Month: June 2026

Today we’re scheduled to go back to Razzle Dazzle for brunch at 9:15. Then we’re going to head over to Corfu where Shannon wants to have a beach day. I’m more inclined to want to explore the old city a bit.

We went down to the coffee shop around 8:45 to get a cappuccino and wait for our 9:15 brunch at the Razzle Dazzle. We played Go Fish and Shannon trounced me. I was trying to talk her into going to work a shift down at McMurdo in Antarctica but she was not very interested; its not super likely we would both be chosen, and her skill set isn’t related to the needs down there.

The Razzle Dazzle brunch was OK. I had a pistachio cherry waffle thing, which wasn’t very crispy, but was rather sweet. The actual best part was the side of scrambled eggs and side of bacon. Shannon called it “million dollar bacon” and compared it to something she’d had previously and seen on social media. Basically it was smoky bacon with maybe some kind of pepper flake/heat and brown sugar. She didn’t like it much, but I thought it was great. Shannon had vegetable dumplings, a fried egg, and a little bit of the bacon.

After this, we went over to Corfu. Thankfully we’re docked here, so no tender was required. It was meant to be a two-stage bus ride, but we couldn’t get on the bus from the boat to the end of the terminal because a ton of people rushed in front of us and got on instead of us despite us being in line first. So we walked down to the end of the terminal and then got on the other shuttle bus.

We were dropped off in a park area on the edge of the old city. Corfu is an interesting mix of Greece and the last couple places we went. I guess I’d actually say it was more reminiscent of Athens again. It’s a bit grittier than our other Greek ports. No white plaster and blue roofs here. It’s 4-6 story buildings, close in on each other. The streets were very close, and nearly everything was little cafes, churches, and souvenir shops. The souvenirs were back to being also much more sexual.

Our first destination was St. Spyridon church. I went in a couple others on the way to that one. In the Orthodox ones, people were in lines to kiss icons around the church, and in the first one I went into, also a casket with a dead person or some other form of relics in it. It was definitely a casket with a glass case so you could see whatever was in it, but I didn’t get close enough to see if it was a person, or bones, or what.

We had to generally ascend elevation to get there. Eventually we arrived, and it was somewhat impressive. Lots of the churches we’ve seen, particularly the Orthodox ones, had things for sale. The icon kissing was a lot more here than anywhere else we’d been so far.

This is a much bigger city population wise, also clearly very lived-in compared to the tourist-only areas.

Our next destination was the Liston Promenade. This wasn’t that interesting, as it turned out. There were a lot of little restaurants in and around the colonnade. Finally we made our way up to the Faliraki Beach, and then back to the bus rendezvous point.

All things considered we spent a couple hours over in Corfu. It may have been our least favorite port, but I think it is suffering from being the last port.

Tonight’s dinner is the Italian place, Extra Virgin. Shannon will hopefully enjoy this. I’ll see if I can figure out a way to get a satisfying experience.

I hung around, took a nap, finished listening to the Psalms on audio, and generally relaxed. I also took a shower.

Dinner at 6pm was Extra Virgin. I started with the Crispy Artichoke, which I should have had the last time we went to Extra Virgin instead of that weird burrata cheese. The artichoke was the highlight of the meal. I got the potato gnocchi for my pasta, which Shannon told me was too mushy. It definitely needed salt and pepper. For the dinner, I picked the pork cheek, and it was very small and came on a bed of those farro grains despite the menu not saying so. I basically immediately ordered a steak, which was OK but too sweet again. I tried to skip dessert, but they had a raspberry rose sorbetti and after Lisa said it did have a rose flavor, I got some. It didn’t taste very rosy. Shannon had the meatballs, pappardella pasta, and the steak. She ate off the raspbery rose sorbetti a bit as well.

After dinner, we went to the Red Room to watch a mentalist. Shannon was not excited to go, as we had already seen a couple magic shows, but this was a bit different. He started off doing some kind of math grid thing to warm up, where he had 4 by 4 boxes, and got some digits from the audience, a 7 and a 5, and then had a third person say whether it should be 57 or 75. The person went with 75, and then in less than 30 seconds he filled in the grid so almost any way you did math on it, the digits he filled in added up to 75.

His next demonstration was to have everyone stand and then mentally draw a picture, and then he had a huge chunk of the audience sit down if they drew common things like a house, flower, tree, vehicle, etc. We were left with ultimately 3 people with “different” and “impressive” minds. These 3 people had to choose from 4 envelopes on the stage where he used word manipulations to direct people to which envelope they would choose. One of them had $100 in it. Each envelope he had a message in it saying the order it would end up being chosen and who would choose it. No one won the prize.

Finally, he had someone write down the name of their pet from childhood, and a friend or lost contact from childhood and he was able to come up with the names, which he did successfully.

Shannon asked Gemini later how this was all accomplished, and basically, as the performer confirmed, it was not any type of actual psychological ability. It is achieved via subtle looking at the papers, cold reading, manipulation, etc.

After the performance, we went to get an ice cream. I had the malted strawberry milkshake and Shannon got the coffee chip. We sat out on deck 7 and enjoyed the cool evening, then later went up to the back of deck 15 for some decaf coffee and conversation, while watching the evening commence. Back at the room later, I was ready for bed, but the coffee chip ice cream had Shannon a bit wired up.

We got up early today to watch our ship pass through the fjords into the port of Kotor. Unfortunately, I think we were just a bit later than would have been ideal, as we were past some castles before we got up to the breakfast. We started off on the back deck behind the galley as we ate, then moved up to Deck 16 to watch as we passed through the fjords. It wasn’t exactly what Shannon had pictured in her mind, but it was beautiful, and there were some neat churches and towns on the hillsides and coasts, as well as little islands.

We have a tender scheduled for 10 AM. Apparently we are lucky to have gotten a tender slot. I booked it the second it became available a couple days ago, and since that time, a bunch of people have been complaining about not getting a slot.

There should be a “cat square” and a church row in the old town, but likely there won’t be more than a few hours of stuff to see as we wander around. Perhaps today we’ll find our way to a set of Italian-suited cards and/or a Dr. Pepper.

