The Great European Adventure, Day 8: Day at Sea + Scenic Cruisingfeatured

In the previous seven days, we had absolutely fallen irrevocably in love with Spain, France and Italy. Each day we spent exploring a new place was better than the last and every time I wondered to myself if it could get any better, it did. But we were a week into our adventure at this point, and we needed some rest (after all, wasn’t this supposed to be a vacation?!).

One of the best parts of this itinerary, in my opinion, was the two sea day break in between Rome and Athens. Two sea days on an older ship where there literally wasn’t anything else to do except relax made for the perfect vacation within our vacation.

Rome Recovery

Between falling asleep early and some waves during the night, I got some great rest and I was awake and ready to go by 8:15 in the morning. The sun was already streaming into our room through our window, making a promising start for the sea day to come.

As seasoned Caribbean cruise pros, we have our sea day routine down pat…for Caribbean cruises. But this was our first Mediterranean cruise sea day and we weren’t entirely sure what to expect. At the very least, on a Caribbean cruise, you can generally count on either lots of sun and heat or (if it’s the tail end of hurricane season) a decent amount of rain. When we were packing, we weren’t sure if we should be packing for warm weather sea days or temperate sea days, if we should be packing towel clips or books and crossword puzzles. So we started our day in the most familiar way we could: breakfast at the Windjammer, where there were no empty tables to be found inside but plenty of tables available outside for an al fresco breakfast.

It seemed warm enough, so we headed back to the room after breakfast to change and grab our pool gear. We found some loungers by the main pool and settled in for a few hours of sunbathing and swimming.

As the morning went on, the temps went higher and higher and we learned that cruising the Med in May may as well have been a cruise through the Caribbean – it was sunny, it was hot and everyone else was realizing it, too, because the deck filled in and suddenly, by the early afternoon, chair saving became a real issue and people were getting into verbal sparring matches over empty chairs. I alternated between the pool and my lounger, settling into some travel guides we brought along with us.

Tutti Troubles

I touched on it a bit earlier, but on a ship like the Vision, there aren’t many bells and whistles. There’s a pool and some hot tubs, a few trivia sessions, shops and a casino, but there aren’t any bells and whistles to entertain with on a sea day. We found this to be a positive on our first sea day, where we were basically forced into taking it easy by lack of anything else to do. Had we been on a newer ship, our day surely would have been filled with exploring the ship, waiting in long lines for ziplining or bumper cars or falling flat on my ass while trying to remember anything I learned in the two years Mom forced me into figure skating lessons in the mid-1990s. No neighborhoods on this ship. No ice rink, no zipline. Swim. Eat. Shop. Gamble. Rinse, lather, repeat. I’ll reiterate – on a port-heavy itinerary, this is a blessing, I promise.

So when we hit our max on sunning, we headed inside to drop off our pool gear and since there was nothing else to do, we headed to the Aquarius for a late lunch.

We were quickly seated at a private table (per our request) and a server promptly came over to drop off a basket of rolls with olive tapenade and explain our options.

When you opt for lunch in the dining room on the Vision, you have two options: you can order off the menu, or you can opt for the Tutti Salad Bar, a comprehensive salad bar where you point at anything and everything you want in your salad from dozens of options and a salad chef prepares and chops a salad for you. Along with the salad, they have cold cuts, cheeses and a few hot dishes out that you can serve yourself out of a la carte.

I love a good salad bar (I could probably save enough for a third cruise a year if I didn’t stop by the Goddess and Grocer salad bar three times a week) so I opted to start with a Tutti salad instead of a traditional appetizer, but I quickly remembered why I had taken issue with it on the Allure of the Seas: the proteins they offer on the salad bar are seafood heavy. They use the same slicer to chop everyone’s salads. If you have allergies (or in my case, heavy aversions), this can pose a serious cross-contamination risk. For me, watching my salad get chopped with a slicer that still had remnants of shrimp on it from the person who ordered ahead of me before I could ask them to not chop my salad ruined my appetite for it.

Our main dishes, however, were plenty tasty and provided a nice change of pace from the options we’re used to on Carnival.

Beef Tostada Salad

Pasta Special

Decadent Chocolate Slice

Apple Parcel

White Chocolate and Orange Flan

Strait to Stromboli

After lunch, we headed outside to the promenade to catch some fresh air and enjoy being on the water. I’m not sure where my affinity for being on the water comes from. I always assume it’s because I’m a water sign on the Zodiac. But I find a lot of peace from being on the water and from sitting and watching the water, and I spend an inordinate amount of time on open decks when I cruise. And while we didn’t have a balcony on this cruise, we didn’t really need one – it seemed no one else had discovered the promenade because we almost never saw anyone out there. It was almost like our great secret and our own personal (very large) balcony.

I noticed we were sailing close to something that looked like a mountain or (moreso) a volcano, so I GPS’ed our location on my phone (which was hooked into the ship’s wifi, so it didn’t count against my international data allowance) while Stephanie Googled active volcanoes near Italy. The best we could deduce, we were sailing along Mount Stromboli. I’m not sure if anyone else noticed it, especially since no announcements were made, but it was a really cool sight to take in from the deck.

