Princess Cruises, Grand Princess, Mediterranean

Venice.......... We had 3 days there, before the cruise, loved it, we stayed at a hotel off the main touristy part, but, only a few mins walk to St Marks Square. Our room was the smallest I have ever stayed in!!! LOL. We could have upgraded at a price, but, as it was only for two nights, we did not bother! I loved Venice apart from the tourists, boy, is that place ever busy! Its also very, very expensive! We did a trip to a island off Venice called Burano, which is a pretty little fishing village, with colourful painted houses, reminded me a bit of a Caribbean island we had been to, called Curaco. St Marks Square is a great place, full of pigeons, people feed them, the pigeons are very tame, the tourists would buy food, and hold their hands outstretched, and the pigeons would feed off them! Lining the square, they have lots of places to eat and drink, and at night, they have entertainment. We saw all the sights, the Rialto Bridge, the Bridge of Sighs, we did the vaporetto ride. The shops are great, they do a lot of venetian masks, I got a cat one!!! Also they do alot of glass ware, very beautiful. We watched our ship come in on the Tuesday evening, what an amazing sight that was, sailing past St Marks Square, everyone was looking at our Grand Princess and it was so great to think we were going to be on it! We did the gondola ride!!!!!!!!! Well, you have to, don't you! That was mega expensive, for 45 mins it was 120 Euros, and he did not even sing to us, LOL. (Tip, the price goes up after 6.00pm, so beware!) Dubrovnik, Croatia, was a tender port, it was some time before we could get off the ship. It turned out to be a lovely place, surrounded by city walls, very picturesque, lots of neat shops, interesting buildings to see, ladies making lace on the streets. Corfu, Greece, was a beautiful place, the old town in particular, very interesting to walk around. Lovely coastline, very clear blue sea. Katakolon, Greece, a pretty fishing village, but, something of a one horse town, as our port guide referred to it, LOL. Two streets by the harbour!!! That day though, we did a trip to Ancient Olympia, which was interesting, an earthquake in the 6th century destroyed the place, and floods buried the site. Excavation of the ruins began in 1875, and it was declared a national park in 1976. Athens, we took a trip to the Acropolis, this was an amazing place, there was way too many tourists though!! The Acropolis dominates the Athens landscape, amazing views from the top, we were a bit surprised to see quite a bit of scaffolding, as they are doing ongoing restoration work, did not quite look like the postcards!!!! LOL. From there they took us to a quaint shopping area called the Plaka, then from there we went for a meal, Greek style, that was delicious! Then, from there, we had a hours drive to the Temple of Poseidon, it sits high up on the tip of a place called Cape Sounion, a beautiful setting. Mykonas, Greece, loved this island, very pretty, at the top of it, they have windmills, they also have a area which is called Little Venice, we had a nice drink there in one of the bars! Apparently, there are meant to be about three pelicans who live on the island, we never saw them!!!!!!!! There used to be a famous one, who they called Petros, but, he died some time ago, story goes, a fisherman found him injured, looked after him, and Petros stayed on! And he became their sort of mascot. When he died the people of Mykonos were very sad, so Jackie Onassis apparently donated another pelican to them! As I say, we never saw the three who live there now! We did see a lot of cats though, every Greek Island we went to, we saw cats, I was loving it! Kusadi, Turkey, this was the biggest port I have ever seen, they had all these bazaars, selling rugs, leather and jewellery. The vendors are so pushy, they sit outside the shops, as soon as you walk by, they are in your face, they wont leave you alone! We got lured into a shop, to look at some Turkish rugs, they bring you drinks, goodness knows what's in them, we picked out a rug we really liked, it started out at £1,000, we got him down to £550 in the end, they like to barter!!! Anyway, we had no intention of buying it, they were most put out when we said no, LOL. When we came out of there, it continued, we being hassled all the time, even had one guy chasing us down the street!!!!!!!!! LOL. I was wearing my Man Utd top, and they kept saying to me, I like Manchester, I give you good price!!! We hope you win tonite! Mind you, if I had been wearing a Chelski shirt, they probaly would have said the same thing!! LOL. Rhodes, Greece, another beautiful island, the old town is amazing, its a old walled medieval city, home to the Knights of Saint John, the Knights Road leads to the Palace of the Grand Masters, lots of neat shops, and bars. Santorini, Greece, wow, this island is enchanting and so pretty, perched up way up high, the only way up is by cable car, or by donkeys!!!! We chose the cable car to go up, its was so beautiful when we reached the top, the scenery is stunning. I fell in love with it. Coming back down, however, there was a line up, of a hour and half wait, so we decided to walk down the donkey route (neither of us fancied riding a donkey!!! LOL) I have to say it was not one of my better experiences on this cruise, it was a long winding, steep, slippery path, we had to avoid the donkeys, and their droppings!!!! By the time I got to the bottom, I was feeling sick with the smell and the heat!! Naples, Italy. We had a trip to Pompeii booked for that day, before we went there though, we did a hike up Mount Vesuvius, that was very hard going, and not much to see when we reached the crater!!! Not what we imagined a volcano would be like!!! Pompeii was interesting, apparently it was buried under a blanket of volcanic ash during the 79 A.D eruption of Mount Vesuvius (the last time it erupted was 1944) you can see the ruts in the ground where the chariots used to go along, in some of the buildings, paintings and sculptures had survived, and there is still visible graffiti on the walls. It would take you 16 hours to go round and see it all, we had a two hour trip with a guide, who took us to see the most interesting parts! To be honest it was so hot, that was enough for me!!! We flew back from Rome. All in all a great cruise, with lots to do and see, we loved Greece, and if I had to pick my favourite island, I would probaly go for Mykonas, or Santorini. Ok, that's the port of calls, the ship was wonderful, we had great shows, a tribute band to the Beatles in particular, were really good, a very good cruise director, a guy from Oz called James, delicious food, we did not eat in any of the restaurants, so can not comment on service or food, we preferred to eat in the buffet, in the Horizon Court. I had a lovely birthday aboard, our stateroom steward, Brando, put balloons outside the room, he also made me a cake out of towels!!! We had a lovely meal, in one of the speciality restaurants, the Painted Desert, the waiters sang to me, and gave me a cake!! LOL. We have sailed with Princess 6 times now, and I have no hesitation in recommending them or this particular cruise.