We went down to Deck 4, the normal disembarkation deck, but got sent back up to Deck 6 to check in for the tender. We had a 10am appointment and it was about 9:40. When we got up to Deck 6, there was a massive line running through the casino, which turned out to be the standby line.

They had 3 lines going around the grand staircase for the tenders. There was a sign for 9:30 and 9:50, and they were letting those people through, but wouldn’t let anyone stand in the 10 AM line, which we should have been first for.

They kept putting us off, and letting people for the 9:50 group through even after 9:50. Eventually it was announced that 100 people who had gotten through would be getting onto the boats. That cleared out the entire waiting area in the On the Rocks bar around the grand staircase.

We were the 2nd and 3rd person through the 10am line, and were winding our way around to sit in the bar, when we were called through to go ahead and get on the tender. The tenders as it turns out were attached to the Virgin Scarlet Lady itself, not separately contracted boats from the shore as had been the case in Santorini.

We were fortunate to sit down on a tender right at 10 AM to head across to Kotor. The boat was pretty full, and we were some of the last to get aboard. The boat ride over to the port was about 15 minutes or so. You couldn’t really see much from the tender boat. We got off at the harbor and headed into the old city.

Dubrovnik yesterday was the best port up to that point, but I think Kotor surpassed it. It was very beautiful wandering the narrow streets lined with stone buildings and clay tile roofs. The main sites we took in were a “cat square” called “trg od drzo” (hope I spelled that right) and a number of churches, one after another. There was also castle structures going up the mountain, and the city was surrounded by walls.

Adjacent to the cat square, we stopped at a coffee shop that had actual iced lattes available for the first time. Shannon had a salted caramel iced latte and I got a cappuccino. At some point a live music performer started playing across from us. A tiny kitten was in the area, and he was trying to catch flies, and was jumping into the rafters of the chairs too.

We basically circumnavigated the edge of the city, then took in a bit of the more modern city outside the walls. As it was Sunday, the couple grocery stores we encountered were not open. There was a pharmacy, and it did not have playing cards or Dr. Pepper. There was also a newsstand where the attendant didn’t speak English, but I think they did have cards, because on the tender ride back over Shannon was showing me a deck of Italian cards from Amazon, and I saw the exact same package at the news stand, but had thought they were cigarettes.

Back at the boat, we ordered room service. I had a cheese burger, and Shannon had basically the exact same dinner from the Italian restaurant the night before. We also ordered a bunch of diet cokes, but they gave us regular. Those are now in the fridge. For dessert we had chocolate covered pretzels, and these “red velvet cookie” whoopie pie type things. I also had another cappuccino.

We’re going to head out onto the pool deck now. Tonight for dinner is the Razzle Dazzle Chinese restaurant again.

Dinner at Razzle Dazzle was at 6 PM. I skipped the appetizers and got two mains, the ribeye steak that I had previously, and the five spice pork chops. This time the ribeye came with pea pods and only one half pepper that wasn’t roasted all the way through, which was a bit of a disappointment. It was better the prior time. The pork chop was breaded, and had some crunchies and pickled onions and round pepper slices on it. It was fine, nothing too special. Shannon had beef short ribs, which were too fatty for her taste, and otherwise were basically the same as the ribeye. The star of the show was the dessert, which was the best carrot cake I’ve ever had. It appeared to actually have buttercream frosting, and also was very dense and rich in walnuts.

After dinner, Mason went his own way, so we went with Shane and Lisa to see a show at the Red Room caled Persephone, which was basically a modern, vulgar retelling of the Greek myth of Persephone. There was a lot of swearing, but also talented acrobatics and dancing. They performed it in a sort of theater in the round type setup, there were a few different platforms in various places in addition to the stage. The funniest part was a gangster looking fellow, who looked like a chubbier version of the twin brother killers from Breaking Bad, standing near the back with his wife having the worst time of his life. Whatever that show was, he didn’t like it.

After that, we decided to go see the magic show at The Manor, put on by David Maestro, who only recently began speaking English apparently. He did quite well for a new language learner. The show was very good.

Today I was up a bit before 7, got my shower in, and spent some time on the balcony waiting for Shannon to get up. Around 8am we were up and moving, and went to have breakfast. Today I went to the burger place and just got 2 burger patties with cheese and some bacon. It was nice to skip the french toast, as good as that has been. Later when the hash brown supply was replenished I got a couple hashbrowns for me and Shannon, as well as a little scoop of scrambled eggs. The eggs were too runny today. Shannon had a fruit bento box, bacon, and a couple hashbrowns.

By 9:30 we were ready to head down to Dubrovnik. This port is one where we are docked, so it was simple. We boarded the bus that would take us to the Piles Gate of the Old Town, and we were off.

The bus dropped us off just outside that gate, and clearly that’s where a lot of tour groups get dropped off, because tons of people were around. This place looks the most different so far from what we’ve already seen. There is a lot of Venetian influence here from what we heard, and at some point it was a big maritime rival of Venice. The buildings are stone with clay roof tiles, similar to what you might see in Germany, and I suspect Italy, though I haven’t been there.

We walked across a draw bridge and through the gate in the walls of the Old City to enter. Inside and out there were flowers and gardens all around. When you clear the wall, there is a main marble street that runs the length of the entire old city. We slowly worked our way down that street towards the harbor, hoping to find a coffee shop along the way.

As it turned out, the ferry to the Lokrum Island nature sanctuary we were thinking about exploring costs 30 euros, so we decided not to do that, and continued to explore the old city. We went around streets and alleys and finally encountered a cafe in a plaza that had coffee drinks on the menu. Nowhere we have been in Europe seems to have caught onto iced coffee very much, but we did get a couple cappuccinos, and they were the first real, and also best, coffees we’ve had on this trip. The cappuccinos on the boat are OK, the ones we had in Greece were from a machine. I wish we’d been able to get a Turkish coffee in Bodrum.

Dubrovnik seems to be fed by spring water, and there were fountains everywhere. We refilled our water glasses at the cafe with fountain water and it tasted the same as from the original glass provided by the staff. We also filled our water bottles with it.