Later on, we were chilling in the room watching Sex in the City in French. Stephanie and I don’t even speak or understand French, and Mom’s understanding of the language is passable at best, but there wasn’t really anything to do and there weren’t any in-cabin movies offered. I’m a pro at day napping, though, so it mostly served as background noise while I dozed. But at some point, we noticed that we were passing pretty closely to land, so Stephanie and I headed back up to our big promenade balcony when we realized we were probably entering the Strait of Messina.

The Strait of Messina is a narrow passage in between Sicily and Calabria, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Ionian Sea. The width of the strait is between just under two miles to just over three miles, depending on your location in it. If you position yourself correctly on the ship, you can see both the eastern and western sides at the same time as the ship navigates itself through the middle, which is pretty cool. Unfortunately, there’s no announcement made when the scenic passage begins. We knew we’d pass through the Strait of Messina at some point, we just didn’t know when. So if you’re traveling from Rome to Greece, it’ll be in the afternoon of the first sea day in between those ports. And if you miss it, don’t worry – you’ll sail through it again on your way back.

Pro-tip: the best place to watch passage through the Straits is forward on the upper decks. They fill up quickly once people realize there’s more to look at than water.

It takes around an hour to navigate through the Strait, but I had to run back to the room to shower so I could be ready in time for the Past Guest Party. Mom and Stephanie stayed outside and I met them again to dry my hair (sea air is the best product for my curly hair!). It was simply too gorgeous of a day to spend any more time inside than we had to.

We took a look at the dining menu when we were waiting for an elevator as we headed back in. Nothing looked great so we called Chops to see if we could get in, but they were booked, so we ended up calling Izumi to make a reservation since we had an Izumi meal credit in our dining package. They couldn’t take us until late, but with nothing to do and another day at sea ahead of us, a late dinner wasn’t a problem. We ordered some room service to snack on while we got ready for the Past Guest Party.

Cheese Plate

Pepperoni Pizza

Chocolate and Pear Tart

Raspberry Cheesecake

And when we were done snacking and all ready for the Past Guest Party early? Yep. Back to the promenade.

Unlike Carnival, which generally holds one or two Past Guest Parties (depending on how many cruisers they’re accommodating), multiple parties were held throughout the day on the Vision, which really helped control crowding issues, even when the parties were held in smaller lounges. Our party was at 7:45 pm and felt almost like an intimate gathering.

We made our way through a tunnel of officers greeting us and welcoming us back into the Some Enchanted Evening Lounge. A bar server was quick to offer us some wine (they were also serving champagne, juice and mixed drinks). No passed appetizers, but we snacked on room service earlier so no apps were necessary.

Cici, Captain Lis and Mercedes gave speeches. One of the pool boys sang an amazing rendition of Have a Little Faith in Me. My wine glass was never empty. A good time was had for all.

Cool Night, Hot Rock

After the party let out, we headed towards the shops to poke around the sales and watched the beginning of the sunset on the promenade before heading to our late reservation at Izumi.

We’d never put much thought into dining at Izumi and truth be told, if it weren’t part of our dining package, we’d probably have never bothered dining here. We aren’t big sushi eaters and we’ll all choose a good meal at the steakhouse over a meal at an Asian eatery almost any day. I’m so glad we purchased the dining package, though, for that reason – this meal was a highlight of our trip onboard the Vision.

Izumi is priced a la carte, but our dining package gave us an “allowance” of up to $35 per person. Our server explained the layout of the menu and brought over a bowl of edamame seasoned with some coarse sea salt for us to enjoy while we pondered the menu.

The prices at Izumi are pretty low, and the $35 stipend allowed us to order, try and share many items. They were out of shrimp wontons so those were replaced with chicken ones, an upgrade, as far as I was concerned, but they also couldn’t offer the mochi dessert on the menu because they were having trouble sourcing it in Europe (boo!). Everything we ordered was on point, and our server paced our meal perfectly, but the highlight was the hot rock. A seasoned rock is heated up and brought to your seat so you can grill your meat and vegetables tableside. It brings an interactive element to the meal and not only was it fun, but the finished product was delicious.

Miso Soup

California Roll

Wonton Soup

Chicken Gyoza Dumplings

Vegetable Tempura

Pork Chasu Yakimeshi

Hot Rock Dipping Sauces

Beef Tenderloin Rock

Chicken Rock

Dorayaki Pancake

Izumi Dessert Sampler

We walked through the nightclub on our way out and noticed it was nearly empty, which was interesting in that as we headed back to the room past the Centrum Lobby, it was packed with people dancing along for the 50s/60s Dance Party.

We found a new Compass waiting for us and we took it up to Park Café with us when we went to grab some hot tea.

And after we had our tea? We crashed. It’s exhausting doing nothing.