What a beautiful ship the Norwegian Jade is. Sixteen dining rooms, 13 bars and lounges for entertainment, Fitness Center, Sports Court, Library, 2 swimming pools, 4 hot tubs, 1,075 crew, and 2,402 guests. I think it is about 700 more people on it than on the Holland, America Noordam.
Welcome Aboard the Jade Hawaiian Chief
Larry and I had a great dinner and then went to the Stardust Theater for the "Welcome Aboard Show". It showcased many of the entertainers for the future nights ahead. The dancers and singers did an outstanding job with a few tunes from Abba's "Mamma Mia" musical. We also listened to a super band and a piano player/singer as well as the cruise director Simone's commentary using six different languages. He speaks amazingly and had the audience laughing a lot. One of the amazing things about this cruise is how the ship accommodates at least six languages in announcements and print . Larry and I are often trying to speak with cruisers who are speaking another language. Many speak English but we are so glad that we have the IPOD with the translating app. Hats off to Kathy, Brian, Kristy, Jason, and Stephanie for getting us acquainted with how to use this before leaving on our trip.
Terrific day again! Larry and I slept like babies as the ship gently rocked the night away.
Sunday, April 7, 2013 Day two At sea
Waking refreshed, Larry and I headed up to deck 13 on the Jade at 7:30 am to watch us pass throught the Straits of M to see the island of Sicily. It was a very narrow strip between the mainland of Italy and the island.
Sicily
So narrow that a pilot ship accompanied us. Sicily had many skyscrapers and European structures at the foot of the mountains. It was more populated than the mainland side of Italy. The top of the mountains were covered with clouds. Several small fishing boats were out and about. A ferry and a hydro-boat passed taking passengers from one port of the island to the mainland.
After watching the passage, we went to the Grand Pacific Dining Room for breakfast. Luckily we were seated right on the back of the boat with a view looking out at Sicily as we headed further out into the Mediterranean. We had eggs Benidict and fresh fruit. We looked out and the clouds seemed to disappear revealing the volcano, Mt. Edna. It was snow capped. Absolutely gorgeous!
With tummies full, we headed to the Stardust Theater to hear a lecture about all the places we were about to visit. My, oh my there are a lot of ruins to see. Afterwards, Larry and I walked the outside deck on the seventh floor. What a beautiful day! Warm and sunny! There were not many walkers out getting a stroll in. We think that most of the cruisers on this ship are on a 11 day vacation so they are just relaxing. The kids in Europe get a three week break from school for the Easter Holiday so many families are taking this cruise as a family vacation.
After our walk , we had a great lunch and watched a romantic comedy called " Here Comes the Boom". Lassie could have been in this one! It was a relaxing and easy going way to spend the afternoon...after all it is Sunday.
After dinner, Larry and I decided to head back to the room. The clocks were going to go forward an hour again in the middle of the night. We were ready to get a good night sleep.
Monday, April 8,2013 Day three At Sea
Breakfast was great! We opted for the buffet....oatmeal, Total, scrambled eggs, ham, and lots of good fresh fruit. We enjoyed the company of a nice Swedish couple who kept us laughing well into the morning. We went to the top deck to get our passport stamped for our visit to Israel and then did some postcard writing.
Lunch today was spicy looking for we opted for our first hamburger away from home. Not bad! Watermelon and oranges were on our plates and Larry had a berry crisp with ice cream.
We watched a great Rick Steves Show about visiting Israel on our room TV. Napped, worked out in the gym and walked the higher levels of the ship to see all the art work hanging on the walls. The ship has a Hawaiian theme.
Lots of framed old post cards, wall paper of hibiscus, framed pastels of birds, wild looking bright Hawaiian flowered carpet, and big posters with Hawaiian scenes. Everywhere there are very bright vivid colors, flowering vines and clouds painted on the ceiling.
as well as tropical flowers.
Very uniquely done compared to some of the other cruise ships that we have been on. This is a party boat! Lively music and many young activities. A bit different than our more reserved trip on the Noordam. It is nice to be able to enjoy both atmospheres!
Tuesday, April 9, 2013 Alanza, Turkey
Wednesday, April 10, 2013 Lismassol, Cypress
Thursday and Friday, April 11 and 12, 2013 Haifa, Israel
Saturday, April 13, 2013 Day at sea
We had a crazy night of sleep! Something sounding like a jack hammer went off beside our room in the middle of the night! What a sound! Getting up early we had the ship engineers investigating the problem while we had breakfast in the Grand Pacific Dining Room. It had something to do with the water from the room above us...Anyway it got fixed about midafternoon.
Larry and I had the best weather day of our trip at sea! Gorgeous sunshine and warm enough to sit on the 12th deck and enjoy the sea breezes as the ship floated toward Crete, Greece. We were ready for a day at sea after all the sight seeing that we had done over the past four days. We love the days at sea. We visited the library and read about the coming port. I finished a mystery, Strategic Moves. Larry enjoyed reading a couple of "literary" magazines. We had a great lunch on the outside deck on the back of the boat with an oriental couple that live in Vancouver. We enjoyed sharing experiences of other cruises together giving each other some tips on the places we each had previously visited.
We worked out in the gym and had a nice dinner on the back of the ship outside. Then we went to the musical, Shout. It was all 60's and 70's music with a "Laugh-in" kind of intermission between songs.
