Cruise Day 4

Our third port was Olympia, Greece. I was SO excited about this because I have wanted to go to Greece as long as I can remember and I finally made it there!!! The weather as gorgeous, it was perfect. We had breakfast in Cagney's because it was so good and way less crowded than the main dinning rooms and buffet. I got crab cakes every morning for breakfast and it was amazing! The kids loved the fancy fruit cups and all the cereal options they had. I am so ready for another cruise for all of the amazing food! We got into Olympia around 11 in the afternoon and headed to our tour bus. We booked a tour we had found on the internet with good reviews because it was much cheaper than the options offered through the boat. After we got back from our trip and rewatched the Rick Steve's video on Olympia we realized our tour guide was the same one he used! Which was exciting for us because we are Rick Steve nerds!!

  

We had to sit on a tour bus for about a 30 minute drive until we got to the ancient site of Olympia. Our tour guides did an awesome job giving us lots of information on our way there. Our kids on the other hand were not real interested. Luckily we had some really nice people in our group and they all had kids (that they had left at home.... smart people) and were very understanding. Finley was the absolute worst about being on the bus. She does not like bus or train rides where she isn't in a car seat, I think she just has no idea what to do and doesn't understand why she can't run everywhere so she just screams. That makes for some fun times. 

 

We made it to the Olympia museum and were able to tour the museum with our guide and get a lot of information about how the Olympics started and about the site itself. It was very neat and the kids even enjoyed checking out all of the status about "hercules and his dad, Zeus." They love the Disney movie, Hercules, so we pretty much just tried to relate everything we saw to something in the movie so they would remain interested and not break something. 

 

It is crazy to try and wrap my brain around how old these statues really are!! 

 

This is the helmet of Miltiades, he was the general in the battle where the Greek's defeated the Persians. It was one of my favorite parts of the museum, it was really amazing to see in person. 

 

After the museum we walked over to the actual site of the first Olympic games. It used to be an entire village where the athletes would go to train their minds and their bodies before competing in the games. All of the villages would send a man from their town to represent them. When the games were not happening, only priests were allowed to live in the city. Learning the history of the Olympic games was great, I loved our time here! Our guide told a story about how if a town's man won an event at the games, they would knock down part of their town's wall to show that they had an Olympic winner and they didn't need their wall to protect them because he would. She said they did build the wall back up shortly after and really it was just a way to announce they had an Olympic winner. I thought that was a fun story. 

Our kids loved playing in the dirt and rocks the entire time we were there. 

Walking into the first Olympic "stadium" which is actually just a field with hills coming up the sides. The audience would stand on the hills to watch but only men were allowed to attend the games. 

 

The judges box. 

 

Leo hanging out in some Greek ruins. 

 

The picture on the right is the site of the first lighting of the Olympic flame.  

 

 

I love this sweet girl. 

 

Running on the field. 

 

 

  

This is what remains of a temple to Zeus where he was made of gold. The description of the temple was incredible. He sat at the end of a pool of olive oil and the reflection from the oil would make him look like he was coming alive to many of the Greek people that went to worship him. 

The tour was great and we loved it very much. We had a little time in the small city right off the port to shop and Dave got his first gyro in Greece. When we got back on the ship they had sandwiches waiting for us in our room which was so nice because we were tired and hungry! After our busy day Dave and the little kids took naps. Quinn and I went to dinner because it was Indian night at the buffet and I was super excited about that! It was fun to go to dinner with just Quinn and get to spend time with her, she is so great and I love her sweet personality. They were having a cupcake decorating activity at the buffet and she picked blue icing, sprinkles and a cherry on top. We got an extra plate of cupcake decorating items so that Leo could make one when he got up too. 

 

I thought I would share this neat idea I saw online. The walls of the ship are metal so you can use magnets on them. I brought some and some magnet clips to put by our door and help organize our room, I loved it! 

After everybody woke up from their naps we went to explore the ship for a little bit. We visited the gift shop and Leo wanted to buy Francessca, our friend and their babysitter, a present. I am pretty sure he has a crush on her and he made sure we got her a gift to take back, it was so sweet. We did a second dinner at the buffet for all the nappers and then went to see a show they were putting on in the theater. Leo and Finley were not having it so I let Dave stay with Quinn and watch the show while I took the little kids back to the buffet for some ice cream. Quinn loved the show and was trying some of the acts when she got back to the room. I am glad her and Dave were able to stay and watch it. 

We ate ice cream and my favorite cake fondue (yum!!) while watching the sunset, it was amazing. 

  

 

 

To say it was a great day is an understatement. We visited Greece (yay!!), went to the ancient Olympic site and museum, ate a gyro and had the best evening on the ship. It was incredible and I am so thankful we were able to take this trip and share these memories together. Doing this blog just makes me want to book another cruise! My travel journal had this quote on it and I thought it was great, "Travel while you can. Experience is far more valuable than money will ever be."

Greece is great, life is good! 

Cruise Day 3

Day three of the cruise was in Kotor, Montenegro! This is someplace I wouldn't have ever thought of visiting but it was really great. It is the southern most fjord in Europe and sailing into it was stunning! Since we had such an early morning we had Jomar, our butler, bring us breakfast in our room and that was a life saver. I am telling you, we can never cruise again without a suite, we are SPOILED! Having breakfast in the room was great because the kids were all so tired from the day before and it was nice to be able to eat while they were still sleeping and then get them ready in the room without having to rush for breakfast! Plus we have huge windows to watch sailing into the port! 

 

The kids were so tired. 

 

Another part of having a suite was getting priority off the ship, we had a central meeting place and then they let us leave first. We loved that! 

Montenegro was European Country #9 for us! What an exciting day! 

