For the third time in a four year span, I’ll be vacationing in Europe. This time I convinced my husband to take the long flights back and forth. Fortunately we loved our recent Royal Caribbean cruise as we’re sailing this brand once again with the Jewel of the Seas.
Itinerary
This cruise starts from Civitavecchia which is the port for Rome and was a stop on last year’s Epic cruise. We have two sea days and seven ports so it will be busy. We’re starting off with two nights pre-cruise in Civitavecchia when I hope to adjust a bit to the time change and get over jet lag.
| Day | Port of Call | Arrival | Departure |
| 1 | Civitavecchia | — | 5:00 pm |
| 2 | Messina | 11:00 am | 8:00 pm |
| 3 | Sea Day | — | — |
| 4 | Mykonos | 7:00 am | 6:00 pm |
| 5 | Rhodes | 7:00 am | 5:00 pm |
| 6 | Santorini | 7:00 am | 6:00 pm |
| 7 | Athens | 6:00 am | 6:00 pm |
| 8 | Crete | 8:00 am | 6:00 pm |
| 9 | Sea Day | — | — |
| 10 | Naples | 7:00 am | 6:00 pm |
| 11 | Civitavecchia | 5:00 am | — |
Highlights
Here are just a few of the reasons I’m looking forward to this trip.
Ports
This is the first time we are staying in Civitavecchia and I’m looking forward to seeing more of it than I did from my tour bus window last year. We’re also excited to be visiting not one Greek city but five different stops. It is the main reason we chose this sailing.
We have a variety of plans scheduled for the ports and the details will be shared in an upcoming post.
Ship
We last sailed a Radiance class ship in 2006 and I remember loving the connection to the sea with focus on windows outward (as opposed to our experience on the Freedom class in November).
We have an inside cabin for this trip having chosen to spend money on the ports versus putting more money into the cabin. The ship is sold out months in advance so no option to change our mind or an upgrade.
We didn’t try any specialty dining on Liberty of the Seas but with 10 nights have booked two of the three specialty restaurants and are looking forward to that experience.
Flights
Although I’m not excited about flying overnight (neither of us can sleep well on planes) I am looking forward to trying a different airline. Lufthansa started flying from San Diego this month with A340 planes.
This means we get to fly nonstop to Europe leaving in the afternoon instead of our usual dawn flight to the East coast for a connection. We’ll connect in Germany to/from Rome.
I used points from my Chase Sapphire credit card for the flights and hope to have the opportunity to upgrade to premium economy upon check in.
You’ll hear more about this trip in the coming weeks and months. What are your Spring or Summer travel plans?
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