Some entertainment was provided by a naughty local boy with a squirt gun. He would stealthily squirt unsuspecting passers by with the water pistol. They would all look around trying to figure out what caused them to get wet. He did this to 5 or 6 people as we sat at the cafe enjoying our cappuccinos. Eventually a woman caught him, and went over and yelled at him, and then he went inside a building, and didn’t come back out. The cappuccinos were 4 euros each, which was a bit high in my opinion, but not way out of line.

After our coffee break, we began ascending higher and higher in the city. We never went up onto the walls, which I believe was another extra cost option. At some point we encountered what was probably a cannon port behind iron bars where cat was resting. There were a number of churches around, but I only went into one. It seems that the prevailing religion here is, or at least was Catholicism.

Throughout the day, we were on a quest to purchase Italian-suited playing cards. According to Google Gemini, none of Greece, Turkey, Croatia, or Montenegro have their own systems of card suits, but Croatia and Montenegro use the Italian suits traditionally. Throughout the day, we checked in 4 different stored and/or news stands for cards, but only encountered French-suited ones. We’ll try again in Montenegro. We’ve also been on the lookout for Dr. Pepper, but not likely to find that either.

We spent 3 hours or so exploring Dubrovnik, and then went back to catch the bus and return to the ship. We got ready for the pool, but decided to get some light bites at The Dock Grill first. We both had the “hanger steak” which was served souvlaki style on little pita tacos with some Greek pico. I also got some grilled shrimp and Shannon got the polenta, although I ate one of hers. We also went to the ice cream stand and this time each of us got two scoops, so our ice cream trend has escalated. I got butter pecan and apricot. Shannon got Rocky Road and also the chocolate Hazelnut.

We then went down to Deck 5 to try to get off of our Gunbae reservation and switch to the Italian restaurant Extra Virgin. The person down there said they didn’t have access to the system, then said that it was all taken care of. We’ve begun to notice that some people we’ve encountered on this trip are just willing to lie to get out of an interaction. There was a worker at the news stand who told us she didn’t have playing cards and 4 separate decks were right behind her. We looked at those and unfortunately they were German suited and not the Italian ones we wanted. The worker down at “Sailor Services” lied to us about getting us a dinner reservation. I think some folks may be willing to just lie to American foreign tourists because they know we’re going to be out of their life soon, so there’s no real consequence to them lying to us to get us to go away, which is kind of funny, and not too terribly frustrating.

After all this, we went up and spent a couple hours in the pool, then went up from deck 15 to deck 16 to find a hot tub that was open. We got a good 10-15 minutes in the hot tub, then went down to Gunbae to try to cancel the reservation in person. Another person lied to us about taking care of it.

We got another bit of a snack at the galley, a couple mediocre desserts, and a chorizo hot dog thing that was like half the length of a real hot dog, and a small basket of fries.

Now we’re back in the room getting ready for dinner. I managed to finally get us out of the Gunbae reservation without cancelling it for the rest of the group, and sadly there were no reservations open for Extra Virgin, but I kept checking continuously and finally got us in on one.

After dinner there is another magic show we might try to take in at 9:30. Tomorrow is Kotor, Montenegro, and this is the one where we’re meant to be up early to watch the ship coming into the port.

Our dinner reservation for the Italian restaurant, Extra Virgin, was at 6:15. We were sat one table away from a window. Our waitress was “Kate.”

For the starters, Shannon got some delicious meatballs, and I got burrata cheese, which turned out to be a weird sweet soft white cheese. Thankfully there were some peppers that came with it that made it more edible with the couple grilled slices of bread.

The second course was a charcuterie board. There were mortadella and salami slices, blue cheese, parmesan chunks, and then 4 little cups containing honey, fruit bits, eggplant bits, and little mixed nuts. The charcuterie board was OK.

For the main course Shannon got Pappardelle bolognese pasta. I got a steak which came on a bed of some type of grains. They were sweet and kind of weird. The steak was also sweet. It was bizarre. I also got some type of pepper alfredo pasta, which was OK. This was only the 2nd time I’ve had pasta in my life, and the first time was at Gunbae a couple days prior. I actually can’t believe this is what pasta was this whole time that I’ve been avoiding it my entire life. It’s just wet bread. Thankfully, I think I’ll continue to disdain pasta. I’m glad I didn’t like it, because it would be one carb source to eat too much of.

For dessert, Shannon ordered an affogato, which they made at the tableside. It was OK. The coffee was in a moka pot, and it looked weak. I had the special dessert of the night, which was a lemon cake with lemon basil ice cream.

I’m surprised, but this was actually the worst restaurant meal we’ve had on the ship in my opinion. I don’t want to make it out like it was bad, but I’m surprised the Italian place ended up being my least favorite. Shannon said it was her favorite though. As of now, the rankings in my opinion are as follows: Gunbae, Pink Agave, Razzle Dazzle, The Wake, and then Extra Virgin. The only one on the ship we haven’t tried is the Test Kitchen which we didn’t sign up for.

The day at sea was my least-planned day so far. I got up at 7, and decided to do a bit of a walkabout on the ship while Shannon continued to rest. I got a cappuccino down in the coffee shop, then went out and sat on the starboard side of Deck 7 for a while, then out back to The Dock area on the aft. Finally I went up to Deck 16, and then down to 15, and back to the room.

Out on our balcony I read the psalms for a while, then realize I could be listening to them, so I switched to audio. Between reading and listening, I moved from Psalm 80 up through Psalm 118, and now am on the precipice of the long Psalm 119.

After this I was ready for breakfast, so I went up to the galley and had a french toast burger and a couple hash browns. Then I got Shannon a turkey, swiss, tomato, and arugala panini sandwich with some bacon and hash browns and a mixed berries bento box to go.

She was still resting in the room, and I was still working through the Psalms. Eventually she got up around 11, and had the breakfast, but it was cold at that point. Still, she said the sandwich was good.

We got ourselves ready. She had a massage scheduled for 12:45. I went to the pool, and she joined me there for 20 minutes or so prior to the massage time. I sat in the litle pool for a while. At some point a nice lady got in and we talked for a while. She was a retired teacher living in Ashville, North Carolina, but originally from Iowa. Definitely took a page out of the book of Shane conversing with random people. After that, I got in the hot tub for a while, then went back to the room.