Our big ole ship right outside of the old city. 

Kotor was beautiful and very "raw" to sound like a Rick Steve's video. When we got off the boat there were taxi drivers everywhere wanting to take you places (this is something I don't like about cruises is when you get to port, people are waiting for you and know you are a "cruiser.") We passed by them and headed to the walled city of Kotor. I wish we would have had the taxi drivers take us to a pair of islands I wanted to visit when we first arrived. After we did the city, the kids were tired and we were afraid we wouldn't have enough time (so next time we will do that first!). 

The city was very small and not very touristy (yet!). We started by strolling the walls (which were nothing like Dubrovnik). They were unpaved and had random garbage and things everywhere, there were workers all over the city fixing stones in the road. It seems like they were trying to get the city ready for tourist season. The views from the city, with the giant green mountains in the back was so pretty. The city was old and the back streets were so cool to walk through. It would not be a trip without Q needing us to find a bathroom at the very last minute. We were buying our cat magnet (because there were cats all over the place and Finley kept yelling "more cat", it got pretty annoying after about 55 times!). I asked the lady where the bathroom was and she said "two streets down and to the left." So we did that and found nothing, so I went into another store and asked again, "two streets down and to the left" so we ran and did that again and found a water closet that cost 1 Euro. 

 

There were cats everywhere. 

 

 

  

 

After the bathroom trip we walked to this hill (mountain really) where you can hike to a castle ruins. It was a hike, up the side of a mountain with 1300 stairs, with 3 kids... sounds like a great idea! Every single vacation, we end up doing some kind of hike (why?? why??). I even asked Dave if we were going to do it in the morning so I could dress appropriately for carrying a child up the side of a mountain and we decided we would not because it would be too much work. So I wore TOMS which are not great for hiking! 

So we paid the 3 euro to climb to the top! The path was gravel with a  small set of sketchy stairs on the side. Our kids are troopers and Leo hiked the hill while holding his alligator (which made him a lot of friends along the way). He fell a few times and one required a bandaid. The kids and I stopped at the church (well we went 5 minutes past the church and then decided it wasn't happening and hiked back to the church to hang out and wait for Dave). 

This sign said "Strictly forbidden throwing stones and other objects on houses of the old town." We felt it was appropriate to get Leo's picture with the sign because it was put up there just for him I think. 

More cats, the kids have decided to take pictures with all the cats and then make a book. 

Dave ended up going all the way to the top and got some great pictures (except for our giant cruise ship in the port messing up the beautiful views). I got a cute pair of earrings from a man outside the little church, I love them (Q helped me pick them out). It was a fun time and I am glad we did it but I wish I would have had on tennis shoes! 

Leo checking out his injury. 

 

The little church in the background where we hung out and waited for Dave, it was so little but very cool. 

 

We love Kotor!

 

Leo's face in this picture is the best, he is a rotten little man! 

These photos were taken by Quinn, she loves taking pictures. 

After hiking down the mountain and being so tired, we were giving Dave the thumbs down! And Quinn needed her picture of the cat for our "book." 

 

These are Dave's pictures from walking all the way to the top, he said it was very cool but not something the kids could have done very safely. 

 

 

 

 

After we hiked back down we realized we should have done the far away things (the islands) before doing the city because we were afraid we would be cutting it too close to get back on the boat in time (lesson learned for next time). 

The kids were so tired so we decided to just go back and have lunch on the ship. 

We went to the Irish pub on the ship for lunch and the views were great (waterfront and free), Leo slept the entire time and the food was pretty good, it ended up being a highlight of the day for me. After lunch we went to the pool so the kids could play. They loved (not Fin- she hated the water) playing in the kid pool and the water slides. Leo said his favorite part of the trip was doing the big waterslide (at the adult pool). We were at the pool when we sailed out of Kotor and the views were stunning! The kids played on the slides and I sat in the hot tub, it was pretty great. 

 

Lunch with views. 

 

Quinn made a boat from Moana out of her leftover food. 

Lunch with Finley is never boring, smashing cups and climbing on the table is pretty normal. 

 

This sweet girl loves her daddy. 

The kids had a picnic with Dave on the floor with the food Jomar left us, it was the sweetest moment. 

 

Leo and Finley are quite the duo and are going to give me grey hairs far too soon! 

Tantrums all day, every day. 

Everybody getting in naps before dinner. 

Baths on the ship are fun! I didn't realize how much the ship rocked until I tried to paint my toe nails before dinner and the ship was rocking!! 

We were going to one of the "fancy" restaurants for dinner this night and needed to change our dinner reservations. I called the reservations line and they told us they couldn't change it because they were full. So I called Hanno our concierge and asked him if we could change our time and he said "sure" and took care of it for us. Dave and I laughed because they couldn't change it for us but he did with no problems! We decided to take the kids to the kids club so we could have a "date" (Finley had to come with us still because she wasn't big enough for kids club yet). Leo lost his mind and did not want to go, Quinn was so excited about super hero night there. We ended up getting one hour before they paged me and said I needed to come and get him (Finley slept the entire time in the stroller so we got a pretty good "date" in). Quinn cried because she had to leave kids club and Leo said he wasn't going back! Instead of dessert at the fancy restaurant we all ate together at the buffet and I got to eat my favorite yellow cake fondue (it was so good!!). I can't even tell you have many ice cream cones (and hotdogs) our kids ate on this trip, so so many!! It was a great ending to a pretty fantastic day. 

The kids loved running back to the room each night after dinner to see what animal Madonna had left for them on the bed, it was so sweet. Also you can see Fin climbing on the nightstand in the background, she is so wild. What a great day!!! 

Kotor is incredible, life is good!