Civitavecchia, Italy from the Bates

From Wyona

Hi,

Here I am in the Silver Lounge on the Spectrum of the Seas sending a long overdue message.

Our ten days in London was not long enough. 

Greg and I were sad to leave but moved on to Barcelona for 3 days and we were sad to leave Barcelona. The first day in Barcelona we just walked the Ramblas, hit a huge market and my feet would walk no longer. So I went back to the hotel and planned a day on the trams and buses using three different maps, the Hop On Hop Off map, the tram map, the bus map and a Barcelona map. To make a long story short, one of the buses we did not find but we hopped the tram instead. We had great seats for what we thought was an hour ride, went two stops, most people exited the tram and new people got on, waited five minutes...oh, oh...I think we are going to be facing the wrong way. Yup! Tram started and Greg and I were going backwards, got on the tram the wrong direction.

Part way through the ride I saw this huge market. Signalled to Greg I was getting off but not that easy for Greg to change routes spontaneously. He followed. We found this huge antique market, fabric, nick nacks etc. But we did not stay too long, just observed for a while.

I had planned the trip to get from the bottom of the map to the top NW corner of the map. When we were halfway there I informed Greg that he was to have planned the way back to the hotel. Surprise again!

This is the inaugural trip of The Spectrum of the Seas. It is an amazing ship. However, dinner the first night was a big unorganized smozel. We had some great laughs about it. The second day was somewhat the same but still fun to have everything new. The ship smelled new when we got on it. We checked out the Diamond Lounge after the Muster drill on the first day. It was so crowded and full of too many people who think they are privileged. The food on the ship was passable but not up to Celebrity Standards. Mentioned to Greg the third day that there was another lounge somewhere for Diamond Plus and Pinnacle People. Our keys got us into that lounge and it was like a bit of heaven. The food spread was amazing and more than delicious. We did not even go to the dining room for dinner but ate in the Silver Lounge. I will live here when I am on the ship.

Greg went into Rome this morning but just too much travel time and walking for me. So I came up to the Silver Lounge for breakfast and am writing to you from there. Breakfast is not gone and lunch is being served. I have to get out of here before I eat again. I will go back to the room and paint. I want to learn to paint like Julia Carchelan. I even joined facebook so I could view her most recent YouTube videos.

Tomorrow is Naples and I will walk off the ship right into Naples.

Love,

Wyona