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I'm baaa-aaack!! This is a LONG post!
Hi Ladies! I'm home from our glorious honeymoon, and I'm rather disappointed to be back, haha! Our cruise was absolutely amazing, I would go back and do a Royal Caribbean cruise anytime. The food was 5 star, and the staff were incredible. We met some really awesome people on board, and our dinner table was the best on the whole ship, I swear it. I can't possibly tell you all the stuff that we did, but I'll give you some highlights...this will be long, I warn you 
We started off by flying in to Barcelona, Spain. We had one day and one night there before our cruise started. We were exhausted when we got there so we had a nap and then went out to explore the city. We just walked around La Rambla, which is a main shopping district, and we drank lots of sangria and had seafood paella for dinner, which is I guess "the" food to eat in Spain, it is served by every single restaurant.
On the first day of our cruise, we got on the boat and spent the whole day just exploring all the amenities on the ship. It was 13 floors, which I thought was huge, but I guess it?s only a mid sized cruise ship...there were loads of restaurants, cafes and bars, shopping, three pools, a water slide and rock climbing walls, sports, mini golf, a movie theatre, a theatre theatre (haha) and lots more...we were NOT going to be bored on the ship. Has anyone else ever been on the Brilliance of the Seas? Did you love it as much as we did??
Our second "cruise" day also happened to be Dave's 30th birthday. We got off the ship and did a tour of the French Riviera. We saw Nice, Eze, Monaco and Monte Carlo. Nice was gorgeous, Eze was just amazing and incredible, we obviously did a tour of Princess Grace's palace in Monaco, and then did some gambling in the casino at Monte Carlo. I have never seen so many luxury cars and yachts in my life!
Day 3 we were in Italy, and we were able to check out the leaning tower of Pisa. It is way more "leaning" in real life than I ever thought it would be! We ate lunch at this awful little pizzeria and we walked out without paying our entire bill (we stiffed them about 2 euro) which I have never ever done before but I've also never been treated so poorly at a restaurant before, so I don't feel bad about doing it. Judge me all you will, haha.
Day 4 was Rome, and I can't even begin to tell you how mind blown I was the entire time. Growing up in a very Catholic home, and going to Catholic school, I have obviously known all about the Vatican, the Sistine chapel, etc...but seeing them in person gave me chills. The Vatican museum was just the most unbelievable place I?ve ever seen, and seeing the works of Michelangelo in person killed me. Dave enjoyed it just as much as I did, but his highlight of this day was visiting the Roman Coliseum. It was really neat to see and it made me want to watch Gladiator again
Days 5 and 6 were sea days, which were SO needed. We basically slept the whole time, lazed by the pool and just ate and drank ourselves silly. LOVED sea days!!
Day 7 we went to Santorini, Greece which was the most beautiful spot we stopped on our whole trip. We rode donkeys up to the village (mine was the dirtiest, scruffiest donkey on the whole island, and Dave?s was mentally disabled, I swear to god) it was quite the experience, I laughed the entire way up the hill. I had the best meal of our entire trip in Santorini, Greek food is one of my favourites anyway, but there?s nothing like eating it IN Greece. I didn?t stop talking about that souvlaki the whole day. That afternoon we went swimming at a black sand beach which was interesting, but black sand gets WAY hotter than regular sand. Also saw lots of nude sunbathers here, haha (and they?re never the ones you WANT to see nude...)
Day 8 was in Turkey. We LOVED Turkey. It?s funny because this country was never on my list of must see places, we only saw it because the cruise stopped here. We love love loved it. The people here were absolutely the most friendly and helpful, and we had an awesome time. We visited the House of the Virgin Mary in the morning (the place where the Virgin is purported to have lived the final six years of her life). The energy in this place was so unbelievable, I bawled my head off in there. You could just FEEL how peaceful it was, it really gave me chills, in a good way. From there we went to Ephesus and explored the ruins ? it is crazy how this civilization from thousands of years ago had hot and cold running water in their homes, in floor heating, indoor plumbing...all these things that we think are recent inventions, this culture had 2000 years ago. In the afternoon, we went to a Turkish Bath!!! Ohhhhhhh man, this was awesome. I know us ladies are used to doing the spa thing and getting pampered, but I loved watching Dave get the ol? rubdowns. He was in heaven, because he?d never experienced anything like it. We got pedicures (just the foot smoothing and massage parts, no nailpolish haha), full body salt scrub exfoliation, full body shampoo (they wash your entire body head to toe...and I mean your ENTIRE body, ahem) and a 30 minute full body hot oil massage. All of this for only 15 euro each. Crazy. Best day ever.
Day 9 was Athens, Greece. Athens wasn?t our best day...we saw the Acropolis which was really cool, but I got into a bit of a fistfight with a woman who worked at the train station...it is a long story and she deserved it but leave it to me...I was happy to get back on the boat that day but will tell you the story if you?re really interested...
Day 10 was a sea day, aka sleep by the pool and eat myself silly day.
Day 11 was Naples, Italy. We did a tour of Pompeii which is HUGE. It is so insane to visit these places that you read about in books or learn about in history class and then to see them in person and realize just how enormous they really are...Pompeii was great in terms of seeing the paintings on the walls or the artwork and things that had been preserved, but also really really sad to see the bodies of the people who just couldn?t get out of the town before the volcano hit. We weren?t bit fans of the city of Naples though. It was absolutely filthy dirty, I have never seen so much garbage before in my life. It was like the whole city was just one big dump. I don?t know if we?ll ever go back there...especially when there are so many other gorgeous European cities to visit!
Day 12 was our last sea day, also known as pack your messy stateroom up day, haha.
