Rome, Italy

We arrived a Civitavecchia early this morning. This port of call is used as the gateway for Rome. It is about a ninety minute drive to Rome from here and there is also a train that runs frequently to and from Rome. The arrival to this port of call marks the end of the sixth segment of the World Cruise. It also marks the seventh and final segment of the World Cruise.

Those passengers who disembarked the ship in this port of call began the disembarkation process at 7;00 AM for those trying to catch early airline flights. Passengers who are joining the ship begin the boarding process at around 12:00 Nooon. The ship will depart this port of call later this evening.

We awoke early this morning and had a very nice breakfast in the Lido Café. The café was quite busy with many passengers departing the ship today and other passengers who remain on the ship scheduled for various shore excursions. We sat with one of the passengers who we have come to know very well who is the spouse of the instructor who is teaching the college accredited computer course.

After a wonderful breakfast we went to the Fitness Center. There were very few people there and only one person by the time we finished our workout.

Today, we are scheduled on a shore excursion through Crystal Cruises which is called the “Private Visit to the Vatican Museum”. We will board a bus at 3:00 PM and arrive at the Vatican Museum after it is closed to the general public. We last visited the Vatican Museum in the Fall of 2005 as we spent a few days in Rome before boarding this very cruise ship. We thought this would be a wonderful tour as we will not encounter any of the daytime crowds since the only visitors will be from our tour. As we will not be getting back until later this evening we will post more about this tour tomorrow.

During the rest of the morning, we took care of some errands on the ship including doing some wash and ironing. We thought this would be a perfect morning to get these items taken care of with so few passengers on the ship. We were correct.

We had a wonderful lunch in the main dining room today. Since we won’t be getting back to the ship until around 8:30 PM this evening we have reservations at the Silk Road Japanese Specialty Restaurant for 9:00 PM this evening.

This evening we will set sail for Genoa, Italy.

Keith & Anne Marie