Just another fabulous day!
Sunday, April 14, 2013 Iraklion, Crete, Greece
Monday, April, 15, 2013 Day at sea
We enjoyed a relaxing day of reading, sitting in the sun, and packing. Yes, we had to pack up today to have our luggage moved to a new room. Tomorrow we arrive in Civitavecchia where the Jade let's off passengers and also allows new passengers to board. We had to pay a fee to stay in the same room and decided that we would save the money and enjoy living on another part of the boat for the second half of the cruise.
We have decided that this ship is a money making machine. It is geared for short cruises and people who are wanting a quick vacation with all the amenities of a good hotel....room service, meals, and travel all rolled into one with additional fees for anything extra. It has been a luxury to have all the meals cooked, the bed made and fresh linens everyday...I will be in shell shock when we get off in 10 days.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013 Naples, Italy
Wednesday, April 17, 2013 Civitavecchia, Italy
Thursday, April 18, 2013 Day at sea
Gosh we love out days at sea! We had a wonderful breakfast on the back deck of the ship. We attended an excursion presentation about the places that we were about to go to see. We had a fabulous walk around the deck of the ship for about an hour with views of Stombolli and Mount Etna as we rounded each time around the deck. Lunch was with some Germans passengers. We spent some time relaxing on the deck reading. Dinner and a Motown Hits Show. Ahhhh! Life is good!
Friday, April 19, 2013 Katacolon and Olympia, Greece
Saturday, April 20, 2013 Pirerus and Athens, Greece
Sunday, April 21, 2013 Izmir, Turkey
Monday & Tuesday, April 22 & 23, 2013 Istanbul, Turkey
Wednesday, April 24, 2013 Day at sea
We were ready to have a quieter day... sea days are just awesome! We had seen so many new things over the last five days that it was wonderful to have a day to reflect and relax.
Larry brought me breakfast in bed. What a pleasant surprise! We soaked up some sun, walked, exercised in the gym and I allowed Larry to beat me at a game of Shuffle Board.
Today was special because we were sailing through the Greek Islands. Greece is made up of over 1500 islands and we passed by many of them today.
We were excited to spot a dolfin off the port of the ship while walking....the first sea life that we have spotted on our whole trip.
We went to an adult show of marionettes....yes....with a little risque persective. Very funny! Fell asleep to the gentle rocking of the boat. What a perfect day!
Thursday, April 25, 2013 Day at sea
We enjoyed our final day at sea. I brought Larry breakfast in bed. We walked the seventh deck promenade. The weather was just perfect! We had a wonderful lunch on the 12th deck on the back of the ship.
We watched the James Bond movie, "Skyfall"....it was excellent. Did some shopping, exercised, and finished reading the book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, an wonderful story.....just a fantastic day!
Friday, April 26, 2013 Naples and
Saturday, April 27, 2013 Civitavecchia, Italy & train to Brescia, Italy
After breakfast on the Jade we took a bus out of the port passing two additional cruise ships and a long line of fishing boats. In front of the Jade was a huge ships with hundreds of containers being unloaded.
Good bye Norwegian Jade
We had traveled 2812.7 nautical miles on the first half of the cruise and on the second half we traveled 2498.2 nautical miles. Add the Holland America Noordam nautical miles of 3879 and we have traveled a total of 9189.9 miles. WOW!
We walked about a quarter of a mile to the train terminal and boarded an earlier train 10:10 instead of 11:10 getting us into Rome about an hour earlier. It took us a while to figure out where our train to Bresnia was going to be loading at 12:30. Rome has the largest train terminal that we have ever experienced...30 lanes of trains. Add the tons of passengers and you have a lot of congestions. Beside that we think a pick pocket tried to take advantage of us while on an elevator to the second floor. Larry got wise to the close quarters and we stepped off before she did any damage. The terminal seemed to have several pick pockets hanging around...we spotted two others...How? They had bad teeth, holey pants, and were too pushy to help you with your luggage when you didn't want the help.We unloaded from lane 28 and had to head to lane 5 for the next train which was switched to lane 3 about five minutes before boarding. We enjoyed a nice modern looking train. There was a mixture of old and new trains. We actually had a nice 4 seated area for the whole ride. The countryside was beautiful. It was so green and lush. Grape vineyards were all over the hillsides.... you could tell we were in wine country. Mountains appearing and old castle like homes. Gardens were plowed with rows of vegetables peeking through the ground. We went several times through tunneled mountains. Our trip north only had three stops....Firenze (Florence), Bologna, and Padova where we had to get off and board another train.
When we arrived (6:10) our Italian friends, Gianpiero and Barbara, were waiting for us. He wisked us through the city of Bresnia pointing out a lot of things as we drove us through quaint little villages along Lake Garda. We arrived at his villa around 7:00. Here were sat and talked for awhile and tried to getting our European Garman going and listened to his advice about the best way to get to Venice. He showed us around his two bed room second home with an expansive view of snow capped mountains and the lake below. Just some fabulous scenery! They left us and we just kind of sunk into the sofa and r-e-l-a-x-e-d. It was a great day of traveling through Italy. We ended out day by enjoying a glass of ice tea and putting our feet up to come down from the journey.
Lake Garda viewed through the geraniums from our deck....
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