Day 13 we were back in Barcelona, we did a bus tour of the city and checked out all the amazing architecture...I am already planning our next trip back to Spain!
It was a really really really awesome honeymoon, this was the longest post ever but it was really just the Coles notes version...I hope I didn?t bore you all, but this is what I?ve been up to the last few weeks. As well as missing you all like crazy
Re: I'm baaa-aaack!! This is a LONG post!
That sounds amazing!!! I've always wanted to take a cruise, and your story might have just persuaded me to make it our next big vaca!
Also, I'm gonna have to hear this fist fighting story! lol
Wow!! That trip sounds absolutely incredible!
And I kinda want more details about this European fist fight LOL
that sounds like an amazing honeymoon!!! so glad you had a good time
welcome back
Ok....so the fist fight wasn't so much a fistfight as a "Janice got grabbed and hauled off and punched a b*tch then ran like crazy" fight. hahahhaha
The story: We were in Athens, having just visited the Acropolis. We were there hanging out with two other couples that we met on the boat (they were from our dinner table and were our "mom and dad" and "brother and sister" the entire trip - even though none of us are related, haha). Dave wanted to visit the site of the orginal Olympics, so he went into the train station to find out which train we'd need to take, how long it would take to get there, and how much it would cost. I waited outside for him.
Five minutes later he comes back, just fuming. Now, my hubs does NOT get mad easily, or ever really. He is the calmest, most easy going and friendly guy you could ever meet. He tells me that the lady in the train station was the rudest person he'd ever met. Apparently he'd been waiting in line, and when the people in front of him had finished up, he'd walked up to the info booth and said "I was just wondering how to..." and the info lady went OFF on him, yelling at the top of her lungs that "In this country, we say HELLO first, I don't know where you're from but your country needs to teach you better manners!!!" and she just goes off into this tirade about how rude and ignorant he is, and how he needs to take a clue from the Greek who are all so well mannered. Keep in mind that he didn't even get one full sentence out, as she interupted him to scream at him in front of a train station full of people, which totally mortifies him, as clearly he is the quiet and nice one in our relationship, as opposed to me, the total train wreck. He was so upset that he didn't even figure out which train we'd need to get on, he was just kind of shaken and he walked out of the station.
While hearing his story kind of pissed me off, I mainly just thought it was funny. When we were in Germany four years ago (our first week of dating) we had encountered a b*tchy woman who worked in a train station, and we?d secretly taken a picture of her to laugh at later. So I asked him ?should I go in and take a photo of her for our bitchy train station lady files?? He says yes, we have a good laugh, and I head in to the station. Now, I figure that since the train station is packed, I?m going to stand at the back of the crowd, use the zoom on my camera, and she?d never even know I was there. However, JUST as I?m about to take the photo, she looks up and stares DIRECTLY at me, and starts screaming ?NO NO NO NO?. Of course I quickly snap the photo anyway, and just turn around to hightail it out of the station. (Excuse me if I?m wrong, but people were taking photos all over the inside of this station anyway, so I don?t think there is any kind of law saying I can?t take this photo...but who cares even if there is). As I?m walking towards the doors, she comes RUNNING out of her booth, through the crowd, and she GRABBED me from behind...and she has this death grip on my arm, which I know are going to leave bruises, and she?s screaming that she?s going to call the cops, and that I have to go with her, and she?s trying to drag me back into the station. So I turned around and punched her as hard as I could in the arm, to get her off of me, while screaming something along the lines of ?don?t ever touch me!? (may have also dropped an F bomb or two in there as well). When I hit her she stumbled back a few steps and I used that opportunity to run like hell out of the station and into the crowd of people in the square. Yelling at Dave to ?go go go? where we disappeared into an alley.
Hahahaha it is ridiculous really, but I was petrified that she actually called the cops, and we had to go back into that train station later in the day as it was the only one in the city, and we needed to get back to the ship...I was trying to convince Dave that I needed to buy a new dress so that I wouldn?t be recognized when we went back in, but he told me that I was being ridiculous. I settled on throwing my hair up in a pony tail and wearing my big sunglasses and just walking really really fast to our train, hahaha
Moral of the story. Nobody messes with MY man!! LMAO
Wow, thanks for the account of the trip, and especially of your fisticuffs in the train station. That is fantastic!
Hayley, I don't think it's just Greece where the guys think American girls are sluts. The blokes in London weren't as crass about it, but they definitely zoomed right in on our group when we went to a club one night. We had the same experience in Paris, too.
While foreigners may think that American girls are sluts, Canadian girls ARE sluts. Bahahahahahahahah
I need to stop drinking now, I think.
Ohhhh full body shampoo is awesome! And no, it's not just you in a room - that's the thing with a Turkish bath, it's just one big room and every single person is in there getting everything done. The room is a huge steam room, it's really really hot and soaking wet and you're just dripping with sweat, but then the workers will randomly throw buckets of cold water on you every minute or so, which feels amaaaaaazing.
So for the full body shampoo, you're lying on this big, heated marble slab, and they have what looks like a giant pillowcase and they dunk it in really soapy water and then they squeeze it and somehow all the bubbles come out of it all over you...so you're lying there covered head to toe in soapy bubbles and then they basically just give you a full body massage and rub it all in. And then they throw buckets of water on you to rinse it all off and it is literally the best feeling in the world. Highly recommend.
I didn't get a grope fest, but it could be because my husband was right there next to me. The guy who was giving Dave his massage (yes, the only people who worked there were men, much to Dave's dismay) asked me "This is your boyfriend?" and I said "No, he's my husband" and the guy goes "Oh wow...husband. Rambo! He-Man! Big Boss!" ahahahaha they all just kept commenting on Dave's muscles, I was dying...so I didn't get a happy ending type massage, lol