we walked back to the ship. We had a lovely day and found Cannes to be beautiful, but we didn’t feel like we fit in there. It’s all about money and show there, and that’s not really our style. We took a nap, waved goodbye to France, and amused ourselves the rest of the evening.Wednesday found us in Livorno, Italy. We had an early morning tour, so we were up and moving earlier than I would have preferred. We met the 3 other couples in our group outside and loaded into the spacious Mercedes van for our private tour. Our driver had broken English, so you couldn’t hear what he was saying unless you were right next to him. We were content to just watch the countryside go by as he drove us to our destination, Cinque Terre.
Cinque Terre is a series of 5 coastal towns connected by trail and rail. They’re amazingly beautiful and frequently by tourists for the views. We were expecting our driver/guide to come along with us, but the reality was that he dropped us off at the first town, gave us the train schedule and a lose guide of what we should do, and would then meet us at the end for the drive back. A little bewildered, the 8 of us set off on our adventure. We walked the 25 minute trail between the first and second city, stopping for photos every few feet. In the second city we had some time before catching the train so we wandered a little and enjoyed some focaccia bread. Mmm. We caught the train to the third city only to unload and notice everyone from the train get on a local bus. We only had 40 minutes and were afraid to take a bus to an unknown location that might not get 
us back in time for the next train. It was confusing and lame. We should have just skipped that town. Freakin Corniglia! Luckily the fourth town was lovely. We enjoyed a beer at the beach, did some shopping and relaxed. Chris got frustrated over not knowing train times, etc. and so we had ourselves a nice fight, in Italy, on our honeymoon. The fifth town was a bust for us. We grabbed a slice of pizza, sat by the ocean and fought out our differences. We eventually met with our driver and were given a scenic ride back. The roads were all sorts of twisty turny and the route that the Tour de Italy rides. It was beautiful.
We talked our driver into a quick stop at the leaning town of Pisa before heading back to the ship. He dropped us off for a quick 15 minutes of pictures. The tower did have some serious lean to it, but the most interesting part was watching hundreds of tourists holding their hands up in the air so their pictures would look like they were holding up the tower. We thought it was interesting and were glad to check it off our lists of things tourists do.
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