Around that time, Shannon’s massage was over, so we met up down at the pizza place and got a pepperoni to go. We ate it at The Dock at the aft of the ship, then went into the social and got some popcorn and hot dogs. One of the hot dogs, I had them put cheeze whiz on. Shannon also got a “whiskey creama” diet coke float that was delicious.

At 3:30, there was a magician comedian act that we went to see with our friends. They were called Griffin and Jones, and were from the UK. They did a 45 minute act but it was really only 3 tricks because of all the comedy mixed in. The show was highly entertaining.

After this we went to the social and played some kind of scrabble game but with stacking the letters on top of each other. We didn’t keep score, but it was a fun twist on the game.

Dinner tonight at 5:45 was at Pink Agave, the elevated Mexican restaurant. They started with a spicy peanut snack bowl that had a bit of a cilantro flavor. For my meal I had guacamole, then Yukon gold potatoes, and finally a ribeye steam with some cheese melted on it, plus some ancho chili peppers. This was the best steak so far, very delicious. For dessert I had some kind of fruit and graham cracker type thing. It was decent. There were 3 layers of cream with some sort of fruit chunk separated by the crackers, and a drizzle of sauce. The fruits represented were pineapple, tamarind, and passion fruit. I think the sauce was the passion fruit, and maybe the tamarind was in the graham cracker or the cream, and the chunks were the pineapple, possibly.

Shannon had the same steak, plus street corn, and choco taco for dessert.

After dinner, we went to the “Rock Show-ke” which was meant to be karaoke rock performance. It was mostly late 70s early 80s bar rock type music. The performers were talented, but we didn’t stay the full time. We moved to the On the Rocks bar to listen to a live music performance there for a bit. Then we went to the trivia, and it was all about food. We did poorly on the round about liquor, really well on the spice round, and then OK on the final round about general food questions.

To round out the evening, we went to hear some more live music at The Sip lounge, which is the classiest venue on the ship. Before returning to our cabin, we stepped out onto the starboard deck to watch the sunset a bit, and saw Albania going by.

Tomorrow is Dubrovnik!

We got up at 8 today and put on swimwear prior to heading down to the breakfast. I had the french toast burger again, with a couple hash browns. Later on I got some smoked salmon as well. I can’t remember Shannon’s breakfast from today, but I think it was whatever the usual has been here. She had a bento box of fruit at some point, and at some point I got her some bacon and another hash brown. I’m not sure what her main course was.

By 9:30 we were down on the disembarkation deck heading toward the shuttle from the Souda port where our ship was docked to the Old Town of Chania, Crete. It was about a 30 minute bus ride to the old town. We went past a bunch of car deslerships to get to the old town. We were let off the bus at a clock tower on the periphery of the old town.

The tour guide lady told us two different directions to go depending on the sites we wanted to see. We were already planning to see the Venetian Harbor and the Egyptian Lighthouse. I asked her which way the harbor was, and she told us the wrong way to go. We followed my instincts instead. We walked north until we encountered what might have been a college stadium, or at least a very impressive high school stadium.

We had to jog around that, and then continue north until we reached the old sea wall. There we got our first glimpse of the Mediterranean coast of Crete. We could see Koum Kapi Beach to our east, which was one of our desired destinations. We had wanted to go to Elafonisi beach with pink sand, but it turned out it was 90 minutes away on the other side of the island. I don’t know how that one ended up on our list, but in our research last night we determined that Koum Kapi would be our alternative.

We would return to the beach later, but the first destination was the Egyptian Lighthouse, which was at the end of the sea wall. We walked around the edge of the harbor, and were able to walk along the top of the sea wall. There were some very narrow corridors that didn’t seem safe to walk on up on the sea wall, but we made it. We didn’t go all the way over to the Egyptian lighthouse, but got close and got a good view. We also were able to see the old Venetian fortress across the way. The Egyptian Lighthouse is not ancient, but was built by Egyptian soldiers of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, from what I read.

Returning back down the sea wall, we then went to the beach area. Shannon first went down into the water via a staircase that ended with the ocean, along a board walk before the actual beach. There was a lot of algae growing at the bottom that looked slippery, but she made it down and back successfully. We then walked a lot further down the boardwalk to the actual beach. There we each took a turn getting into the water. I kept my sandals on, as I had not brought any other shoes. They were the impulse buy sandals I got from CostCo the day before we left. The water was cold, but very blue and beautiful. There were all kinds of people at the beach, families and individuals of all ages.

After the beach we somewhat retraced our steps back to the bus drop off point. Right before we got back to the college, we stopped and got a coffee from a walk up window. Shannon was able to get an iced latte, but it was more of the Greek equivalent, basically a paper cup, espresso over ice, with some foamed milk on top. Not a “real” iced latte.

We got back to the bus, and they drove us back to the boat. We went to the galley for lunch. I went to the panini press place and got a buffalo mozzarella toasted cheese sandwich was just mozzarella and tomato. It came with some ruffles chips. I also got a piece of avocado toast, which was OK. It turned out there was also steak on offer, so I got two, one for me and one for Shannon, as we were needing some protein. Shannon had some taco chips with the Greek pico de gallo to go with the steak. I ended my meal with some Alaska roll sushi which was decent.

After lunch we went out to the pool and found Lisa. We spent several hours at the pool. Eventually Mason and Shane came around to the pool. They had also been out over in Chania exploring on their own.

We went back to the room to rest a bit and clean up, and tonight we’re going to the Korean restaurant, Gunbae, and then the Scarlet Night party happens on decks 6 and 7.

Gunbae is a “family style” type experience, and experience really turned out to be the right word. We got sat down, and our waiter was a guy from South Africa named Jean. I used chop sticks for the entire meal, a fun reminiscence of my time in China back in 2010.

Before the food, you play a drinking game called 3-6-9. The group goes around with each person saying a number, but on any number inclusive of the numbers 3, 6, or 9, you clap instead of saying the number. For a number where two of the numbers are present, like 36, you would clap twice. If you mess up, you have to drink a shot of soji, which is apparently the Korean equivalent of saki, in this case a clear rice liquor, which was like a more mild vodka in my opinion.

