Carnival Vista….memories made part 2

I hope you enjoyed my first blog about my recent Carnival Holiday.  I thought this blog I would concentrate on the ports of call we called into.

Barcelona, Spain

Marseilles (Provence), France

Livorno (Florence/Pisa), Italy

Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy

Naples (Capri/Pompeii), Italy

Fun Day At Sea

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Corfu (Kerkyra)

Messina (Sicily), Italy

Fun Day At Sea

Cagliari (Sardinia), Italy

Day At Sea

Barcelona, Spain

So we flew out to Barcelona the day before the cruise and stayed at the Petit Palace Boqueria Garden Hotel which is in a fantastic location just off Las Ramblas.  It was important for us to stay near Las Ramblas as only having 1 night we wanted to make the most of our time there.

When we completed our online check in for Carnival you could choose your preferred embarkation time, which was 11.00, perfect for us!  It made our lives easier arriving early with 2 very excitable children. I have to say I thought we would be waiting around for ages checking in but within 20 minutes of arriving at the port we were on board the ship.

The itinerary was pretty full on for the first week, and it wasn’t until day 6 that we had our first day at sea!!

We had already been to many of the ports before so we knew what we wanted to do on most days.  The only ports we hadn’t been to before was Marseille, Messina and Cagliari.

When we arrived into Marseille the children really didn’t want to get off the ship, they were enjoying themselves exploring what the ship had to offer so we decided to stay on board.

We then sailed to Livorno where you find lots of people will head to Pisa or Florence, we had already been to Pisa on a previous cruise so this time we decided to stay in Livorno.  We had a great day going around the markets and shops and stopping off for coffee and cakes.  I think next time we go to Livorno we will make the trip to either Florence or maybe Lucca in Tuscany.

After Livorno the ship sailed to Rome, now I was determined to make the train journey from Civitavecchia into Rome, but with the heat and 2 children I knew I was asking a lot – but I made it!! I was so pleased I had always wanted to go to the Colosseum, Trevi fountain and the Spanish Steps.  Not going to lie to you it wasn’t all plain sailing.  The journey itself on the train only took about an hour – this was fine, we then managed to work out the underground to take us to the Colosseum.  It was my youngest who really didn’t cope with the heat, which I have to say was intense.   Bless him he did as much as he could through sweat and tears but when we told him we were heading to the Spanish Steps one look at his face we knew we had gone far enough.  So we headed to a lovely café with great views of the Colosseum and treated them to probably one of the best Pizzas we ever had and a nice cold drink, and a cold beer for me and the hubby.

Naples was another hot day so this time we decided just to go and have a little local stroll and head back on the ship for the afternoon.  Last time we went to Naples we got the ferry over to Capri which if you have never been is a must!!

Dubrovnik one of my favourite places was next, fortunately I have been a few times so we knew where we wanted to head to!  When you arrive in the Old Town it is extremely busy, but once you are past the fountain the crowds tend to disburse. We made our way around by the cliffs where the children could jump into the Sea, we then headed to a lovely bar that sits on the cliff with amazing views.  We all had a wonderful day.

The children had said at the start of the holiday that in Corfu we would head to the beach.  It is so easy once you are off the ship to arrange a taxi to take you to the nearest beach, we knew we wanted to go slightly further away so it wouldn’t be so busy and somewhere good for the children to do water sports.  Dassia beach was suggested to us which ended up being perfect, we had a truly amazing day.  There was also a swimming pool that you could use and the staff really couldn’t do enough for you.  There was 10 of us that went and between us we hired a 4 poster bed, the staff then provided oversized bean bags for the children all for 15 euros.  The children (and the adults) took advantage of the watersports and had a fun time with the speed boat and the sofa.  Fun times!!

We didn’t really do much research on Messina, and we knew we probably wouldn’t really go too far, so again we just headed out into the local town, up to a church and was back on board by the afternoon.

Another fun day at sea and then we arrived in Cagaliari.  As we had such a great day on the beach in Corfu and not all our group went we all decided it would be great to spend the day together on the beach, so 16 of us all headed via the shuttle bus to the beach.  We took our own music and had a great chill out day – the children entertained themselves in the sea and us adults spent some relaxing time soaking up the rays.  Bliss, we had 8 very happy children!

We then headed back to Barcelona which was the end of our fantastic cruise