The first appetizer course was 5 little bowls of vegetables. One was fennel, one was kimchi, one was eggplant, one was watercress, and one was lotus root. The lotus root was the best, the fennel the spiciest. I tried them all.

Next came a cucumber and avocado salad thing. At this place and Razzle Dazzle the night before there have been these red strings that are apparently peppers. Not terribly spicy. Following that was a much spicier “twice fried chicken” offering, which did have some heat to it. There was a “seafood pancake” around this time as well, which I really liked. Basically it was like just a bunch of fish batter with random seafood pieces like octopus and such in it fried up in a pan and then sliced. Very delicious, but also extremely oily.

After this, Jean turned on some type of hibachi built into the table and grilled for us the following meats in succession: scallops and shrimp, ribeye steak, and pork. All of them were good, but the ribeye was probably the best. There was a condiment tray for the seafood, one was a powder of soy I didn’t try, one was an oil, and the third was some type of sesame sauce. The oil one was best.

The final round was dessert. There was a twisty cone of two different types of rice ice cream, one was dark in color, the other light. It left our tongues black/dark blue. There were also little gummies in the ice cream that are apparently Japanese, and everyone else knew the name of but me. They also brought out little donut things with nuts in the middle. Those too were enjoyable.

After dinner, we went up to the room to get ready for the Scarlet Night party. Our friends were back down around 9, but we were still getting ready and didn’t make it downstairs until 9:40. At the bottom of the elevator we went right into the Red Room for “the octopus show” as our friends had described it to us.

Basically a lady in a red dress with a silver crown sang some songs and told a story for about 20 minutes. The lore was somewhat hard to follow, but apparently she was the personification of the ocean as a whole, was an octopus goddess, and was The Scarlet Lady herself, the namesake of the boat. She sang one possibly original song, plus also Bad Romance by Lady Gaga, and Moon River. The story was she fell in love with a sailor, they were together for a time, but he drowned, so she turned him into the moon.

When the show let out, we walked around Deck 7 taking in the party sights. On an event like this, the women are always much better dressed than the men. Some of that may be a practicality, it’s hot out here on a cruise and a full blown suit takes up a lot of room in a bag compared to a slinky dress perhaps. We ended up in The Dock House where we ran into our friends listening to some live music.

When the band’s performance ended, we went down to Deck 6, but not much was going on there, so we took the elevator up to Deck 16 near the top of the ship. It was already very crowded, with people anticipating the 11pm after party where everyone jumps into the pool while wearing their fancy red clothes.

We were above the pool deck and managed to find a spot on the rail to look down on the event. There was a ship-employee dance team performing starting around 10:45, and about 11pm the host from the first night’s pajama party came out to be master of ceremonies, along with someone else I couldn’t see who was described as the VIP guest of honor. I believe he was also part of the pajama party night. At some point The Scarlet Lady herself from “the octopus show” showed up as well. There was a giant red inflatable octopus, and the three of them narrated a story about making a sacrifice to the octopus goddess or something. I’m not sure the simulated idolatry story was necessary.

At some point they did get to the part where people were meant to jump into the pool, and a fair number of people did, plus more and more throughout the night. At some point Shane, Lisa, and Mason all went their own ways, so we circulated a lap on decks 16 and 15 and then headed back to the room around midnight.

Today we slept in until 9am. Very restful, we’re recharged and ready for the day. We put on our swimwear and went to the galley for breakfast. We ran into Mason in the galley and chatted for a bit.

Shannon picked up two bento boxes of fruit, one tropical with kiwi, pineapple, mango, and grapes; the other had honeydew, cantaloupe, watermelon, and some yogurt. For the actual meal, I had a french toast burger which was the best meal on the ship so far. Between two slices of thick sourdough french toast was a big burger patty, american cheese, bacon, and eggs. I had to eat all the components separately, since there was no way to actually eat it as a sandwich. Shannon had bacon and a hash brown. She later got me a hash brown, and then some generic fruit loops and a pan au chocolate for herself.

With breakfast accomplished, we went out to the pool. We tried the other pool to start with, but the water was extremely cold, and it was as deep as Shannon was tall, so we went back over to the smaller pool. We got into the hot tub first, and again it was great. We ordered a “in the tropics” smoothie, which had pineapple, mango, papaya, and coconut water. I told them to hold the banana. It was good. We went back in the pool, then back to the hot tub.

Now we’re in the room getting ready to take on the day. We have to ride a tender boat over to Santorini. Today is also Shane and Lisa’s anniversary!

We got down to the deck 7 charting table area a bit early. We had thought to stop at The Social Club for a snack, but none were available as that location was not open until a few hours later. Around 12:30, the designated time, we were all there, and we checked in and were told to wait in the Sip Lounge. Not long after that, they told us to follow a worker down the stairs to the debarkation area on deck 4.

At this port of Santorini, we had to take a tender vessel to the shore. A different tender than people going to the standard Santorini destination, as we would be docking at Athenios, or Little Athens port. We sat on the top deck of the tender in the sun, and it was a pleasant ride over to the port.

In Athenios, we met up with our tour guide Elena (in Duolingo the most-used female name is Eleni, so this was close) and the driver Angelos. We had to take a 40 minute bus ride starting with switchbacks to the top of the island plateau, and then on to the city of Oia (pronounced Ee-ya and not Oy-ya).

She informed us that the island had many names over the years, but the current and most recent name was from when Venetian sailors populated the island, and named it after Saint Irene. Santorini is a crescent-shaped island now, but it used to be round until a devastating volcanic eruption and tsunami that collapsed much of the middle into the sea. Now there are a number of smaller islands surrounding Santorini, and a couple of them are still active volcanoes, although not doing massive explosive eruptions. The eruption that sank part of the island wiped out the Minoan civilization, I believe Elena had said this. One of the little islands only has cats and old people, according to Elena. The few children there, when they get older, move to the main island.

Tourism did not begin here until the early 90s, because there was no electricity or running water until the late 80s. The television signal arrived in the 90s as well. The iconic white buildings with blue roofs you see are all either churches or for tourists, the regular native people live in earth-toned houses.

Traditionally, when a household has a daughter ready to be married they will paint their house pink, or blue when they have a son ready to be married, as in times past the houses were very far apart and this was a rural and sparsely inhabited island.

There was a point where the bus would drop us off, and then we had to walk another 15 minutes or so up to the top to the village square. Santorini itself was beautiful, and we had many opportunities to take iconic photos. At the square was the main metropolitan cathedral of the town, which had 6 bells. All the other smaller churches and chapels have only 3. Elena told us there were 79 churches on the island. All the ones we saw were not open to admit people today.

There were two paths to take from the square. To the right was the “traditional” path, and to the left, the more modern stuff. We managed to go on both routes.

To the right path we had been told there was a castle. At some point the road diverged to a higher path and lower path. We took the higher one, and could see at the end that the castle was from the lower path. We didn’t end up going down that way, but the castle was mostly ruined anyway from what we could tell.

On the way back to the square, we stopped in a wine shop. We decided to buy a bottle to share, and ended up with a white wine that the wine seller almost didn’t make a sale on, as he was telling us it was very dry. Santo Wines of 1911 was the brand, and it was a 2023 vintage of Santorini Selection Cuvee. As it turned out, it was very refreshing, not too dry, and when Shannon looked it up, it turned out to be considered quite a respectable variety.

We went down the left hand path to see the more modern side of things, and it really was not all that different. The goods did seem to be somewhat more well made, fewer of the lewd ones, and less of the mass-produced tourist items, but they did have all that available too.

Santorini overall seemed to be a more high-end experience than Mykonos, although also much more of an effort to get up to where the action was. Both were nice to visit, and I wouldn’t recommend skipping either.

The standard experience would have been to walk, take a cable car, or a donkey ride from the main port up to Fira, the capital city of the island. Elena said the locals are very concerned about the donkey business because the donkeys have been very poorly treated historically, although laws have been passed in recent years requiring them to be treated better. There are mandates on how long their “shifts” can be, how much time they have to have for breaks, etc., now.

Tonight the dinner is at “White Lotus by Razzle Dazzle” which is apparently Chinese food. We’ll see how that goes for me. Shannon stopped by the galley on the way back up to the ship and got us a fish portion, a beef empanada, and a slice of bread to tide us over.

I had low expectations for the Chinese dinner, but I think it was better than The Wake steakhouse. The name Razzle Dazzle is a reference to the Razzle Dazzle naval camouflage pattern of black and white stripes, and that was the decor in the restaurant, with the addition of red.

Our waiter was named Hati, and I think we also had a waiter named Hati at the Wake, but apparently it was not the same person.

I started with Peking duck on a bun. It was decent, not as good as the Peking duck I remember in Beijing, but I haven’t had Peking duck since 2010. For the main course I had a ribeye steak with peppers and pickled red onions, and it was doused in a peppercorn sauce. I wish it had been a bit more spicy, but it was good. For dessert I had a mango pudding. Shannon had some vegetable dumplings as a starter, then a pot of dark meat chicken for the main course. Her dessert was a key lime pie wedge.

After dinner, we were going to go to a trivia event at the social club, but were late getting to it, and it was too full. So we instead went out onto The Dock, which was kind of the back porch of the boat on Deck 7. We had wanted to go out there to watch the ship pull away, but it was already leaving as we were having dinner. We did get to see some of the island receding in the distance. Shane and Lisa had some anniversary champagne brought out to the table. It was also discovered that they had a Fig Sour drink, which was bullet rye, fig jelly, and sweet and sour mix, garnished with 3 cherries. That drink truly was delicious.

At 10:30, there was an opportunity to spin a prize wheel to win a Bulova watch or other prizes. Shannon, Shane, and I are now all in on the prize drawing for 8pm on the last night we’re on the ship.

Tomorrow, we will port in Crete.

We had an early morning today. I was up at 6:15, took a shower, and got ready. Shannon was up in time to prepare for our expedition as well, although her watch told her she had signs of illness. We think it might just relate to the increased level of activity from so much walking. We got breakfast at the galley, which was quite busy this morning. I got smoked salmon and a plain bagel with butter, then later picked up a sausage roll and a bacon egg and cheese croissant at the bread counter. Shannon got French toast, and then we shared some scrambled eggs and bacon. We didn’t have time for a coffee because we had to report to the 7th floor map charting station to prepare for our excursion.

Today’s adventure was to tour the castle in Bodrum. We took a short bus ride over to the castle and the tour began. As it turns out, the castle here is named St. Peter’s and was built by the Knights Hospitallers. At some point the Muslims under Suleiman ran them out of there to Rhodes, and later from Rhodes to Malta. I listened to a fascinating audiobook on the siege of Malta a while back, fascinating history.

Inside the castle, just as everywhere else we’ve been in Greece so far, there were cats. Here a brief aside on the general environment. It’s warm and dry here. Greece reminded me of Southern California. Here in Bodrum it seemed more like Western Colorado, the downward slope of the Rockies after you pass the center heading West. In Bodrum there have been pine trees, poplars, and in Turkey and Greece, flowers everywhere. We saw many olive trees today, and also grapes growing over a roof lattice. There was also some kind of berry tree, the fruit looked like blackberries, but I’m not aware of blackberries growing on a tree.

Olives everywhere makes sense from a cultural standpoint. Apparently the wood also gets used, in Greece we saw many shops selling olive wood goods.

While in the castle, at some point someone asked our guide Mert about religion in the area. He said Bodrum was very liberal, and he himself was listed as a believer in Islam on some identification card, but he just considered himself a theist and did not practice Islam.

When we were finished with the castle, we walked back to the square where we had been dropped off. There was a large banner about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of the nation post-Ottoman Empire. Maybe it is some significant anniversary for Turkey.

The bus then drove us 40 minutes out in to the countryside up and then down a mountain. There were many little mosques here and there, similar to how Europe has many little churches everywhere in the historically Christian countries. We also saw many cisterns, although apparently they are no longer used.

We arrived at the village of Etrim, where traditional Turkish rugs are still made to this day, following hundreds of years of tradition. The guide at this place told us that the people were mostly relatives of each other, have been making rugs for centuries, and until somewhat recently were nomadic people. A 3×5 rug takes about 2 months to make, and the Turkish rugs are all made with double knots, and get stronger when put under stress. They last 100 years or more. A rug like that will be something like $1500-2000. Some of the rugs we saw were $5-6000.

When the rug knowledge transfer concluded, they took us into a room with a bunch of low stools with rugs over them, sat everyone down, and offered us beverages. There was supposed to be an apple tea, but it never was brought out. I had a regular tea, and Shannon ended up with a rose wine, although she wanted the apple tea. They also gave us a “Turkish pancake” which was a thin crepe like material, but it looked like naan, and had cheese and parsley with it. It tasted good.

The food and drink was a prelude to the hard sales pitch selling rugs. They came at everyone hot and heavy, although they also said no one was obligated to buy. They also made a big show of being willing to “talk the boss man down” on the price. We managed to avoid purchasing a rug, but apparently many other people did.

The weaver women work 4-5 hours a day making the rugs. They had a large supply of rugs already there and made, and these things were selling for thousands of dollars. If they’re all related, one wonders how many loads of tourists have to roll through in a given week to make the math work. These folks may be very successful! There were two busloads of tourists from our cruise line there with us, and if maybe 20% buy rugs, that’s tens of thousands of dollars of revenue just from this Virgin Voyages cruise, and there are many other cruise lines passing through here regularly.

When we got back to the boat, we had some lunch at the galley. I got a couple beef gyro tacos essentially, they came with corn ships and a Greek version of pico de gallo that was tomatoes, onion, and cucumber. Basically all the food here is “light bites.” That wasn’t enough, so I also got the burger of the day, which was a burger with smoked mozzarella, arugula, some red sauce, and pesto. It was amazing. The smoked mozzarella really set it off.

After lunch, we got our swim wear on and went to the pool. We got a couple frozen pina coladas, and climbed into the smaller pool, which we ultimately decided was a little cold, but comfortable. After a while, we got into the hot tub, which was really pleasant. I had thought it was going to be too much since it was hot and sunny out.

Finally, it was time for dinner. We were back at The Wake, the steakhouse. Tonight I got the lamb, with mint jelly, fries, and mushrooms. I also thoroughly enjoyed the bread and herb butter again. Shannon got the seared salmon with golden and red beets. For dessert Shannon got the baked alaska, and I got the apple tartin or something, which was basically a bunch of cooked apples on top of a little pancake. They also delivered a separate extra baked alaska, so I tried that too, and it was quite good. Probably the best dessert so far.

Later on tonight, we’re going to take in a comedy show. Tomorrow is Santorini.

I think the bed was rather comfortable. It’s a somewhat firm flat mattress on a metal frame. Our friends got a mattress topper, but I was satisfied with it as it is. I woke up around 5:45, and I think that was the time we must have arrived at Mykonos.

Shannon had ordered room service breakfast for us last night. Neither of us appeared to have set an alarm, but we had to be awake for 8 AM breakfast delivery. We both got scrambled eggs with potatoes, a tomato, and bacon. We also ordered a fruit platter that had honeydew, cantaloupe, pineapple, two blackberries, and two strawberries. The fruit was probably the highlight of the meal. I had a slice of banana bread and Shannon got a pan au chocolate. To top it all off we had cappuccinos, but today they were not to Shannon’s liking.

After breakfast, Shannon and I decided to explore the ship more. We got to Deck 15, one of the main upper decks. We ran into Lisa and Mason near one of the pool bars, getting some juice and protein shakes. Lisa went back to her room, so Shannon, Mason, and I continued our explorations.

As it turns out, really only a few decks matter for any given sailor. 15 and 16 are the main upper decks with pools and bars and such. We moved down to 7, which we’d really already become rather familiar with, and stopped into the arcade. We all played video games for a few minutes, then Mason went off his own way.

We went back to the room to relax for a bit. Shannon took a brief nap, then I went and got her an “Angelino” from the coffee shop, which is the closest thing to an iced latte they have on offer. At this point, we decided to head over to Mykonos to do some exploration. We got off the boat, walked down the pier a ways, got onto the shuttle bus, and went over to “the old port” where all the stuff is. We quickly realized that all the shops were mostly going to be selling the same stuff as in Athens. Still, it was fun to explore a bit, and see some of the iconic white plaster buildings and cobblestone streets, as well as a few Orthodox churches.

We returned to the ship and stopped in the pizza bar for lunch. I got the pizza of the day which was like white sauce with sausage, red pepper, and caramelized onion. They just plopped a couple large balls of caramelized onions on the pizza, so I removed them. Shannon got a white pie, so all white sauce and various white cheeses. Hers also had roasted garlic on it. It turned out in both cases to taste better than it looked, and we were satisfied.

Just outside the pizza bar was the ice cream parlor. Shannon got a cappuccino chip and I got a key lime pie. We went back up to deck 15 to find a bar. There we had a couple diet cokes with lime, and then a club soda, cranberry juice, and lime. We went over to sit by the pool for a while, then it was time to go on our expedition, or “Shore Thing” as the virgin voyages calls them.

We bumped into Mason down on deck 7, then Shane and Lisa, as we were exiting the ship, so everyone was all together. We boarded the busses again, and then walked through Mykonos to a bar right on the sea, where we got a champagne to drink. After about an hour there, we walked back to the bus, and went up the hill to a “sunset experience” high end bar/restaurant, where we had about 90 minutes to wait for the sunset. The drinks provided there were Aperol Spritz and Mojito. They also provided some light bites which were crostini with tomato, cucumber, onion, and feta cheese, as well as some very skinny egg roll type things with a spicy mayonnaise to dip them in.

After the iconic sunset, we returned to the ship, then we popped down to the galley for a late snack, since we didn’t really have dinner. I got a burger with a slice of american cheese and some onion, which came with fries. The tables in the galley have mustard, mayonnaise, and ketchup all available, as well as salt and pepper shakers. Finally today we had food with enough salt on it, both the pizza and the burger and fries. I also got a sausage roll from the bread bar, and it was pretty good. Nothing on the dessert cart appealed to me, so I just had a bite of Shannon’s desserts. One was some too-rich chocolate explosion tort, and the other was some type of meringue cookie fruit tart.

Tomorrow will be an early day and a busy day for us. We’ll be in Bodrum, Turkey, to visit a castle and experience Turkish culture. It’s from 8:45 to 2:15, so very long. And the notes indicate there won’t be much food available, so to have a big breakfast, which we’ll have to do quite early.

Today I need to see about getting the hotel to mail these post cards for us, and then I believe we’re going to try to take in a church service. The St. Paul’s Anglican church within walking distance offers services in English. We’d like to be able to have a delayed check-out at the hotel, but I’m not sure if it would be possible. We don’t leave for the boat until 1pm or so, and our boarding time for the boat is 3pm. But if checkout is at 11am, we’re going to have to figure out some way to fill that time.

A couple times this morning, I was able to hear church bells.

The front desk lady did not want to let us stay extra time, probably because I didn’t ask in the right way. She said a lot of people were getting off cruises and heading to the hotel, and they couldn’t hold rooms for people preparing to get on cruises.

At breakfast we encountered Shane and Mason already in the breakfast room. Shane had managed to secure extra time, he’s truly an expert at asking for and getting things. When the lady came around to check our room number for the breakfast, we asked about an extension to 11:30 and she granted it.

Shane and Mason decided to head to the Anglican church service with us as well, so we set off at 9:35. It was a longer walk than I had remembered to get over there. The morning was beautiful and pleasant, but we got sweaty after a long hoofing over to the church building.

The service was full, although the church was a bit small. Many people were part of the service. There was a choir that wore choir robes, a couple acolytes, and the priest. It was interesting to hear the English accents, or Scotish in the case of the choir director. The church has the oldest pipe organ in Greece. This may not be that impressive of a statistic because the predominant Orthodox church I don’t believe uses instrumentation beyond the singing/chanting of the priests.

The service was enjoyable. It was pleasant to see people presumably mostly from the British Commonwealth, worshiping together.

Most of the liturgy was familiar language, although nearly all the music was different from what we are used to in our church. There was meant to be a social hour afterward, but we had to leave right before communion to make it back to our hotel to check out.

We successfully checked out and dropped our baggage in the breakfast room of the hotel. Then Shannon and I dropped down to the ice cream cafe outside. The tables said in english that they were only for self-service customers, so I bought the world’s most expensive and rather mediocre affogato. The others came out and joined us for a bit, and Shane and Mason went into the AB store to get some stuff, then Shannon went in there as well.

We set off for lunch to a place Mason had been reading about, called Kapsa. It was about a 10 minute walk away from the hotel. The menu was Greek food again, which I enjoyed, but which Shannon was getting a bit tired of. I had the pork souvlaki skewers and and she had the chicken souvlaki skewers. The fries at this place were the best I’ve had so far in Greece.

On the way back, the ladies did a bit of shopping. Back at the hotel, it was time to board the van down to the port.

Our driver Dimitrios didn’t have a whole lot of English, but our goodwill ambassador Shane managed to engage him on a variety of topics, and he was very friendly. A basketball game had been played in Greece the previous night with 50,000 attendees.

We arrived at the port around 2:30, and were ushered up to the luggage drop off line, and into the check in, even though it was before our designated time. The process of getting on the boat was quick and efficient. There was a security screening similar to going onto an airplane. It seemed to be only about 30 minutes between arrival at the port and getting into our room.

The Scarlet Lady is a very modern boat, so a lot of the furnishings seem minimalist to me, and almost IKEA inspired. I’m not sure I’m in love with that, but we’ll try to be good sports about it. We had to watch a safety briefing video, then report to muster stations. Shannon and I then explored the 7th deck a bit. We got a pretzel and cheese that seemed to be basically frozen microwave tier, not terrible but nothing special.

All of our baggage had arrived by the time we got back to the room. Shannon’s had in fact been here before we left, but mine had arrived as well. Shannon got us all unpacked, with all the clothes hung up and various little metal hooks magnetically stuck to the walls. She also got us set up with a fan and such.

At 5:30 the ship hosts a sail away party, which mostly consists of people jostling to get free champagne like hogs waiting for the trough to be slopped. We enjoyed the free champagne and then it was time to head to the ship’s steakhouse, The Wake, for dinner.

We had a 6:15 reservation and were able to pretty much get seated immediately. I had a small and rather unimpressive bone marrow as a “starter.” Shannon got a wedge salad that was really just a heart of romaine with blue cheese and bacon on top. The real star of the starters was the bread with herb butter. Delicious! I got a hanger steak, which is apparently some type of loin, and mushrooms for a side. The portion was smaller than I expected, but it was good. They’ll definitely bring you more of anything you ask for as well. My dessert was a lemon cheesecake, that was a ball of cheesecake with a lemon shell exterior made to look like a lemon. Shannon and I also shared a cappuccino which was really pretty good. That set us back $5 on our ship scrip.

Shane had signed us up for trivia, and also a magic show, but I think we’re going to miss both. The trivia was going before we even finished dinner. The magic show is at 10, and it’s 9:36 while I’m typing this. Then the final event of the night is the pajama party from 11pm until “late” although I doubt I’ll be out very late.

We looked at some of the shops on deck 6, all of which are selling high end luxury goods. I hope we won’t be buying anything. We then came back to the cabin. Shannon is relaxing in the hammock out on the balcony, and I took a shower then set down to finish typing this travelogue.

We did manage to rally to go out to the pajama party. We are discovering that the cruise app hypes up exclusivity and acts like if you don’t get somewhere early, you’re not going to get in. Shannon and I were there too early. Later on, Shane arrived. Mason was sleeping and Lisa was feeling a bit off.

It was a pajama party, so naturally there was a pajama party contest. The hosts declared the two participants in the contest to have tied. I couldn’t really see them, but one I think was a guy that had bought a red leather hat from the shops on board, which was reminiscent of the one Vito from the Sopranos was wearing somewhere in season 6. They passed out peanut butter cookies as a sweet treat at the end, and after an hour, Shannon and I were ready to head back to go to bed.